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A96348
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A speech of Mr. Iohn White counsellor at law, made in the Commons House of Parliament concerning episcopacy.
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White, John, 1590-1645.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing W1773; Thomason E198_18; ESTC R212697
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9,737
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18
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forsake the pure fountain and wallow in the muddy and corrupted streams of antichristian ambition Thirdly that part of the spirituall officer of the Bishop whereby he is to instruct the people committed to his charge with the holy Scriptures as upon the 2 question put unto him at his Consecration he undertakes to doe ought as I conceive to be reduced to a possibility for him to performe it It is impossible for him to doe it to a whole Diocesse therefore he should be limited to some particular Congregation unto which he might perform this trust which requires sufficiency attendance and diligence Fourthly Ordination in the scriptures is ever expressed to be by them in the Church that had authority and were officers in the Church as Apostles Evangelists and after by the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4.14 2 Tim. 1.6 And a shadow of this remains in our Law Acts 14.23 Titus 1.5 6 7. for the Bishop only is not to lay hands upon the party to be ordained but the Presbyters there attending are to joyn with the Bishop therein Books of ordering Priests This I conceive is not fit to be in the hands of any one ordinary officer in the Church the descerning of the gifts abilities and faithfulnesse of persons to be ordained Presbyters requiring great judgement care and circumspection Plus vident oculi quam oculus The like I say of deprivation Fiftly Excommunication by the Scriptures ought to be only in case of enormous offences and obstinacy in them and onely in the Congregation whereof the party to be Excommunicate is a member 1 Cor. 5.4 Tell the Church cannot be meant of one man Mat. 18.17 Diotrophes is branded for taking upon him alone to cast any out of the Church This also abused as well as usurped by the Bishop is to be reformed Sixtly Instituation and induction are usurped by the Bishops upon the fundamentall Laws of this Kingdome by which the Patron after his Clerk was ordained did without any more invest him into the Church See Selden of tithes 86. And a relick of this we retain still in Churches that be donatives Seventhly The jurisdiction of tithes causes matrimoniall and causes testamentary in the times of the Increasing power of the Pope when the Bishops thereby grew more formidable were taken from the Civill Magistrate to whom originally they belonged upon pretence that the tithes were Jure divino the Churches patrimony and Mariage a Sacrament and that the disposing the goods of the dead most properly belonged to him for the good of the soule in Purgatory to redeem it thence to whom the cure of the Soule appertained in his life time vide 2 R. 3. Testaments 4.11 H. 7.12 B. Plowdeu 279. B. Foxes c. Cok. rep 9.37 B. Heustoes case Dames rep 97. B. Lalors c. Selden of tithes 4â—5 Eighthly The matters which are meerly and only spirituall which are properly of Ecclesiasticall cognizance were anciently by the Lawyers of this Kingdome heard and determined in the County and hundred Courts by the Sheriffe and the Bishop and by William the Conquerour these matters were taken thence and appropriated to the Bishop alone 2 R. 2. Rotul Parliament num 12. Selden of tithes 412. Book of Martyrs 154. And by the Law of God as I conceive they ought to be heard determined by them that have rule in the particular congregations and Churches Mat. 18.17 1 Cor. 5. which if it were so among us would be a wonderfull case and save great charges to the subject And where the difficulty of case or greatnesse of the persons whom it may concern or where the Governors in particular Congregation demean not themselves as they ought it ought to be referred to a Synod of Presbyters of many as shall be thought meet as Acts. 15 a question of difficulty arising in the particular Church of Antioch and the dissention growing great about the same they sent to Hierusalem and there the Apostles and Presbyters convened debated concluded and decreed the matter and imposed the observation thereof upon Antioch and other Churches ver 1.2.6.28 The Apostles would not meddle in the question without the Presbyters and other Bishops there were none there nor in the Churches And faelicius expediuntur negotia commissa pluribus in the multitude of Counsellors there is safety Proverb 11.14 And the change of our Laws in case this House shall see cause for it will not be so great or difficult as is conceived by some For ordination admonition suspension and deprivation of Presbyters and the judgement of the fitnesse of persons to be invested into Benefices Ecclesiasticall and the care of providing for the serving of Cures during the vacancy and avoydance of Churches and taking of the subscription of Ministers to the Articles of Religion 13 Eliz. cap. 12. 14 Eliz. cap. 5. and the visiting of Hospitals whose Founders have appointed no visitors which are now in the Bishop may be settled in a convention of Presbyters to be appointed for every hundred from whom appeale may be had upon every gravamen to a greater Assembly of them and those Presbyters or any one of them may be inabled to give the Oathes of Supremacy and alleageance where the Bishop is authorised to give the same And Excommunication may be ordered to be certified by the Parson 5 Eliz. c. 1. 7 Jac. cap. 6. Vicar or Stipendary of that Church where the party is excommunicate And all Churches presentative may be filled by investure of the Patrons and all questions concerning them be determined by the same rules of law as Donatives are And loyall Matrimony be tryed by a Jury where the woman is party to the suit as now it is where she is not party so E. 3.15 p. 5.11 H. 4.4 B. 30. and as it is now where the issue is Nient sa femme 12. E. 3. Brife 481.50 E. 3.15 B. 7. H. 6.12 June 35. H. 6.9 P. 10. Coke 8. E. 4.12 a Laton And Bastardy generall Bastardy beyond Sea within the Statute 25 E. 3. De natis ultra mare may be made tryable by Jury as now speciall Bastardy is 11 Ass 20.38 ass 24.39 E. 3.31.6 7. Ed. 6. Dier 79. P. 52. So tithes may be reduced to the Common Law and be sued for there as it was ever in the case of the King or his Debtor 38. ass 20. Cok. r. 5.16 a Cawdreis case and as it is by the Statute of 2 and 3 E. 6. cap. 13. And for the Bishops attendance on tryals of life it is needlesse he being no Judge in it but the Court who may appoint any other or doe it themselves And for Sacring of Churches and other dead things it is fit to be neglected and left off being a Popish vaine superstition and without colour of countenance from the word of God the Leviticall consecrations being typicall and shadows of the good things we enjoy under the Gospel Heb. 9.19 c. The Bishop being thus reformed and reduced to a condition and
state agreeable to the word of God the only right rule of reformation The Deans Chapters Vicars Generall Chancellors 25 Exod. 9 40. 1 Chron. 28.11.19 Ezek. 4â— 10 2 Cor. 4 6. and the rest of his Traine qua tales being telluris inutile pondus are to be removed and taken away also as superfluous and uselesse We have intrusted the Episcopacy these fourescore and two years with the cure of Soules a trust of the highest concernment if we consider the price of Souls Our Saviour is at a stand in it What shall a man give in recompence for his Soule Mat. 16.26 the price of it is best seen in the price given for it God and man must become a curse to redeem it How have they discharged this trust Survay the Churches throughout the Kingdome and you shall finde neer eight parts of tenne of them filled with Idoll idle or scandalous Ministers whom the Bishops might have by law refused if discovered unto them before-hand and ought to have removed being discovered unto them afterwards And it hath aboundantly appeared this Parliament upon examinations taken in this House of Commons and the Committees thereof that when Ministers extreamly scandalous have been discovered to the Bishops and their Officers and in the High-commission Court they have received no further censure then admonition or to be put to purgation and so sent home to destroy more Soules as if they had not done sufficiently in that way before But if any godly learned and painfull Preacher hath been discovered by them they have sought out all occasions against such to thrust them out of the Church and lay their Congregations waste and desolate and every trifle though indifferent in their own account bath been made use of and sufficed them for this yea they have made occasions and traps to overthrow such worthies without Law and against Law And herein they have inherited the vertues of Diotrephes their first Predecessor who would not receive the brethren and forbad them that would and cast both out of the Church 3 John 10. And though some of the Bishops have been and are good men yet look into their Diocesse and the Churches in their gift and judge whether they be good Bishops or no you shall finds them as faulty concerning this great trust as any of the rest And whether it be not from hence evident or at least greatly to be suspected that some curse cleaves to the very Office of Bishops when good men cannot manage it to any better purpose then the bad let any man judge This Spirituall Monarchy hath two incidents inseparable unto it first that it is alwayes incroaching and usurping upon other powers and swallowing them up as the series of all ages aboundantly manifests Secondly that it is ever inclining and returning to Popery and the Religion of Antichirst as hath most cleerly appeared even in our daies as well as before since the restoring of Religion I shall for this time instance onely in three places of the Rubrick corrupted by Bishops In the Rubrick confirmed by act of Parliament in the beginning of it It is directed that prayer shall be in such place of the Church or Chancell and the Minister shall so turne him as the people may best heare In the Rubrick as it is now Printed prayer shall be used in the accustomed place c. except it shall be otherwise determined by the Ordinary Whereby they have introduced the Popish practice of reading Prayers as the upper end of the Chancell at their Altar where few in the Church can see them and fewer heare them and turning their faces to the East and their backs to the people in reading in the Desk and colour all with the determination of the Ordinary Secondly in the Letany there are these words in the book of Common payer confirmed by the Statutes of 5. and 6. Ed. 6. and of 1 Eliz. From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities good Lord deliver us and that the Bishops in the latter books have caused to be left out wholly Thirdly in the Rubrick concerning the administration of the Lords Supper as it stands now altered an excellent declaration of the reason why kneeling at this Sacrament was left in the reformation and a renunciation of Transubstantiation Consubstantiation adoration of the bread and wine as abhominable Idolatries are wholly obliterate and left out that the use of that gesture there might be rendred the more suspicious and superstitious and a more clear way might be made to induce the Popish superstitious innovations that have been since obtruded upon us concerning the Table Altar supeÌ„reminent presence of God almighty there cringings Altar-worship and the like And I conceive alterations were made by the Bishops as appeares unto me by the Proclamation they procured to be set forth 5. Martii 1. Jac concerning the booke of Common prayer And how can things prosper better in the hands of the Episcopacy when Gods blessing alone giveth out prosperity and the Lord disposeth his blessing in his owne way only and not in any other And this being no plant planted by God in his Church how can it be expected it should yeeld us any better fruits then we have received from it Againe if I be not much deceived the Episcopacy in whatsoever it exceeds the Presbyters office in which sense only I speak of it is a branch of the Hierarchy of Rome and of the Antichrist and of that consider what is prophesied Revel 14.14 They shall not have any rest day nor night that receive any print of the name of the Beast and examine the former and present times whether the same hath not been verified among us and in all such places where that Hierarchy hath been entertained whether the must troubles and miseries of the Churches and in great part also of the Common-wealth have not sprung from the said Episcopacy and the fruites thereof Therefore let us proceed to the perfecting of the Reformation of our Church and to the gathering out of it every stone that offends even whatsoever is not according to God and the standard of his word and reduce every thing in the government to the rule and walke in it in Gods way which is the sure way to have his presence with us and blessing upon us and ours for ever It hath ever been a point of higher honour from God and of greater acceptance and esteem with him to advance the reformation of his Church and Worship â— Cro. 17. â—4 〈◊〉 1 Kings 15.14 2 Kings 12.3 1 Cron. 28 1â— Zac. 4.7 and was ever will be a reproach from him and blot upon such as have left any thing not agreeable to his word unreformed and not taken away Up then let us be doing and the Lord will goe before us and make plain all mountains that may occurre in our way and give a blessed issue and successe