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A45319 A short answer to the tedious Vindication of Smectymnvvs by the avthor of the Humble remonstrance.; Works. 1648 Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656. 1641 (1641) Wing H417; ESTC R4914 50,068 120

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by Divine Right 2. Part. 4. and to second it they are challenged in my Defence to name any one of our Writers that hath not proclaimed this truth Where then lyes the contradiction The clear nominall distinction of the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters Deacons I professed to prove onely out of the writings of those who were the next successors to the Apostles What is here of either yeeldance or contradiction And if I have ingenuously granted that the Primitive Bishops were elected by the Clergie with the assent of the people That Bishops neither do nor may challenge to themselves such a sole interest in Ordination or Iurisdiction as utterly to exclude Presbyters from some participation in this charge and Act That they ought not to devest themselves of their Iurisdictive power by delegating it to others That the ordinary managing of secular imployments is improper for them If in all these I have gratified them why do they complain and if I have disadvantaged my cause why is it not urged to my conviction It is warily said of these men that I almost grant Lay-Elders in Antiquity I do so almost grant them in my own sense that I utterly deny them in theirs Why should I make any doubt to yeeld unto the Iustice of their complaints in the Post-script against the insolence and tyrannie of Popish Prelates What lose we by this condescent Or how can they plead they are not justly taxed for diffusing other mens crimes to the innocent when their consciences cannot but flye in their faces for this injustice Lastly I am charged with shamefull self-contradictions which surely must needs argue great rashnesse or much weaknesse of judgement See the instances In the same Epistle I professe not to tax their abilities and yet call them impotent assailants And why not both of these He that taxeth not their abilities doth not therfore presently approve them they may perhaps not want good abilities in themselves and yet be unable to prove their cause they may be able men and yet impotent matches The contradiction they would raise in the words concerning Euangelists is meerly cavillatory May you be pleased to turn to the ninety fourth Page of my Defence you shall clearly acknowledge it The word in a common sense signifies any Preacher of the Gospel but in the peculiar sense of the New Testament it signifies some persons extraordinarily gifted and imployed not setled in any one place but sent abroad by the Apostles on that blessed errand Now to say that any of these latter were such as had ordinary places and ordinary gifts as they do Sect. 13. pag. 48. I do justly blame as a meer fancie not herein contradicting any thing but their light imagination In the contradiction pretended to be concerning the extent of Episcopacie sure they cannot but check themselves In my Remonstrance and Defence they report men to say somewhere but where no man can tell that Bishops had been every where and that all Churches through the whole Christian world have uniformly and constantly maintained Episcopacie Elswhere that I say they were not every where and that there are lesse noble Churches that do not confer to Episcopall government Words are more easily accorded then acknowledged There are not there have not been every where setled Christian Churches Where ever there have been setled Christian Churches there have been Bishops From the Apostles times to this present Age there have been Bishops in all Christian Regions now some late Reformed Churches have been necessitated to forbear them Where I beseech you lies the contradiction I have often granted that the name of Bishops and Presbyters was at the first promiscuously used and yet I do no lesse justly maintain that for this sixteen hundred years the name of Bishops hath been ordinarily appropriated in a contra-distinctive sense to Church-governors in an apparent superiority Distinguish times and reconcile Histories The two next exceptions concerning Diocesan Bishops and Civill government are fully cleared and convinced in the due places of this insuing Answer I shall not blur paper in an unseasonable anticipating my own Discourse Sole Ordination and sole Iurisdiction we so disclaim as that we hold the power of both primarily in the Bishop the concurrent assistance in the Presbyters What opposition is there in an orderly subordination The last contradiction clearly reconciles it self In stating the question concerning Episcopacie I distinguish betwixt Divine and Apostolicall Authority professing not to affirm that Bishops were immediatly ordained by Christ and yet averring that Christ laid the grounds of this imparity in his first agents What discordance is in these two Is the ground-work of an house the whole frame of it Can they finde the roof in the foundation In the Epistles to the seven Asian Churches Christ I truly say acknowledges at least intimates the Hierarchie of those seven Angels Do I imply that he did immediately ordain them Readers ye have seen the poor stuff of these their selected exceptions Beleeve it such are all their contradictions to me as these contradictions which they finde in me to my self groundlesse and worthlesse As I shall make good in this following Discourse concerning the ancient holy and beneficiall use of set-Leiturgies in the Church This subject because as it is untracked with any frequent pens of others so it is that wherein my Adversaries seem most to pride themselves as supposing to have in it the most probable advantages against me I have somewhat largely handled to your ample satisfaction But as for that other head of Episcopacie which hath already filled so many rhemes of waste-paper for as much as I see they offer nothing but that which hath passed an hundred ventilations Transeat I have resolved to bestow my time better then in drawing this Sawe to and fro to no purpose Let them first give a full and punctuall Answer to that which hath been already in an intire body of a Treatise written concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacie and then let them expect that I should trouble my self with sweeping away these loose scraps of their exceptions Till then let them if they can be silent at least I shall as one that know how to give a better account of the remainder of my precious hours A Short ANSWER To the Tedious VINDICATION OF SMECTYMNVVS SECT. I. I Am sorry Brethren that your own importunitie will needs make you guiltie of your further shame Had you sate down silent in the conscience of a just reproof your blame had been by this time dead and forgotten but now your impetuous Defence shall let the world see you did in vain hope to face out an ill cause with a seeming boldnesse I may not spend Volumes upon you but some Lines I must enow to convince the Reader of the justice of my Charge and the miserable insufficiencie of your Vindication It is not your stiff deniall that can make it other then Gods truth which I maintain or that can justifie your