might be setled in the same These dissentions were not about seats or rates but a contention betweene Silvanus the Bishop and Nundinarius the Deacon in a matter of a high nature too high for our Church Wardens or Vestrymen to meddle in The Bishop being accused that hee was Traditor fur rerum pauperum Did ever Church-wardens or Vestry men among us heare inquire judge compose such differences as these are What should John a Nokes and John a Stiles and Smug the Smith meddle with a businesse of Bishops saith Episcopacie by Divine Right part 3. pag. 32. But how doth hee prove they were but as our Churchwardens or Vestrymen First because Deacons are named before these Seniors where ever they are mentioned Secondly because Optatus reckoning up quatuor genera capitum mentions not Elders For the first though the order of reckoning them be not so much to be insisted upon yet wee can tell you if here your confidence had not beene greater then your consideration that you might have observed that in some places they are mentioned not onely before Deacons but the whole cleargie For so Gregories letter cited by us Tabellarium cum consensu Seniorum Cleri memineris ordinandum Are not Seniors here mentioned before the cleargie His second proofe that these Elders were no better then meere Churchmardens and Vestry men was because Optatus mentioning foure sorts of men in the Church mentions not these Elders But is this the man that hath with such height of scorne vilified poore negative arguments though drawn from sacred Scripture And will he now lay such weight upon a negative argument Surely if all the truth and practice of the primitive times were bound up in one Optatus as all Divine truth is lodged in the sacred Volume of the Scriptures the Remonstrant might have made much of his negative argument yet hee scornes to heare us reasoning that because we do not read that the holy Ghost did by the Apostles appoint Bishops in remedium Schismatis therefore we cannot believe Bishops are of Divine or Apostolicall institution but of humane Away saith he with this poore negative argument And because the Apostle Ephesians the fourth reckoning the Officers whom Christ hath given and gifted for the edification of his Church reckons up onely Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers if wee should conclude Ergo there were no Bishops The Remonstrant would cry out again Away with these negative arguments yet such an argument froÌ„ Scripture may be valid though from no other authority As for Optatus First though in these places he mentions not Elders yet that other place which wee brought out of the same Author doth which the learned Antiquary Albaspinaeus though a Papist with us acknowledgeth Secondly these places produced by the Remonstrant crosse one another as much as they crosse us for Ministri are left out in one as well as Seniores in both Thirdly these Seniores are included in turba fidelium as the Apostle Rom. 10. 14. comprehends all the Church under these two hearers and teachers and so again Heb. 13. 24. Rulers and Saints Yet the Remonstrant is resolved to hold the conclusion Elders in a ranke above Deacons in a setled power of government with the Pastors shall be damned by him for a new and unjustifiable opinion Yet this is the man that would by no meanes be thought to condemne the Reformed Churches Though hee fall as unhappily neere the very words of their profest enemies the Netherland Remonstants as ever we did the words of Aerius Quod attinet Praxin antiquitatis ex â—â videlicet id demonstrari posse idoneis argumentis ut Censor asserit audaciae temeritatis est and again Tota antiquitatis Praxis ei repugnat but oh that our Remonstrant would once learn to take the counsell he gives And he that adviseth us to give glory to God in yielding to undoubted and cleere truth would do so himselfe For if it be not more cleere that there were elders anciently in the Church then that there were none and that these elders were not civill Aldermen but ecclesiasticall Officers Not meere Churchwardens and Vestry men busied about inferiour things of seats and rates but employed in matters of higher nature let the Remonstrant never renounce episcopacy But if it be let him take heed he do not renounce his word which he utters pag. 147. I doe here solemnely professe that if any one such instance can be brought I will renounce episcopacy for ever SECT XVI XVII XVIII THe rest of our Answer you say is but a meere declamation And good Sir what was your whole Remonstrance but a declamation And what is your Defence but a Satyre But ours is worthy of no other answer then contempt and silence You are very dextrous and happy in those kind of Answers your whole Defence is full of them It is true you say The religious Bishops of all times have strongly upheld the truth of God against Satan and against his Antichrist And it is as true that we told you that others have upheld the truth as strongly as Bishops ever did Yea at sometimes when there was never a Bishop in the world to appeare for the truth And therefore never impropriate all the glory to Episcopacie It is also true that wee told you that some irreligious Bishops have upheld Satan and his Antichrist against the truth of God and what can you say to this What is this to their calling Sir their upholding Antichrist makes as much against their calling as their upholding the truth makes for their calling If you fetch an argument from the one for their calling we may as Logically fetch an argument from the other against their calling with as much concluding strength but you can tell us of Presbyters wicked and irreligious shall the function it self therefore suffer Like enough And we could tell you that they find more coâ—ntenance from Bishops then the painfullest Ministers But if Presbyters should be as generally corrupted as Bishops now are have as much strength to suppresse the Gospell and promote Popery as the Bishops by their supreame power have if they can bring no more evidence of Divine institution then Bishops can and are of no more necessity to the Church then Bishops are let the Function suffer We told you what an unpreaching Bishop said of a preaching Bishop this say you is our slander not their just Epithite and challenge us to shew any unpreaching Bishop in the Church of England this day Sir pardon us if we tell you that you put us in minde of a poore Sir Iohn that because he had made one Sermon in 40. yeeres would needs be counted a preaching minister if you speake of preaching after that rate then indeed you may call all the Bishops in England preaching Bishops But the people of England can so well tell who deserves the name of a preaching Bishop that it is not the preaching of a
Sermon once a yeere or a quarter or a month that will bee sufficient to merit and maintain that name Some indeed have taken some paines heretofore But there are so few of them now that sure the Remonstrant intended this booke for posterity The present Age will never beleeve that England is so full of preaching Bishops that there is not an unpreaching Bishop to bee found But what if we should challenge the Remonstrant to shew any preaching Bishop in England such a preaching Bishop as Chrysostome Augustine and the rest of those ancient worthies were 〈◊〉 who if they had preached no oftner then our Bishops Chrysostome had never mentioned his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so often nor his Nudiâ—tertius Nor his cras and perendie Nor Austin his Nudius tertiani hesâ—erni Sermones Nor Cyprian his Quotidiani Tractatus Indeed of old one saith Bishops gloried of their chaire and teaching as the flowre of their garland preferring it far before government but when they were faln from spirituall felicity and infâ—cted with Secular smoake then they commended the labour of teaching to Presbyters then the Iurisdiction and Consistory did carry all the credit Every Office in the Church being counted a dignity as it had more or lesse jurisdiction annexed to it this dignity hath almost crowded out the duty The scandall of inferiour Ministers hee professeth to bleed for but saith we blazon No Sir as we told you before and tell you again they have beene the trumpets of their own shame that like Hophne and Phineas made the sacrifices of the Lord to be abhorred But wee beseech you what is the English of your desires to have had the faults made lesse publike Doe you mean you would not have had them medled withall in open Parliament or that you would have had the Parliament doe by all Petitions brought in against such seandalous persons as Constantine did by those Papers that the proud contentious Bishops gave one against another commit them to the fire if so then as you are Christian tels us whether you doe not think this had been the onely way to involve the whole Parliament and Nation in the guilt of those sins and expose them to that wrath and vengeance that would from heaven pursue them Bethink your self how you will answer this at that great Tribunall to which you make so many rash and bold appeals as also your prophaning the glorious title of the God of peace that you might under the sweet name of peace perswade an impunity for sin Sir we nothing feare but wee shall answer our opposing the unerring rule of the Word of God which texts you never went about to answer against that example of Constantine who as a man though good was subject to errour ten thousand times better then you will doe either of these In our next Section saith our Remonstrant we spit in the face of our Mother Good Reader please to review our Answer Section 17. and judge The Remonstrant will deny presently that hee and the Bishops are the Church of England and yet here that which is spoken against them and their Perseus-like practices is spoken against our Mother the Church Well be what you please Fathers and Mothers and Sonnes and all Onely we desire the Remonstrant if hee can to tell us what the Church of England is For it doth not please him here that we should call the Convocation the Church of England much lesse the Bishops or Archbishops Yet if we be not mistaken you your self call the Convocation the Church of England pag. 122. And the Canons and Constitutions made in the Convocation are called the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England which the Convocation alone excluding the Parliament cannot be so much as a representative of unlesse you will count the whole Laity of the Nation represented in Parliament none of the Church of England Yet this is the Church so cryed up These Canons are the commands of the Church so rigorously urged Who ever breaks a Canon especially in point of Ceremony is no dutifull sonne of the Church Indeed in point of Morality Drinking Swearing Gaming there is more indulgence Nay how many Bishops in England are there that have urged their owne private paper-injunctions as the commands of the Church and proceeded against such as would not observe them as disobedient or refractory against their Mother the Church That Sir upon the point there will appeare to be more Churches in England then one For tell us we beseech you when the Church of England at Norwich forbade all prayer before and after Sermon but onely in the words of the 55 Canon forbad all preaching in the afternoons all expounding of Catechisme or Scriptures the Church of England in London forbad none of these things when the Church of England in London enjoyned rayling in Communion Tables and all communicants to make their approaches thither the Church of another Diocesse went further and enjoyned setting of them Altarwise And all these were the commands of the church of England The transgression of any one of these the omission of any other thing enjoyned was condemned as disobedience to the church Now how many churches of England were there at this time But you will play off all this as merriment with a Ridiculum caput To deal with you therefore seriously Because you make so strange a thing of hearing of more churches of England then one and distinguish so deeply between Churches of England and Churches in England wee beseech you consider whither the Scripture doe not speak as properly when it speaks of the Churches of Iudea and of Galatia as if it had said the churches in Iudea and in Galatia And what difference between Saint Iohn when hoe writes to the Church of Ephesus of Laodicea and the church in Sardis in Thyatira Yet we are not ridiculous enough therefore the Remonstrant will help the matter and to make his jeere will corrupt our words For whereas we had said if the bounds of a Kingdome must needs be the limits of a Churth Why are not England Scotland and Ireland all one church to make it non-sence hee adds of England are not England Scotland and Ireland all one Church of England Hee that made it let him take it This discourse of Churches of England cannot end without a descent into the Prelaticall and Anti-prelaticall Church We said We acknowledge no Anti-prelaticall Church The Remonstrant tels us if wee make and condemne the Prelaticall Church what shall be the other part of the contradistinction Our reply must be that not we but themselves make the Prelaticall Church wee doe but shew it and we shew also the other part of the contradistinction which the Remonstrant pleaseth to call the Antiprelaticall Church The Remonstrant had upbrayded the Divisions of that part wee made our just defence and therein declared that the Prelaticall party were the chiefe Authours and Fomentors of those divisions
which the Remonstrant directly doth not deny onely bids us lay our hands upon our hearts and consider whether our fomenting of so unjust and deep dislikes of lawfull government have not been too much guilty of those wofull breaches Sir wee have considered it and can before the great heart-searching God plead not guilty The dislike of present Church government which its own exorbitancy hath caused we have not fomented but have smothered our thoughts and griefs even untill this present wherein the gracious hand of God hath inclined the heart of our gracious Soveraigne to call a Parliament that hee and they might together consult of the pressures and grievances of his people and conclude their removall And now we cannot wee dare not hold our peace but declare our judgments that if it shall seem good to our dread Sovereigne and this Honourable Parliament upon the many complaints brought in against Bishops and their Hierarchicall government to remove the Hierarchie This Act of State may appeare to all to be farre from sinne this not being a government appointed by Christ nor stamped with a Ius Divinum though some will make that their protection As One that loves the peace of the Church which wee you say are willing to trouble You aske after the Bounders c. Are you one that loves the peace of the Church Wee pray of what Church Sure that Church that is called Prelaticall and no other Where of we give you the boundaries and characters which it seems please you not The bounders we shewed from your late Canons which say you are too narrow let them see to that that first made them It is apparent that the Canons made by Archbishops Bishops Deanes and Archdeacons in their Convocation were never consented to much lesse confirmed by Parliament and yet those are called the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England And therfore sure though wee doe not exclude Bishops Deanes c. from being members of the Church yet They have excluded all the rest of the Nation For distinction wee brought bowing to the East to Altars c. Now these say you are not fit distinctions whereon to ground different Churches Yes Sir if it be true that some have held that the outward Formes of worship and ceremonies attending it are the characters whereby one Church is differenced from another but especially when such as will not practise these shall be disclaimed by such as doe them as none of the sonnes of the Church When men shall be forced to subscribe to the practice of these things or else they shall not bee admitted either into Livings or Cures as in the instanced particulars wee have knowne it then they make a difference of Churches And who are the authours of such differences but such as thus urge them Next wee brought their Creed and instanced in Episcopacie by divine right Hee replies Did ever man make this an Article of Faith Judge you by what Bishop Hall saith in his Episcopacie by Divine right part 2. pag. 47. I am so confident of the Divine institution of the Majority of Bishops above Presbyters that I dare boldly say there are weighty points of faith that have not so strong ground in Scripture Is this to make it an article of Faith or no And if not an Article of Faith yet we are sure it is made an Article of the Church For whereas by the orders of the Church of England a man upon the admission to his ministry is to be examined upon no other Articles then the Articles of Religion established in the Church of ENGLAND we have knowne more then one whose first question hath been what doe you thinke of Episcopaice We added absolute blind obedience to all commands of the Bishop Ordinaries you bid us blush But alas Sir we are not such strangers in England nor your selfe neither we believe as not to know but that this hath been the common doctrine and almost the sole Doctrine preached by prelaticall men these many yeeres together And the blinder the better This we have heard nor is it your limitation of the Oath of canonicall obedience in Omnibus licitis honestis will help you when some in stead of that have put in In omnibus editis edendis We added Election upon faith foreseen The Remonstrant cries What nothing but grosse untruthes Is this the Doctrine of the Bishops of England have they not strongly confuted it Yes sure some few have we know it And doth not the Remonstrant know that these few have been had in suspicion as no true friends of the Church much lesse sonnes of the Church more puritanicall then prelaticall And we would none of them had said They have beene labouring these twelve yeeres to get off the name of Puritan and yet tt will not doe and because of this have beene printed Tantum non in Episcopatu Puritani And the same Authour in an other booke after that Dico iterum iterumque dicam Tantam non in Episcopatu Puritani As for the Scriptures of Prelaticall men we mentioned Apocripha and unwritten traditions meaning that that generation lay as much weight almost upon traditions and Apocrypha as upon a genuine text and are more observant many of them of a custome and tradition then of the command of God For Sacraments we instanced a Baptisme of absolute necessity an Eucharist that must be administred upon an Altar What are these say you to the Church of England Nothing but to the Prelaticall Church they are Call them if you will Popish fooles and addleheads that maintaine these opinions yet we know the number of them is not small that have declined into these popish waies we acknowledge also that these are men if not that chiesly support the Prelacy yet such as have beene chiefely suppoted and countenanced by it We acknowledge there are many men learned and orthodox that have in their judgments approved of Episcopall government but what little incouragement these have had from the Prelates especially if laborious in their ministery or any way opposing the Prelaticall innovation in respect of the incouragements of those popish fooles and addle-heads as the Remonstrant cals them a man may see with halfe an eye You demanded what Christ the Prelaticall Church had Our answer is a Christ that hath given the same power of obsolution to a Priest that himsefe hath which answer you say is neere to blasphemy truely an opinion so neere to blasphemy can hardly be delivered in a language much distant from it but this you say is a slanderous fiction no Christian Divine ever held Priests power of absolution was any other then ministeriall If we know the man bring him forth that hee may be stoned Truely sir we knew the man that said the Priests power in absolution was more then Ministeriall it was judiciary but he is past stoning hee is dead and we know another said as much but he sung Agags song
good cards for their standing as he pretends for his own grant it so what will follow upon that but this That Bishops clayming the same grounds for their standing that the Pope doth aspire to be as independant from Princes as the Pope is and that they have no more Divine Right then the Pope But what 's this to our Bishops who professe notwithstanding their Divine Right to hold their places and exercise of Iurisdiction wholly from the King Surely ours have begun to affect the same Exemption from Secular power to make large and haughty strides towards an independant Hierarchie So that it is no envious upbraid to parallell ours with the former Bishops For it hath well appeared that the Hierarchicall Episcopacie is full of such high and large principles of Pride Ambition Tyranny as can be circumscribed in no moderate bounds But is always swelling to the affectation of an Absolute Ecclesiasticall Monarchie And it is worth the enquiring whether the three last books of Hookers Ecclesiasticall Politie be not suppressed by him that hath them because they give the Prince too much power in Ecclesiasticall matters and are not for the Divine Right of Bishops But we shall be chid anon and accused of spight for this as wee are for the observation formerly made upon his comparison between the attempts of Alteration in our Neighbour Church by the Episcopall faction and that which is now justly desired by the humble Petitioners to this Honourable House This saith the Remonstrant is a foule slander to charge the name of Episcopacie with a Faction For a fact imputed to some few Were they but a few that did attempt and prosecute that alteration the more is our misery that a few Bishops can put both Kingdomes into so dangerous a combustion what stirre would they all make if they should unite their powers And were they but a few that were the Factors for that Attempt how then was it that one of the Episcopall Tribe in publike Court called the Scotch designe Bellum Episcopale and where were the rest of the peaceable Orthodox Bishops the while that might in love to peace truth have opposed those bold attempts not have suffered a few upon whom you now leave the guilt of faction to expose the deare and precious name of Episcopacie to that obloquie Let the Remonstrant never cry fie upon his brethren that dare challenge Episcopacie of Faction but fie upon his Fathers the bishops that have subjected it to that challenge had bishops done so in Cyprians time we doubt not but theâ—e would have bin fonnd Presbyters who would have said as much and need never have feared Gaoles nor Pillories nor high Commissions the holy Discipline wherewith the Fathers of the sacred Hierarchie have of late yeers visited such offences SECT II. WEE are in this and the following Sections not to contend for words but things things precious to the Remonstrant Liturgie and Episcopacie for which he fights tanquam pro aris focis The subject of this Section is the Liturgie where first he fals upon us for the Alterations and Additions mentioned by us which hee calls such an envious and groundlesse suggestion as must needs cover our faces with a blush Truly Sir If we were able to produce no fuller evidence of this then you have done of your Iewish Liturgie ever since Mosestime we should blush indeed but if wee can bring forth instances of such Alterations as shall prove this present Liturgie to be none of that which hath beene confirmed by Parliamentary Acts keep your blushes to make Liveries for yourself and friends The Liturgie confirmed by our Parliamentary Acts is the same which was made and confirmed in the fifth and sixth of Edward the sixth with one alteration and additions of certaine Lessons to be used upon every Sunday and the forme of the Letany altered and amended and two sentences onely added in the delivery of the Sacrament And none other or otherwise But this booke is so altered from that that in it is left out First a clause in the Letany From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities good Lord deliver us c. 32. Chapters of the Old Testament a Prayer against death a Rubrick or declaration of the manner of the presence of Christs body and bloud in the Sacrament Besides some other things of lesse moment Secondly added 26 Apocryphall Chapters more to be read 47 Proper Lessons The Prayers for Bishops and Curats many Collects after the Communion A Rubrick in the examination of private Baptisme In the Calendar Fish dayes are now called Fasting days A Catalogue of Holidays Thirdly many things changed in the title of Confirmation the words for imposition of hands are added In the Epistle for Palm-sunday in the Name of Jesus turned into at the Name of Jesus besides such smaller alterations which himselfe acknowledges These are sufficient to evince that the Liturgie now in use is not that Liturgie that was established by Act of Parliament and therefore that Act binds not to the use of this Liturgie as we conceive Now if to these we should adde the late alterations in the use of the Liturgie Bringing in loud Musique uncouth and unedifying Anthems a pompous superstitious Altar-service wee thinke any indifferent eye will say this is not the Liturgie established by Parliament wee hope that these alterations are so visible as any that will not fully shut their eys will say it is with this misaltered Liturgie as with the disguised Dames mentioned of old by Doctor Hall And we hope nay we know wee have some Bishops of our minde in this as well as you have some of yours how ever you slight the words of one of them not inferiour to any of them that wee know with an effutâ—it labiis yet it is a subtile shift you have to pervert the Bishops words For whereas hee said that the Service of the Church of England was now so drest that if the Pope should come and see it he would claim it as his own but that it is in English The Remonstrant would seeme to understand by this onely such an inoffensivenesse in the devotion of it as the Pope himself could find no fault in it whereas the Bishop meant such a symmetry and correspondency of our present devotion and service with the Popish as was in his esteem just matter of Humiliation to al the Bishops in the Kingdom in a day of solemn national Fasting Instead of bringing out those great applauses that forreigne Divines and Churches have given to our Liturgie hee falls though more gently then hee is wont upon Master Calvin for his Tolerabiles ineptiae as if that hee did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seemes the Remonstrant did not either consider the occasion of that Censure or else his not Omniscient eyes never saw the Epistle that the Learned Calvin wrote to the dispersed at Frankfort which would tell him that the occasion of
Ghost is not to be tyed to forms Minister concludit Orationem quam pro suo arbitrio dicit Haec esto formula nisi quid ille suâ sponie possit melius The Minister concludes the prayer which hee sayes according to his own discretion let this be that forme except of his own accord hee can doe better In another Minister ad precandum hisce aut similibus verbis invitat ad hunc modum orat in these or the like words And by this we hope the Remonstrant seeth that what wee have said was more truly then boldly spoken As for the Lutheran Churches though we blesse God for that truth that is among them for that glorious instrument of their Reformation yet we think the Remonstrant will not say that the Lutheran Churches came out so perfectly in the first Edition but that desiderantur nonnulla nor can he be ignorant that in the ordinary phrase of writing they are called the Protestant Churches the other the Reformed Churches and what if the Reformed Churches be as the Remonstrant calls them out of his respect hee beares them but a poore handfull yet is this handfull in respect of purity of truth and worship among them to be preferred before all the Christian World besides The Rubrick in the Liturgie of Edward the sixth saith he is misconstrued Because it intends onely the peoples ease and more willing addiction to hearing Two of the very ends for which wee desire a liberty which if some Ordinaries upon his certain knowledge have often yielded many now upon our certaine knowledge have denied it and ordered Sermons should rather be constantly cut short then any part of the Liturgie omitted why should it be a fault in us to desire that as a favour from this Honourable House which the Remonstrant grants an ordinary may without offence yield at his own discretion 3 The Homilies we say are left free reason therefore the Liturgie should which argument he confesseth might hold force did they utterly abridge all Ministers of the publike use of any conceived prayers We know some men have endevoured sacrilegiously to rob all Ministers of the exercise of the gift of prayer on what occasion soever And our argument is as strong against limiting in prayer as it is against limiting in preaching either in whole or in part and he saith nothing against it onely determines tanquam è Cathedrâ that it is no lesse sacrilege to rob the people of a set form by the liberty of a free exprâ—ssion Then it is to rob them of the Ministers gift of preaching or praying But the Remonstrant must prove that set forms and Liturgies stinted and enjoyned are not onely lawfull but Ordinances of God and not only warranted but commanded as well as preaching or praying before he doe so peremptorily conclude the taking of set formes away by the liberty of a free expression to be sacrilege and his bold closure of this Answer how true it is let him look in what we have said before of the Liturgies of other Churches 4 His fourth Answer That it is a false ground that the imposing of the book tyes godly men from exercising their gift in prayer would have been condemned for heresie in some Consistories in England within these few yeeres by such as did from the imposition of the one forbid the other Whether the liberty of prayer be infringed wholly by a set Liturgie wee dispute not But it is beyond dispute that the not binding to a Liturgie would endanger the liberty of prayer lesse 5 Our fift Reason was because many deny their presence at our Church-meeting in regard of those imposed prayers and we finde no better way to recover them from that distance in which they stand then by leaving the Liturgie free The Remonstrant saith There is no reason of such alienation from our assemblies upon such grounds The reasonablenesse or unreasonablenesse of this we determine not in the mean time wee are sure thus it is For our parts we professe that wee are not against a free use of a Liturgie nor doe we count a Liturgie a sufficient ground of separation from the Church we say with Augustine Non putamus scindendas esse Ecclesias propter ea quae nos ex se neque digniores neque indigniores coram Deo facere possunt Yet wee feare it is not the Remonstrants Dilemma that will reduce such as upon this ground are upon point of forsaking our Church assemblies The Liturgie saith hee is either good or evill if evill it is not lawfull to be used if good it is not unlawfull to be imposed The persons of whom wee speake and with whom in this argument he hath to deal will deny both and tell him the Liturgie is neither good nor yet may lawfully be imposed if it were good it may be the Remonstram might have work enough to perswade some men of either and whether it be easier to satisfie the consciences of many thousands in England that are troubled about this by argument and disputing or by loosing the bond of imposition and taking away the cause of dispute and trouble or to behold the confusion that will follow if the Lord do not in mercy direct to some means of prevention is not hard to determine The Remonstranâ— inclines to the third and making it but a small matter turns it off with O miserable misled people whom nothing will reclaim but a perfect confusion a perfect deformity a more profitable nonsence And so confident he is that this will be the issue that though this confusion appeare in no other Churches who perhaps hee grants contradicting himselfe begun without a Liturgie yet with us it could be no lesse then what hee hath prophesied yea so resolute he is not to yield to a liberty in what is established that whereas wee said that liberty in Liturgies could breed no more confusion then liberty in the Homilies we evidently see by his answer that had the reading of Homilies beene as strictly enjoyned as the Book of Common-prayer the ablest Minister in England were the Law in the Remonstrants hands must be held as strictly to them as to this Yea lastly whereas wee had said that if enjoyned at all it might be as a punishment upon the insufficient thereby to quicken them up to more diligence and care he scoffs at this as a singular project and unheard of mulct and yet himselfe comes out with a project about preaching never a whit better and doth as good as confirme our saying in the latter end Surely where God hath bestowed gifts it is fit they should be imployed and improved to the best advantage of his people But where there is nothing but an empty over-meening and proud ignorance there is great reason for a just restraint Let the ingenious Reader peruse the words and consider how much they differ from that which he calls our singular project and withall judge whether this conclusion of the Remonstrant after all his
in the beginning of the Section he saith This was one of the Acts that was APPROPRIATED to Bishops ALONE and is not this to challenge sole power of ordination afterwards in the same Section he saith Ordination is one of the things so Intrinsecall to Episcopacy that in the judgement of the Church no extremity of Necessity was sufficient warrant to diffuse it into other hands The same power of ordination doe Bishop Bilson Andrewes Davenant Mountague c. challenge to Episcopacy Now Reader judge is the sole theirs by challenge or no And what they challenge that they practise we doubt not but the Remonstrants conscience can tell him there are many instances in England to be produced of men ordained in England without the hands of any Presbyter The Remonstrant is as unhappy as peremptory in his challenge he makes I challenge them to shew any one instance in the Church of England Sir the instances are without number Some of us are ocular witnesses of many scores at severall ordinations ordained by a Bishop in his private Chappell without the presence of any Presbyter but his owne domesticke Chaplaine and without any assistance from him save onely in reading prayers But alasse what should we fall to instances Put case an Irish or Welsh Bishop ordaines one at London in his chamber or some Chappell and admits him which commends the person to him to joyne for fashion sake in the gesture of imposition of hands be hee of what place or Diocesse he will how little doth this differ from sole ordination and how much from that Regular and ordinate ordination of former times Sir these are poore toyes to mocke the Church withall if not God himselfe too Could such a Bishop say as well as Cyprian Ego Collegae You tell us our Bishops may say no lesse then Cyprian did But doth the stile of your Letters of orders speake any such thing Let the Reader judge by a copy Tenore praesentium nos N. N. Providentiâ Divinâ Episc. notum facimus universis quod die mensis Anno in Capella Nos praefatus Episcopus sacros ordines dei praesidio celebrantes dilectum nobis c. E. B. de vitâ sua laudabili c. a nobis examinat approbat ad sacro sanct Presbyt ordinem ad misimus rite Canonicè ordinavimus promovimus In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum Episcopale praesentibus apponi fecimus Construe you this Ego Collegae brethren But you tell us Cyprians phrase Ego Collegae was in the case of Aurelius made a Lector much to your advantage If a Reader could not be ordained by a Bishop alone doe we thinke a Presbyter could As for Cyprians 58. Epist. we produced it not as a proofe of ordination in the hands of Presbyters much lesse for the concurrent act of the people as the Remonstrant would intimate but onely for the explication of the word Collegae But it seemes the Remonstrant was resolved to picke some quarrell and rather to play at small game then stand out And if it be the order of the Church of England as well as of the Councell of Carthage that when a Presbyter is ordained all the Presbyters that are present shall lay hands c. if there be such an order the more blame worthy the Bishops who being such severe censurers of the breach of Church orders in others are themselves in the same crime for though you set a stout face upon the businesse and tell us that this order is perpetually and infallibly kept by you Yet the world knowes it is no such matter unlesse you meane that all the Presbyters present doe infallibly and perpetually lay on hands in ordination because our ordinations are so carried that for the most part there is but one sometimes not one Presbyter there besides the Bishop But why doe you take notice here of one Canon of the Councell of Carthage and not of the other ut Episcopus sine c. that a Bishop should ordaine none of the Clergie without the Counsell of his Clergie unlesse it be because here is such a manifest deflexion in the practise of ours from former times as all the wit and Rhetoricke the Remonstrant hath cannot cover Your next evasion is a plaine leaving the question we are to prove that Bishops in ancient times did not ordaine without Presbyters You challenge us to prove a Presbyters Regular ordaining without a Bishop which is not the point in question Who doth here most abuse the Reader let himselfe judge but wee are accused not onely of abusing our Readers but our Authours too And the Remonstrant hopes he hath us here at such a vantage as shall try what modesty is in us Three foule scapes are laid to our charge First we abuse Firmilianus in casting upon him an opinion of Presbyters ordaining which he never held let us once againe view the place Firmilianus speaking of the true Church saith ubi Praesident Majores natu qui Baptizandi manum imponendi ordinandi possident potestatem the controversie is who these Majores natu be Bishops saith he Bishops and Elders say we To prove it we explicate Firmilian by Firmilian calling a little before those whom here he cals Majores natu Seniores praepositi Which are not so farre from that clause but that they may be brought without wire drawing or foysting and are not so remote from that place as those words which himselfe produceth which we desire the courteous Reader to consider because we are charged by him for foysting in and wyre drawing the words of the Authour and also because the very words there cited by the Remonstrant speake of a power of remitting sinnes which we hope he will not ingrosse to Bishops excluding Presbyters Pamelius himselfe is with us who understands by Seniores prepositi the Presbyters and Bishops Our next scape is but grosse ignorance in translating Ambroses Presbyteri consignant by Presbyters ordaining Every Novice knowes consigning signifies confirmation and not ordaining Sir we appeale from your Novices to judicious Readers and intreat them to peruse the text and wee doubt not but upon due consideration they will conclude for our sence let us then plead the case and tell you first That your Desiderius Heraldus shewes both the word signare or consignare in the phrase of antiquity to be as much as consecrare and so doth Cyprian Epist. 2. and therefore it is not incapable of such a sence as we have put upon it 2. If the Reader please to view the place in Ambrose he shall finde that Ambrose there is speaking of ordaining men to publique offices in the Church and not of confirmation 3. Though it should be taken for confirmation yet you gaine nothing for the same Canon that put power of ordination into the hands of Bishops places the power of confirmation also in their hands And they among us that challenge the sole power
it save onely that their ambitious desires of ruling alone swayes them against their owne judgement and the determinations of the law But indeed if this communicating of all the important businesse of the Church with those grave assistants you speake of or with the Presbyters of the whole Diocesse if you will be onely an assuming them into the fellowship of consulting and deliberating without any decisive suffrage leaving the Bishop to follow or not to follow their advise this is but a meere cosenage of the reader and doth not hinder the sole power of Episcopall jurisdiction And this is all that Downam grants lib. 1. c. 7. p. 161. where he saith that Bishops doe assume Presbyters for advise and direction as a Prince doth his Counsellors not as a Consull doth his Senators who are cojudges with the Consul And this we perceive the Remonstrant well likes of as that which makes much for the honour of their function And now sir you see that we have not fished all night and caught nothing wee have caught your sole jurisdiction and might have caught your selfe were you not such a Proteus such a Polypus to shift your selfe into all formes and Colours Having proved that Bishops in all times succeeding the Apostles had Presbyters joyned with them in the exercise of their jurisdiction and that our Bishops have none is more evident then that it needs proofe This is more to you then Baculus in Angulo it cannot but be Spina in oculis Sagittain visceribus a thorne in your eye and an arrow in your heart convincing you to your griefe that the Bishops you plead for and the Bishops of former times are two SECT X. OUr next Section the Remonstrant saith runs yet wilder it is then because we prosecute a practice of the Bishops more extravagant then the former And that is the delegation of the power of their jurisdictiō to others which the Remonstrant would first excuse as an accidentall errour of some particular man not to be fastned upon all But we desire to know the man the Bishop in all England who hath not given power to Chancellors Commissaries Officials to suspend excommunicate absolve execute all censures but one and doth the Remonstrant thinke now to stoppe our mouthes with saying it is a particular error of some men whereas it is evident enough that our English Episcopacy cannot possibly be exercised without delegating of their power to a multitude of inferiour instruments Can one Bishop having 500. or a 1000. Parishes under him discharge all businesses belonging to testamentary and decimall causes and suites to preach Word and administer the Sacraments c. to take a due oversight also of all Ministers and people without the helpe of others Nor will that other excuse doe it That it is but an accidentall error and though granted concludes not that our Bishops challenge to themselves any other spirituall power then was delegated to Timothy and Titus Sir we abhorre it as an unworthy thing to compare our Bishops with Timothy or Titus the comparison is betweene our Bishops and Bishops of former times But to please you this once we will admit the comparison and shew howeven in this particular that you count so monstrous our Bishops challenge a power never delegated to Timothy nor Titus And we prove it thus Timothy and Titus never had a power delegated to them to devolve that power of governing the Church which God had intrusted into their hands upon persons incapable of it by Gods ordinance But our Bishops doe so Ergo. The Remonstrant thinkes by impleading other reformed Churches as guilty of the same crime to force us either to condemne them or to acquit him But the reformed Churches if they doe practise any such thing are of age to answer for themselves Our businesse is with the Remonstrant and the persons and practices which he hath taken the tuition of Whom we charging as in a generality with wholy intrusting the power of spirituall jurisdiction to their Chancellors and their Commissaries their good friend tels us we foulely overreach The assistance of these creatures they use indeed but they neither negligently or wilfully devest themselves of that and wholy put it into Laicke hands This is a meere slander that Bishops devest themselves of their power we never said That they doe either negligently or wilfully decline that office which they call theirs we need not say it is so apparent And as apparent it is that they doe intrust the power of jurisdiction wholly into Laicke hands for their Chancellors and Commissaries having power of jurisdiction by patent setled upon them and exercising that jurisdiction in all the parts of it conventing admonishing suspending excommunicating absolving without the presence or assistance of a Bishop or recourse to him we thinke impartiall Judges will say wee are neither slanderers nor over-reachers In our former answer we fully cleared from Cyprian how farre hee was from delegating his power to a Chancellour c. This he sleights as a negative authority yet it is sufficient to condemne a practice that never had being in the thoughts of primitive times And we beleeve it satisfies all others because the Remonstrant saith it is very like it was so Though according to his old way of diversion he tels us as Cyprian did not referre to a Chancellor so neither to the bench of a Laicke Presbytery yet he that is but meanly versed in Cyprian may easily see that it is no unusuall thing in that holy martyr to referre the determinations of causes ad Clerum Plebe◠But the Remonstrant thinkes to patronize the practice of our present Bishops by Silvanus the good Bishop of Troas And what did Silvanus to the countenancing of this practice perceiving that some of his Clergie did corruptly make gaine of causes civill causes causes of difference betweene party and party or as you phrase it page 91. unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours he would no more appoint any of his Clergy to be Judge but made choice of some faithfull man of the Laity Now this is as much to the purpose good sir as Posthumus his pleading in Martiall We are confuting the practice of our Bishops in making over their spirituall jurisdiction to Laymen and he brings in a story of a good Bishop that having a bad Clergy intrusted honest men with civill judicature rather then them As full to the purpose is that of Ecclesiae ecdici or Episcoporum Ecdici to prove the Antiquity of Chancellors and Commissaries For their Ecdici were men appointed to be the advocates of the Church to plead the Churches cause before the Emperours against the tyranny of their potent adversaries But we never read that the Bishops did put over the government of the Church to them we could with all our hearts give this honour to Civilians to be the Churches advocates but not the Churches Judges which the Bishops give them leave to
government When as you know all your deare sisters of whom you professe a tender care doe disclaime it Of a Bull and solâ—cisme in saying That all Christian Churches doe constantly and uniformely observe it And yet confessing that there are lesse noble Churches that conforme not unto it 15. In your next Quere you contradict your selfe and the truth as a selfe confounded man For here you say That the name of Bishop hath bin for this 1600 yeares appropriated in a plaine contradistinction to the governours of the Church But page 48 where we bring Irenâ—us calling Anicetus Pius Hyginus c. Bishops of Rome Presbyters And others also using the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You cry out with a loud voyce Is this al that your trifling may appeare to all the World Name but any one of our writers who have hitherto stood up in the cause of Episcopacy that have not granted and proclaimed this which you contend for In the latter end of this quere you thinke to stop our mouthes with Balaams wages and demand Whether if we will allow you to be Bishops all will not be well Wee are scripture Bishops without your allowance As for to be Hierarchicall Bishops since God will not allow it we care not for your allowance But what Patent or Monopoly have you among all the multitude of late Projectors obtained that without your allowance a Presbyter may not be admitted into a Bishoprick 16. To your last Quere we answer That if God had set your episcopall government in his Church wee know it could not bee lawfull for us to deny subjection unto it But we have proved the contrary in this discourse Neither have the Lawes of this land so firmely established it but that it may be repealed by the same Lawes and suffer a just period for its matchlesse pride and insufferable oppressions Which for the present we perceive is out of feare a little abaâ—ed and that makes you aske Whether it were not most lawfull and just to punish our presumption and disobedience c. Time was when the High commission and other Episcopall Courts would have made both our eares more then tingle for such a question without enquiring either the lawfulnesse and justice of it Thus we have answered his 16. Queries but before we end our booke we cannot but take notice of what the Remonstrant addes in the concluâ—ion For there he tells us That he hopes he hath given a sufficient answer to our bold and unjust demands And yet notwithstanding he doth not vouchsafe to give any answer at all but only propounds new questions insteed of answers which if the Reader will conceive a sufficient way of answering we doubt not but we shall quickly give satisfaction to all that ever hath bin written for Episcopall government either by Bishop Bilson Bishop Downham Bishop Hall or any other whatsoever To all the Postscripts Wee will not create trouble to the Reader by a reiterated justification of our sincerity though it be againe prodigiously wounded Here is much cry and little wooll Hee cannot deny what in our Postscript we have proved to be the practises of Prelates ever since Austins erection of the See of Canterbury onely first hee salsely tells us that wee have borrowed a great part of it out of Sions plea. But if that Author hath collected any of the same Stories which yet wee know not out of the Chronicles why should we be thought to have borrowed them from him whom wee durst not for feare of the Prelates keepe in our studies rather then from the Chronicles themselves Secondly he answers That they were popish Bishops limmes of that body whose head we abjure c. But Sr you know that in Henry the eights time when this head abjured the Body of popery still remained This Body of popery comprehended in six Articles was called a whâ—p of six strings And you with all your Rhetoricke will hardly perswade the people but that they have bin lashed for these many yeares with a whip of six and twenty strings Have not most of these denied this Head to be Antichrist And that if wise men had the handling of it we might be reconciled unto it Hath not one of their abettors written that the Religion of the Church of Rome is not onely a possible but a safe way to Heaven What then will it availe to say that our Bishops and they have different heads Thirdly he answers That a charitable man might have made a longer Catalogue of the good fruites of our Episcopacy and reckons up a multitude of their good deeds many whereof â—hould â—ee wipe our eyes never so much wee feare wee should not see and the rest which are in any kind visible will not if weighed in a just ballancâ— beare any proportion to all those unnaturall fruits mentioned in our Postscrips In his close he tells us That the Bishops foote hath bin in our booke which is quite spoiled by his just confutation We confesse truly the Bishops â—o 〈◊〉 hath left much dirt behinde it but could many hundredâ— of godly Ministers have as easily got the Greene Wax and Red Wax of the Bishops out of their mouthes with which they have bin a long time stopped As we have wiped away the dirt that hath bin throwne upon our booke The Church of England had never made so many sad complaints and presented so many dolefull petitions unto the high and supreme Court of Justice 2. His second Postscript is an advertisement to the Reader for the vindication of the credit of the person of Doctor Hall and his Episcopacy by divine right from the censure which Doctor Voetius is reported to have passed upon them both True it is there was tendred to us a justification of what that angry Pamphlet as he calls it had published to the world But because wee found that it would deeply reflect upon the credit of Doctor Hall and that in a language more disgracefull then that was before said wee refused to insert it Our businesse is with a namelesse Remonstrant not with the undervaluation of any mans person in particular If hee please to call for it he may have it His third Postscript brings in the judgement of Scultetus to â—make the World believe that his new opinion of Episcopacy by divine right is not destitute of Patrons in the reformed Churches But what is one Scultetus to the many hundred learned men amongst them of a contrary judgement We might here retort upon our Remonstrant that he saith concerning the moderator of Geneva page 138. You tell me of the moderator of Geneva as if all the Church of God were included in those strait walls We could have translated Voetius his Theses for the justification of lay Elders both out of Scripture and antiquity But for brevity sake wee will content our selves with what that learned Rivet spake when these two Treatises of Scultetus were shewed to him by a great Prelate amongst us and his judgement