write so where the Episcopal power seemed to be devolved upon them but pray Sir If a society consisting of Members all equal in power but having a Head or President for order and good Rule do regret his loss during the vacancie in these very termes wherein lyeth the inconsistence How foolish then is that stricture of your vanity which you here subjoin viz. but. I believe few of you know these writings whereas to be plain with you in my thought neither you nor I have given any great Specimen of this knowledge or said so much as the half of what is obviously to be found in almost any printed debate anent this matter Sir I must tell you further if I my selfe were alone concerned in this reflectionâ— I would scarce look upon it as a reproach worth the wipeing off to be as great a stranger to these things as ye take me to be nor would I think many cubits were added to my stature to be as knowing in them as your self yet it is known that I tell the world no news when I say that there have been and to this day are not a few great men of our way who have given such proof of their knowledge in these ancillarie and minutious things whereof you represente us as ignorant as have made your greatest Rabbies finde that wherein they gloried they were not short of them and if ye know not this yet seem to have lost your silly self in the Labyrinth of Antiquitie and by this means are fallen under the shameful reproach of being peregrinus Domi and if ye know it and yet so superciliously assert the contraire what Apologie can ye make for speaking so great an untruth that will either satisfie the world or your own Conscience But Sir ingenously I professe I pitie you for your Vanitie and folly for it seems ye think this the only expedient to make the world beleeve the pregnancie of your pate and Pronounce you worthie of the Chair but Sir it will onely make the more serious weep to remember who did once fill it and should have filled it still when they consider how it is become the seat of a scorner and the lesse serious will laugh at your prodigious folly I have only one overture to propose unto you that your vanity may be with some handsomeness hereafter coutched and the world may let pass what you say without quarrelling at it as a known falshood And it is this in your after comparings and measurings of your abilities that you may be taken notice of for a Nonsuch be so wise as to compare your self with your Fellow-Curats if ye hope to bear the bell but when ye insinuate a comparison with so many burning and shining lights and then in your Juvenile pride and self-conceit arrogate a preference to these ye do only force men to take notice of and enquire into your shame and short-coming And if I mistake not fall upon the most certain method of making your self â—â—ink above ground Sir if in these two or three lines I have digressed contrary to my inclination the occasion will justifie it and charity persuades to it But 3. You tell us that in the Council of Nice Speaking of the power of Metropolitans the Canon sayes let the ancient customes be in force It 's answered 1. We finde that Council did conveen in the year 325. Now admit that certain Customes concerning Metropolitans as well as Bishops were bâ—ought into the Church about 165. years before the Councel which is the highest period from whence they can be calculat These customes in this respect might will therein be termed Antient without the least contrariety to my assertion 2. It 's evident enough from many suffrages that as the primitive Episcopacie which succeeded to Presbyterie the Government first institute by our Lord and his Apostles and exercised in the Christian Church did only import the humane invention of a Prostasia for Order So the custome of Metropolitans in these times did differ nothing from it as may appear from the 33. Canon of these called Apostolical already cited wherein he is only termed Primus Gentis Episcopus and tyed to the advice of his Coëpiscopi In the next place you tell us that nothing can be alledged against your Episcopal power but Some few or disjointed places of some Authors which at most Prove that they judged not the origen of Bishops to be divine and none save Aerius repute an Heretick did ever speak against the difference betuixt Bishops and Presbyters Sir if you did not here acknowledge almost all that I desire I could easily shew you that not only the Scriptures of the New Testament and the agreeable practice of the Apostles and their Immediate successors are against your Prelatick excrescent power but that even for several ages thereafter while both Bishops and Metropolitans did exercise their Prostasian your Diocesan Prelat having the sole power of Ordination and jurisdiction was unknown yea expresly reprobate but because the appendix whereunto I have already referred and Smectymnus do plainly make out this point I shall not detain you As for Aâ—rius it 's true he held that a Bishop and a Presbyter do not differ and that Augustin cals this proprium ejus dogma his proper Opinion and Epiphanius dogma furiosum et stolidum a furious and foolish opinion and that both of them do ranck him among Hereticks but seing they also accuse him of Arrâ—anisme and withal do also taxe him for error in some points which are clâ—ar truth viz. that it is not lawful to pray and offer for the dead their censure is as little to be noticed as his Testimony specially seing many Learned men do plainly assert that not only Hierom but even Augustin himself Chrisostom and many others of the Fathers were of the same opinion with Aërius as to the matter of this difference but for Ierom you go about to alleviat his Testimonye viz. Idem ergo est Presbyter qui Episcopus Therefore a Presbyter is one and the same with a Bishop noverint Episcopi se magis consuetudine quan dispositionis dominicae veritate Presbyter is esse majores c. And let the Bishops know that they are above Preebyters more through custome then any divine warrant Because he himself was but a Presbyter Pray Sir who were they whom your men cite so fast for Bishops were not they themselves Bishops and yet the truth is there were Bishops also at that time of his Opinion 2. You say that his fervent if not sirie Spirit drives him along in every things to an excess Good Sir where is now your veneration for Antiquity and the holy fathers For us seing we do not found on mans Authority this your brusk character discovering more of your partiality then of Ieroms infirmity doth not offend Only this I must say that whatever be his fervor in his other writtings yet I am sure that both in his Commentarie upon Titus and in
you shall make these things found in Ignatius consistent even with the strain of pure Religion and the truth of the Gospel let be to the Orthodoxie and Piety of Ignatius and the simplicity of his times then shall I cede to the Authority of these Letters Only in the mean time let me tell you that for all the pains that Hamond hath taken to assert their Faith the words above cited do savour so strongly of most gross and corrupt interpolation that not only I reject their Testimony as to the matter of Prelacie but do esteem even the passages that may be therein found for Presbyterie as to the Trallians be subject to the Presbyterie as to the Apostles of Iesus Christ The Presbyters are the Council of God and joint Assembly of the Apostlâ—s and such like of little or no value 2. You mention Cyprians time but hold I preceive your second Edition mends your first and this your practice like to that of your more innocent friend Mr. Coluin in his verses of giving us second Editions bearing additions without advertissment had indeed abused me If by accident I had not fallen in the review of my papers to make use of your second Copie and in this you tell us in the next place of the Apostolicall Canons a work of very venerable Antiquitie at least the first fiftie of them though perhaps none of the Apostles But first why say you Perhaps in a matter beyond all peradventure 2. Not to trouble you with Criticisms he who would be resolved anent the Authority of these Canons let him only read them And as I am confident he will be farre from thinking either the first 50 or the rest of them Apostolicall So I am certain the mention made in the 3. Can. of Sacrificium Altare Oleum in Candelabrum Incensum oblationis tempore a Sacrifice Altar oyl in the lamp and incense in the time of offering the 17. Can qui viduam duxit Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus esse non potest he who hath married a widow cannot be a Bishop or a Presbyter or a Deacon the 25. Can. Ex his qui caelibes in Clerum pervenerunt jubemus ut Lectores tantum cantores si velint nuptias contrahant Of Bachelors who hath entered into orders Readers only and Singers if they will may marrie the great and constant distinction therein made inter Clericum Laicum and the many other vanities therein to be found specially in the last part of them will easily render their venerable Antiquity of no moment in our present Controversie so that neither your 40 but in effect the 38. Canon though it were more positive and expresse for your Prelatick preheminence nor your Synodicall injunction to the same purpose both posterior to the first Primitive purity are of any regard but 3. so wretched is the cause that you defend that even in your clearest evidences your partiality and hypocrisie is manifest You alledge the Apostolicall Canons in defence of your Prelatick Order and yet you consider not that the same Canons do not only condemn your Prelates But subvert their present constitution I shall not insist upon the 24. Canon Episcopus aut Presbyter in fornicatione aut perjurio deprehensus deponitor Let a Bishop or a Presbyter guilty ofsornication or perjury be deposed the 20. Episcopum aut Presbyterum qui fideles delinquentes quid ergo si Innocentes percutit terrorem ipsis hoc modo incutit deponi praecipimus We command that the Bishop or Presbyter who smiteth delinquents and so becometh a terrour unto them be deposed what then if they smite the innocent the 28â— 41. 53. 57 75. which I am most assured if observed would remove all the present Bishops and Curats in Scotland but the Canons I offer are the 4. Omnium aliorum Pomorum Primitiae Episcopo Presbyteris domum mittuntor Manifestum autem est quod Episcopus et Presbyteri inter Diaconos reliquos Clericos eas dividunt Let the first â—ruits of all others aples be sent home to the Bishop and Presbyters for it is Manifest that the Bishop and Presbyters divide them among the Deacons and the rest of the Clergie 33. Cujusque gentis Episcopos oportet scire quinam inter ipsos primus sit neque sine illius voluntate quicquam agere insolitum illa autem quemque prosetractâ—re quae ad Parochiam ejus loca ipsi subdita attinent sed neque ille citra omnium voluntatem aliquid facito 36. Bis in Anno Episcoporum celebrator Synodus pietatis inter se dogmata in disquistionem vocanto and 80. Dicimus quod non oporteat Episcopum aut Presbyterum publicis se adminiâ—â—rationibus immiscere sed vâ—care commodum se exhibere usibus Ecclesiasticis animum igitur inducito hoc non facere aut deponitor together with the obvious strain of the whole plainly insinuating the Bishop to be the person to whom the flock is principally and immediatly committed and who as the Primus Presbyter the first Presbyter ought chiefly to minde the charge In which Canons although I grant that their appears a precedencie of Order given to the Bishop over the Presbyters who in these times were many Ministers living in one City and Society having the charge in common among themselves and with and under their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over the Church and Flock in their bounds and also to the first Bishop of a Province over his Coëpiscopi Yet I am sure your Prelatick power and Superiority acclaiming the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is no where thereby approved but rather condemned Your third Testimony you bring from Cyprian in whose time you say That the power of Bishops was well regulate and Setled and here knowing that he professeth That he would do nothing without the Clergie that he could do nothing without them nor take upon him alone Whereby the antient Prostasia and not your Prelacie is plainly and only held forth You insinuate as much as if he had afterward retracted this opinion and this you prove very pitifully 1. From his answere to one Rogatian a Bishop that he by his Episcopall vigour and Authority had power presently to punish a Deacon for an affront received which yet doth not at all seclude the Presbyters according to the Rule of the Canon Law Episcopus non potest judicare Presbyterum vel Diaconum sine Synodo Senioribus The Bishop cannot judge a Presbyter or a Deacon without the Synod and Eldersâ— 2. From this Censure of Hereticks and Schismaticks for proud contempt of their then Bishops which we do as little allow as you do 3. From a letter written by the Presbyters and Deacons of Rome after the Death of Fabian wherein they complain of the want of one to Moderate and with Authority and advice to take accompt of Matters whence you say that surely they thought little of Persbyters being equal in power to Bishops who
prayer and praise whereunto he himself hath promised to direct and assist us And as for the Psalmes given us by Divine appointment for the matter only and not for the formal expression of our more solemn praising we are satisfied with his bountie and therefore do refuse your vain superaddition of an humane invention That our Meeter-Psalmes are no device of men seing they are the same in substance and senâ—e with these in prose without any greater variation then the application of the command of singing to us Scots-men doth both require and warrant is obvious to any mans candid reflection As to the possibility of singing in Prose as well as in Rime I have already acknowledged it and when you shall make it plainly and safely practicable I presume none will dissent But you again return to the Doxologie and asks Why it may not be used in the end of singing as well as it is used by us in the end of praying And this second Demand heats you to be unmannerly and to tell us that such childishnes makes you doubt our rational faculties When in faire dealing it would become your charitie better to informe them but passing your folly I say we close our prayers ordinarily with praise and glory to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost because it is warrantable from Scripture-practice to wit in Blessing and agreeable to the truth and liberty of Gospel-worship and yet we refuse it in singing marke it not in praising because for that exercise the Lord having instructed us with a sufficient plenty of Divine composures we think it neither needfull nor acceptable that we should gratifie an arbitrarie imposition in receiving the supplement of an humane addition It is true the words are Scriptural but can you say that the Scripture beares any such allowance for their use in singing as it doth for the Psalmes of David Yea and many other spiritual songs in Scripture whereof you might indeed with some reason reprehend our too great disuse Hence therefore it is manifest that not only the offence of your unlawful imposing but also the want of Scripture-warrant doth exhibit the reason of our different practice in praying and solemn sung praises which you so hotly urge Having thus Sir vindicat both the Truth and our rational Faculties with how much advantage might I retort your reproach of Childish weakeness suppose our Reasons for refusing were no better then yours for imposing is it not a childish impotencie to be angrieâ— let be to make such a stirre for our scrupling to do a thing when you have no better reason for you then because we exactly and fully do the equipollent And really when in my self I consider that on your part such is the nature of almost all the differences that fill this Church and Kingdome with so much distraction how can it be sufficiently regreted for Men yea Christians yea Christian Rulers to vex and toss poor Innocents whom they ought with tenderness to protect for no other reason even in your acknowledgement but because they will not surrendare their Consciences to arbitrarie vain and frivolous impositions which the very natural liberty of reason would disdain is indeed a matter of wonder which nothing save a Devillish design to debosh Conscience and judicial delusion from the Lord can satisfie But I pray the Lord to open their eyes who ought to see In the next place returning to Prayer you bid us consider how Hosea the Prophet prescribes a form when he sayeth take with you words and say Strong reasoning The Prophet is exhorting a backslidden impenitent and obdured People to returne and for their help and encouragement instructing them how by a short supplication to God they might avert his wrath And this you make a warrant for men rigidly to impose Forms If a Non-conformist should go â—orth in the Spirit of the Lord and proclame O Scotland returne unto the Lord thy God take with you words and say take away the iniquity of a despised Gospel and brocken Covenant and receive us graciously c. would not you think him very impertinent who should thence conclude that man to be for a set Liturgie But our saviour prayed thrice still in the same words and yet the third time more â—ervently I will not tell you that even in the Text there may be a little variation observed but pray Sir who of us ever affirmed that fervour in prayer did consist in a varying of the phrase which is the inference you here make against us and yet that a stinted form specially when imposed may restrain fervour is as evident to any impartial discerner as that a deep fervor of Spirit may oftentimes fixe in one short petition nay sometimes be intended to a degree beyond words is certainly confirmed by manifold experience You conclude that in the Church they used Forms very early I will not tell you that antiquity is not a better plea for Set-forms then it is for Bishops And really in my opinion it is so much the worse for either that it pleads so jointly for both for that corruptions do draw on one another and especially a declination in Government a declination from the pure worship though the first beginnings and antient examples were more obscure yet the joint progress and increase of these evils in the Roman Church and the renewed late experiments which we have had at home confirme it above exception But my answere is first that the liberty of prayer which we plead for was in the Church long before Set-forms even from the dayes of our Lord during the times of the Apostles and their Apostolick Successors is a most certain truth and a better pattern then any after-alteration why do you not then hold to it As for the Liturgies of Iames and Mark you your self disowne them and they are notour forgeries 2. Admit that in the third and fourth Centuries partly through declining formality and partly for a remedy of the then much advanced decay both of Piety and Gifts in the Christian Church certain Liturgies were composed and used yet the very variety of them which you acknowledge as of that of Basile that of Chrysostome that of Ambrose doth sufficiently testify that though they might then have been proposed for helps and so used yet there was not one of them imposed by peremptory injunction As for what you say of the Reformed Churches that they have their Liturgies and that so had we ours at our first Reformation it so exactly quadrats to what I have answered anent the antient Liturgies their being framed for helps that there can be nothing more apposite in as much as it is a most certain truth that both our old Liturgie since you do name it so and these of the Reformed Churches are so farre different and free from the impertinencies corruptions ceremonies and rigid restriction of your Service-book by which it grossly bewrayes its foul Popish fountain that they do more oppugne then
distinction will be found but a groundless malicious forgery but to confirm it you remember a passage of one of our Preachers allowing Sharpness in defence of the Truth and to check the proud conceit of Adversaries and though it arise most natively from the words and be clearly verifiable in all times and occasions yet loving to rake in our former divisions you will have it to be directed against the insolence forsooth of the then protesting partie and to serve as a complete apology for any sharpness you have used But Sir as you cannot subsume in the termes of that doctrine either upon your own defense of the Truth or upon our proud conceit and consequently do fall short of your designed apology so your reflecting upon these differences wherein you are nothing concerned being plainly intended for the disgracing of the whole party doth far more discover your malice then our infirmities and therefore to use the words of the Text seeing you use these of the doctrine although there be mockers with us and our eye doth continow in their provocation at which upright men may be astonied yet let the innocent stir up himself against the hypocrite and the righteous hold on his way and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger The next wedge which you set and drive for to divide us is to tell the world that our humors and sollies are not chargeable upon the whole Presbyterian party that the English Presbyterians are â—ar beyond us in moderation as appeares from Baxter's Disputations on Church-government and all they desired in the late treaty was to be joyned with the Bishops in the exercise of Discipline which we refuse 'T is answered what your opinion is of the whole party shall not be taken from your fraudulent insinuations but as these are plainly enough confuted by your more free expressions in other parts particularly in your 1. Dialogue Pag. 6. Where you say Rebellion was the soul of our whole worke and the Covenant the bond thereof and Dial. 4. P. 62. where you charge both English and Scots with all the blood of the late war So these umbrages of differences which you alledge either from a particular person his problematick disputations or a streatch of Accommodation flowing in a great pressure of necessity from men not by oath tyed with us to this preservation of that where unto they had not actually attained but only to endeavour a Reformation according to the sure rules therein set down ought not to be either a matter of stumbling or an excuse to your deceit But now forgetting your distinction with the same breath you exhibite one of your former charges against us all in these words before the late dissorders all the Presbyterians in Scotland did sit in the Courts for Church-discipline and why may not you aswel do the like And to this you make your N. C. Answere upon the old legal establishment then standing and never rescinded untill the year 1662. On purpose that you may surprise him as you speake with a new discovery forsooth of an Act published and printed now 57 years ago whereby you say the Act. 1592. Sâ—tling Presbytery was expresly annulled and hereupon you pretend such amazement and do make such exclamations upon our disingenuous forgery or intolerable ignorance and groundless and presumptuous shisme that this whole passage saving your reverence doth plainly appeare to me to be but the schareleton tricks of a pitiful impostor For 1. I told you before upon your 4. Diâ—l Where I confess I waved this matter as not worthy the answering That the reason of our different practice now in order to your meetings from what was used formerly is plainly this that Prelacy being at first introduced in this Church mostly by cunning and a lent procedure our true Presbyteries were not thereby discontinued but only injuriously invaded and usurped upon of which practices any honest Minister being free and purging himself of all appearance of accession by open protestation might very lawfully sit still and serve his Master therein but in the late overturning all things being carried at a far different rate and not only the old Presbyteries distolâ—ed but a new foundation being laid of the Kings Supremacy and all the power and jurisdiction of this Church therein fountained and both Bishops and the present pretended Presbyteries thereon founded it is most manifest that your present meetings being no lawful Churchâ— inâ—sicatories are not to be countenanced by any true Minister of Jesus Christ. 2. You make your N. C. lay claime to a legal establishment as a necessary warrant to impower Ministers to meet in Ecclesiastick-courts whereas you know that although we judge Magistrats bound to give Christs Church the assistance and protection of their authority and laws yet we constantly hold the power of assembling as well as of Discipline to be intrinseck in the Church derived unto it from Jesus Christ its head and this is certainly a jus divinum to which all true Non-conformists do constantly adhere and which your N. C. doth very foolishly and weakly omit 3. The noise you make that it is in all our mouths that the law for Presâ—yteries was in force untill the year 1662. Which for my own part I may declare I never either thought or heard alledged as the account of the different practice wherewith you here urge us and your pretended surprise and vain account of being undeceived by a person of great honour who shewed you the Act. 1612. Which I hardly believe that there is any in Scotland of your coaâ— ignorant of What do they signify but the dress of a ridiculous fable to impose upon the simple to our prejudice 4. If the matter were worth the contending for I could shew you that that person of great honour is not much oblidged to your report for the credit of his knowledge in as much as your words do import that both he and you do understand the Act. 1592. setling Presbytery to have been by the Act 1612. totally rescinded and Presbyteries thereby totally disolved whereas the clause of the Act runneth verbatim thus annulling and rescinding the 114 Act. Parl. 1592. Aud all and whatsomever Acts Laws Ordinances and Customes in so far as they or any part thereof are contrary or derogatory unto the Articles above written so that there being no Article or provision in the Act. 1612. Making void the approbation given to the being and meetings of Presbyteries by the 1592. Although I grant their power and priviledges are thereby much diminished It is evident that the power of meeting and doing all other things not altered by the posterior did still remain allowed to Presbyteries by vertue of the prior Say not that the first part of the abovementioned rescissory clause relative to the Act. 1592. Is simple and doth there terminat as I heard once affirmed by one of your party not 't is like of so great honour as your informer but I am sure in