that he should study rather how to give no account at all For he is grosly ignorant in other Learning as well as in this as appears by his discourse about Ordination by Presbyters which follows a little after The Friendly Debate gave him no occasion to mention any thing of this nature but he had a mind it seems to give us a taste of his skill in this great Question though it be so small that I know not how to excuse his boldness in medling with it He supposes that the Chorepiscopi which he makes the same with our Rural Deans may lawfully Ordain And next that Suffragans were but such Presbyters so that he who was Ordained by them had not Episcopal Ordination And then thirdly He would have you believe that Archbishop Vsher and other Learned men concurring in judgment with him were of this opinion Every one of which propositions are notoriously false as I will plainly shew you by demonstrating these three things 1. That those called Chorepiscopi Rural or Country Bishops never had the Power of Ordination being not of the Order of Bishops but Presbyters something advanced above the rest 2. On the other side that Suffragans had the power of Ordination being not meer Presbyters but Bishops as those in the City were And lastly That the late Primate saith nothing contrary to this For the first The Country Bishops saith the Council of Neocaesarea n About the year 314. Can. 13. were but of such a degree as the seventy Disciples and appointed after their Type to whom the Antients every body knows make Presbyters to be the Successors as Bishops are to the Apostles And therefore that Council calls them only Assistants to the Bishops in that part of their Diocess which was distant from the City But that they had only a part of the Episcopal Power committed to them not the whole we learn from the Council of Ancyra presently after Can. 13. which decreed that the Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops ought not to ordain either Ppesbyters or Deacons o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose he that pleases may find many authorities in Justellus his notes upon that place And in the Council of Antioch Can. 10. the same is decreed again that they should know their bounds or measures and appoint Readers Sub-Deacons and Catechists but not dare to proceed further nor to make a Priest or Deacon without the Bishop of the City to which both he and his Region were subject The same Canons were in the Roman Church as appears by the Body of the Decrees p v. part 1. Distinct 63. c. 4. The words of which being abbreviated by Sigebert he calls them Arch-Deacons But afterward the Council of Laodicea decreed Can. 57. that this sort of Officers should be abolished and no Bishops should be appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Villages and in the Countries and that they who had been already constituted should do nothing without the consent of the Bishop of the City But instead of them there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Visitors that should go about to find out what was amiss and correct mens manners In like manner we find in the Body of the Canon Law q Distinct 68. c. 5. a Decree of Pope Damasus to this purpose That the Chorepiscopi have been prohibited as well by that See as by the Bishops of the whole world One reason of which prohibition might be that they did not r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know their own bounds as the Council of Antioch determined but ventured to appoint Church Officers without the Bishops Consent Upon which occasion St. Basil wrote a particular Epistle to the Chorepiscopi requiring that no Minister ſ Epist 181. p. 959. Tom. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Readers and such Ministers as those Luke 4.10 whatsoever though of the lower rank should be made without him contrary to the Canons It is a sad thing saith he to see how the Canons of the Fathers are laid aside insomuch that it is to be feared all will come to Confusion The Antient Custom was this That there should be a strict inquiry made into the lives of those who were to be admitted to minister in the Church The care of this lay upon the Presbyters and Deacons who were to report it to the Chorepiscopi and they having received a good testimony of them certified it to the Bishop and so the Minister t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was admitted into Holy Orders But now you Country Bishops would make me stand for a Cypher and take all this Authority to your selves nay you permit the Presbyters and Deacons to put in whom they please according as Kindred or Affection inclines them without regard to their worth But let me saith he have a note of the Ministers of every Village and if any have been brought in by the Presbyters let them be cast out again among the common people And know that he shall be but a Lay-man whoever he is that is received into the Ministry without our consent By this it is apparent that Presbyters had not power so much as to make the lowest Officers in the Church and that the Chorepiscopi though above the rest of the Presbyters in Office yet were not so high as Bishops but were a middle sort of men between both An image of whom was remaining in the late Bohemian Church as I learn from Comenius who in his Book concerning the Discipline and Order among them tells us that beside the Seniors or Bishops u For they had Episcopal Ordination after they had been made Presbyters and Epicopal Jurisdiction and Succession from the Bishops of the Waldenses and Ministers or Presbyters they had certain Ecclesiastical Persons called Conseniors who were between the other two For they were chosen out of the Ministers presented by them to the Bishop and then solemnly ordained by him to the Office of Conseniors by a new imposition of hands But at the same time these Conseniors promised Obedience to the Bishop x Ratio Discipl Ord. Eccl. cap. 2. p. 37. as the Ministers when they were Ordained promised Obedience to them as well as to the Bishop z Ib. p. 33. Their Office therefore was among other things as we are told Chap. 1. page 23 24. to keep good Order to observe what was worthy of correction to inform the Bishop of it to provide fit persons for the Ministry to exercise Discipline with the Bishop and visit with him or without him if he required it to examine those that were to be ordained Ministers or Deacons to give them testimonials to the Bishop and in short To supply the place of the Bishop in businesses of lesser moment So it appears by the Book and by Comenius his Annotations upon that Chapter a page 92. Minoribus in negotiis Episcopi vices obirent Thus much may suffice for the Chorepiscopi who had not such
a power as he ascribes to them and as the Suffragans I shall now shew you were invested withal who were of the Order of Bishops as much as any other Some have called them Titular Bishops ordained to assist and aid the Bishop of the Diocess in his Spiritual Function and think they had their name from this that by their Suffrages Ecclesiastical Causes were judged But the better to understand what they were you must know that all the Bishops of any Province were antiently called by the Metropolitan his Suffragans being to advise and assist him in the common Affairs of the Church So the word is often used in the Canon Law and in latter times in the Provincial Council of Salisburg b An. 1420 Cap de Officio Ordinarii The Archbishop Everard speaks to all the Bishops as his Suffragans being called together with him in partem solicitudinis into part of the care of the people under his charge Which are the words of our Linwood also who saith the Bishops are called Suffragans because they are bound to help and assist the Archbishop c Archiepiscopo suffragari assistere tenentur Annor in cap. de Constitutionibus But since those times they only have been called Suffragans who were indeed ordained Bishops but not possessed as yet of any See and thence called Titular Bishops which kind of Bishops are no stranger than those Ministers at Geneva whom they call Apostoli who preach in the Country Churches and administer the Sacraments but have no certain charge Yet in England I must tell you it was otherwise as appears by the Statute of 26 Hen. VIII chap. 14. where provision is made for Suffragans which had been accustomed to be had within this Realm as it tells us both in the beginning and the middle of it And it is enacted that the Towns of Thetford Ipswich Colchester Dover Guilford Southampton and twenty places more besides them should be taken and accepted for Sees of Bishops Suffragans to be made in this Realm c. For this end every Archbishop or Bishop being disposed to have them for the more speedy administration of Holy things had the liberty given them to name and elect two fit persons and present them to the King who thereupon had full power by the Act to give to which of those two he pleased the Stile Title and Name of Bishop of such of the Sees aforesaid as he thought most expedient and he was to be called Bishop Suffragan of the same See After which the King was to present him by his Letters Patents under the great Seal to the Archbishop of Canterbury or of York signifying his Name his Stile Title and Dignity of Bishoprick requiring him to Consecrate the said person so nominated and presented to the same Name Title Stile and Dignity of Bishop For which purpose either the Bishop that nominated him or the Suffragan himself was to provide two Bishops or Suffragans to consecrate him with the Archbishop and to bear their reasonable costs This Statute though repealed in the first and second of Philip and Mary d Chap. 8. yet was revived among sundry other in the first of Queen Elizabeth e See ch 1. And it is sufficiently manifest from thence that these persons had Episcopal Ordination being Consecrated by the Archbishop and two Bishops more as much as any other And therefore secondly had Episcocal Power and Authority as much as the Bishop of the Diocess though being dependent on him the Suffragan could not use or execute any Jurisdiction Power or Authority but by his Commission under his Seal as the Statute likewise provides Upon which score Mr. Mason calls them Secondary f De Minist Angl. l. 1. c. 3. Bishops and further observes truly that though in compare with others they may seem to have nothing but a Title because they had not their proper Diocesses to themselves yet if we speak absolutely they had both the Title and the thing signified by it For they had for their Episcopal Seat some great Town g Oppidum illustre lege Parliamentaria illis designatum appointed to them by the Act of Parliament in which and some certain adjacent places to which the Bishop of the Diocess limited them they exercised their Episcopal Function From whence also they borrowed the name of Suffragan of Bedford Suffragan of Colchester c. So that none of those who were Consecrated Bishops among us in England whether Primary or Secondary as his words are were meerly Titular but destinated all of them to the administration of a certain place according to the sixth Canon of the Council of Chalcedon Accordingly we find that such Suffragans being made acted like other Bishops in all things For the Register of the Consecration of Archbishop Parker tells us that at the time of it four Chairs were set for four Bishops one of which was John Hodgskin Suffragan Bishop of Bedford who assisted also in the Consecration of the Bishops of London Ely Lincoln and divers others which he could not have done had he not had Episcopal Power and consequently the Power of Ordaining Presbyters as well as of Consecrating Bishops And so much this Apologist might have learnt from him whom he calls a Learned Prelate if he had read his Books with care I mean Bishop Bramhall who writes thus of the Power of Suffragans h Romphaea Printed 1659. p. 93 The Office and the Benefice of a Bishop are two distinct things Ordination is an Act of the Key of Order and a Bishop uninthroned may Ordain as well as a Bishop inthroned The Ordination of Suffragan Bishops who had no peculiar Bishopricks was always admitted and reputed as good in the Catholick Church if the Suffragans had Episcopal Ordination as the Ordination of the greatest Bishops in the world Nay if he had but read their own Authors he would not have doubted that Suffragans were altogether to speak in their stile as bad as Bishops For the Admonition to the Parliament puts them among the Titles and Offices devised by Antichrist and declares that though they take upon them which is most horrible to rule Gods Church yet they are plainly by Christ forbidden and utterly with speed to be removed You may read more to the same purpose in the Preface as I find it cited in the Censure of the Pamphlet called Humble Motives for Association An. 1601. p. 23 25. In which year I find this a part of the Secular Priests complaint against the Jesuites that they would not be subordinate in any manner to the Ordinary Prelates of England as Bishops and Suffragans and that they withstood their endeavours to have Bishops or Suffragans i Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman p. 73. 87 90. By which you may see they were numbred among the Prelates to whom all Priests were to be subject which made those fiery Dissenters from our Church to declaim so
lowdly against them And all this serves to convince our Apologist of unskilfulness in these matters who pronounces roundly that Mr. Gataker k p. 13. of his Book never had any Episcopal Ordination because he was Ordained by a Suffragan of one of those places mentioned in the Statute viz. the Suffragan of Colchester Suppose he were * As Mr. Clark tells us he was Collect. of Lives of ten Divines p. 131. he had notwithstanding Episcopal Ordination as I have demonstrated and as good as if he had been Ordained by the greatest Bishop in the World But he did not understand I see by this what those Suffragans were and contrary to what became an humble and modest man and the Title likewise of his Book wrote about things which he had not studied or considered Which made him also confound these with the Rural Deans alledging the Primate of Armaghs judgment concerning the power of Suffragans to prove it to be his Judgment that the Chorepiscopi or Rural Deans might lawfully ordain In which he hath done him a notorious injury for there is not such a word in his Book as that the Rural Deans may lawfully ordain But only that the number of Suffragans which was 26 might well be conformed to the number of the several Rural Deanries and supplying the place of those who in the Antient Church were called Chorepiscopi might every month assemble a Synod of the Rectors within the Precinct and conclude all matters brought before them by the major part of voices These are his words which do not signifie that Suffragans were the same with Rural Deans or Chorepiscopi but that there might be as many of the one as there are of the other and Suffragans do all that which those antient Officers did though they had power to do a great deal more For I have proved a plain distinction between them The Chorepiscopi were made by one single Bishop viz. the Bishop of the City to whom they belonged as the Council of Antioch tells us Can. 10. But the Suffragans being real Bishops were made as other Bishops are by three at the least according to the fourth Canon of the first Council at Nice And so they had power to Ordain Presbyters and joyn in the Consecration of other Bishops which the Chorepiscopi had not Nor did our Church ever acknowledge any such power residing in the Rural Deans or any meer Presbyters subject to the Jurisdiction of our Bishops to ordain Priests But as Hadrianus Saravia tells the Ministers of Guernsey l See Clavi Trabales p. 142. in his Letter to them As many Ministers as were naturally of the Country being not made Ministers of the Church by their Bishop or his Demissories nor any others according to the Order of the English Church were not true and lawful Ministers Where by Demissories I think he means the Suffragans of the Bishop of Winchester to whose jurisdiction they belonged Yes may some say our Bishops have sometimes declared otherwise For this Apologist m Pag. 13. out of Archbish Spotswood alledges the story of the three Scots Bishops who never had been ordained but by Presbyters and yet Bishop Bancrofts opinion was that they need not be ordained again which hath often been alledged heretofore by others particularly by the Lancashire Ministers of the first Classis at Manchester in whom he might have found a great deal more than this amounts unto For they fly to a Letter of the late Primate of Ireland with the Animadversions of Dr. Bernard upon it n The judgment of the late Archb. of Armagh c. 1658. in which this Story is cited and the judgment of many other learned Divines but nothing at all to the business For as the Gentlemen to whom the Lancashire Ministers wrote their Letter well observe o Excommunicatio excommunicata p. the Primate did not make void the Ordination by Presbyters but it was with a special restriction to such places where Bishops could not be had Which are the very words also of Archbishop Bancroft in the case of the Scottish Bishops As for the Ordinations made by our Presbyters the Primate declared himself against them in the very same Letter which they craftily concealed as you may read p. 112. of Dr. Bernards Book The words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical Obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being Schismatical Which I find cited again in another Book of of his called Clavi Trabales p. 56. And both in that and the former Book p Judgment of the Archb. p. 122 c. Clavi Tiab p. 55. he tells us the Primate thought their Ordination void upon another score Because at the imposition of hands they neither used those antient words Receive thou the Holy Ghost c. nor the next Be thou a faithful dispenser c. nor any other words to that sense at least there is no order or direction for it And they also wholly omitted those words at the solemn delivery of the Bible inro the hands of the person ordained Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God c. So that there being no express transmission of Ministerial Power he was wont to say that such Imposition of hands by some called the Seal of Ordination without a Commission annexed seemed to him to be as the putting of a Seal to a Blank And if a Bishop had been present and done no more than they did he thought the same quere might have been of the validity of such Ordinations As for other Reformed Churches their case is widely different from that of these men as he might have learnt from another Bishop whom he cites now and then to no purpose viz. Bishop Bramhall * Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. who rells you that he knew many learned persons among them who did passionately affect Episcopacy and some of them acknowledged to him that their Church would never be rightly settled till it was new moulded And others he tells you though they did not long for Episcopacy yet they approve it and want it only out of invincible necessity And that their principal learned men were of this mind appears from hence that Dr. Carlton afterward Bishop of Chichester protesting in open Synod which then sate at Dort that Christ instituted no parity but made twelve Apostles the chief and under them seventy Disciples that Bishops succeeded to the Twelve and Presbyters of inferiour rank to the Seventy and challenging the judgment of any learned men that could speak to the contrary Their answer was silence which was approbation enough And after saith he discoursing with divers of the best learned in the Synod and telling them how necessary Bishops were to suppress their Schisms then rising their answer was That they did much honour and reverence the good
same Office to continue in them and their Successors to the end of the World But suppose all our Church-men had been silent or that they are of no esteem with our Adversaries yet since this Opinion of the Divine Right of Episcopacy hath been asserted by other Divines whom they respect it ought not to have been reproached Bucer declares in his Book of the Kingdom of Christ as I find him cited above 60 years ago y Regiment of the Church by Mr. Tho. Bell chap. 9. just as our Book of Consecration doth that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost that one to whom the name of Bishop was peculiarly attributed should take the care of the Churches and preside over all the Presbyters And nearer still to the very words of our Book in his Treatise of the power and use of the Ministry as he is alledged by Saravia These Orders of Ministers have been perpetual in the Church and were presently in the beginning appointed by the Holy Ghost of Bishops Priests and Deacons He that will see more to this purpose may read Bishop Mortons Episcopacy Asserted Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Nay this is the Language of Antiquity and they may as well call St. Gregory of Nazianzum a Hector as any of us For he sticks not to tell his Auditors in plain words that he held his Office by the Law of Christ You may find the passage in his seventeenth Oration z page 271. where after he had exhorted all the People to obedience he turns his speech more particularly to the Rulers and Magistrates asking them if they will give him leave to speak freely As truly saith he I think I may since the Law of Christ hath made you subject to my Power and to my Tribunal 3. This you may think is very high but I must let you know they who seem to lay their claim lower and speak in a more humble stile as some love to call it differ but in a verbal nicety in the different manner of expressing the same thing rather than in their different judgment upon the substance of the matter So that excellent Bishop lately mentioned Dr. Sanderson hath clearly resolved a Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power p. 12 13. For sometimes this term Divine Right imports a Divine Precept which is the first and most proper signification when it appeareth by some clear express and peremptory Command of God in his Word to be the Will of God that the thing so commanded should be perpetually and universally observed And that the Government of the Church by Bishops is of Divine Right in this stricter sense is an Opinion saith he at least of great probability and such as may more easily and on better grounds be defended than confuted But they that chuse to speak otherwise understand by Divine Right an Authority for a thing from the Institution Example or Approbation either of Christ or of his Apostles c. which is a secondary meaning of the term but not much distant from the former For the Observation of the Lords Day depends on this Divine Right and there is as much to shew as he saith p. 19. if not more for such a Divine Right of Episcopacy as for the Divine Right of that day So that whosoever they be that either wave the term Divine Right or else so expound it as not of necessity to import any more than an Apostolical Institution Yet the Apostles Authority b Ib. page 39 40. in the Institution of Episcopacy being warranted by the Example and as they doubt not by the direction of their Master Jesus Christ they worthily esteem to be so reverend and obligatory as that they would not for a world have any hand in or willingly and deliberately contribute the least assistance towards the extirpation of that Government but rather hold themselves obliged in their Consciences to the utmost of their power to endeavour the preservation and continuance of it in these Churches and do heartily wish the restitution and establishment of the same wheresoever it is not c Now that Episcopacy is of such institution and so of Divine Right he further adds c v. Ib. p. 18. is in truth a part of the established Doctrine of the Church of England and hath been constantly and uniformly maintain'd by our best Writers mark these words and by all the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church This is sufficient to shew that there ought to be no such distinction made as we find in this man between high and low Conformists since all have spoken to the same effect and yet were no Swashbucklers but in this great persons opinion the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church 4. But let us suppose there is some difference yet they that have spoken the highest words of Episcopacy never thought Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius nor had more Charity for those that deny our Saviour's Deity than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy No this is a suggestion from the Father of lyes the Calumniator of the Brethren and seem to me to be the words of one whose tongue is set on fire of Hell For though our best Divines have called it the Heresie of Arius d Doctor Crackenthorp Defens Eccl. Anglicanae p. 241 242 to affirm that there ought to be no imparity in the Church or distinction between Bishops and Presbyters and determined that this imparity was instituted and approved by the Apostles yet they have declared withal that they who think as Aerius did are so far from being in a worse case than Arius was that they are not in so bad Let but obstinacy and perverseness be wanting it will be no Heresie and if it be Heresie being about a point of Discipline it will not be among those which St. Peter calls damnable Heresies e Bishop Andrews 3. Letter p. 56 57. These are the words of one who was as vehement an Assertor of the Divine Right of Episcopacy as any hath been and there are none among us but will subscribe to them who is so far you see from making Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius that his words plainly make him less 5. But these perhaps are such Hectorly Divines you may think that they mind not what they say so belike if it be true which he says just before that they prefer Arminius before St. Austin A very strange humour that these high Episcopal men should set a Presbyterian Divine above a great Bishop But suppose upon other scores they should be so phantastical yet this part of his accusation will contradict the calumny next before it namely that they prefer the Romish Church before the Reformed Transmarine Churches How can that be when the Arminians are among those Reformed Churches for whom it seems they have such a great affection and when the Pope himself as every one knows that understands these matters is against the Divine Right of Bishops nay
Church before the Reformed transmarine Churches Arminius before St. Austin who judge Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius who have more charity for those that deny the Deity of our Saviour than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy and who can with more patience bear a dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony c. This is the language not of the bold blades but of a modest Presbyterian of one that uses hard reasons and soft words if you will believe himself in the very leaf before-going q Preface p 9. Whatsoever charity they have for us their good words shall never be wanting to themselves They will call themselves humble and modest whatsoever they say or do Though they blush not to defend themselves by injuring any body nor fear to cast reproaches on whomsoever that for defence of the truth stand in their way For every part of this Charge is a vile slander and some of it is confuted you shall see by himself Which that I may demonstrate let me tell you In the first place that it is no Hectorism to assert the Divine Right of Episcopacy in the strictest sense This is no upstart opinion broached by some swaggering hot-brain'd men who love to rant and vapour beyond other Folk which is the proper quality of a Hector but hath been antiently believed in this Church from the very beginning of the Reformation and maintained by the soberest men in it I know they would have you to think otherwise and have endeavoured to perswade the World that it is a novel Doctrine advanced of later times by some proud and haughty Divines Mr. Robert Baily made bold to say that before Bishop Bancrofts time the Bishops did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of Divine Right r Reply to fair warning p. 49. Printed at Delf 1649 And the Letter to Dr. Samuel Turner Printed 1647. will not allow it to be so Antient but affirms p. 3. that it is an opinion but lately countenanced in England and that by some of the more Lordly Clergy He means I think Archbishop Laud as some since have explained it But both the one and the other of these talk'd at random out of their own imaginations not from Historical observation Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson as the Answer to that Letter suggests were both of a contrary perswasion And I can name a Divine of their Opinion elder than either and much reverenced even by the Presbyterians who was offered a Bishoprick also but refused it And that is Old Bernard Gilpin who left the World that very year in which Bishop Whitgift was advanced to the See of Canterbury 1583. For when Mr. Cartwrights book was newly come forth a certain Cambridge man who seemed a very great Scholar came to this famous Preacher and dealt very earnestly with him about the Discipline and Reformation of the Church But Mr. Gilpins answer was That he could not allow that any Humane invention should take place in the Church in stead of a Divine Institution How said the man do you think that this Form of Discipline is an Humane Invention I am said Mr. Gilpin altogether of that mind And as many as diligently turn over the Writings of the Fathers will be of my opinion O but the later men replied the Disciplinarian see many things which those antient Fathers saw not and the present Church seems better provided of many ingenious and industrious men At which Mr. Gilpin saith my Author Å¿ Life of Bernard Gilpin Edit 4. 1636. p. 106 107 c. seemed somewhat moved and answered I for my part do not hold the virtues of the later men to be compared to the Infirmities of the Fathers Which words he used on purpose because he perceived this young man had a strong conceit of I know not what rare virtues in himself which opinion the good old man was desirous to root out of him But there is an Authority ancienter than all these viz. The Form and Order of making and consecrating Bishops c. confirmed by Act of Parliament In which three things are considerable The very first words of the Preface are That it is evident to all men reading the holy Scriptures and antient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders in Christs Church Bishops Priests and Deacons Then secondly the Prayer after the Letany at the Consecration of a Bishop begins in this manner Almighty God giver of all good things which by thy holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in thy Church c. which must needs be understood of those before named And lastly the first question to the person to be Consecrated is Are you perswaded that you be called to this Ministration according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ To which the Answer is I am so perswaded Put now all these together and you will not be able to conceive as the Answer to the Letter t page 12 13. observes how these words should fall from any men not possessed with this Tenet that Episcopacy is of Divine Right in the strictest sense For if God by his holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church and we may find evidently by Scripture and antient Writers that there are three Orders whereof Bishops the highest and this is made the ground of praying for the Bishop to be Consecrated and he must profess he is perswaded that he is called to that Ministration according to Christs will then Episcopacy in the opinion of those who composed and confirmed this Book is in such a manner according to Christs Will that it is grounded in Scripture and appointed by the Spirit of God and all this hath not been said only of late nor countenanced only by some few and those of the more Lordly Clergy 2. For which cause no man ought to be disgraced with any odious name much less be called an Hector who is now of the same Perswasion The most illustrious persons that have been in our Church men far from that boisterous humour have declared themselves for this Doctrine and doubted not but they could maintain it I need instance in no more than two Bishop Andrews whose mind is well known from his three Letters to Peter du Moulin 1618. u Translated and Printed 1647. to which I refer you and the late Bishop Sanderson whom the best of you have spoken of with honour and reverence He declares his opinion to be that Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord Christ x Postscript to Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power who being sent by his Father afterward sent his Apostles to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal Pastoral Office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church till his coming again and so the
we will rather therefore draw up the Solemn League and Covenant here and send up with you some Noblemen Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscribed which was accordingly done The Covenant was cried up the Scots came into England and what did they come for It was saith the Preface to Mr. Knox his History to fight the Battels of the Lord i. e. to pull down Episcopacy and to set up Presbytery in its room according to the Covenant which League and Covenant saith Mr. Rutherford was the first foundation of the ruine of the Malignant party in England f See Toleration Discuss'd p. 117. but not of Episcopacy this Gentleman would have you believe for it was declared in the Assembly that the Covenant did not bind against a Primitive Episcopacy page 31. What they mean by a Primitive Episcopacy I will not stand to enquire but this is well known that the Three Ministers in their first answer to the Divines of Aberdeen positively affirmed That Episcopacy was not abjured by their Confession nor their Covenant g See Large Declara ion p. 117. which was averred by many other Covenanters to those who otherways scrupled to enter into their Covenant And I know that some declared the same in England and yet notwithstanding nothing would satisfie but the extirpation of Episcopal power and they laboured tooth and nail to settle the Government by Presbyters alone This the people thought was the great end of the Covenant and there is no doubt but the scope of the first contrivers of it was to destroy Episcopacy root and branch This was their first work after the War was begun to send a Commissioner to the English Parliament 1642. to move them to cast out Bishops not a word of limiting them and others to the King at Oxford to sign all propositions which because he would not do they resolve to assist their Brethren against him under the name of the Common Enemy h Second Fair Wa ning p. 185. But before they came they told the Commissioners of Parliament as I shew'd you they must covenant to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to Scotland And accordingly the same Author informs me that their Covenant came into England with such a clause as this We shall reform our Church in Doctrine and Discipline conform to the Church of Scotland i Ib. p 383 of which the Independent Brethren cheated them making that be razed out and those words inserted which we now read in it However the abolition of the Office of Bishops was their great demand of the King as Mr. R. Baily expresly affirms adding that the unhappy Prelates had found it to be their great demand from the beginning of our troubles unto this day k Review of fair Warning 1649 chap. 12. p. 76. And he plainly affirms that to deny them this satisfaction was to conclude that the King himself and all his Family and three Kingdoms should perish Why so I beseech you It could not be otherwise notwithstanding all their fine words in the beginning for they had sworn to root them out and could not break their Covenant to save three Kingdoms And therefore at last Mr. Baily perswades himself the King did consent to abolish Name and Thing not only for three years but for ever Strange when his Majesty had so often clearly protested that he could not with a good Conscience consent to it Did they force him at last to do it against his Conscience or did they give him such satisfaction that he saw at last he might safely do it Alas we dull souls do not understand the mysteries which they can find in words His Majesty consented to lay aside Bishops for three years till he and his Parliament should agree upon some settled Order for the Church Now this saith he was tantamount to for ever it being supposed mark the jugling that they can never agree to admit Episcopacy again Why so For all and every one saith he l Ib. chap. last p. 8â— in both Houses having abjured Episcopacy by solemn Oath and Covenant observe that the Parliament could not agree with the King to erect the faln Chairs of the Bishops so there remained no other but that either his Majesty should come over to their Judgment or by his not agreeing with them yet really to agree in the perpetual abolition of Episcopacy since he had granted to lay aside Bishops till he and his Houses had agreed upon a settled Order in the Church This was an admirable contrivance especially if you call to mind as the Answer tells him how there was something else agreed viz. that twenty Divines of his Majesties nomination being added to the Assembly should have a free consultation and debate about the settlement of Church-Government after those three years or sooner if differences could be composed A very free Debate this was like to be in which all Reasons that could be given for Episcopacy were shut out of doors and concluded by an Oath to be put to silence But why should I trouble my self any farther The wider indeed the hole grows in the mil-stone the clearer a man may see through it but this mans Sophistry is visible enough already nor needs there more words to shew that this modest Braggadocio vaunts himself ridiculously in the merits of his party and that Mr. Vicars and such like were not the only men that reviled and calumniated They that pretend to humility modesty and seriousness cannot forbear it But if you desire a farther tast of his Spirit I pray have so much patience as to hear how he uses me In the Preface he accuses me of railing and in his Book p. 2. of reviling without taking notice of one word that I have said in answer to these calumnies They are resolved I see to be confident and to have their saying do or say we what we can For he tells you also of my jeering scoffing false accusation and mocking lightness and drollery p 90. 92 137. but not a syllable to make good the charge No that was a hard thing but very easie to say that I write sometime what might better become some Ecclesiastical Hudibras or a Doctor of the Stage than m p. 35. c. Just thus Mr. R. Baily was pleased to answer that excellent Bishop which this man commends Dr. Bramhall Concerning the 8th Chapter of whose Fair Warning he saith it much better beseemed a Mercurius Aulicus than either a Warner or a Prelate n Review p. 48. He charges him also with gathering together an heap of Calumnies c. though as the Reply tells him that heap was nothing else but a faithful Collection of Historical Narrations which require not the credulity of the simple but the search of diligent people if they distrust them The same I say for my self they must be beholden to a new light which no body can see but themselves to make Historical truth to be a slander They are
profession which he supposes me to be not to meddle with these things and whether he be not bound in Conscience especially in case he live among a people distracted in opinion to declare himself expresly either for them or against them c. Others may resolve in this case as they see cause I have satisfied my self that I have done as became an honest man But I did not think to have said so much about this matter nor is it to any great purpose I see to labour to clear our selves of their vile suspitions say what we will many of them stop their ears or drown our words with their loud cryes against us We must have naughty intentions and they must be the very best of men the most loyally affected to his Sacred Majesty who would have thought it more then the very Bishops themselves as this Author would insinuate For they would not be offended as the Bishops you may think would if the Statute of King Edward the Sixth was revived whereby all Citations in the Courts Spiritual should issue out in the Kings Name and with his Seal And it would not displease them to have a Vicar-General in SPIRITV ALIBVS as he assures you p. 33. But he must give us leave to think as that Bishop now named speaks who hath demonstrated that Processes in the Bishops name no way intrench upon the Kings Authority r A Calumny long ago cast upon the Bishops in the humble Supplication for Toleration 1609. p. 10 17. Revived in the late times confuted by Bishop Sanderson that their meaning herein is rather to do the Bishops hurt then the King service and that their affections so far as by what is visible we are able to judge thereof are much what alike the same towards both This you may read in his Book concerning Episcopacy not being prejudicial to Regal power p. 3 4. And what he saith of the one I may say of the other motion which is of the same strain and then made to Queen Elizabeth when Martin Mar-prelates Book came out not to greaten her power but to depress the Bishops So the Book called the Ladened Ass tells us that there were Suitors then to her for a greater Authority if they could have got it then Cromwels General Vicarship over the Bishops and Clergy a Pag. 12 45. and that the very same men who câ—ntrived this were the favourers of the Admonition the frame of Discipline the Mar-all-Libels and other new Monsters which then were yearly bred and brought forth And truely there is some reason to think that such men as this would be no more displeased with a new Martin Mar-prelate then with a new Vicar-General For he is not ashamed to approve of such vile Books as Ladensium Autocatacrisis to which he sends us for information concerning the greatest Enemies of our Church and Religion those who bring in new and strange Doctrines i. e. plain Popery p. 80. A Book writ by that haughty and violent spirit which so often calls the excellent Bishop y Bishop Bramhal mentioned by this Apologist in the entrance of his Work by the scornful name of Dr. Bramble z Review of fair warning in the very Frontispiece of the Book and which puts Bishop Andrews and Bishop Hall among that Faction as he speaks whose avowed Popery was manifest from their Books And therefore the Author of it justly defended that Censure which was given of him and his Book long ago by a Reverend person now alive who saith the man had seen some Visions in Trophenius's Den Raptures and Embryo's of his own adled brain and out he came to vent them like Esops Ass jâ—tting in Purple He was high set in pursuit of fame and scorning to cope with a PIGMEE he challenges no less men then my Lords Grace of Canterbury and all the Learned Divines of England and much grieved he was that my Lord himself would not vouchsafe him the honour to confute him as if a Sky-towring-Eagle or Gyre Falcon should have stoopt to a Kite or Carrion a Dr. Creighton's Letter to Mr. R. Watson 1650 But perhaps the Apologist never seriously considered that Book as I am sure he hath not duly noted weighed mine For if he had he would have repeated my words more sincerely and not mis-represented them so often as he hath done at least not have put me in the number of those that are Enemies of our Church dissent from its Articles and bring in new and strange Doctrines So he would have it thought else why doth he oppose my words and the eleventh Article of our Religion the one against the other p. 85. The comfort of it is there is no clashing at all between them but onely in his own brains which understand not it seems that good Works may be necessary to our justification and yet no cause of it But thus he deals with me in other things what I said of Lawn-sleeves and the Black Cap and White first part p. 81 he translates to Surplesses and makes an idle discourse about them p. 47. He makes you believe I said that afternoon-Sermons were wholly superfluous p. 61. when I onely told you that they might be used or not as they should be found to be to Edification The same perverse representation he makes of what I said about experiences p. 70. Preaching of Obedience p. 77. Doing good out of fear of threatnings p. 84. Pious discourses also p. 96. which were not by me disgraced but their rash censures condemned If I did not begin to be tyred with following him in his rambles I could present you with a great many more Monsters of his own making just like that which a Cheat promised to show his credulous spectators they are the words of one whom he and I have often mentioned an Horse whose Head stood in the place of his Tail and when all came to all he himself had tyed the Horse to the Manger the wrong way Besides barely to show these misrepresentations would be a very dull business and indanger the tiring you quite and to make them appear ridiculous would much offend his seriousness For which reason I shall let these and a great many other things in his Book alone till he give me a further occasion But I intreat him as he loves himself to hold his hand till he hath learnt a little more Logick and knows better how to draw consequences At least let him forbear to draw any out of my Books till he hath diligently weighed every word and the occasion of it For his manner is to make very silly ones and then confute them as you may read in his Preface and p. 107 108. Mr. Hughes Mr. Vicars did thus and thus heretofore therefore the N.C. are all thus and thus now It this saith he good Logick and solid reasoning I say no it is childish and ridiculous but it is his own not mine who produced such mens sayings to other purposes