But this place is in Vtopia and wee shall finde it paulò post finem for wee finde it no where in this book but we hope in due place faithfully to performe the contrary to what hee hath deludingly promised and also to shew how these words of his doe contradict what himselfe saith in other places of his book The testimonies brought out of antiquities to shew that the names of Bishops and Presbyters were used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee calls trifling and challengeth us to name any one of his Writers that hath stood up in the cause of Episcopacy that hath not granted and proclaimed this which we contend for Wee answer first the better is our cause when our adversaries are forced to grant us thus much Secondly the Authours we alleage doe as well hold the offices of Bishops and Presbyters to be used in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as the names Thirdly though we cannot name the man yet hee who names himselfe the humble Remonstrant in the 96 page of his Defence doth impropriate the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 20. to Bishops in an imparity distinct from meere Presbyters saying If they were indeed Bishops and not mere Presbyters as the word it selfe imports c. And wee thinke you should know the name of this man We mentioned Anicetus Pius Higinus Telesphorus under the denomination of Presbyters You Answer we could not have brought a stronger argument against our selves Why They are called Presbyters as well as Bishops Ergo the names are used indifferently Doth it not fully prove as much as we intended But they are famously known say you to have been in a height of elevation above Presbyters It is yet to be proved they were so yet how ever no such elevation as did advance them into an order above Presbyterie For Irenaeus speaking of the Successors to the Apostles saith Cum Prebyterio ordine sermonem sanum conversationem sine offensâ praestant ad informationem correctionem reliquorum And our Remonstrant granting an identitie of names and yet thinking to maintain a distinction of offices out of Irenaeus comes neerer to the sence of the Popish Commentator Feuardentius then of the orthodox Father Irenaeus To Cyprian whom the Presbyters called frater Hee replyes that though the Presbyters were so familiar with him as to call him brother yet he did never so condiscend to them as to call them Bishops but stifly maintains the eminencie of his superiority and is sometimes honour â—dutth the stâ—le of Beatissimus Papa To all which wee answer first that as the Presbyters call Cyprian brother so he cals them Brethren Colleagues Fellow-Presbyters c. And Augustine a Bishop writing to Hierom a Presbyter disdains not to write in this style Domino dilectissimo in Christi vesceribus honorando sancto fratri Compresbytero Hieronymo So to Praesidius Domino beatissimo merito venerando fratri Consacerdoti Praesidio Yet was Praesidius but a Deacon as Hierome saith For Cyprians maintaining his Superiority stifly wee are sure he never maintained it so stifly as this Remonstrant and our Bishops doe for he as we fully shewed in our Answer never maintained any sole superiour power but disclaimed it wholly yet this is the thing our Bishops contend for as you may read Episcopacie by Divine Right part 2 pag. 16. As for the glorious Title of Beatissimus Papa Cyprianus we tell you in that age it was a title common to Presbyters as well as Bishops as appeares ex Bibliotheca Patrum Primum singulos habent Papas sic enim vocant Presbyteros vel Curiones in singulis Parochiis cum uno Diacono It is therefore but a meere false supposition of the Remonstrant that the title Papa was never given to a meer Presbyter And we hope the name Papa is as great and Rome will say as incommunicable as the Remonstrant would make the name Episcopus out of Cyprian In the next Paragraph the Remonstrant leaving the indentity of names addresseth himself to the great question about the distinction of the Offices of Bishops and Presbyters And here we demanded and now demand againe What these men that maintaine the office of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter make the Bishops proper office Is it to edifie the Church by Word and Sacraments c. Here saith the Remonstrant They fall somewhat unhappily upon the very words of the branded Heretike Aerius Good Reader compare the expressions and see whether they be the very words but had we faln upon the very words how can that man that hath said so often the Liturgie is never the worse because the words of it are taken out of the Roman Portuise trâ—duce either our persons or cause for falling unhappily upon the words of Aerius But it seems he is very willing to take all advantages to involve us in the crime of Heresie For in this and severall other passages hee chargeth us with being the Disciples of that frantick Heretike Aerius which makes us almost suspect that great deserving Champion of Episcopacy Franciscus à Sancta Clara had a hand in this Remonstrance who hath driven the Divine right of Episcopacie so high as to charge all with heresie that deny it But how ever the Remonstrant should have done well to have given better satisfaction to our tenth Quere concerning Aerius and taken away what wee spake before hee cry out against him as a stigmatized Heretike But if hee scorn to answer us we would intreat him to lend Bellarmine a lift in answering the famous Doctor Whitakers Who sayes I answer Aerius was not accounted by all for an heretike Epiphanius indeed and Augustine following him reckon him among the heretikes but if he held nothing besides those things he was not an heretike for the Scriptures and Fathers themselves confirme all these and Theodoret in his booke of the Fables of the Jews doth not ranke him among heretikes nor the Ecclesiastical history but rather Eustathius that did oppose him c. If your greatnesse will not stoop to answer a single Doctor we will subjoyn a second Learned Doctour Willet Contr. Gen. 5. Quaest. 3. and a third Chemnitius in Exam. Concil Trid. parte 4. de Orig. Iejunii and a fourth Springlius de hodiernis haeresibus part 1. l. 3. c. 2. which have spoken as fully in the justification of Aerius his opinion as ever your answerers did But what saith the Remonstrant to this Aerian question Brethren God speed you with your question Sir if you speak this cordially and seriously wee are glad of your ingenuity that though you have called us Heretikes yet our heresie is not so damnable but you dare bestow an Ave upon us But if you speak this scoffingly as we are verify affraid you do then we beseech you in the feare of God consider how you will answer this taking of Gods Name in vain before that great
of ordination challenge also sole power of confirmation If any man object that confirmation is not so appropriated to Bishops as ordination is because as some of you say confirmation is onely reserved to them honoris gratiâ ordination they have necessitatis gratiâ this objection we have satisfied in our answer page 38. wherein we have shewed not onely from Loo that the power of ordination was reserved to them onely authoritate canonum but also that it was appropriated to them for their credit and authority Augustine speakes almost in the same words Nam in Alexandria per totum Aegyptum si desit Episcopus consecrat Presbyter that which in Ambrose is called consignat is here called consecrat and albeit the authors of both these bookes be questioned yet both of them are acknowledged ancient yea Doctor Raynolds affirmes the last of them from the 44. question was written above 300. yeeres after Christ this is enough to us that in antiquity consignat is expounded by consecrat which cleares us of that imagined guilt of a solaecisme that hee would fasten upon us and this may satisfie if this man be satisfiable that bold challenge of the former page shew us but one instance of a Presbyters regular and practized ordaining without a Bishop and carry the cause Our third charge is double first of skill not too much secondly of lesse fidelity Our want of skill is in not distinguishing of Chorepiscopi whō we brought as instances of Presbyters ordaining without a Bishop some of whom saith the Remonstrant had the nature and power of Episcopacy to all purposes and therefore might well by the Bishops licence in his owne charge impose hands Now we may returne it to the Remonstrant that he discovers not too much skill in saying that some Chorepiscopi had both the nature and power of Episcopacy to all purposes and yet might not ordaine in his own charge without the Bishops license For what needs a Bishops licence to inable a Chorepiscopus in his owne charge to doe that for the doing of which hee had before the nature and power of Episcopacy to all purposes This is just as our Bishops are wont to do who give a full power to a Presbyter at his ordination to preach the Gospell with a charge also to do it and yet will not suffer him to preach no not in his own Cure without a licence But how doth the Remonstrant make good his distinction of his two sorts of Chorepiscopi from antiquity Here we have ipse dixit and no more The peremptorinesse of Pythagoras the master in affirming the silence of his schollars when he comes to prove Bellarmine indeed tels us that some Chorepiscopi were ordained by more Bishops then one and these had power to ordaine Others were ordained by one Bishop and those were meere Presbyters and might not ordaine But with how much fidelity Bellarmine and after him the Remonstrant doth thus distinguish let the Councell of Antioch determine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Chorepiscopus be ordained by the Bishop of the City to whom hee is subject From which Councell wee gather that the Chorepiscopi were meere Presbyters and that there were but one sort of them First because the Chorepiscopus was to be ordained by one Bishop ab Episcopo not ab Episcopis whereas by the Canons a Bishop was to be ordained by many or two at least As for Bellarmine his Chorepiscopus ordained by more Bishops then one wee leave it to him to make good indeed we finde in the same Canon the Chorepiscopi in the plurall number had the imposition of the hands of Bishops but when Chorepiscopus in the singular number is mentioned then onely one Bishop is said to ordaine him 2. Because the Chorepiscopus was to be subject to the Bishop of the City ab Episcopo civitatis cui subjicitur now we read no where of the subjection of one Bishop and his charge to another Cyprian pleads the freedome of Bishops telling us that each of them hath a portion of Christs flocke assigned to him for which he is to give account to God 3. Because he could not nay he durst not exercise the power of Ordination without the leave of the Bishop the Councell of Antioch sayes non audeat absque urbis Episcopo Conc. Ancyr sayes non licere nisi cum literis ab Episcopo permissum fuerit None of this would have beene said if he had beene a Bishop as we have in part shewed in our answer page 36. We deny not but that this power of ordaining was afterward taken away from the Chorepiscopi by the same authority of the Canons and Ecclesiasticall rules by which it was first appropriated to Bishops themselves as Leo. ep 88. witnesses which to us is a 4th argument to prove that they once had it and that they had it as Presbyters for if they had it as Bishops the taking of it away would have beene a degradation of them 5. We might bring an argument ad hominem to prove the Chorepiscopi to be but Presbyters because they are sayd Conc. Naeocaesar Can. 14. to be after the manner or in imitation of the seventy now according to the opinion of Hierarchicall men Bishops succeed the Apostles not the seventy To all that we have said in this point we might ad that not onely Damasus in that Epistle which goes under his name ep 4. but also Leo ep 88. proves them to be but meere Presbyters to whose sentence conc 2. Hispal can 7. subscribes Now leaving the Chorepiscopi we will give the reader a hint to prove that not onely the Presbyters of Alexandria and the Chorepiscopi but further the Presbyters of the City with the Bishops leave might ordaine which we prove from cenc Ancyr can 13. named before where it is said It is not lawfull for Chorepiscopi to ordaine Presbyters or Deacons nor for the Presbyters of the City without the Bishop his letters in an other parish from which it appeares that Presbyters of the City had the same power to ordaine which the rurall Bishops had Because the restraint is layed equally upon both this is not onely our construction of the Canon Bishop Bilson Doctor Downam def lib. 1. cap. 8. say the same and Doctor Downam gathers from thence that Presbyters in the City might doe more then rurall Presbyters So doth Spalatensis who endeavouring to elude the text hath no other way but by foisting in a passage which is not in the Greeke text And by this time we hope we have cleared our fidelity in quoting of the Councels of Antioch and Ancyra both which the Remonstrant thought his bare word enough to blast Now we appeale to equall judgements whether the labour of this section were meerely cast away or no. The Remonstrant grants sole ordination was in regard of the exercise not challenged by Bishops in the Primitive times Though he would perswade the reader we cannot but confesse
because he knowes not what to say against it If he did intend to anger us he is much mistaken for it pleaseth us well to heare him give so full a testimony that secular imployments are unsuitable to the Ministers of the Gospell Vnlesse in those two excepted cases of the extraordinary occasions and services of a Prince or State And the composing of unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours We take what he grants us here so kindly that we pardon his unfit comparison betweene S. Pauls Tent-making to supply his owne necessities that he might not be burthensome to the Church the State imployment of our Bishops And should in this Section fully have joyned hands with him but that we must needs tell him at the parting that had our Bishops never ingaged themselves in secular affaires but ex officio generali Charitatis and had beene so free from ambition as he would make the world beleeve they are neither should wee have beene so large in this Section nor so aboundant in our processe nor would the Parliament have made that provision against the secular imployment of Clergy men as they have lately done SECT XIII THe best Charter pleaded for Episcopacy in former times was Ecclesiasticall constitution and the favour of Princes But our latter Bishops suspecting this would prove too weake and sandie a foundation to support a building of that transcending loftinesse that they have studied to advance the Babell of Episcopacy unto have indeavoured to under-pinne it with some texts of Scripture that they might plead a Ius divinum for it that the consciences of all might be tyed up from attempting to pull down their proud Fabricke but none of them is more confident in this plea then this Remonstrant who is content that Bishops should for ever be hooted out of the Church and be disclaimed as usurpers if they claime any other power then what the Scripture gives them especially bearing his cause upon Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the 7. Churches Now because one grain of Scripture is of more efficacy esteeme to faith then whole volumes of humane testimonies we indeavoured to shew the impertinency of his allegations especially in those two instances And concerning Timothy and Titus we undertooke two things First that they were not Bishops in his sence but Evangelists the companions of the Apostles in founding of Churches or sent by them from place to place but never setled in any fixed pastorall charge and this wee shewed out of the story of the Acts and the Epistles The other was that granting ex abundanti they had beene Bishops yet they never exercised any such jurisdiction as ours doe But because the great hinge of the controversie depends upon the instances of Timothy and Titus before we come to answer our Remonstrant we will promise these few propositions granted by most of the patrons of Episcopacy First Evangelists properly so called were men extraordinarily imployed in preaching the Gospell without a setled residence upon any one charge They were Comites Vicarii Apostolorum Vice-Apostles who had Curam Vicariam omnium Ecclesiarum as the Apostles had Curam principalem And did as Ambrose speakes Evangelizare sine Cathedra Secondly It is granted by our Remonstrant and his appendant Scultetus and many others That Timothy was properly an Evangelist while he travelled up and downe with the Apostles Thirdly It is expressely granted that Timothy and Titus were no Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome That is after the end of the Histories of the Acts of the Apostles Fourthly The first Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus from whence all their grounds for Episcopacy are fetcht were written by Paul before his first going to Rome And this is acknowledged by all interpreters and Chronologers that we have consulted with upon this point Baronius himselfe affirming it And the Remonstrants owne grounds will force him to acknowledge that the second Epistle to Timothy was also written at Pauls first being at Rome For that second Epistle orders him to bring Marke alone with him who by the Remonstrants account died five or six yeeres before Paul Which could not have beene if this Epistle were written at Pauls second comming to Rome Estius also following Baronius gives good reason that the second Epistle to Timothy was written at Pauls first being at Rome Fiftly If Timothy and Titus were not Bishops when these Epistles were written unto them then the maine grounds of Episcopacy by divine right sinke by their owne confession Bishop Hall in his Episcopacy by divine right part 2. sect 4. concludes thus peremptorily That that if the especiall power of ordination and power of ruling and censuring Presbyters be not cleare in the Apostles charge to these two Bishops the one of Creete the other of Ephesus I shall yeeld the cause and confesse to want my sences And it must needs be so for if Timothy were not then a Bishop the Bishops power of charging Presbyters of proving and examining Deacons of rebuking Elders and ruling over them and his imposition of hands to ordaine Presbyters c. doe all faile And Bishops in these can plead no succession to Timothy and Titus by these Scriptures more then other Presbyters may For if they were not Bishops then all these were done by them as extraordinary Officers to which there were no successors Sixtly By the confession of the patrons of Episcopacy It is not onely incongruous but sacrilegious for a Minister to descend from a superiour order to an inferiour according to the great Counsell of Chalcedon Seventhly In all that space of time from the end of the Acts of the Apostles untill the middle of Trajans raigne there is nothing certaine to be drawne out of Ecclesiasticall Authours about the affaires of the Church thus writeth Iosephus Scaliger Thus Tilenus when he was most Episcopall and Eusebius long before them both saith It cannot be easily shewed who were the true followers of the Apostles no further then it can be gathered out of the Epistles of Paul If the intelligent Reader weigh and consider these granted propositions he may with ease see how the life-blood of Episcopacy from Timothy and Titus is drayn'd out for if they were not Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome then not when the Epistles were written to them according to the fourth proposition and then their cause failes if any shall say they were Bishops before Pauls first being at Rome contrary to the third proposition then they make them Bishops while by the story its apparent they were Evangelists and did Evangelizare sine cathedra and so clash against the second In a word the office of an Evangelist being a higher degree of Ministery then that of Bishops make them Bishops when you please you degrade them contrary to our sixt proposition whiles the Remonstrant tryes to reconcile these things we shall make further use of them
in our scanning his allegations in this section to which we now proceed Where first the Reader may please to observe that the Remonstrant slideth by our marginall wherein we shewed the delineation that Eusebius makes of an Evangelist and desired the Reader to judge thereby whether Timothy and Titus were not Evangelists Onely he chargeth us with boldnesse for calling them so though himselfe afterward confesseth it page 98 p. 100. But why must this be boldnesse Forsooth because though Timothy be expressely called an Evangelist yet there is no text no not the least intimation no not so much as the least ground of a conjecture that Titus was an Evangelist And if so why doe you afterwards grant it But whether you doe or no that it was so we have proved sufficiently in our answer But let any indifferent man here consider the iniquity of the Remonstrant that challengeth us for calling Titus an Evangelist without a text for his name and yet thinks himselfe much wronged if wee grant him not that Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Church were Bishops though he hath no text for the name nor for the office Secondly To our text 2. Tim. 4. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doe the worke of an Evangelist saith he rather intimates he was no Evangelist then that he was as if it were no more then for the Remonstrant to desire his friend to doe the worke of a Secretary or Sollicitor for him this implies he is neither A very cleare glosse Paul doth not here intreat as we conceive but charge He speakes Imperative not Impetrative Compare this not with the phrases of the Remonstrant but with the phrases of the sam Apostle and then judge In the same Epistle 2 Chapt. 3. The same Apostle saith to the same person endure hardnesse as a good souldier of Christ doth that imply Timothy was no souldier of Christ but onely so imployed for the time So againe in the 15. verse of the same Chapter when the Apostle saith study to approve thy selfe a workman that needs not to be ashamed doth this prove that Timothy was not a workeman but onely for the time When Paul saith 1 Cor. 16. 13. quite your selves like men doth that shew they were not men but onely so imployed for the time How would the Remonstrant have triumphed over such a high peece of ridiculous learning in our answer had we turned off all these texts which use to be produced as proofes of Episcopall authority in Timothy and Titus with such a shift as this this doth not shew it was their worke but onely they were so imployed for the time Wee adde further That when you acknowledge Timothy was to doe the office of an Evangelist for so your comparison of your friends doings the office of a Secretary warrants us to interpret you you must necessarily meane the extraordinary Evangelist for you scoffe page 94. at an ordinary Evangelist as a new fiction which if so then consider how absurd a thing it is to bid the inferior doe the worke of a superior Superiours may be intreated to doe the worke of inferiours because they come within the spheare of their activity and comprehend either virtually or formally what the inferiours are to doe As Apostles have power to doe all that Evangelists Presbyters and Deacons can doe and Evangelists all that Presbyters c. but not è converso Would it not be absurd to bid a Curate doe the office of a Bishop Or a Presbyter the office of an Apostle From all this we conclude That when Paul bids Timothy Doe the worke of an Evangelist he bids him goe on with speed to execute his Vice-Apostolicall office in watering the severall Churches in Asia c. But saith he if he were an Evangelist he may be that and a Bishop too For wee doe but dreame when we distinguish of Evangelists Truely sir this dreame was the fruit of our reading the fancy of the Authour of Episcopacies divine right and there we finde our ordinary guifted Evangelist under which name indeed we comprise all preachers The other branch of that distinction Evangelists of extraordinary guifts and employments we finde in Scripture and in this defence too Truth is their ordinary Evangelists are a new fiction True if we speake of the office of the Evangelists but to give the title of Evangelist according to the naturall signification of the word to ordinary preachers of the Gospell is neither new nor fiction Well our argument we raise upon this ground is slight Paul besought Timothy to abide still at Ephesus 1. Tim. 1. 3. which had beene a needlesse importunity if he had had the Episcopal charge of Ephesus for then necessarily he must have resided there But what 's his answer to this argument Nothing onely saith it is slight And that other argument brought from Timothies perpetuall moving from place to place to prove that he was never fixed in an Episcopall station is of as little force with him The necessities of those times were such as made even the most fixed Starres planetary calling them frequently from the places of their abode to those Services that were of most use for the successe of that great worke yet so that after their errâ—nds fully dome they returned to their owne charge Let us once professe as much confidence in our cause as the Remonstrant doth in his We challenge him to shew in all the new Testament any one that was appointed overseer of a particular Church whose motion was as planetary as wee have shewed that of Timothy and Titus to have beene Or if that faile let him but shew that after Timothy or Titus went abroad upon the Service of the Churches they did constantly or ordinarily returne either to Ephesus or Creet and not to the places either of the Apostles present abode or appointment And let them take Timothy and Titus as theirs the patrons and presidents of Episcopacy But till they can shew this we must beleeve and affirme Timothy and Titus are Evangelists and no Bishops Our next argument from Act. 20. is but a Reed Happy Remonstrant that deales with such impotent adversaries our first argument is slight our second is of no force our third is but a reed Yet let us tell you Haeret Lateri Lethalis Arundo We affirmed upon certaine grounds Acts 20. 4 though the Remonstrant know it not that Timothy was with Paul at the meeting at Miletum and from thence argued that had Timothy been B. of Ephesus Paul would have given him a charge of feeding the flocke and not the Elders but would have given them direction for their carriage at least would not so have forgot himselfe as to call the Elders Bishops before their Bishops face In all which the Remonstrant saith we goe upon a wrong ground But sure sir you are not so ignorant of our meaning as by your questions you would seeme to be We
have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church And why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then Ours We answer First That to our knowledge some have beene urged to subscribe to other ceremonies then have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church and to promise obedience editis â—dendis Secondly that this very urging of us to subscribe to the ceremonies established is more then the Lawes require For the Lawes require to subscription onely to the thirty nine Articles Thirdly We cannot but justly dislike your distinction of The Lawes of this Realme and Church For we know no Lawes of the Church obligatory but such as are established by the Lawes of the Realme as both Houses of Parliament have lately determined And whereas you aske Why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then ours We answer First because it is ordinarily said No Ceremony no Bishop But it was never said No Ceremony no Presbyter Secondly because in the Convocation which you here terme the Church the Bishops or rather the Archbishop swayes all And there are five or six which are there Ex mâ—ero Officio and for the most part are the Bishops creatures and hang their suffrages upon his lippes and but two Clerkes for the Presbyters which also for the most part are forced upon them by the Bishop and his Officers Thirdly because they are ours if ours as a burden But theirs as their crowne and glory for which they fight as for a second Purgatory to uphold their Courts and Kitchins In the next place we propounded an objection framed by Bishop Andrewes and divers others from the inequality in the Ministery appointed by Christ himselfe betweene the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples To which wee answered First that it cannot be proved that the Apostles had any superiority over the seventy either of ordination or jurisdiction Sâ—condly suppose it could yet That superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of different kindes will not prove that there should be a superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of the same kinde To which you reply first That the Apostles ordained the Deacons that Paul laid hands on Timothy But this is no solution of the objection unlesse you can prove the Deacons and Timothy to have beene amongst the number of the seventy Disciples or Paul to have beene one of the twelve Apostles Secondly you answer That Bishops and Presbyters differ toto genere and are Offieers of different kind as much as the Apostles and the seventy Disciples Which is an assertion not onely contrary to the Fathers who accounted the Bishop to be but Primus Presbyter and as Hierome saith Vnum ex se electum celsiori gradu collocatum But also more unsound then most of the Papists who freely acknowledge that Presbyteratus is the highest order in the ministry and that Episcopacy is but a different degree of the same order and not a superior order from Presbyters An order may be reputed higher either because it hath intrinsecally an higher vertue or because it hath an higher degree of honour and dignity Now we deny not but the latter antiquity did by their Canons make Episcopacy an higher Order in regard of dignity and honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Councell speakes but did never account it an higher power by divine right This last branch the Remonstrant would faine prove if he could by an argument drawne from succession because saith he the Bishops succeed the Apostles and the Presbyters the seventy Disciples And we are challenged page 158. to shew whether ever any Father or Doctor of the Church till this present age held that Presbyters were the successors to the Apostles and not to the seventy Disciples rather But here is nothing in which the Remonstrant shewes more wilfull ignorance then in this For the ancient Fathers doe make the Presbyters successors of the Apostles as well as Bishops Thus Irenaeus liber 4. cap. 43 44. Quapropter eis qui in Ecclesiâ sunt Presbyteris obedire oportet his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis sicut ostendimus qui eum Episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum patris acceperunt So also cap 44. and lib. 3. cap. 2. Thus also our Ierome as you call him in his Epistle ad Heliodorum Clerici dicuntur Apostolico gradâ—i successisse So Origen in Matth. 16. saith all Presbyters succeeded the Apostles in the power of the keyes And Ignatius ad Smyâ—nonses saith the same Yet still like as you say you have heard page 125. some beaten cocke you dare erow and tell your Reader that all antiquity hath acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three severall rankes in the Church Hierarchie But where will you begin your antiquity We say with the Father iâ— verum quod antiquissimum Shew us your three degrees in Scripture You confesse page 47. that these three orders are not there to be found We read in Scripture the Deacon to be a step to a Presbyter but not a Presbyter to a Bishop And wee deny that ever it was accounted in antiquity that a Bishop did ever differ from a Presbyter as a Presbyter from a Deacon For these differ Genere proximo No â—erint Diaconi se ad ministerium non ad sacerdotium vocari But a Bishop differs from a Presbyter as from one who hath that power of Priesthood no lesse than himselfe and therefore the difference betweene these Priests be circumstantiall and not so essentiall as betwixt the other Thus Bishops and Archbishops are divers orders of Bishops according to some Canons of the Church not that one excelled the other as a power of higher vertue but of higher dignity then the other Indeed of late yeeres Episcopacy hath beene a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to preferment and a ladder for all pious and conscientious men to be suspended upon as Mordecai upon Hamans gallowes but now is in danger to become like Hamans ladder their owne ruine and downe-fall Iam sumus ergo pares In your transition to your next Paragraph that you might disparage the opposets of the Hierarchicall Episcopacy by divine right you endeavour to make them the Disciples of none but Ierome But here in you cannot but know how injuriously you deale with them considering the numberlesse number of Authors both ancient and moderne that assert that which you would fasten upon him alone In the Paragraph it selfe you confesse what we undertooke to prove That the ancient Bishops and others differ in regard of their Accessories dignities titles and maintenance But onely whereas among other instances we told you of golden Chalices and wooden Priests You tell us That if in time we should see wooden Chalicer and wooden Priests we may thanke our selves Truely sir we may thanke you and not our selves for the Lordlinesse and in solent carriages of some Bishops under the great revenues and the multitude of wooden Priests
his Remonstrance hee made no mention of Diocesan Bishops whereas all know that he undertooke the defence of such Bishops which were petitioned against in Parliament whom none will deny to bee Diocesan Bishops In his 5. pag. speaking of the changing of Civill governement mentioned in the Remonstrance he professeth that he did not aime at our Civill Governement Let but the Reader survey the words of the Remonstance pag. 8. and it will appeare plainely ac si solaribus radijs descriptum esset That the comparison was purposely made betwixt the attempts of them that would have altered our Civill governement and those that indeavored the alteration of our Church governement And whereas he bids as pag. 135. to take our soleordination and sole jurisdiction to sole our next paire of shoes withall yet notwitstanding hee makes it his great worke to answer all our arguments against the sole power of Bishops and when all is done allowes the Presbyter onely an assistance but no power in Ordination nor jurisdiction Lastly in the stating of the question he distinguisheth betweene divine and Apostolicall authority and denyeth that Bishops are of Divine authority as ordained immediately by Christ. And yet he saith That Christ himselfe hath laid the ground of this imparitie in his first agents And that by the evidence of Timothy and Titus and the Asian Angels to whom Christ himselfe wrote he hath made good that just claime of the sacred Hierarchy This is the summe of that good Reader that we thought fit to praemonish thee of Wee now dismisse thee to the booke it selfe and commend thee and it to the blessing of God A Vindication of the ANSWER to the humble Remonstrance SECT I. IF wee thought our silence would onely prejudice our selves wee could contentedly sit downe and forbeare Replyes not doubting but intelligent men comparing cause with cause and reason with reason would easily see with whom the truth rests but wee fearing that many who have not either ability or leisure to search into the grounds of things themselves would fearce thinke it possible that so much confidence as the Remonstrant shewes should be severed from a good cause or so much contempt should bee powred upon us that are not the bad defenders of a cause much worse Wee must discharge our duty in cleering the cause and truth of God and that will cleer us from all the foule aspersions which the Remonstrant hath been nothing sparing to cast upon us Whose Defence in every Leafe terms us either ignorant lyers witlesse falsifiers malicious spightfull slanderous violent and subtill Machinators against the Church and disturbers of her peace c. and this not onely in a cursory way but in such a devout and religious form as we make question whether ever any man before him did so solemnly traduce speaking it in the presence of God that he never saw any Writer professing Christian sincerity so fouly to overlash To the presence of God before whom his protestation is made our accesse is equall and at that Tribunall wee doubt not through the grace of Christ but to approve both our selves our cause And had we the same accesse unto our Sovereigne wee should lesse regard those bitter invective accusations wherewith hee hath so profusely charged us in his Sacred eares But our meanesse forbids us to make immediate addresses to the throne which he hath made his refuge yet may it please that Royall Majesty whom God hath anointed over us to vouchsafe an eye unto these papers wee have that trust in the Justice of our Sovereigne the goodnesse of our Cause the integrity of our consciences in all our Quotations as we doubt not but his Majesty will cleerly see that our Persons cause and carriage have been misrepresented to him The cause our Remonstrant saith is Gods it is true of the cause agitated though not of the cause by him defended and we desire what ever he hath done to manage it in Gods way to love in the truth and speak the truth in love The charity of our Remonstrant wee will not question though in the first congresse hee doth as good as call us Devils because so often in his book he cals us Brethren But that which hee calls truth and the truth of God we must crave leave to doe more then bring in question notwithstanding the impregnable confidence of this Irrefragable Doctor Our Histories record of Harold Cupbearer to Edward the Confessor that wayting on the Cup he stumbled with one foot and almost fell but that hee recovered himself with the other at which his father smiling said Now one brother helps another The Remonstrant calls us Brethren and supposeth hee sees us stumbling in the very entrance of our answer and what help doth our Brother lend us Onely entertains us Sannis Cathinnis and tels us it is an ill signe to stumble at the threshold Yet not alwayes an ill signe Sir wee accept this stumbling for such an Omen as Caesar had at his Landing in Affrick and our William the Conquerour at his first landing in England which they tooke for the first signe of their victory and possession An what 's this Stumble The Answer mentions the Areopagi instead of the Areopagites Grande nefas Of such an impiety as this did Duraeus once accuse our Learned Whitakers from whom wee will in part borrow our answer It is well the good of the Church depends not upon a piece of Latine But can our Remonstrant perswade himselfe that his Answerers should have so much Clarklike ignorance as never to have heard of Areopagita If he can yet we are sure he can never perswade his ingenious Readers but some one at least of that Legion which hee fancies conjured up against his Remonstrance might have heard of Dionysius Areopagita that by a man that had not studied to cast contempt upon us it might have beene thought rather a stumble in the Transcribers or Printers then the Authours But what if there be no stumble here What if the fault be in the Remonstrants eyes and not in the Answerers words What if hee stumble and not they and what if it be but a straw he stumbles at For though Areopagus be the name of the place and Areopagitae the name of the persons yet it is no such impropriety in speech to signifie the persons by the place had wee said the Admired sonnes of Iustice the two Houses of Parliament had this been such a Soloecisme and will this Remonstrant deny us that liberty for which we have Natures Patent and the example of the best Authors in other Tongues To smooth or square to lengthen or cut off Exoticke words according as will best suit with our own Dialect If we were called to give an account of this Syllabicall Errour before a Deske of Grammarians wee could with ease produce presidents enough in approved Authors but we will onely give an instance in the word it self from Ioan. Sarisburi lib. 5. de Nugis
tribunall to which you make such bold appeals The office wee distributed into administring Word and Sacraments Orders and Discipline For the first administring the Word and Sacraments this the Remonstrant grants in common to Bishops and Presbyters without any difference but what our distance makes Which exception wee understand not unlesse your meaning be that Bishops may preach as often and as seldome as they please and wee must preach no oftner then they give us leave The quarrell as he makes it we called it controversie lies especially in the power of Ordination and Iurisdiction which say wee by divine Authoritie is common to all Presbyters which yet our Bishops have impropriated to themselves To prove that the power of Ordination was in the hands of Presbyters wee produced the 1 Tim. 4. 14. to this he answers nothing of his own onely tels us in an Hyperbole it hath received answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he gives but one and that borrowed too from Calvine who takes Presbyterium of the office not of the persons Wherein saith the Remonstrant he follows the judgment of Hierome Primasius Anselme Haymo Lyranus Erasmus and others as Bishop Downham hath shewed Wee doe believe that this is borrowed of Bishop Downham for had he consulted with those Authours hee might easily have seen how little they favour that exposition For what saith Hierome whom Primasius follows in his very words Prophetiae gratiam habebat cum ordinatione Episcopatus Doth this prove that Presbyterium is there the name of the office If so You must grant Episcopacie and Presbyterie to be the same office which is the verie question But wee would faine know why cum ordinatione Presbyterii or Episcopatus should bee understood rather of the office then of the person when in proprietie of phrase if they had meant it of the office they would rather have said ordinatio ad Episcopatum then Episcopatus For Anselme what saith hee Impositionem manuum eam dicit quae in ordinatione ejus facta est quae manuum impositio fuit presbyterii quia per hanc impositionem accepit presbyterium id est Episcopatum vel haec impositio manuum fuit presbyterii qui Latinis dicitur Senior quia ipse Apostolus qui juxta hunc sensum presbyter intelligitur imposuit manus suas capâ—â— ejus dum illum consecraret Episcopum The comment is a sufficient confutation of it selfe for the first exposition wracks the text with a violent and unusuall hyperbaâ—on And therefore hee recedes from that and falls upon a second Presbyterii qui dicitur Senior quia Apostolus ipse c. Now what an unlikely exposition is this What Authour can these followers of Anselme produce wherein Presbyterium is called Senior For those other Lira Haymo and Erasmus we will oppose to them the Fathers of the Greek Church who are likely to know best the genuine sence of the Greek Text. The same Doctor Doâ—nham from whom the defendant hath borrowed these interpretations tels him that Chrysostome Theodoret and other Greek Fathers understand it of the persons and not of the office As for learned Calvin in his Institutions we grant he understands it of the office yet in his Comments wherein wee may more justly expect the full sense of the Text he compares these two interpretations together and let any Reader judge which he prefers Presbyterium qui hic Collectâ—vum Nomen esse putant pro Collegio Presbyterorum posiâ—um RECTE SENTIUNT MEO JUDICIO Tametsi omnibus expensis diversum sensum non malè quadrare fateor ut sit nomen officii Ceremoniam pro ipso actu ordinationis posuit Itaque sensus Timotheum cum prophetarum voce ascitus fuit in Ministerium deinde solemni ritu ordinatut simul gratiâ Spiritus Sancti instructum fuisse ad functionem suam exequendam Now which sence doth Calvin preferre Of that which we give hee speaks positively Recte sentiunt Of the other he onely saith Non malè quadrat And that this Text must needs be understood of the persons ordaining and not of the office Timothy was ordained too will appeare by these reasons For first it cannot stand with the signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The office or dignitie as leâ—rned Criticks observe is rather called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor can it well stand with the sence and construction of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What shall it be governed of Would not any Grammarian refer it to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediatly preceding rather then to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from which it is so farre dis-joyned The words in the Greek lye thus Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by prophâ—cie and the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery Now according to the sence the Remonstrant strives for it is thus Neglect not the gift of the office of the Presbytery which was given thee by the laying on of hands Bishop Downham himselfe without the bold foysting in to use the Remonstrants words of a Parenthesis into the Text cannot make this interpretation good We thought we had sufficiently proved this interpretation in our answer by producing all the Texts in the new Testament in which the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used and shewing that in them it signifies the persons and not the office and severall Texts out of Hierom Ignatius Concil Ancyr to the same purpose The Fathers and Councels hee is willing to passe by in silence The Scripture hee pecks at and tels us wee doe meerly delude the Reader For there it is meant of Elders of the people not of the Church Good Sir do not you delude your self your reader too out of a desire to traduce us Be they Elders of the people or of the Church it is sufficient to prove that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not the office of Presbyterie but the persons in that office And this also may answer that objection which he makes from the 2 Tim. 1. 6. For though we grant indeed Master Calvin was more skilled in the harmony then our selves the Remonstrant might have let it passe so without putting it among his Errata turning it to themselves yet wee must crave leave herein to dissent from Master Calvin as well as Beza Cameron Chameir and others since him have done before us And let not the Remonstrant call it boldnes in us to say that power of Ordination is communicated to Presbyters because Hierome and Concil Aquisgr still except Ordination we must rather marvell at his boldnesse in putting that upon us which we spake not wee say indeed pag. 24. of our answer it was in the hands of Presbyters The Remonstrant would have us say Communicated to Presbyters that wee might seeme to acknowledge the power of Ordination to be originally in Bishops and in Presbyters onely by derivation from them which we never
For the persons that brought in this Imparity we tell you they were the Presbyters and prove this from Hierome ad Euagrium The Presbyters of Alexandria did call him their Bishop whom they had chosen from among themselves and placed in a higher degree This you call a faithlesse and a halved citation Good sir be not so harty it s neither false nor halved not false because it fully proves the thing for which wee brought it which was that the advancing of one to an eminency and superiority above the rest was not a divine but a humane act it was not God but man that was the authour of this imparity and doth not the place fully prove this Presbyteri unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant and say we any more Nor is it halved though hee saith this was done a Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam yet this concerned not the purpose for which the text was quoted and therefore might warrantably be omitted especially having proved before that which the Remonstrant would perswade his reader we are shie of here that Bishops were not in the Apostles times and if the leaving out a few words in a quotation not pertinent to the question be the halving of it how will the Remonstrant cleare himselfe of this sinne who citing the Councell of Laodicea p. 15. makes bold to leave out a great deale more then we did here where a most materiall passage was omitted as before we have observed Neither did we leave out a Marco Evangelista for feare it should prove that there were Bishops as earlie as the Corinthian schisme Nor did our hearts tell us that Marke died many yeeres within the Apostles time for Irenaeus tels us lib. 3. Contra Haeres that hee writ his Gospell after Peter and Pauls death That which wee quoted proves abundantly that the Presbyters both chose and placed one of the Presbytersin a higher degree by their own authority giving him both the degree and the name Doe you who brought in A Marco Evangelistâ to trouble your reader and to slander us reconcile if you can Authors about the time of his death But the last place he bringeth out of Hierom is a most rare place and may well make any man wonder with what face we can say Hiero me ever spake against Bishops and why so because Hierome saith Episcopacy is Gods owne worke where is it in Isa. 60. 17. what are the words Hierome reading that text according to the 72 translation saies Ponam inquit Principes tuos in pacem Episcopos tuos in justisiam in quo saith Hierome Scripturae sanctae admir anda Majestas quod Principes futuros Ecclesiae Episcopos nominavit quorum omnes visitatio in pace est c. herein the majesty of the Scripture is to be admired which hath named the future Princes of the Church Bishops all whose visitations are in peace Good reader consider this mighty mouth-stopping argument God hath promised the Princes of the Church shall be as Bishops Ergo Bishops in imparity are Gods owne worke good sir your Baculus in angulo take to your selfe against you walke to finde texts againe in Hierome to prove Bishops to be of divine institution The rest of your quotations out of Irenaeus Tertullian and Chrysostome they are places have beene oft alleaged and as oft answered wee will be briefe with you For if you had not lyen hid under the equivocation of the word Episcopi you might have spared your selfe and us a labour These Episcopi were Presbyteri you your selfe grant that their names were common in the daies of Linus Polycarpe and Ignatius which are the men you here cite for Bishops And therefore unlesse you can shew that they had a superiority of power over Presbyters such as ours have you doe bâ—t delude the Reader with a grosse Homonymie whom we referre to a passage in learned Iunius controv 3. lib. 2. c 5. not 18. In which he labours to remove the contradictions of Historians concerning the order of succession of the Romane Bishops Linus Clemens Anacletus c. And he saith That these or some of these were Presbyters or Bishops of Rome at the same time ruling the Church in common But the following writers fancying to themselves such Bishops as then had obtained in the Church fell into these snares of tradition because they supposed according to the custome of their owne times that there could be but one Bishop in one Church at the same time which is quite crosse to the Apostolicall times To that of Ambrose calling Iames Bishop of Ierusalem we gave a sufficient answer in our former Booke page 51. out of Doct. Raynolds and shall God willing adde more in due place Our slip as you tell us talkes of a councell No more ours then yours for your party can when hee speakes for them vouch him with much more confidence then we doe But what saith this slip he talkes of a councell as false as himselfe Why because the Nicene was the first generall Synod but yet there were provinciall Councels before And the Commentaries mentioned before doe not say it was done by a generall Councell but onely by a Councell though you by subtle coupling this Councell and Hieromes toto or be decretum erat would faine force him to this sence which toto orbe decretum est implies no Apostolicall act nor act of a generall Councell neither as we have shewed before And yet this we tell you the Nicene was the first Councell in which toto orbe decretum erat that there should be but one Bishop in a City As for Saint Austin his phrase that the originall of Episcopacy above Presbytery was onely secundum usum Ecclesiae you say it was but a modest word and it is a just wonder that we dare cite him Well let us put it to the triall Hierome having taken distate at Augustine writes two sharpe Epistles to him in both which Epistles be doth extoll Augustine ironically as a great man because hee was in pontificali culmine Constitutus advanced to Episcopall dignity and speakes of himselfe as a poore contemptible underling to which Augustine answering among other things saith thus Rogo ut me fidenter corrigas ubi mihi hoc opus esse perspexeris quanquam enim secundum honorum vocabula quae Ecclesiae usus obtinuit Episcopatus Presbyterio major est tamen in multis Augustinus Hieronymo minor This was Augustines modesty say you Well and had not Augustine beene as modest if he had left out that phrase quae Ecclesiae usus obtinuit his modesty appeares in these words tamen in multis Augustinus Hieronymo minor not in the former In the diminution of his person not of his calling S. Paul knew how to speake humbly of himselfe yet highly of his office and so might Austin and if he had known that the majority of Bishops above Presbyters had
in the beginning of the Section he saith This was one of the Acts that was APPROPRIATED to Bishops ALONE and is not this to challenge sole power of ordination afterwards in the same Section he saith Ordination is one of the things so Intrinsecall to Episcopacy that in the judgement of the Church no extremity of Necessity was sufficient warrant to diffuse it into other hands The same power of ordination doe Bishop Bilson Andrewes Davenant Mountague c. challenge to Episcopacy Now Reader judge is the sole theirs by challenge or no And what they challenge that they practise we doubt not but the Remonstrants conscience can tell him there are many instances in England to be produced of men ordained in England without the hands of any Presbyter The Remonstrant is as unhappy as peremptory in his challenge he makes I challenge them to shew any one instance in the Church of England Sir the instances are without number Some of us are ocular witnesses of many scores at severall ordinations ordained by a Bishop in his private Chappell without the presence of any Presbyter but his owne domesticke Chaplaine and without any assistance from him save onely in reading prayers But alasse what should we fall to instances Put case an Irish or Welsh Bishop ordaines one at London in his chamber or some Chappell and admits him which commends the person to him to joyne for fashion sake in the gesture of imposition of hands be hee of what place or Diocesse he will how little doth this differ from sole ordination and how much from that Regular and ordinate ordination of former times Sir these are poore toyes to mocke the Church withall if not God himselfe too Could such a Bishop say as well as Cyprian Ego Collegae You tell us our Bishops may say no lesse then Cyprian did But doth the stile of your Letters of orders speake any such thing Let the Reader judge by a copy Tenore praesentium nos N. N. Providentiâ Divinâ Episc. notum facimus universis quod die mensis Anno in Capella Nos praefatus Episcopus sacros ordines dei praesidio celebrantes dilectum nobis c. E. B. de vitâ sua laudabili c. a nobis examinat approbat ad sacro sanct Presbyt ordinem ad misimus rite Canonicè ordinavimus promovimus In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum Episcopale praesentibus apponi fecimus Construe you this Ego Collegae brethren But you tell us Cyprians phrase Ego Collegae was in the case of Aurelius made a Lector much to your advantage If a Reader could not be ordained by a Bishop alone doe we thinke a Presbyter could As for Cyprians 58. Epist. we produced it not as a proofe of ordination in the hands of Presbyters much lesse for the concurrent act of the people as the Remonstrant would intimate but onely for the explication of the word Collegae But it seemes the Remonstrant was resolved to picke some quarrell and rather to play at small game then stand out And if it be the order of the Church of England as well as of the Councell of Carthage that when a Presbyter is ordained all the Presbyters that are present shall lay hands c. if there be such an order the more blame worthy the Bishops who being such severe censurers of the breach of Church orders in others are themselves in the same crime for though you set a stout face upon the businesse and tell us that this order is perpetually and infallibly kept by you Yet the world knowes it is no such matter unlesse you meane that all the Presbyters present doe infallibly and perpetually lay on hands in ordination because our ordinations are so carried that for the most part there is but one sometimes not one Presbyter there besides the Bishop But why doe you take notice here of one Canon of the Councell of Carthage and not of the other ut Episcopus sine c. that a Bishop should ordaine none of the Clergie without the Counsell of his Clergie unlesse it be because here is such a manifest deflexion in the practise of ours from former times as all the wit and Rhetoricke the Remonstrant hath cannot cover Your next evasion is a plaine leaving the question we are to prove that Bishops in ancient times did not ordaine without Presbyters You challenge us to prove a Presbyters Regular ordaining without a Bishop which is not the point in question Who doth here most abuse the Reader let himselfe judge but wee are accused not onely of abusing our Readers but our Authours too And the Remonstrant hopes he hath us here at such a vantage as shall try what modesty is in us Three foule scapes are laid to our charge First we abuse Firmilianus in casting upon him an opinion of Presbyters ordaining which he never held let us once againe view the place Firmilianus speaking of the true Church saith ubi Praesident Majores natu qui Baptizandi manum imponendi ordinandi possident potestatem the controversie is who these Majores natu be Bishops saith he Bishops and Elders say we To prove it we explicate Firmilian by Firmilian calling a little before those whom here he cals Majores natu Seniores praepositi Which are not so farre from that clause but that they may be brought without wire drawing or foysting and are not so remote from that place as those words which himselfe produceth which we desire the courteous Reader to consider because we are charged by him for foysting in and wyre drawing the words of the Authour and also because the very words there cited by the Remonstrant speake of a power of remitting sinnes which we hope he will not ingrosse to Bishops excluding Presbyters Pamelius himselfe is with us who understands by Seniores prepositi the Presbyters and Bishops Our next scape is but grosse ignorance in translating Ambroses Presbyteri consignant by Presbyters ordaining Every Novice knowes consigning signifies confirmation and not ordaining Sir we appeale from your Novices to judicious Readers and intreat them to peruse the text and wee doubt not but upon due consideration they will conclude for our sence let us then plead the case and tell you first That your Desiderius Heraldus shewes both the word signare or consignare in the phrase of antiquity to be as much as consecrare and so doth Cyprian Epist. 2. and therefore it is not incapable of such a sence as we have put upon it 2. If the Reader please to view the place in Ambrose he shall finde that Ambrose there is speaking of ordaining men to publique offices in the Church and not of confirmation 3. Though it should be taken for confirmation yet you gaine nothing for the same Canon that put power of ordination into the hands of Bishops places the power of confirmation also in their hands And they among us that challenge the sole power
it out of Hierome and Chrysostome Yet let the reader consult the 37. page of our answer which the Remonstrant leaves unanswered and judge betweene us how farre we are from such confession his onely shift now is to say our Bishops neither challenge nor exercise any such power We have evidently proved they doe both manet ergo inconcussum our Bishops and the Bishops of former times are two SECT IX HEre saith the Remonstrant we beat the aire And yet not the aire but the Remonstrant too into the confession of that which would not be confest heretofore by such of theÌ„ especially as have contended for such a Bishop as exercised spirituall jurisdiction out of his owne peculiarly demandated authority If iurisdiction exercised from an authority peculiarly demandated how not solely Well now it is granted that this sole is cryed downe by store of antiquity So then here we doe not falsifie and it is granted that Presbyters have and ought to have and exercise a jurisdiction within their owne charge But here the Remonstrant will distinguish againe it is in foro conscientiae But consider Reader whether this be the jurisdiction here under dispute Whether that store of antiquity which he confesseth to cry downe sole jurisdiction speake of a jurisdiction in foro conscientiae as his false Margent saith Clem Alexan. whom we cited doth But indeed this distinction of the Remonstrant of a jurisdiction in foro interno and in foro externo is like that distinction of Reflexivè and Archipodialiter For all humane jurisdiction is in foro externo If preaching the word which is especially aim'd at by the Remonstrant be an exercise of jurisdiction Then he that hath the Bishops licence to preach in the Diocesse hath power to exercise jurisdiction through the Diocesse and an University preacher throughout the whole Kingdome Away with these toyes He grants againe that Presbyters ought to be consulted with in the great affaires of the Church but doe our quotations prove no more Bishops had their Ecclesiasticall Councell of Presbyters with whom they did consult in the greatest matters and was it onely in the greatest matters Is this all that Cyprian saith All that the Councell of Carthage saith when it determines ut Episcopus nullius causam audiat absque praesentia Clericorum alioquin irrita erit sententia Episcopi nisi Clericorum praesentia confirmetur Doth this speak onely of great matters when it saith Nullius causam audiat Is this onely of a jurisdiction the Presbyters had in foro conscientiae Were Bishops with their Consistory wont to sit to heare and judge causes in foro conscientiae good Reader judge of this mans truth and ingenuity who not being able to divert the stroke of that Antiquity we brought to manifest a difference betweene ours and the former Bishops in the exercise of their jurisdiction would cast a mist before his Readers eyes and perswade him he grants the whole section when indeed hee grants nothing onely seekes to slide away in the darke But our Bishops have their Deanes and Chapters say you and the lawes of our Church frequently make that use of them Yes you have Deanes and Chapters but who knowes not that they have a jurisdiction distinct from the Bishops in which the Bishop hath nothing to doe with theirs nor they with his And the Bishops also derive the exercise of jurisdiction to others we know it too well to Chancellours Commissaries Officials and other of their underlings even to the commanding of Christs Ministers to denounce their censures without any discerning what equity is in the cause And what advise or assistance of Ministers is required appeares by the very stile of your excommunications G. R. Doctor of Law Commissary c. to all Rectors c. For as much as we proceeding rightly c. have adjudged all and every one whose names are under-written to be excommunicated We doe therefore commit to you c. to denounce openly under paine and perill c. Given under our Seale such a day c. Let any footsteps of such a power be shewed in antiquity Presbyters he grants had their votes in Provinciall synods we from good authority say more they had their votes in all ordinary Iudicatures But after all these grants which are as good as nothing now he comes to plead his owne We justly say that the superiority of jurisdiction is so in the Bishop as that Presbyters neither may nor did exercise it without him to what purpose is this if the Remonstrant speake of Scripture times We have proved there was no superiority in them if of latter times it is not to the question wee are proving Bishops never exercised jurisdiction without their Presbyters as ours doe He puts us to prove Presbyters exercised jurisdiction without Bishops quam iniquè But the exercise of externall jurisdiction is derived from by and under the Bishop No neither from by nor under the Bishop but from God who hath made them overseers and rulers and by the same Ecclesiasticall authority that hath made you Bishops and under Bishops not in respect of divine power but if at all in respect of Ecclesiasticall Canons onely Your Timothy and Titus we shall meet in due place Your Ignatius and the rest of your testimonies you could produce would as you say truely but surfeit the readers eyes unlesse you could bring them to prove that Bishops did and might exercise sole jurisdiction Onely because you so triumph in our supposed scapes let us intreat you or the reader for you to looke upon your cited Councell of Antioch 24 25 Canon where you say the Bishop hath power of those things that belong to the Church and see whether that speakes one word of jurisdiction or be not wholy to be understood of the distribution of the goods of the Church as both the instance given in the Canon and Zonaras on that place manifest One shift yet the Remonstrant hath more and that is to tell us that this joynt government was but occasionall and temporary in times of persecution But when a generall peace had blessed them and they had a concurrence of soveraigne and subordinate authority with them they began so much to â—emit this care of conjoyning their forces as they supposed to finde lesse need of it Doctor Downham to whom hee referres in the page before assignes other reasons Namely Presbyters desiring their ease and Scholasticall quietnesse which he saith and proves not and also the Bishops desiring to rule alone which we finde to be the true cause by experience For if the Bishops be of the Remonstrants mind perswaded that the more frequent communicating of all the important businesse of the Church whether censures or determinations with those grave assistants which in the eye of the Law are designed to this purpose were a thing not onely unprejudiciall to the honour of Episcopacy but behovefull to the Church Why should not the Bishops doe
it save onely that their ambitious desires of ruling alone swayes them against their owne judgement and the determinations of the law But indeed if this communicating of all the important businesse of the Church with those grave assistants you speake of or with the Presbyters of the whole Diocesse if you will be onely an assuming them into the fellowship of consulting and deliberating without any decisive suffrage leaving the Bishop to follow or not to follow their advise this is but a meere cosenage of the reader and doth not hinder the sole power of Episcopall jurisdiction And this is all that Downam grants lib. 1. c. 7. p. 161. where he saith that Bishops doe assume Presbyters for advise and direction as a Prince doth his Counsellors not as a Consull doth his Senators who are cojudges with the Consul And this we perceive the Remonstrant well likes of as that which makes much for the honour of their function And now sir you see that we have not fished all night and caught nothing wee have caught your sole jurisdiction and might have caught your selfe were you not such a Proteus such a Polypus to shift your selfe into all formes and Colours Having proved that Bishops in all times succeeding the Apostles had Presbyters joyned with them in the exercise of their jurisdiction and that our Bishops have none is more evident then that it needs proofe This is more to you then Baculus in Angulo it cannot but be Spina in oculis Sagittain visceribus a thorne in your eye and an arrow in your heart convincing you to your griefe that the Bishops you plead for and the Bishops of former times are two SECT X. OUr next Section the Remonstrant saith runs yet wilder it is then because we prosecute a practice of the Bishops more extravagant then the former And that is the delegation of the power of their jurisdictiō to others which the Remonstrant would first excuse as an accidentall errour of some particular man not to be fastned upon all But we desire to know the man the Bishop in all England who hath not given power to Chancellors Commissaries Officials to suspend excommunicate absolve execute all censures but one and doth the Remonstrant thinke now to stoppe our mouthes with saying it is a particular error of some men whereas it is evident enough that our English Episcopacy cannot possibly be exercised without delegating of their power to a multitude of inferiour instruments Can one Bishop having 500. or a 1000. Parishes under him discharge all businesses belonging to testamentary and decimall causes and suites to preach Word and administer the Sacraments c. to take a due oversight also of all Ministers and people without the helpe of others Nor will that other excuse doe it That it is but an accidentall error and though granted concludes not that our Bishops challenge to themselves any other spirituall power then was delegated to Timothy and Titus Sir we abhorre it as an unworthy thing to compare our Bishops with Timothy or Titus the comparison is betweene our Bishops and Bishops of former times But to please you this once we will admit the comparison and shew howeven in this particular that you count so monstrous our Bishops challenge a power never delegated to Timothy nor Titus And we prove it thus Timothy and Titus never had a power delegated to them to devolve that power of governing the Church which God had intrusted into their hands upon persons incapable of it by Gods ordinance But our Bishops doe so Ergo. The Remonstrant thinkes by impleading other reformed Churches as guilty of the same crime to force us either to condemne them or to acquit him But the reformed Churches if they doe practise any such thing are of age to answer for themselves Our businesse is with the Remonstrant and the persons and practices which he hath taken the tuition of Whom we charging as in a generality with wholy intrusting the power of spirituall jurisdiction to their Chancellors and their Commissaries their good friend tels us we foulely overreach The assistance of these creatures they use indeed but they neither negligently or wilfully devest themselves of that and wholy put it into Laicke hands This is a meere slander that Bishops devest themselves of their power we never said That they doe either negligently or wilfully decline that office which they call theirs we need not say it is so apparent And as apparent it is that they doe intrust the power of jurisdiction wholly into Laicke hands for their Chancellors and Commissaries having power of jurisdiction by patent setled upon them and exercising that jurisdiction in all the parts of it conventing admonishing suspending excommunicating absolving without the presence or assistance of a Bishop or recourse to him we thinke impartiall Judges will say wee are neither slanderers nor over-reachers In our former answer we fully cleared from Cyprian how farre hee was from delegating his power to a Chancellour c. This he sleights as a negative authority yet it is sufficient to condemne a practice that never had being in the thoughts of primitive times And we beleeve it satisfies all others because the Remonstrant saith it is very like it was so Though according to his old way of diversion he tels us as Cyprian did not referre to a Chancellor so neither to the bench of a Laicke Presbytery yet he that is but meanly versed in Cyprian may easily see that it is no unusuall thing in that holy martyr to referre the determinations of causes ad Clerum Plebe◠But the Remonstrant thinkes to patronize the practice of our present Bishops by Silvanus the good Bishop of Troas And what did Silvanus to the countenancing of this practice perceiving that some of his Clergie did corruptly make gaine of causes civill causes causes of difference betweene party and party or as you phrase it page 91. unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours he would no more appoint any of his Clergy to be Judge but made choice of some faithfull man of the Laity Now this is as much to the purpose good sir as Posthumus his pleading in Martiall We are confuting the practice of our Bishops in making over their spirituall jurisdiction to Laymen and he brings in a story of a good Bishop that having a bad Clergy intrusted honest men with civill judicature rather then them As full to the purpose is that of Ecclesiae ecdici or Episcoporum Ecdici to prove the Antiquity of Chancellors and Commissaries For their Ecdici were men appointed to be the advocates of the Church to plead the Churches cause before the Emperours against the tyranny of their potent adversaries But we never read that the Bishops did put over the government of the Church to them we could with all our hearts give this honour to Civilians to be the Churches advocates but not the Churches Judges which the Bishops give them leave to
As for that tedious discourse that followeth in foure leaves about our overliberall concession that suppose the word Angell be meant Individually yet it made nothing for the upholding of a Dioce san Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction as a distinct order superiour to Presbyters we will be very briefe in our answer to it to prevent surfet and because it is more then we need have yeelded and also because so little is said of it to the purpose by this Remonstrant And here let the Reader observe 1. That of the foure Authors cited in the upholding of the individuall Angel Doctor Fulke is falsely alleged and the other three Master Beza Doctor Raynolds and Pareus though they interpret the word Angell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for one singular person yet we are sure none of them held Episcopacy by divine right For D. Raynolds his letters to S. Francis Knowles now in print will witnesse and for Beza and Pareus it is well knowne that they were Presbyterians We expected many of the ancient Fathers to make good this interpretation but we see he is beholding to those for it who are none of the lest enemies to the Hierarchall preeminency and therefore we may be the more secure that no great prejudice can come to our cause by this interpretation if taken in the sence of these Authors 2. That the great question is what makes this interpretation for a Diocesan Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction as a distinct order above Presbyters But the Remonstrant cunningly conceales halfe the question and answers much every way And why so Because if there were many Angels in each Church and yet but one singled out and called The Angel of that Church it must needs follow that there was a superiority and inequality But what is this to the question in hand The thing to be proved is not onely that this Angell had a superiority but a superiority of jurisdiction over his fellow Angels but of this altum silentium Doctor Reynolds will tell you that this was onely a superiority of order and that all jurisdiction was exercised in common Beza will tell you that this Angell was onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that he was Angelus Praeses not Angelus Princeps And that he was Praeses mutabilis and ambulatorius just as a Moderator in an assembly or as the Speaker in the House of Commons which is onely during the Parliament Both which interpretations may well stand with the superiority and inequality you speake of Our first argument to prove that though the word Angel be taken individually that yet nothing will hence follow to uphold a Diocesan Bishop with sole power of jurisdiction as a distinct order Superior to Presbyters was because it was never yet nor never will be proved that these Angels were Diocesan Bishops considering that parishes were not so numerous as to be divided into Diocesses in Saint Iohns daies And the seven Starres are sayd to be fixed in their seven Candlestickes not one Star over divers Candlesticks And Tindall together with the old translation calls them seven congregations And because we read that at Ephesus that was one of those Candlestickes there was but one flock for the answer of all which we expected a learned discourse to prove that the seven Churches were Diocesan and so consequently the Angels Diocesan Angels But the Remonstrant baulkes his worke as too great for his shoulders and instead of solid Divinity turnes criticke and playes upon words and syllables Domitian like catching at flies when he should have beene busied about greater matters First he tels us That if Parishes were not united into Diocesses or were not so many as to be divided into Diocesses which we thinke all one notwithstanding your parenthesis in Saint Iohns daies and therefore no Diocesan Bishop by the same reason we may as well argue that there were no parochiall Bishops neither since that then no parishes were as yet distinguished Which we grant to be very true But if there were no Parochiall Bishops in the Apostles daies much lesse Diocesan The Apostolicall Bishops were Bishops of one Church and not of one parish as we meane by parish till many yeeres after But not to quarrell at the word parish or diocesse let but the Remonstrant shewe us that these Angels were Bishops over divers setled Churches or divers fixed congregations nobis erit alter Apollo For our parts we are sure that at first the number of beleevers even in the greatest Cities were so few as that they might well meete 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one and the same place and these were called the Church of the City and therefore to ordaine Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are all one in Scripture And it cannot be demonstratively proved that they became so numerous in the Apostles daies in any great City so as that they could not meet in one and the same place But yet we confesse that it is very probable that it was so in Ierusalem if you compare Acts 2. 41. 4. 4. 5. 14. And whether it was so also in these severall Asian Churches we know not but however this is agreed upon on all parts That beleevers in great Cities were not divided into set and fixed congregations or parishes till long after the Apostles daies And that therefore if when they multiplied they had divers meeting places that yet notwithstanding these meeting places were frequented promiscuously and indistinctly and were taught and governed by all the Presbyters promiscuously and in common and were all called but one Church as is evident in Hierusalem Act. 8. 1. Act. 15. 6. 22. 16. 4. 21. 18. So also in these seven Churches where the beleevers of every City are called but one Church and were governed in common by divers Angels or Presbyters as we see plainely proved in the Church of Ephesus Acts 20. 28. Henâ—e it followeth that there were no sole-ruling Bishops nor one Bishop over divers Churches or set Congregations in Saint Iohns daies Secondly according to his wonted language he tels us of making Bulls and Solecismes because wee say that the seven Starres are said to be fixed in their seven Candlestickes whereas these Starres are said to be in the right hand of Christ as if these two were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know sir That in regard of their protection they are said to be in Christs right hand but in regard of their â—unction and Office they may be truely said to be fixed in their seven Candlestickes But instead of picking quarrels at words you should have done well if you could to prove that these Candlestickes were diocesan Churches We say each Starre had its Candlesticke not one Starre over divers And wee thinke that this Candlesticke was but one particular Church or one set Congregation though happily when they multiplyed they might meete indistinctly in divers under divers Angels equally governing For this
may very well write to him and to all the rest as well as him That Christ wrote not onely to Polycarpus if hee were Angell of Smyrna but to all the other Angels that were at Smyrna appeares by what we said before out of Revelation 2. 10. Thirdly you know sir that by your owne confession Bishops and Presbyters had all one name in the Apostles daies and long after even in Irenaeus his time And therfore what though Polycarpus be called the Bishop of Smyrna and Onesimus Bishop of Ephesus still the question remaines whether they were Bishops phrasi Apostolica that is Presbyters or phrasi Pontificiâ Whether Bishops Antonomasticè and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so called or whether Bishops in a generall sence as all Presbyters are called Bishops And suppose they were Bishops properly so called which we beleeve not yet still it lies upon you to prove that these were Hierarchicall Bishops That they had such power as our Bishops assume to themselves That they were a distinct order superior to Presbyters And that they had sole power of ordination and jurisdiction We are confident that you are so farre from being able to prove that they had a sole power as that you cannot prove they had any superiority of power over their fellow Angels For ought of any thing said by you in this large discourse This individuall Angell may be nothing else then a Moderator of a company of Presbyters having onely a superiority of order and this also mutable and changeable according as Paraeus and Beza hold whom you follow in this interpretation In the shutting up of this discourse concerning the Angels the Remonstrant as if he were very angry spits out nothing but scorne and contempt against his adversaries We bring one example and two testimonies to prove that the Angels of the seven Churches were not superior one to another and he cries out as one much displeased Away then with these your unproving illustrations and unregardable testimonies which you as destitute of all antiquity shut up the Scene withall But though you fling them away in your anger and fury yet we trust the ingenious Reader will gather them up and consider also that this Remonstrant that like another Champion against Doctor Whitaker bragges that all the Fathers and all the Councels are of his side and yet he brings neither Fathers nor Councels for to prove that these Angels are to be understood vidually and so wee take our leave of this discourse In the next place we come to the two postscripts which indeed were post-scripta after the booke was made and inserted to avoyd an hiatus which all the defenders of Hierarchy cite for the averring of Episcopacy by divine right To this you reply First That you are no waies ingaged to defend these postscripts It is true not as you are a Remonstrant but as you are juratus in verba Magistri sworne to maintaine any thing that may uphold Hierarchicall Episcopacy Secondly you confesse ingeniously they are not canonicall yet you say they are of great antiquity but you durst not set downe how ancient For wee have good reason and authority to thinke that they are not ancienter then Theodoret who lived 435. yeeres after Christ. We brought many arguments to prove not onely the Apocryphalnes but the falsenesse of these subscriptions To all which you subscribe by your silence Onely you would faine if you could justifie that clause in the subscription to Titus written from Nicopolis and the rather because you finde it so in that famous ancient Manuscript of Tecla sent by the late Patriarch of Constantinople It seemes then you have seene that Manuscript And if so why doe you not deale faithfully with your Reader and discover what you finde in it for we are credibly informed in that copy there is no mention of Titus his being Bishop of Creet or of Timothy his being Bishop of Ephesus But this is your constant course to conceale whatsoever makes against you and to magnifie whatsoever hath but a shadow of appearance for you that all men may perceive you seeke victory rather then truth But before we leave the Postscripts we will answer to your two questions First you would faine see any pretence of so much age against the matter of these subscriptions the averred Episcopacy of Timothy and Titus For reply we referre you to what is said before at large in answer to this demand Onely we will put you in minde of a speech of Bishop Barlows We are not unwilling to be judged by antiquity so it be such an antiquitie to which Ignatius appeales 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nothing more acceptable to us then Histories if such as are written by him who stiles himselfe The ancient of daies And for the Fathers none more welcome to us then him whom Iustin Martyr cals Pater Patriae and that is Saint Paul Now Saint Paul when he wrote his first Epistle to Timothy and purposely undertooke in his third Chapter to set out the Office of a Bishop mentioneth nothing in that Office which is not competent to a Presbyter and therefore omits the Office of a Presbyter including it in the Office of a Bishop which hee would never have done if hee had at the same time made Timothy an Hierarchicall Bishop with a power to doe that formally which was unlawfull for a Presbyter to doe And besides we have proved that this Epistle was written before Pauls first being at Rome and so before the time that you say Paul made him Bishop As for his Epistle to Titus he directly confounds the Offices of Presbyters and Bishops and makes them one and the same Chapter 1. Verses 5 6 7. Which he certainely would not have done if he had made them at that time distinct Orders with distinct Offices The ancient Fathers indeed some of them call Timothy and Titus Bishops in an improper sense because they staid longer in Ephesus and Creet then Evangelists ordinarily did And did preach and ordaine and doe those things which Bishops in their time used to doe which notwithstanding they did not formally doe as Bishops but virtually and eminently as Officers of an higher degree Hence Salmeron himselfe saith in his first disputation upon Timothy Videtur ergo quod fuerit plusquam Episcopus etiâ—â—si ad tempus in ea civitate ut pastor praedicaverit sacros ordines promoverit Vnde quidam vocant eum Episcopum Ambrose saith one while he was a Deacon another while a Prethyter Others a Primate and others a Bishop Lyra proveth him to have beene an Archbishop and Titus a Priest Beda calleth him an Apostle Aquinas thinkes that Titus was Bishop of Dalmatia because when Paul wrote his second Epistle to Timothy hee was at Dalmatia 2 Tim. 4. 10. Thus you see the Fathers agree not amongst themselves and therefore helpe you little in this point Your second question is Whether ever we have beene urged to subscribe to any other ceremâ—nies then
which they have made who have beene intoxicated with the Golden Chalice of the whore of Babylons abominations hath so alienated the affections of people from them as that what doome so ever they are sentenced unto it is no other then what they have brought upon themselves As for our part we are still of the same mind that honourable maintenance ought to be given to the Ministers of the Gospell not onely to live but to be hospitable Indeed we instanced in many that did abuse their large revenues But you are pleased to say That in this Ablative age the fault is rare and hardly instanceable We thinke the contrary is more hardly instanceable And as for your Ablative age if you meane it of poore Presbyters who have beene deprived of all their subsistance by the unmercifulnesse of Bishops whom they with teares have besought to pitty their wives and children we yeeld it to be too true Or if you meane in regard of the purity of the ordinances the frequency of preaching the freedome of conceived prayer We denie not but in this sence also it may be called the Ablative age But if you relate it to Episcopacy and their Cathedrals with whom it is now the Accusative age We hope that the yeere of recompense is come and that in due time for all their Ablations they may be made a gratefull ablation We have done with this section and feare not to appeale to the same judicious eyes the Remonstrant doth to judge to whose part that Vale of absurd inconsequences and bold ignorance which hee brands us withall doth most properly appertaine SECT XIV IN this Section hee comes to make good his anâ—wers formerly given to some objections by him propounded and by us further urged The first objection was from that prejudice which Episcopacy challenging a divine originall doth to Soveraignty which was wont to be acknowledged not onely as the conserving but as the creating cause of it in former times The Remonstrant thinks this objection is sufficiently removed by telling us there is a compatiblenesse in this case of Gods act and the Kings And what can wee say to this Sir you know what we have said already and not onely said but proved it and yet will confidently tell us you have made good by undeniable proofes that besides the ground which our Saviour layd of this imparity the blessed Apostles by inspiration from God made this difference c. Made good when where by what proofs Something you have told us about the Apostles but not a word in all the defence of any ground laid by our Saviour of this imparitie yet the man dreams of undeniable proofs of that whereof he never spake word Wee must therefore tell you againe take it as you please that if the Bishops disclaime the influence of Soveraignty into their creation and say that the King doth not make them Bishops they must have no being at all Nor can your questions stop our mouthes Where or when did the King ever create a Bishop Name the man and take the cause Wee grant you Sir that so much as there is of a Presbyter in a Bishop so much is Divine But that imparity and jurisdiction exercised out of his own demandated authority which are the very formalities of Episcopacie these had their first derivation from the Consent Customes Councell Constitution of the Church which did first demandate this Episcopall authority to one particular person afterwards the Pope having obtained a Monarchie over the Church did from himself demandate that authority that formerly the Church did and since the happy ejection of the Popes tyrannicall usurpations out of these Dominions our Princes being invested with all that Ecclesiasticall power which that Tyrant had usurped that same imparity and authority which was originally demandated from the Church successively from the Pope is now from the King Looke what influence the Church ever had into the creation of Bishops the same the Pope had after and looke what influence the Pope had heretofore the same our Laws have placed in the King which is so cleere that the Remonstrant dares not touch or answer There was a Statute made the first of Edward the sixth inabling the King to make Bishops by his Letters patents Onely Hence all the Bishops in King Edwards the sixt time were created Bishops by the Kings Letters patents ONELY in which all parts of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction are granted them in precise words praeter ultra jus divinum Besides and beyond divine right to be executed onely nomine vice Authoritate nostri Regis in the Kings royall stead name and Authority as the patents of severall Bishops in the Rolls declare But besides the Kings Letters the Bishop is solemnly ordained by the imposition of the hands of the Metropolitan and other of his brethren these as from God invest him in his holy calling As from God Good sir prove that prove that the Metropolitan and Bishops in such imposition of hands are the instruments of God not the instruments of the King prove they doe it by Commission received from God and not by command of the King onely Produce one warrant from Scripture one president of a Bishop so ordained by a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops and without more dispute take all Shortly resolve us but this one thing what is it that takes a man out of the ordinary ranke of Presbyters and advanceth him to an imparity and power of jurisdiction is it humane authority testified in the Letters of the King or is it divine authority testified by the significative action of imposition of hands by the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops if the former you grant the cause if the latter consider with what good warrant you can make a form of Ordination by the hands of a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops which is a meer humane invention to be not onely a signe but a mean of conveying a peculiar and superiour power from Divine Authority and of making a Presbyter a Bishop Iuredivino Finally Sir make as much as you can of your Ordination by a Metropolitan slight as much as you please your unworthy comparison between the King and our Patrons yet did the Kings Conge d'eslire give you no more humane right to Episcopacie then the hands of the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops give you of right Divine you would be Bishops by neither It is not your confident re-inforcing of your comparison that shal call carry it till you have first proved it from Scripture that God never instituted an order of Presbyters or Ministers in his Church as wee have proved God never instituted an order of Bishops Secondly that by the Laws of the land as much of the Ministeriall power over a particular Congregation is in the patron as there is of Episcopall power in the King Till then wee beseech you let it rest undetermined whether your self or we may best be sent to Simons Cell We say no more
long agoe surely the bitternesse of death is past For when he was brought forth to be stoned hee was rescued by Prelaticall power and his Sermon for which he was questioned printed with licence and in print presented to the Consistory We know a third that in a Commencement did openly affirme Absolution by a Priest to be absolutely necessary to salvation Their Heaven we said was a receptacle of drunkards swearers adulterers and surely justly wee might say so for when did your Consistories that pretend to have the keyes that open and shut Heaven so shut the gates of Heaven against such sinners as that a silver key could not open them againe and though your charity keepe them in Heaven while they live such yet our charity shuts them not out of Heaven if they did not die such But it may be you thinke confession to a Priest when they lie a dying shall infallibly save them what ever their lives have beene and that 's the reason you slide by that prelaticall opinion and doe not question us who hold it We professe still wee had rather goe on in our owne waies then theirs and thinke it our duty to separate from these waies and opinions rather then embrace them yet farre we are from any thoughts of separating from the Church of England nor did we ever intend to affixe those exoticall positions of unsound teachers as you call them upon her but on the faction who hath held promoted countenanced them and sheltred themselves all the while under the name of the Church But if the Remonstrant hate these opinions as much as our selves we are glad if he know others doe because he speakes in the plurall it is well But wee would be glad to know in what Pallace that Prelate lives that hath drawne out his assumed sword of discipline against these unsound teachers Or if he hath drawne hath strucke or if strucke hath not strucke with the backe while the poore Non conformists hath beene slaine with the edge or where hee lives that hath opposed these exoticke positions so farre as to hazzard the Archprelates froune in the opposition Having given sufficient answer to the Remonstrant wee thought it not unfit to subjoyne some Quaeres about Episcopacy for the Remonstrant if he pleased to answer Which though he saith are made up of nothing but spite and slaunder yet surely his owne conscience tels him there is much truth and strength in them else why doth he conclude we put so much trust in them when we never told him so And why doth he not else apply himselfe to answer but like a Socraticall disputant put off the question with question knowing it is safer and easier to propound new questions then to answer ours 1. Your first Quere is who ever held the Lordships of Bishops to be jure Divivo if no body whether this be not to falsifie and slander you might have considered that we spake not of the Lordships of Bishops in abstracto but of Lordbishops in concreto And who holds them to be jure Divino is sufficiently knowne But you aske why it is a greater fault in one of our Doctours to hold the Lords day to stand by humane right and is there but one of our Doctors of that opinion then it is for Master Calvine whom for honours sake no doubt you name here as else where seldome through your whole defence mentioning that worthy but in some disgracefull passage But did Master Calvin ever hold Bishops to be jure Divino or did Master Calvine ever as one of our Lord-bishops who having received a letter from a Gentleman of his City against the publication of the Booke of sports returned no other answer then a sharpe censure of his zeale as giddy and indiscreet Or did Master Calvin ever cry up Altars instead of Communion Tables or Priests instead of Ministers yet in these termes our Quere was propounded and what ever Master Calvin doth in his institution yet in his Comment upon Deuteronomy hee stands for the strict observation of the Lords day 2. Whether it were any other than King Iames himselfe of blessed memory that said No Bishop no King c. King Iames of blessed memory never spake this of Bishops by divine right which are the Bishops now contended for And if King Iames of blessed memory said no Bishop no King it was not hee but others that added no Ceremony no Bishop nay some have risen higher and said if neither Bishop nor a King how a God 3. Whether since it is proved that Bishops are of more then meere humane ordinance and have so long continued in the Christian Church to the great good of Church and State it be not fit to establish them for ever and to avoyd a dangerous motion of innovation sure if the Remonstrants words may goe for proofe it is proved else not that Bishops are of more then humane ordinance and so long continuance and how advantagious to the good of Church and State Acta probant and though motions of innovation may be dangerous yet motions of Renovation are not Non est pudor ad meliora transire it s no shame to amend 4. Whether these Answerers have the wit or grace to understand the true meaning of the Divine right of Episcopacy We will not impute it to want of wit or grace in the Remonstrant but sure himselfe doth not clearely understand it hee is so unconstant to his opinions but whether the Remonstrant or his answerers understand the right of Episcopacy better let the Readers to whose censure both in this controversie must stand or fall determine for our parts wee hope wee understand what jus divinum meanes but doe ingenuously confesse we have neither wit nor grace to understand the jus divinum of Episcopacy 5. Whether there be any question at all in the fifth question yes certainely if the Remonstrant would not have baulked that which he knew not how to take away the distinction of Apostolicall right which say we is either such as is founded upon the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles and is we grant divine or such as is not recorded in their writings and is onely of things reported to be introduced into the Church the Apostles yet living Now if the Remonstrant hold Episcopacy to be of Apostolicall right in the first sence why doth he then grant us in expresse tearmes that in originall authority of Scripture Bishops and Presbyters are originally the samâ— and why doth he in the same page make his retreat from the writings of the Apostles to the monuments of succeeding times If he hold it in the latter sence these two things yet remaine to be done First he is to prove that Bishops in a superiority of power over Presbyters were introduced into the Church the Apostles yet living and answer his friend Cassander and our other testimonies produced to the contrary Secondly to prove that such things may be of Divine right whereof
no record is found in Divine writings 6. Whether Master Beza have not heard soundly of his distinction of the three kinds of Episcopacy in the full and learned answer of Soravia Yes and Soravia and others that have borrowed from him have heard as foundly of their defences of Episcopacy both by domesticke and forreine Divines who have sufficiently declared how well our story of the Painter suits with your Discipline but iâ— that please you not we can â—it you with an other of the Painter mentioned in Plutarch who having drawne a cocke very unskilfully and rudely could not indure any cocke to stand within view for feare of discovering the deformity of his picture So our Bishops having drawne a forme and line of government which they propose to the world as divine will not indure the true divine government to come in view for feare of discovering the irregularity of theirs 7. Whether it were not fit that we also should speake as the ancient Fathers did Sir by your leave it is safe to speake in the language the Scripture speakes but you should have done well to have spoken to the reason upon which our Quere was grounded and what further reasons we then had and still have to make this Quere may appeare by what wee have sayd before in vindicating Timothy and Titus from such like objections 8. Whether Presbyters can without sinne arrogate unto themselves the exercise of the power of publike Church-government c. to say nothing what honour here you give to your deare Sister-Churches Our answer is Yes they may take the exercise of that power without sinne though not without danger if your High-Commission were standing For our Saviour Christ when he gave to Peter the promise of the keyes made in one undistinguishable act a donation of the power both of preaching and governing and therefore if Presbyters may without sin publickly exercise the one by vertue of that donation they may by the same charter as warrantably exercise the other The last branch of your quere Whether any Father or Doctor till this age held that Presbyters were successors to the Apostles c. We wonder that any man who hath but the repute of learning shouldâ— make such a quere And for the answer we refer you to what we have said before in this booke 9. Whether ever any Bishops assumed to themselves power temporall to be Barons c. Our answer is You shew better writts for your temporalties then you have done yet for your spiritualties And our quaere was directed to shew the spirituall power of Bishops to be of more dangerous consequence then their temporall to which purpose we produced five reasons which wee perswade our selves you scarcely read over for in the third there is a fault in the printing which had you seene your charity would scarce have let passe without an observation which remaining unanswered wee conclude as before it concernes all those that have spirituall eyes to endeavour to abrogate their spirituall usurpationsâ— as well as their temporall As for the latter part of this Quere it is a begging of the whole dispute Et eadem facilitate rejicitur quâ affirmatur 10. Whether the answerers have not just cause to be ashamed of patronizing a noted hereticke Aerius c. To this we answer That if Aerius was accounted an heretique for denying Bishops to be all one with Presbyters by divine right we are not ashamed to patronize him till you have answered our allegations for his defence which are brought in this quere and in divers places in this Booke But you could not be so ignorant but to know how Bellarmine and divers others doe say That Aerius was accounted an hereticke not for denying the inequality of Bishops and Presbyters by Scripture but by the Canons of the Church But wee wonder how we escaped the brand of the heresie of the Audiani who by the same Epiphanius are called heretiques though men of a blamelesse conversation because they did not without just cause freely and boldly reprove the vices of the Bishops of their daies 11. Whether the great apostacy of the Church of Rome doe or did consist in the maintaining the order of government set by the Apostles themselves c. Sure no wee never sayd nor thought it But that a great part of the Apostacy of the Church of Rome consisted in swarving from the discipline of Christ and hiâ— Apostles as well as from the doctrine and setting up and maintaining a new Hierarchicall forme which cannot enter into our hearts to thinke the Apostles did ever set up and which the most part of the Churches in the Christian World that are professedly opposite unto the Church of Rome doe oppose as much as they doe Rome it selfe though you beare the Reader in hand they all maintaine it no lesse constantly then Rome it selfe doth which no man but he that hath captivated reason modesty to his cause and will would have so confidently and untruly spoken Once againe let us aske you whether by this bould speech all the reformed Churches of Christ be not now shut out of the number of Churches 12. Whether if Episcopacy be through the mâ—nificence of good Princes honoured with a title of dignity c. it to be ever the more declined Since the time that Episcopacy has bin honored with dignity and revenues the office hath not bin declined but the Bishops themselves haue bin declining Yet our Quere was not whether this were a ground of declining the place but rather of desiring the place As for our crying up the Presbytery because wee hope to carry some sway in it We acknowledge our selves unworthy to beare any part in it but we heartily desire that Christ may rule and wee shall most willingly subject our selves to his government 13. Whether there bee no other apparent causes to be given for the encrease of popery and superstition in the Kingdome besides Episcopacy which hath strongly laboured to oppose it c. We deny not but there may have bin other causes but none so apparant as Episcopacy But whereas in a parenthesis which you might well have left out without any detriment either to your sense or the truth you say that Episcopacy hath strongly laboured to oppose popery we answer Quid verba audimus cum facta videmus you aske againe whether the multitude of Sects you should have added which the tyranny of Bishops hath made And professed â—lovenlinesse in Gods service have not bin guilty of the encrease of prophanenesse We answer againe not so much as the forbidding of preaching and Catechising as the countenancing of sports on the Lords day as the scandalous lives of too too many episcopall men and the libertinisme of the Bishops houses and Courts 14. Your 14. Quere consists of a Paradox and a Solâ—cisme A Paradox in saying That all Churches throughout the whole Christian world have ever observed and doe constantly and uniformely obserue and maintaine Episcopall
Legions as men hee would meet them undismayed and say with holy David Though an host should encampe against mee my heart should not feare but with just confidence I gladly fly to the barre of this high and Honorable Court And yet by his leave hee thought it his best wisdome to fly from this barre and to dedicate his book to the Kings Majestie alone and not to the two houses And in another place hee saith the Apostles practise is so irrefragable for them that if wee doe but adde the unquestionable practise of their immediate successors hee knowes not what more light can bee desired for the manifestation of the truth of his opinion In his Epistle to the King hee saith That if hee doth not make it appeare that wee have abused our Reader with false shewes of misalleadged antiquities and meerely colourable pretences of proofes let the blemish of his reputation leade way to the sharpest censure upon his person Iust like the Authour of Episcopacie by Divine right who is so confident against Lay Elders That hee offers to forfeit his life to justice and his reputation to shame if any man living can shew that ever there was a Ruling Elder in the world till Farel and Viret first created them And yet hee could not but know that Arch-Bishop Whitgift as well seene in Antiquitie as himselfe confesseth that there were Ruling Elders in the Primitive Church Thus also doth Bishop King Saravia himselfe thinkes the governement of Ruling Elders to be good and profitable In his answer to our arguments sometimes hee tells us that wee prove nothing but our bold ignorance and absurd inconsequences Otherwhile hee saith Poore arguments scarce worthy of a passe These are trifling cavills not worth the answer Verball exceptions which will sinke like light froath Meere declamations worthie of no answer but contempt and scorne forbeare Reader if you can to smile at this curious subtilty What Cabalisme have wee here Our quaeries are made up of nothing but spight and slander His ordinarie answer toour Testimonies out of Antiquity is This Authour is misalledged That Father abused This Councell shuffled up with little fidelitie Away with your unproving illustrations and unregardable testimonies And this is all the answer hee gives Throughout the whole booke he endeavours to render us to the Reader as destitute of all learning as if our reading had never gone beyond a Polyanthea Hee calles us boldly ignorant And that wee would make the Reader beleeve that wee had seene a Father And that we would seeme to have seene the Canon Law And that it is enough wee can shew a little reading to no purpose But in all these and many more such like Sarcasmes and vaine Rhetorications hee doth but act the part of his Hierarchicall predecessors whose chiefe answers have beene scoffes and scornes and therefore what learned Rivetus saith of Bishop Mountague may with as much truth bee averred of this namelesse Author Montacutius vir certedoctus sed admodum praefidens tumidus aliorum contemptor suggillator And in another place Non potest vir ille sine convitijs quemquam a quo dissentit vel in levissimis nominare But what strength and weight there is in such kinde of arguments and answers let the wise Reader judge And yet not withstanding all this confidence Thrasonicall boasting we desire thee to observe Fourthly That if the whole booke were divided into foure parts there is one quarter of which he makes no mention but passeth it over either with scorne or silence And where our arguments are strongest there hee slides away without answering which cannot but make the judicious Reader beleeve that hee thought the yron to hot for him and therefore would not touch it least it should burne his owne fingers as himselfe saith pag. 21. And even in those things wherein hee undertakes to answere us we cannot but give notice that wee have confitentem reum and in effect the cause granted in those things which are most materiall For when wee prove from Scripture the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters both in name and office he tells us with a little varying of our words Wee idly loose our labour It neede bee no scruple to us It is in expresse termes granted when we prove that there are not three degrees of Ministery in the Scripture to wit Bishops Presbyters and Deacous hee answers it is granted you speake of the Apostles writings but I of their successors Hee granteth also that the Primitive Bishops were elected by the Clergie and people That Bishops ought not to have sole power in Ordination and Iurisdiction That they ought not to delegate their power to others That the ordinary managing of secular imployments is improper for them And hee doth almost grant that there were Lay-Elders in antiquity For whereas the Author of Episcopacy by Divine right affirmeth that the name of Elders of the Church in all antiquity comprehendeth none but Preachers and that therefore they onely may bee called Seniores Ecclesiae though some others may have the title of Seniores populi because of their civill authority This Author acknowledgeth that besides Pastors and besides the Magistrates and Elders of the City there are to bee found in antiquity Seniores Ecclesiastici Indeede hee saith that these were but as our Churchwardens or Vestry men But how true this is the Reader shall see in due place Lastly hee grants that all that wee say in the Postscripts about the Popish Prelates is true Celari non potuit negari non debuit And for what we say of the Protestant Bishops he denies not the truth of it only he chides for taxing all for the fault of some And in these things wherein hee doth diametrically oppose us hee doth frequently contradict himselfe and his best friends In his Epistle dedicatory hee professeth that he taxeth not our ability yet in the same Epistle hee calles us impotent assailants and afterwards Men of weake judgements and strong malice And Men that would seeme to have seene a Father And that all that we say is nothing but bold ignorance Pag. 94. he saith That to acknowledge an Ordinary Evangelist is a phancy and a dreame And yet elsewhere he makes every Preacher of the Gospell to be an Evangelist In his Remonstrant and in his defence he saith that Bishops had beene every where throughout all the Regions of the Christian world And that all Churches throughout the whole Christian world have uniformely and constantly maintained Episcopacy And yet elsewhere he denies that ever hee said That Bishops were every where and confesseth that there are lesse noble Churches that doe not conferre to Episcopall Governement Pag. 161. hee tells us that for 1600 yeares the name of Bishops hath bin appropriated in a plain contradistinction to the governors of the Church But in other places he often grants that the Name was confounded and ascribed to Presbyters are well as Bishops In his 36. pag. he saith That in
good cards for their standing as he pretends for his own grant it so what will follow upon that but this That Bishops clayming the same grounds for their standing that the Pope doth aspire to be as independant from Princes as the Pope is and that they have no more Divine Right then the Pope But what 's this to our Bishops who professe notwithstanding their Divine Right to hold their places and exercise of Iurisdiction wholly from the King Surely ours have begun to affect the same Exemption from Secular power to make large and haughty strides towards an independant Hierarchie So that it is no envious upbraid to parallell ours with the former Bishops For it hath well appeared that the Hierarchicall Episcopacie is full of such high and large principles of Pride Ambition Tyranny as can be circumscribed in no moderate bounds But is always swelling to the affectation of an Absolute Ecclesiasticall Monarchie And it is worth the enquiring whether the three last books of Hookers Ecclesiasticall Politie be not suppressed by him that hath them because they give the Prince too much power in Ecclesiasticall matters and are not for the Divine Right of Bishops But we shall be chid anon and accused of spight for this as wee are for the observation formerly made upon his comparison between the attempts of Alteration in our Neighbour Church by the Episcopall faction and that which is now justly desired by the humble Petitioners to this Honourable House This saith the Remonstrant is a foule slander to charge the name of Episcopacie with a Faction For a fact imputed to some few Were they but a few that did attempt and prosecute that alteration the more is our misery that a few Bishops can put both Kingdomes into so dangerous a combustion what stirre would they all make if they should unite their powers And were they but a few that were the Factors for that Attempt how then was it that one of the Episcopall Tribe in publike Court called the Scotch designe Bellum Episcopale and where were the rest of the peaceable Orthodox Bishops the while that might in love to peace truth have opposed those bold attempts not have suffered a few upon whom you now leave the guilt of faction to expose the deare and precious name of Episcopacie to that obloquie Let the Remonstrant never cry fie upon his brethren that dare challenge Episcopacie of Faction but fie upon his Fathers the bishops that have subjected it to that challenge had bishops done so in Cyprians time we doubt not but theâ—e would have bin fonnd Presbyters who would have said as much and need never have feared Gaoles nor Pillories nor high Commissions the holy Discipline wherewith the Fathers of the sacred Hierarchie have of late yeers visited such offences SECT II. WEE are in this and the following Sections not to contend for words but things things precious to the Remonstrant Liturgie and Episcopacie for which he fights tanquam pro aris focis The subject of this Section is the Liturgie where first he fals upon us for the Alterations and Additions mentioned by us which hee calls such an envious and groundlesse suggestion as must needs cover our faces with a blush Truly Sir If we were able to produce no fuller evidence of this then you have done of your Iewish Liturgie ever since Mosestime we should blush indeed but if wee can bring forth instances of such Alterations as shall prove this present Liturgie to be none of that which hath beene confirmed by Parliamentary Acts keep your blushes to make Liveries for yourself and friends The Liturgie confirmed by our Parliamentary Acts is the same which was made and confirmed in the fifth and sixth of Edward the sixth with one alteration and additions of certaine Lessons to be used upon every Sunday and the forme of the Letany altered and amended and two sentences onely added in the delivery of the Sacrament And none other or otherwise But this booke is so altered from that that in it is left out First a clause in the Letany From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities good Lord deliver us c. 32. Chapters of the Old Testament a Prayer against death a Rubrick or declaration of the manner of the presence of Christs body and bloud in the Sacrament Besides some other things of lesse moment Secondly added 26 Apocryphall Chapters more to be read 47 Proper Lessons The Prayers for Bishops and Curats many Collects after the Communion A Rubrick in the examination of private Baptisme In the Calendar Fish dayes are now called Fasting days A Catalogue of Holidays Thirdly many things changed in the title of Confirmation the words for imposition of hands are added In the Epistle for Palm-sunday in the Name of Jesus turned into at the Name of Jesus besides such smaller alterations which himselfe acknowledges These are sufficient to evince that the Liturgie now in use is not that Liturgie that was established by Act of Parliament and therefore that Act binds not to the use of this Liturgie as we conceive Now if to these we should adde the late alterations in the use of the Liturgie Bringing in loud Musique uncouth and unedifying Anthems a pompous superstitious Altar-service wee thinke any indifferent eye will say this is not the Liturgie established by Parliament wee hope that these alterations are so visible as any that will not fully shut their eys will say it is with this misaltered Liturgie as with the disguised Dames mentioned of old by Doctor Hall And we hope nay we know wee have some Bishops of our minde in this as well as you have some of yours how ever you slight the words of one of them not inferiour to any of them that wee know with an effutâ—it labiis yet it is a subtile shift you have to pervert the Bishops words For whereas hee said that the Service of the Church of England was now so drest that if the Pope should come and see it he would claim it as his own but that it is in English The Remonstrant would seeme to understand by this onely such an inoffensivenesse in the devotion of it as the Pope himself could find no fault in it whereas the Bishop meant such a symmetry and correspondency of our present devotion and service with the Popish as was in his esteem just matter of Humiliation to al the Bishops in the Kingdom in a day of solemn national Fasting Instead of bringing out those great applauses that forreigne Divines and Churches have given to our Liturgie hee falls though more gently then hee is wont upon Master Calvin for his Tolerabiles ineptiae as if that hee did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It seemes the Remonstrant did not either consider the occasion of that Censure or else his not Omniscient eyes never saw the Epistle that the Learned Calvin wrote to the dispersed at Frankfort which would tell him that the occasion of
purpose to bring the Papist to our Churches which wee finde to bee with so little successe c. In answer to which the Remonstrant first commends the project as charitable and gracious The nature of the project wee never intended to dispute onely wee produced this to shew that there was not the same reason for the retaining of this forme that there was for the first introducing of it because experience tels us it hath not prevailed to that end to which it was at first designed Yes it did saith the Remonstrant for Sir Edward Coke tels us till the eleventh yeere of Queene Elizabeth all came to Church those times knew no recusant Pardon us Sir If we tell you that it was not the converting power of the Liturgie but the constraining power of the Law that brought them thither which afterwards not being pressed with that life and vigour that it had bin gave incouragemeÌ„t to the Popish fact oÌ„ to take heart adde also that at the same time the Pope negotiated to have her Liturgie to be allowed by his authority so as the Queene would acknowledge his Supremacie which when it grew hopelesse then the Jesuitish Casuists begun to draw on the Papists to a Recusancie But might the complying of our Papists be attributed soly to the inoffensivenesse of our Liturgie Yet what credit is this to our Church to have such a forme of publike worship as Papists may without offence joyne with us in and yet their Popish principles live in their hearts still How shall that reclayme an erring soule that brings their bodies to Church leaves their hearts stil in error And wheras the Remonstrant would impute the not winning of Papists rather to the want or weaknesse in preaching Be it so in the mean time let the Bishops see how they will cleere their souls of this sinne who having the sole power of admitting Ministers into the Church have admitted so many weak ones and have rejected so many faithfull able Preachers for not conforming to their beggerly rudiments And when we said that this our Liturgie hath lost us many rather then wonne any Wee meant not onely of such as are lost to the Popish part But let the Remonstrant take it so it is neither paradox nor slander For let an acute Jesuite have but this argument to weild against a Protestant not well grounded in our Religion as too many such there are in England It is evident that the Church of Rome is the ancient and true Church and not yours for you see your Service is wholly taken out of ours How would a weake Christian expedite himselfe here To the third reason this quaere was grounded upon the many stumbling blocks the Liturgie lays before the feet of many He tels us that these stumbling blocks are removâ—d by many We confesse indeed endeavours used by many whether effected or no that we question wee know it is no easie thing when a scruple hath once taken possession of the conscience to cast it out again Among the many the Remonstrant is pleased to refer us to Master Fisher for himself will not vouchsafe to foule his fingers with the removing of one of those blocks we mentioned whose book among all that have travelled in that way we think that any intâ—lligent Reader will judge most unable to give solid satisfaction to a scrupling conscience Tell us wee beseech you is it enough for a conscience that scruples the Surplice to say That it is as lawfull for you to enjoyn the Surplice and punish the omitting of it as it was for Solomon to enjoin Shimei not to goe out of Jerusalem and to punish him for the breach of that injunction or That the Surplice is a significative of divine alacritie and integritie and the expectation of glory Is it possible that a man that reads this should stuÌ„ble at the Surplice after The Cross is not onely lawfull in the use of it but the removall of it would be scandalous and perillous to the State Baptisme is necessary to salvation Children dying unbaptized are in a forlorne condition therefore Midwives may baptize c. Let the Reader judge whether this be to remove stumbling blocks from before the feet of men or to lay more But if this Remonstrant think Master Fisher so able and happy a remover of those occasions of offence wee wonder how his quick sight could see cause of any alteration so much as in the manner of the expression knowing Master Fisher undertakes the defence not onely of the Substance but of the very Circumstances and Syllables in the whole Book But his last put off is this that if there be ought in it that may danger scandall it is under carefull hands to remove it The Lord be praysed it is so it is under carefull hands and hearts more mercifull then this Remonstrant is to remit troubled Consciences to No Better Cure then Master Fishers Book who we hope will do by those as the Helvetians did by some things that were stumbled at among them though they were none but Anabaptists that stumbled at them yet the State did by Authority remove them and Zwinglius their professed adversary gives them thanks for occasioning the removall To the fourth which was that it is Idolized and accounted as the onely worship of God in England c. At Amsterdame saith hee but hee knew wee spoke of such as adore it as an Idoll not such as abhorre it as an Idoll though it pleaseth him to put it off with a scoffe retorting upon us others say rather too many doe injuriously make an Idoll of preaching shall wee therefore consider of abandoning it We hope Sir you are not serious if you be that not a little your self is guilty of Idolizing the Liturgy Dare you in cool bloodequalize this very individuall Liturgy with Gods Ordinance of preaching and say there is as little sinne or danger in considering of the utter abandoning of preaching as there is in the abandoning of this present established Liturgie Cave dixeris The fift Argument was from the great distaste it meets with in many This hee imputes to nothing but their ill teaching and betakes himselfe to his old shifts of diversion and saith By the same reason multitudes of people distasting the truth of wholsome doctrine shall we to humour them abandon both It is a griefe to see this distast grow to such a height as tends to a separation and it is as strange to us that this Remonstrant should have a heart so void of pity as that the yielding to the altering or removing of a thing indifferent which stands as a wall of separation betwixt us and our brethren should be presented to publike view under no better notion then the humouring of a company of ill taught men or as the Remonstrant elsewhere calls them brainsick men or as another Booke men that have need of dark roomes and Ellebore For that ill teaching to which hee imputes this generall
who have laboured about the Reformation of the Church these five hundred yeeres of whom he names abundance have taught that all Pastors be they intitulated Bishops or Priests have equall authority and power by the Word of God and by this the Reader may know Doctor Reinolds his judgment concerning Episcopacie There is one thing more belongs to this Section as to the proper seat and that is the establishment which he seeks to Episcopacie froÌ„ the laws of the Kingdom to which we having answered that Laws are repealable the Parliament having a Nomotheticall power He answers though laws are repealable yet fundamentall laws are not subject to alteration upon personall abuses Secondly that he speaks not against an impossibility but an easinesse of change which our guiltinesse would willingly overlook But consider we beseech you how fitly is Episcopal Government made a piece of the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome How did the Kingdome then once stand without Bishops as in the very page you had now to answer you might have seen once it did For doth not the Marginall tell you from Sir Edward Coke or rather from an Act reported by him in the 23 yeere of Edward the first that the holy Church was founded in the state of Prelacie within the Realme of England by the King and his progenitors which your guiltinesse will needs overlooke for feare you should see that there was a King of this Realme of England before there was a Prelacie And how then is Episcopacie one of the fundamentals of the Kingdome And whereas you say you spake onely against an easinesse of change read your words in the eighteenth page of your Remonstrance A man would thinke it were plea enough to challenge a reverend respect and an immunitie from all thoughts of alteration is this to speake against an easinesse or rather against a possibility of change For your conclusion that things indifferent or good having by continuance and generall approbation beene well rooted in Church and State may not upon light grounds be pulled up Good Sir never trouble your selfe about such an indifferent thing as Episcopacie is Never feare but if Episcopacie be rooted up it will be done by such hands as will not doe it upon light grounds SECT V. THey that would defend the Divine right of Episcopacie derive the pedigree of it from no lesse then Apostolicall and in that right divine institution so did this Remonstrant This we laboured in this Section to disprove and shew that it might be said of our Bishops as of those men Ezra 62. These men sought their Register among those that were reckoned by Genealogie but they were not found therefore were they as polluted put from the Priesthoâ—d For the Bishops whose pedigree is derived from the Apostles were no others then Presbyters this we evinced by foure mediums out of Scripture but insisted onely upon two the identitie of their name and office Before wee come to the Remonstrants answer wee will minde the Reader of what the Remonstrant saith That we have a better faculty at gathering then at strewing which if we have we shall here make good use of our faculty in gathering the choice flowers which himself hath scattered yielding unto us the mayn Scripture grounds whereby the Patrons of Episcopacie have endevoured to uphold their cause For himselfe confesseth the Bishops cause to be bad if it stand not by divine Right and compares the leaving of divine right and supporting themselves by the indulgence and munificence of religious Princes unto the evill condition of such men who when God hath withdrawn himselfe make flesh their arme And whether himselfe hath not surrendred up this divine right judge by that which followeth Our main argument was That Bishops and Presbyters in the originall authority of Scripture were the same Hee answers in the name of himselfe and his Party This is in expresse terms granted by us We argue it further That we never find in Scripture any other orders of Ministery but Bishops and Deacons He answers Brethren you might have spared to tell mee that which I have told you before And adds That when wee alleage the Apostles writings for the identity of Bishops and Presbytâ—rs we oppose not his assertion because he speaks of the monuments of immediate succession to the Apostolike times but we of the writing of the Apostles And for the two other arguments drawn from the identitie of the qualifications of Bishops and Presbyters for their Office and Ordination to their office hee answers Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem And yet notwithstanding that the Reader may not perceive how the Remonstrant betrayes his own cause he deals like the fish Sepia and casteth out a great deal of black inke before the eyes of the Reader that so hee may escape without observation But wee will trace him and finde him out where hee thinks himselfe most secure For first he falsly quotes our answer Whereas wee say That in originall authority Bishops Presbyters are the same he tels us we say That Bishops and Presbyters went originally for the same That is saith he There was at first a plain indentity in their denomination Which two answers differ Immane quantum And yet howsoever this very identity of denomination in Scripture is of no small consequence what ever the Remonstrant makes of it For the proper ends of Names being to distinguish things according to the difference of their natures and the supream wisdome of God being the imposer of these names who could neither be ignorant of the nature of these offices nor mistake the proper end of the imposition of names nor want variety to expresse himselfe the argument taken from the constant identity of denomination is not so contemptible as the Remonstrant pretends Especially considering that all the texts brought to prove the identity of names prove as intrinsecally the identity of Offices which we did cleerly manifest by that text Titus 1. 5 6 7. Where the Apostle requiring Presbyters to be thus and thus qualified renders the reason because Bishops must be so Which argument would no ways evince what the Apostle intended if there were onely an idenditie of names and not also of offices and qualifications When the names are the same and the Offices distinct who but one that cares not what hee affirmes would infer the same offices as a consequent from the identity of their names Who would say that the properties of the Constellation called Canis ought to be the same with the bruit creature so called because they have both one name And this we desire the Reader to take the more notice of because the Remonstrant passeth it over in silence Secondly the Remonstrant seemes to recant that which he had before granted tels us that though in the Apostolike Epistles there be no nominal distinction of the titles yet here is a reall distinction and specification of the duties as we shall see in due place
beene of Divine or Apostolicall institution he might have said so much and not have beene the lesse modest but the more nay hee would have said so much Quis enim est humilitatis fructus ubi detrimentum est veritatis What profit is there in humility with the losse of truth And he that could tell another non accipiet Deus mendacem humilitatem tuam God will not accept of your lying humility could tell himselfe as much So then though it be in humilitate personae that he saith Augustinus Hieronymo minor est yet it is in veritate rei that hee saith Secundum honourm vocabula quae Ecclesiae usus obtinuit Ep. scopatus Presbyterio Major est Thus much for Augustines modesty And as for the Herauldry in blazoning Aerius for an heretick falsely objected ad nauseam usque usque We referre to former answeres The Remonstrant will put us and the Readers to more trouble in the next place because he calles our fidelity into so deepe question about the quotation of Gregory Nazianzen Orat. 28. Where the father is mustering up the armies of evils that might seeme to threaten him shewing the invincible magnanimity of his Spirit more then conquering contemning all Among those evils he reckons his ejection out of his Episcopacy which what ever others would esteeme he counts as nothing and held it a principall part of wisedome in that age to shunne it and then wishes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utinam nulla sit princeps dignitas that there were no principall dignity to wit in the Church of which he is speaking Secondly he wishes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there were no dignity or tyrannicall prerogative of place that they might be knowne onely by vertue to which belongs that Dextrum sinistrum those challenges of places of which the Remonstrant speaks All which he speaks upon supposall of the losse of his Episcopacy And for that Dextrū sinistrum Balsamon saith it was the manner of their distinguishing of the place of Bishops according to their seniority and this occasioned those competitions among Bishops of which he speakes The Series of this discourse is long we must not insert it all but let the learned reader vouchsafe to view it at larg and if it doe not appeare that wee have alledged the place according to the genuine sence of the Authour let us in his thoughts lie under all the reproaches which our virulent Remonstrant labours to cast upon us in his whole book However the Remonstrant hath little cause to reproach Nazianzen with that scoffe of his Egyptian adversaries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he had out of an ambitious humour changed his seat when he that peruseth his life shall finde it would be an easier matter to remove an English Bishop from one Bishopricke to another till hee come to Canturbury then it was to remove Nazianzen from one place to another And as little reason with open mouth to fall upon us and bid us eate our words for saying that if our Bishops will deduce their pedegree from the Apostles time in an uninterrupted line unto this day they must draw the line of their pedigree through the loynes of Antichrist we tell him againe let him take it never so angerly What ever Bishops have beene in other places besides Rome if our Bishops will draw their pedegree from the Apostles they must draw it through Antichrists loynes SECT VII VIII IN this seventh Section the Remonstrant hath cut us out little worke so much of our answer as he is loth to meddle with he balkes under the tearmes of idle words The rest concerning the election of former Bishops hee seemes to consent to in opinion and option onely that the shortest Section may not be closed without more frumps then one he tels us we are besides the Cushion The objection was that the Apostles Bishops and ours were two in respect of mannaging their functions The Remonstrant will give us leave we hope to forme our owne objection He makes it indeed of the Apostles Bishops We having proved no Bishops ut nuncupantur as they are now tearmed Apostolicall Bring it downe to the Bishops of inferiour times He as here he tels us spake onely of the difference betweene the one and the other in managing of their function We intending to present the differences betweene ours and former Bishops fully to view instance not onely in the managing of their function but in their election and accessories and is this to be beside the Cushion This first point of difference our Remonstrant grants that our Bishops and former differ in their election And he makes halfe from hence to follow us into the execution of their Episcopall office We make as much haste to meet him and make good what we formerly layed downe that our Bishops and the Bishops of former times are two First in the sole jurisdiction they assume to themselves which former Bishops never did nor durst which jurisdiction being taken here in a large sense for the execution of all Episcopall power we distributed into the administration of orders and censures which saith the Remonstrant in all wise writers were wont to be contradistinguished Distinguished they are we grant and so did we distinguish them page 24 25. of our answer which the wisedome of the Remonstrant might have taken notice of and forborne this scorne Yet not so contradistinguished but that the power of ordination may be reckoned as a part of Episcopall jurisdiction taking that word jurisdiction which was unknowne to first antiquity for the whole execution of Episcopall power as the Remonstrant here takes it The first of these the sole power of ordination and the sole exercise of that power which was a stranger and a monster to former times This our Bishops assume to themselves and herein differ from the former Bishops The latter of these he grants That Bishops of former times did not assume to themselves the sole exercise of ordination Onely he cannot let us passe without his usuall curtesie But the former he denies the ordination is he saith the Bishops but the sole in that sence we use it is ours Bishops did never challenge it nor practice it we will wash off all this and shew first that our English Bishops have challenged to themselves this sole power and have practised this power and then make good our quotation and when this is done let it be tryed not who can blush but who hath more reason to blush the Remonstrant or his answerers For the first that Bishops challenge to themselves sole power of ordination We did never thinke that in these knowing times we should have beene put to prove the Snow is white or the Crow blacke But seeing the Remonstrant will have it so we will shew first out of Episcopacy by Divine right part 2. Sect. 15. the title of which Section is this power of ordination is ONELY in Bishops and
be to defend the Church against the tyranny of others but not to tyrannize over the Church Doctor Downeham was more ingenuous in this then this Remonstrant who grants that till about 400 yeeres after Christ Bishops had no ordinary Vicars that were not Clergy men No say we nor Clergy men neither the office was not knowne in those times neither can they produce any instance of any either of Laity or Clergy that ever those times saw in that office This saith the Remonstrant is a poore brave But till he can produce such instances our challenge will stand strong enough notwithstanding his great words But his put off is poorer to fly from officers intrusted with spirituall jurisdiction unto such inferiour instruments Secretaries and Atturneys as are of necessary service in all Courts of judicature whether Civill or Ecclesiasticall To make all sure the Remonstrant referres his Reader to Sir Thomas Ridley whose Treatise he stumbled upon in an ill houre for the maine of his cause for he tels us page 116. that Chancellors are equall or neere equall in time to Bishops as both the Law it selfe and stories shew So that while the Remonstrant is over studious to prove the Antiquity of Chancellors he overthrowes the Antiquity of Bishops incidit in Scyllam c. As for that he spake of the Ecclesiae Ecdici that they were the same in former times that our Chancellors are now If there be more credit to be given to his Papias and Gothofred then to the originall Canons themselves where they are called not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we yeeld the cause SECT XI HAving entered upon the differences betweene ours and former Bishops in point of jurisdiction we descended into a discovery of this in three particulars First in the sole jurisdiction ours assume Secondly In that delegation they make of this power Thirdly in their execution of that jurisdiction and here wee fall upon that unchristian and unnaturall proceeding of theirs by oathes Ex officio which the Remonstrant is very angry at and that hee may still approve himselfe the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or advocate of the worst causes engages all his strength and wit for the maintaining of that which hath beene the ruine of so many persons the racke of so many consciences the worst part of the Spanish Inquisition quo siculi non invenere Tyranni Tormâ—ntum majus To defend this he cares not how he abuseth us Mr. Calume the Lawyes the Scriptures So that he may but uphold this oath that is now sinking under the weight of its owne guilt First he abuses Scriptures in producing Exod. 22. 10 11. Num. 5. 19. as presidents for the oath Truly sir the onely text that would best have fitted your purpose is that of Caiphas the High Priest adjudging our Lord in the name of the living God Which how tyrannous an adjuration it was will easily appeare to any that consults interpreters upon that place Your alledged texts helpe you not a whit that of Exod. 22. 10 11. speakes to this purpose A man commits goods to his neighbour they miscarry under his hand it is knowne he had them how they miscarried it is not knowne in this case the man is to cleare his innocencie upon his oath what is this to the compelling of a man in cases criminall to betray himselfe by an oath The other text Numb 5. 19. availes you lesse for if such an oath were now lawfull then oathes Ex officio might be ministred in causes of death It is knowne Adultery was death by Moses his law and it is as well knowne that this Law of the water of jelousie was not morall but judiciall peculiar to the policie of the Jewes and that upon particular causes to wit the invate jealousie of that Nation which could no otherwise be appeased As for your instance out of Master Calvins Epistle wherein you would make your reader beleeve that the Consistory of Geneva did give such an oath to Camperell whereby he and the rest should be tied to discover their purposes and intentions No such thing appeares in the Epistle We finde indeed that two of that company having confesâ—ed the wickednesse wherewith they were charged and the rest impudently denying it Calvin thought it fit to make them confesse the truth upon oath Corneus who had confessed all before pressing them not to forsweare themselves prevailed so as that they confessed all and the dancing also above what was charged upon them All that we can collect is that an oath was thought meet to be given to make them confesse to Gods glory what was proved by two witnesses but that they were bound to confesse their intentions here is no syllable of it in the epistle And therefore to what purpose you bring in this to warrant your oath Ex officio unlesse it be for want of better instances we know not The Acts of Dioclesian Maxim Let them be blamed that called him Maximilian poore men cannot have their Presse wayted on as your greatnesse may You doe as good as passe by so doe you the practice of the ancient times and which is a greater jeofailer then our Maximillian and think it is enough to tell us this hinders not but in case of a justly grounded suspition and complaint of a halfe approved offence a man should manifest his innocency by oath When as we produced these testimonies to shew that of old no party was put to his oath upon halfe proofe nor proceeded against but upon apparent testimonies of more witnesses then one which might be conceived to be impartiall Whereby it is manifest that the proceedings in judicature for which you contend herein differ from them of old So hot is the man in the quarrell of his oath that he strikes his own friends to reach a blow at us charging his good friend Gregory with a plain contradiction for the words are his not ours in which he saith we contradict our selves This is the poore all hee hath said in defence of the oath Ex Officio and could he have said more it is like we should have heard it If the reader desire to see further how abominable this oath is how cryed downe by learned men how contrary to the Word of God the law of nature to the civill and and Canon lawes and to the statutes of our kingdome he may finde it in that proud braying schismatick Master Parker for so he is called in print For our parts we shall need to say no more about this oath God in mercy to his afflicted having put into the hearts of our Worthies to condemne it to hell from whence it came SECT XII OUr next Section the Remonstrant tels us he is resolved to neglect we should have as soone beleeved him if he had said so of all the rest we beleeve the neglect springs neither from a desire to ease us nor to anger us but
but to ordaine Elders in every City which was an office above that of a Bishop For Creet was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now you know sir that iâ— is above the worke of an ordinary Bishop to plant and erect Churches to their due frame in an hundred Citties Bishops are given to particular Churches when they are framed to keepe them in the Apostolicall truth not to lay foundations or to exaessifie some imperfect beginnings This service Titus did in Creet the same worke which the Apostle did when he visited the Churches of Asia Acts 14. 23. which being finished the same Apostolicall power which sent him thither removed him thence againe for the service of other Churches as we have formerly shewed from Scripture And though the Remonstrant tels us this calling away could no whit have impeached the truth of his Episcopacy We must crave leave to tell him that though it may be one journey upon some extraordinary Church service might consist with such a fixed station as Episcopacy is Yet an ordinary frequent course of jornying such as Titus his was cannot unlesse he will grant that Timothy might be a Bishop and an Evangelist at the same time But this is contrary to the Remonstrants one definition of an Evangelist page 94. And therefore he chusâ—th rather to say Timothy was first an Evangelist when he travelled abroad and afterward a Bishop when he setled at home This is more absurd then the former For if ever Titus were a Bishop it was then when Paul left him in Creet to ordaine Elders in every City And after that time was the greatest part of his travels as we have shewed in our answer All these journeys did Titus make after he was left in Creet nor doe we finde any where record of his returne thither Therefore according to this rule Titus should be first a Bishop and afterwards an Evangelist Or if the greatest part of Titus his travels had beene before his delegation to Creet yet it had beene no lesse absurd to say that afterwards he did descend from the degree of an Evangelist to the station of Episcopacy We hope the Remonstrant will not deny but an Evangelist was as farre above a Bishop as any Bishop can fancy himselfe to be above a Presbyter And if for a Bishop to quit his Episcopacy and suffer himselfe to be reduced to the ranke of a meere Presbyter be a crime so hainous so odious that it had beene much better to have beene unborne then to live to give so hainous a scandall to Gods Church and so deepe a wound to his holy truth and ordinances a river an ocean can neither drowne nor wash off the offence What is it to reduce an Evangelist to the forme of a Bishop We had granted that some Fathers call Timothy and Titus Bishops the Remonstrant replies some nay all Be it so as long as himselfe hath granted the Fathers did use the titles of Bishops and Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But there is a Cloud of witnesses of much antiquity which avers Timothy and Titus to have livâ—d and died Bishop of Ephesus Creet But this cloud will soone blow over The Magdeburgenses tell us That there is nothing expressely or certainely delivered by any approved writer to shew how or how long Timothy was Doctour or Governour of the Church of Ephesus Therefore we cannot certainely affirme that he suffered martyrdome at Ephesus being stoned to death for reproving the idolatry of the Ephesians at the porch of Dianâ—s Temple which yet the most have reported Let the Reader further know that his cloud of witnesses who averre Timothy and Titus to be Bishops have borrowed their testimonies from Eusebius of whom Scaliger saith and Doctor Raynolds approves of it That he read ancient Histories parum attente which they prove by many instances And all that Eusebius saith is onely sic scribitur It is so reported But from whence had he this History even from Clemens fabulous and Hegesippus not exstant And therefore that which is answered by our learned Divines concerning Peters being at Rome and dying there which is also recorded by Eusebius That because Eusebiuâ— had it from Papias an Author of little esteeme hence they thinke it a sufficient argument to deny the truth of the History though asserted by never so many Authours relying upon one of so little credit The same answer will fully serve to all the authorities produced for Timothies and Titus being Bishops from antiquity And that which Thucidides saith of the ancient Greeke Historiaâ—s may as truely be said of Eusebius Irenaeus and others Quae a majoribus acceperant Posteri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 securi examinis suis item posteris tradiderunt We further shewed how the Fathers called Timothy and Titus Bishops viz. in the same sence which learned D. Raynolds saies they also used to call the Apostles Bishops even in a generall signification because they did attend that Chuâ—ch for a time c. This the Remonstrant will not give us leave to doe but without his leave we shall make it good We say therefore further That when the Apostles or Evangelists perhaps Iames at Hierusalem Timothy at Ephesus Titus at Creet did stay longer at one Church and exercised such a power as the Bishops in succeeding ages did aspire unto when the Fathers would set forth this power of an Apostle or Evangelists long residing in one Church they labouring to doe it in a familâ—ar way did similitudinarily call them Bishops and sometimes Archbishops or Patriarcks which all confesse were offices not heard of in the Apostles times not meaning they were so formally but eminently neither could they call them so properly for the power they exercised was in them formally Apostolicall or Evangelicall reaching not only to the Church where then they resided but to all neighbouring and bordering Churches as farre as was possible for them to oversee or the occasions of the Church did require they having no bounded Diocesses but had the care of all the Churches In this sence they might call them so but for either an Apostle or Evangelist to be ordained a Bishop or Presbyter had beene both unnecessary and absurd unnecessary because the higher degree includes the inferiour eminently though not formally and absurd to descend lower that after they had been Apostolically or Evangelically employed in taking care of all the Churches they should be ordained to a worke which should so limit them as to make them lesse usefull to the Church of God But saith he all this discourse is needlesse whether Timothy or Titus were Evangelists or no sure we are here they stand for persons charged with those offices and cares which are delivered to the ordinary Church-governours in all succeeding generations Here first you give us no ground of your surenesse nor can give us any other then what may be said of the Apostles for they also stand as persons charged c. Secondly it is true
the substance of those cares and offices which belong to Apostles and Evangelists is transmitted to the ordinary Church-governours as farre as is necessary for the edification of the Church else the Lord had not sufficiently provided for his Church all the question is whether these Church-governours are by way of Aristocracy the common Councell of Presbyters or by way of Monarchy Diocesan Bishops Now unlesse you prove that Timothy and Titus were ordinary officers or as Doctor Hall cals them Diocesan Bishops to whom as to individuall persons such care and offices were individually intrusted you will never out of Timothy and Titus defend Diocesan Bishops Thirdly though the substance of these cares and offices were to be transmitted to ordinary Church-governours yet they are not transmitted in that eminency or personall height in which they were in the Apostles and Evangelists an Apostle where ever he lived might governe and command all Evangelists all Presbyters c. an Evangelist might governe all Presbyters c. but no Presbyter or Bishop might command others onely the common Councel of Presbyters may charge any or many Presbyters as occasion shall require In a word these ordinary Church-governours succeed the extraordinary officers not in the same line and degree as one brother dying another succeeds him in the inheritance but as men of an other order and in a different line Let the Remonstrant therefore take Timothy and Titus as he findes them that is Evangelists men of extraordinary dignity and authority in the Church of Christ Let him with his first confidence maintaine that our Bishops challenge no other spirituall power then was delegated to them We shall upon better grounds maintaine with better confidence that if they chalenge the same they ought to be disclaimed for usurpers But much more challenging such a power as was never exercised by Timothy and Titus as we demonstrated in our former answer in severall instances which are so commonly knowne as our Remonstrant is ashamed to deny them onely plaies them off partly with his old shift the abuse of the person not of the Calling But we beseech you sir tell us whether these persons doe not perpetrate these abuses though by their owne vice yet by vertue of their place and Callings Partly by retorting questions upon us when or where did our Bishops challenge to ordaine alone or to governe alone we have shewed you when and where already when or where did our Bishops challenge power to passe a rough and unbeseeming rebuke upon an Elder Sure your owne conscience can tell that hath taught you to apply that to an Elder in office which we onely spake in Scripture phrase of an Elder in generall It was your guilt not our ignorance that turned it to an Elder in office Where did say you our Bishops give Commission to Chancellors Commissaries c. to rayle upon Presbyters to accuse them without just ground c. where have not Chancellors done so and what power have they but by Bishops Commission to meddle with any thing in Church affaires And where is the Bishop that hath forbid it them Qui non prohibet facit Onely there is one practice of our Bishops he is something more laborious to justifie That is their casting out unconforming brethren commonly knowne in their Court language by the name of schismatickes and heretickes which Timothy and Titus never did nor had any such power delegated to them heretickes indeed the Apostles gave them power to reject but wee had hoped the refusall of the use of a ceremony should never have beene equalized in the punishment either to heresie or schisme But the Remonstrant hath found Scripture for it Loth not the Apostle wish that they were cut off that trouble you but sure it is one thing to wish men cut off by God and another thing to cut them off by the censure of the Church Besides this was written to the Galatians and they that troubled them were such as maintained doctrines against the foundation i. Justification by workes of the Law c. which we thinke are very neere of kinne to heretickes I am sure farre above the crime of the Remonstrants unconforming brethren who are unsetled in points of a meane difference which their usuall language knowes by no better termes then of schismatickes and factious yet even such have fallen under the heaviest censures of suspension excommunication deprivation c. which the Remonstrant unable to deny would justifie which when he shall be able to doe he may do something towards the patronizing of Bishops But in the meane time let him not say they are our owne ill raised suggestions but their owne ill assumed and worse mannaged authority that makes them feare to be disclaimed as usurpers The second Scripture ground which the Remonstrant is ambitious to draw in for the support of his Episcopall cause is the instance of the Angels of the seven Churches which because it is locus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cried up as argumentum verè Achilleum we did on purpose inlarge our selves about it And for our paines the Remonstrant as if all learning and acutenesse were lockt up in his breast Narcissus like in love with his owne shadow professeth that this peece of the taske fell unhappily upon some dull and tedious hand c. Which if it be so it will redound the more to the Remonstrants discredit when it shall appeare that he is so shamefully foiled and wounded by so dull an adversary He objects Colemorts oft sod when he cannot but know that the whole substance of his owne booke is borrowed from Bishop Bilson and Doctor Downham And that there is nothing in this discourse about the Angels but either it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But before we come to answer our Remonstrants particulars we will premise something in generall about these Asian Angels It may seeme strange that the defenders of Episcopacy lay so much weight of argument upon the word or appellation of Angell which themselves know to be a title not impropriated to the chiefe Ministers of the Church but common to all that bring the glad tidings of the Gospell yea to all the messengers of the Lord of Hosts We conceive there are 2. maine reasons that induce them to insist so much on this First they finde it the most easie way of avoyding the dint of all the Arguments brought against them out of the History of the Acts and Epistles by placing one above the rest of the Presbyters in the period of the Apostles times And so finding in the Revelation which was written the last of all the parts of the Scripture except peradventure the Gospell written by the same penne an expression which may seeme to favour their cause they improve it to the utmost Partly because hereby they evade all our arguments which we bring out of the Scripture Doe we prove out of the
that the Apostle Iohn sate many yeeres B. of Ephesus and was the Metropolitan of all Asia in which we suppose the Remonstrant will allow his readers a liberty of beleeving him and allow us a liberty to tell him that D Whitakers saith Patres cum Iacobum Episcopum vocant aut etiam Petrum non propriè sumunt Episcopi nomen sed vocant eos Episcopos illarum Ecclesiarum in quibus aliquamdin commorati sunt And in the same place Et si propriè de Episcopo loquatur absurdum est Apostolos suisse Episcopos Nam qui propriè Episcopus est is Apostolous non potest esse quia Episcopus est unius tantum Ecclesiae At Apostoli plurium Ecclesiarum fundatores inspectores erant And againe Hoc enim non mulâ—um distat ab insaniâ dicere Petrum fuisse propriè Episcopum out reliquos Apostolos Now we returne to our Remonstrant Our answer to his objection from the Angels was That the word Angell is to be taken collectively not individually which he cals pro more suo a shift and a conceit which no wise man can ever beleeve And yet he could not but take notice that we alleaged Austin Gregory Fulke Perkins Fox Brightman Mede and divers others for this interpretation which will make the world to accuse him for want of wisdome for calling the wisedome of such men into question Before he addresseth himself to answer our reasons he propounds two queres 1. If the interest be common and equally appertaining to all why should one be singled out above the rest A very dull question which is indeed a very begging of the cause For the question in agitation is whether when Christ writes to the 7. Angels he meant to single out 7. individuall persons above the rest or else writes to the 7. Angels collectively meaning all the Angels that were in all the Churches The second question is as dull as the first If you will yeeld the person to be such as had more then others a right in the administration of all it is that weseeke for But he knew we would not yield it And therefore we may justly use his owne words that those questions are tedious and might well have beene spared And so also the instances of a letter indorsed from the Lords of the Councell to the Bishop of Durham concerning some affaires of the whole Clergy of his Diocesse No man will deny but that the Bishop of Durham is an individuall Bishop This example supposeth the Angell about whom we dispute to be meant individually which you know is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betweene you and us Quid haec ad Rhombum We will give you instances more suitable to the purpose Suppose one in Christs time or his Apostles had indorsed a letter to the Chiefe-priest concerning the affaires of the Sanhedrim and another letter to the chiefe Ruler of the Synagogue concerning the affaires of the Synagogue and another letter to the Captaine of the Temple concerning the businesse of the Temple could any man imagine but that these indorsments must necessarily be understood collectively considering there were more Chiefe-priests then one in Ierusalem Luke 22. 4. and more chiefe Rulers of the Synagogue then one Math. 19. 18. compared with Acts 18. 8. 17. And more Captaines of the Temple then one Acts 4 1. compared with Luke the â—2 4. and so also semblably more Angels and Ministers in the seven Churches then seven But stay sir we hope you are not of opinion that any of your Asian Bishops had as much spirituall and temporall power as the Lord Bishop of Salisbury and the Lord Bishop and Palatine of Durham Cave dixeris At last you come to our proofes which you scoffingly call invincible You should have done better to have called them irrefragable like your good friends irrefragable propositions Our first argument is drawne from the Epistle to Thyatira Revel 2. 24. But I say unto you in the plurall number not unto thee in the singular and unto the rest in Thyatira Here is a plaine distinction betweene the Governours and the governed And the Governours in the plurall number which apparently proves that the Angell is collective The Remonstrant hath no way to put this off but by a pittifull shift to use his owne words He tels us he hath found a better coppy which is a very unhappy and unbecoming expression apt to make ignorant people doubt of the originall text and so in time rather to deny the Divinity of the Scriptures then of Episcopacy But this better coppy is but lately searcht into for we finde that Bishop Hall in his Episcopacy by Divine right reads it as we doe But I say unto you and the rest in Thyatira But what is this better Coppy It is a Manuscript written by the hand of Teela which if it be no truer then Itinerarium Pauli Teclae it will have little credit among the Learned But that which makes you to magnifie it the more is that doughty argument which it helped you to against us concerning the same Church of â—hyatira in which the Angell is charged for suffering that woman Iezabel And now you say in that memorable copy of Tecla it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you interpret thy wife Iczebel And just as Archimedes you come with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And call upon us to blush for shame What say you in a different character shall we thinke she was wife to the whole company or to one Bishop alone But for our part we doe thinke you have more cause to blush for making such a Translation and rather then you will not prove the Angell of Thyatira to be an individuall Bishop you will un-Angell him and make him an other Ahab to marry a cursed Iezebel We wonder that never any protestant writer had the wit to bring this text against the papists to prove the lawfulnesse of Priests marriages no not Doctor Hall himselfe in his defence of the married Clergy Give us leave here to use your owne words page 108. Forbeare Reader if you can to smile at this curious subtilty what Cabalisme have we here judge Reader what to expect of so deepe speculations And also to repeate what you say page 110. If you please your selfe with this new subtilty it is well from us you have no cause to expect an answer it can neither draw our assent nor merit our confutation We beleeve it to be as true that Iezebel was the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira as that Tecla was the wife of Paul But to returne to the former text Let any judicious reader survey the latter part of the 23. verse which is the verse before that out of which we bring our reason there he shall finde Christ speaking to the Church of Thyatira saith And I will give to every one of you in the plurall number And then followes But I say unto you and the rest in
we alledged Obiter Tindals translating the seven Churches seven Congregations All you answer is onely to shew that in other places of the Scripture by Congregation in Tindals sence cannot be meant a parishionall meeting But what if it be not so in other places how doe you make it appeare that it is not so in this place We are sure it is so taken in twenty other places of Tindals translation and may very properly be taken here also We alledge also that in Ephesus which was one of these Candlestickes there was but one flocke You demand whether this flocke were Nationall Provinciall or Diocesan And why doe you not demand whether it were not Oecumenicall also that so the Pope may in time come to challenge his flocke universall But you are sure you say that this flocke was not a parochiall flocke because it cannot be proved that all the Elders to whom Paul spake were onely belonging to Ephesus But can this Remonstant prove that there were more Elders or Bishops then those of Ephesus This is to answer Socratically and in answering not to answer Howsoever it is not so much materiall You your selfe confesse that the Elders or Bishops of Ephesus had but one flocke And if divers Bishops were over one flocke in the Apostles daies where is your individuall Bishops over divers flockes in the Apostles daies Our second argument is also drawne from the Church of Ephesus which was one of the seven Candlestickes in which we are sure in Saint Pauls daies there were many Angels and those called Bishops Acts 20. 28. And to one of those in all likelyhood was the Epistle to Ephesus directed if the direction be meant individually But yet wee read not a word of any superiority or superintendency of one Bishop over another To them the Church in generall is committed without any respect to Timothy who stood at his elbow But to all this ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quideuâ— onely he tels us it is answered in answering the first But how true this is let any Reader judge At the end of this reason wee produce Epiphanlus affirming that in ancient time it was peculiar to Alexandria that it had but one Bishop whereas other Cities had two Here our Remonstrant takes a great deale of paines not to confute us but to confute Epiphanius All that we will reply is this to desire the Reader to consider that this Epiphanius was the first that out of his owne private opinion accused Aerius of madnesse and as this Authour saith of heresie for denying the superiority of Bishops over Presbyters And if this Remonstrant thinke it no disparagement to himselfe to be a confuter of Epiphanius why should we be cryed downe so heavily for not agreeing with Epiphanius in his judgement concerning Aerius The third argument the Remonstrant cuts off in the midst For whereas wee say that there is nothing sayd in the seven Epistles that implyeth any superiority or majority of rule or power that those Angels had over the other Angels that were joyned with them in their Churches the answerer makes it runne thus That there is nothing said in the seven Epistles that implies a superiority which indeed is to spoile the argument For wee grant there is something said to imply a superiority of the Ministers over the people but the question is of a superiority of power of one Angell over the other Angels which were joyned with him in his Church But this he conceales because hee knew it was unanswerable Onely he tels us First that the Epistles are superscribed to the Angell not Angels This is crambe millies cocta But what is this to a majority of rule or power Secondly he tels us it will appeare from the matter of the severall Epistles For hee askes Why should an ordinary Presbyter be taxed for that which hee hath no power to redresse That the Angell of Pergamus should be blamed for having those which hold the doctrine of Balaam or the Nicolaâ—tans when he had no power to proceed against them Or the Angell of the Church of Thyatira for suffering the woman Iezebel if it must be so read to teach and seduce when he had no power of publique censure to restraine her This discourse is very loose and wild Vt nihil pejus dicamus Doth not the Remonstrant plead here for sole power of jurisdiction which hee doth so much disclaime in other places of his booke when hee would have the singular Angel of Pergamus and Thyatira to have power to proceed against offendors either he doth this or nothing For our parts we answer without lisping That it was in the power not of one Angell but of all the Angels of Pergamus and Thyatira to proceed against those that held the doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans To restraine that woman Iezebel or the Bishop of Thyatira his wife if it must needs be so read wee doe not thinke that one ordinary Presbyter as you call him was to exercise censures alone nor one extraordinary Bishop neither We find the contrary Matth. 8. 1 Corinth 5. And therefore we referre it to the Minister or Ministers of each Congregation with the advice and consent of the Presbyters adjoyning which we are sure is more consonant to the word then to leave it to the Hierarchicall Bishop and his Chancellor Commissary or Officiall In the next paragraph wee challenge you to shew us what kind of superiority this Angell had if he had any at all We require you to prove that he had any more then a superiority in parts and abilities or of order Where is it said that the Angell was a superiour degree or order of Ministery above Presbyters Or that he had solepower of ordination and jurisdiction But you flie from those questions as farre as from a Snake that would sting you and disdaining all that we say which is your accustomed way of answering you tell us that you are able to shâ—w who were the parties to whom some of these Epistles were directed and to evince the high degree of their superiority Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus Alas sir you tell us but what we told you before and what others have ingeminated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You say That Ignatius and Tertullian tell us that Onesimus was now the Angell or Bishop of Ephesus and Polycarpus of Smyrna But marke what we answer First we doubt of the truth of the story For others tell us that Timothy was Bishop as they call him of Ephesus when Christ wrote this Epistle and this opinion Ribera Lyra and Pererius follow Others leave it in medio and say it is uncertaine But suppose the story were true we answer Secondly it doth not follow because Onesimus was Bishop of Ephesus in Saint Iohns daies that therefore he was the onely party to whom Christ wrote his Epistle For Saint Paul tels us that there were many Bishops at Ephesus besides Onesimus and he
lest you should think we flout your modesty with an unbeseeming frumpe which whither our answer be guilty of as you here charge us let the Reader compare the 28 and 29 pages of your Remonstrance and our Answer to those pages and determine The second objection was from that imputation which this truth casts upon all Reformed Churches which want this government this the Remonstrant must needs endevour to satisfie that hee may decline the envie that attends this opinion But what needs the Remonstrant feare this envy Alasse the Reformed Churches are but a poore handfull Rumpantur ilia need the Remonstrant care Yet is it neither his large protestation of his honourable esteeme of those Sister Churches nor his solicitous cleering himselfe from the scandalous censures and disgracefull termes cast upon them by others under whose colours he now militares that will divert this envie unlesse he either desert his opinion or make a more just defence then he hath yet done The Defence is That from the opinion of the Di. right of Episc. no such consequence can be drawn as that those Churches that want Bishops are no Churches Episcopacy though reckoned among matters essential to the Church yet is not of the essence of a Church and this is no contradiction neither If you would have avoided the contradiction you should have expressed your selfe more distinctly knowing that things essentiall are of two sorts either such as are essentiall constitutivè or such as are essentiall consecutivè You had done well here had you declared whether you count Episcopacie essentiall to a Church constitutive or consecutivé if constitutivè then it is necessary to the being of a Church and it must follow where there is no Bishop there can be no Church If essentiall onely consecutivè wee would be glad to learne how those officers which by Divine institution have demandated to them peculiarly a power of ordaining all other officers in the Church without which the Church it selfe cannot be constituted and such a power as that those officers cannot be ordained without their hands should not bee essentiall to the Constitution of a Church or tend onely to the well being not to the being of it Either you must disclaim your own propositions or owne this inference and not think to put it off with telling your Reader It is enough for our friends to hold discipline of the being of a Church you dare not be so zealous If heat in an Episcopall cause may be called zeale you dare be as zealous as any man we know Your friends wee are sure are as zealous in the cause of their Episcopacie as any of ours have been in the defence of discipline Did ever any of our friends in their zeale rise higher then to frame an oath whereby to bind all men to maintaine their discipline You know some of yours have done as much but them wee know you will leave to their owne defence as you doe your learned Bishop of Norwich now he is dead It is work enough for you to defend your selfe and give satisfaction to the questions propounded First we demanded the reason why Popish Priests converted to our Religion are admitted without new ordination when some of our brethren flying in Queen Maries time and having received Ordination in the Reformed Churches were urged at their return to receive it again from our Bishops This shamelesse and partiall practice of our Prelats hee could not deny but frames two such answers of which the second confutes the first and neither second nor first justifies their practice In the first he denies a capability of admittance by our laws and yet in his second he confesseth many to be admitted without any legall exception which how well they consist let the Reader judge The second question was whether that office which by divine Right hath sole power of Ordination and ruling of all other officers in the Church belong not to the being but onely to the glory and perfection of a Church The Remonstrant is so angry at this question that before hee can finde leisure to answer it he must needs give a little vent to his choller Can we tell what these men would have saith he have they a mind to go beyond us in asserting that necessity and essentiall use of Episcopacie which we dare not avow What is that which you dare not avow is it that Episcopacy hath sole power of ordaining and ruling all other Officers in the Church But this wee are sure you will avow That imposition of hands in ordination and confirmation have ever been held so intrinsecall to Episcopacie that I would faine see where it can be shewed that ANY EXTREMITY OF NECESSITY was by the Catholike Church of Christ ever yet acknowledged for a warrant sufficient to diffuse them into other hands Is not this to say that the sole power of ordaining Officers is in the hands of the Bishop And dare not WE avow this now Blessed be they that have taken downe your confidence And where you are witty by the way you tell us we still talke of sole Ordination and sole Iurisdiction we may if we please keep that paire of soles for our next shooes Good Sir wee thanke you for your liberality but wee doubt you either part with them out of fear you shall no longer keep them or they will prove no longer worth the keeping But consider one thing we beseech you if you make this donation not onely in your own name but in the name of the whole Episcopall order you and they may turn Fratres Mendicantes and go bare foot if you part with these paire of soles and what will become of your Quid facit Episcopus quod non facit Presbyter exceptâ ordinatione You doe not contend say you for such a height of propriety c. that in what case soever of extremity and irresistable necessity this should be done onely by Episcopall hands You do not It is well you doe not but did you never meane to affirme it none of you Consider we beseech that forecited place Episcopacie Divine Right part 2. pag. 91. weigh the words and then speake and tell the Authour your judgement Our third question was There being in this mans thoughts the same jus divinum for Bishops that there is for Pastors and Elders whether if those reformed Churches wanted Pastors Elders too they should want nothing of the essence of a Church but onely of the glory and perfection of it The answer saith he is ready which is indeed no answer it is in sum but this that it would be better with them if they had Bishops too But how it would be if they wanted Bishops and Pastors and Elders too of that he saith nothing The Remonstrant had presumed to know so much of the mind of the Reformed Churches as to averre that if they might have their option they would gladly imbrace Episcopall government a foule imputation saith the Remonstrant
we say so too a foul imputation to charge the Reformed Churches of a secret inclination to Apostatize from their owne confessions which doe not onely maintain a justifiablenesse of their present government but a necessity of it as the only government appointed by GOD in his Church as wee shewed in five Corollaries drawn out of those confessions which the Remonstrant slides over wherein they doe not onely defend the condition they are in but tell us by consequence they would not change it for any other forme in the World Because they tell us Theirs is the form God hath set down in his Word the forme Christ hath appointed in his Church the forme by which the Church ought to be governed Can we think the Churches that thus professe and believe can ever look for a better form Or would accept another though propounded to them as better when they professe this is that form by which they ought to be governed The testimonies of particular Divines must not be put in the ballance against the confessions of whole Churches God forbid that all that hath flowed from the pens of Divines of great Learning and place in England should passe for the Doctrine of the English Church abroad Wee will beleeve you it is possible many eminent Divines of the Churches abroad have wished themselves in your condition that is in Episcopall Government not in our condition under Episcopall Government And as easily we believe they have magnified our Church as the most famous exemplary glorious Church in the whole Christian World It better a great deale becomes them then Laodicean like to say as you say pag. 26. their own is the most glorious and exemplary Church the rest are but a poore handfull and reason they should conforme to it not it to them But whether it be the beautie perfection and glory of Episcopall government or the powerfull and lively preaching of the World the powerfull and lively practice of piety which through the speciall grace of God are found in this Church then which there hath been nothing more hated or persecuted under Episco government that hath made them magnifie the Church of England there is the question which is not hard to determine To induce the Reader to believe the Reformed Churches would change theirs for our government the Remonstrant hath told us that there is little difference betweene their government and ours save in perpetuitie of moderatorship and exclusion of Lay-elders This saith the Remonstrant You say is a passage of admirable absurdity Sir wee said admirable the absurdity is your own To mend it you would perswade your selfe to feare wee know not what you speak of You speake not onely of the next Churches of France and the Netherlands Sir you spake if we remember of the Neighbour Churches and wee conceive between our Neighbour Churches the next Churches of France and the Netherlands there is not much distance sure any common understanding by Neighbour Churches would a great deal sooner understand the next Churches of France and the Netherlands then the Churches of Germany Weteraw Anhault c. Especially considering your instance in those Churches from whose Moderators our Bishops differ onely in perpetuitie of Moderatorship Which perpetuitie the Lutheran Superintendents have as well as our Bishops This made us instance in the Geneva forme as knowing no Churches whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not fixed but such as follow their patterne between which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and our episcopacie wee shewed a sixfold difference all which the Remonstrant wisely passeth that hee may not be forced to acknowledge the difference greater then hee pretended Onely tels us with what authority Master Calvin and the deputati Synodi carried the affairs of the Church which if the personall worth of the one or the other did procure what is that to carrying all the affairs of the Church ex officio by vertue of their own peculiarly demandated authority as our Bishops do and challenge right to doe You put us in minde that you said the difference between them was little and we need not put you in minde of what our answer was Manet aliâ mente repostum nor do we intend to change You tell us our note is the note of Babylon down with it downe with it Yet as long as neither we are Edomits nor speak of Sion but of Sions enemies the note is not Babylonish As Babylon had her time to cry against Sion downe with it down with it even to the ground so the time is comming when Sion shall shout with as strong a cry against her enemies and the God of Heaven whose promise is to arise for the sighing of the poore we doubt not will vindicate his Church from those proud adversaries that have so long time tyrannized over her and Judge betweene the Sheep and the Goats Even hee Judge whether wee that plead the truth against Bishops or the Bishops whose cause the Remonstrant pleâ—ds have by violent and subtill Machinations most disturbed Sions peace and advanced Babylons power SECT XV. THe Remonstrant had said that Lay Presbytery never had footing in the Christian Church untill this age Wherein said we hee concludes so fully with Doctor Hals irrefragrable propositions as if he had conspired to swear to what the Bishop had said The Remonstrant that it seems knows both better then wee will phrase it thus how like the man looks to Doctor Hall And answers As like him as wee are like our selves insolent and scornfull Truly Sir wee could scarce conceive this likenesse by the Remonstrance and we can lesse conceive it by this defence For besides the flat contradictions which this Defence gives to Episcopacie by Divine Right for which wee doubt the Doctor will give the Remonstrant little thanks the very language of the Defence inclines to the contrary For though we acknowledge the Defence for the substance of it wholly and for the phrase of it in a great part borrowed from episcopacie by Divine Right yet the extream disdainfulnesse that breaths in every page and line pleads with us to thinke that it is not his especially if he have made that vow of leaving his insolent and scornfull language which an ancient acquaintance of his hath put the world in hope hee would Your Errata bids us pag. 33. Read Invectives truly we may read in every page Invectives and if to be scornfull and insolent be to be unlike Doctor Hall you have done the Doctor exceeding wrong to say the Remonstrant looks like him But be the Remonstrant who hee will we hope hee will not take it ill if comming into publique nameless he receive par pari remembring especially the saying of Hierom concerning Domitius a Senator to his scornfull Consull si non vis me habere ut Senatorem cur ego te habeam ut Consulem Why should wee use him as a Father that doth not use us as Brethren Make sport with our poore wit
might be setled in the same These dissentions were not about seats or rates but a contention betweene Silvanus the Bishop and Nundinarius the Deacon in a matter of a high nature too high for our Church Wardens or Vestrymen to meddle in The Bishop being accused that hee was Traditor fur rerum pauperum Did ever Church-wardens or Vestry men among us heare inquire judge compose such differences as these are What should John a Nokes and John a Stiles and Smug the Smith meddle with a businesse of Bishops saith Episcopacie by Divine Right part 3. pag. 32. But how doth hee prove they were but as our Churchwardens or Vestrymen First because Deacons are named before these Seniors where ever they are mentioned Secondly because Optatus reckoning up quatuor genera capitum mentions not Elders For the first though the order of reckoning them be not so much to be insisted upon yet wee can tell you if here your confidence had not beene greater then your consideration that you might have observed that in some places they are mentioned not onely before Deacons but the whole cleargie For so Gregories letter cited by us Tabellarium cum consensu Seniorum Cleri memineris ordinandum Are not Seniors here mentioned before the cleargie His second proofe that these Elders were no better then meere Churchmardens and Vestry men was because Optatus mentioning foure sorts of men in the Church mentions not these Elders But is this the man that hath with such height of scorne vilified poore negative arguments though drawn from sacred Scripture And will he now lay such weight upon a negative argument Surely if all the truth and practice of the primitive times were bound up in one Optatus as all Divine truth is lodged in the sacred Volume of the Scriptures the Remonstrant might have made much of his negative argument yet hee scornes to heare us reasoning that because we do not read that the holy Ghost did by the Apostles appoint Bishops in remedium Schismatis therefore we cannot believe Bishops are of Divine or Apostolicall institution but of humane Away saith he with this poore negative argument And because the Apostle Ephesians the fourth reckoning the Officers whom Christ hath given and gifted for the edification of his Church reckons up onely Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers if wee should conclude Ergo there were no Bishops The Remonstrant would cry out again Away with these negative arguments yet such an argument froÌ„ Scripture may be valid though from no other authority As for Optatus First though in these places he mentions not Elders yet that other place which wee brought out of the same Author doth which the learned Antiquary Albaspinaeus though a Papist with us acknowledgeth Secondly these places produced by the Remonstrant crosse one another as much as they crosse us for Ministri are left out in one as well as Seniores in both Thirdly these Seniores are included in turba fidelium as the Apostle Rom. 10. 14. comprehends all the Church under these two hearers and teachers and so again Heb. 13. 24. Rulers and Saints Yet the Remonstrant is resolved to hold the conclusion Elders in a ranke above Deacons in a setled power of government with the Pastors shall be damned by him for a new and unjustifiable opinion Yet this is the man that would by no meanes be thought to condemne the Reformed Churches Though hee fall as unhappily neere the very words of their profest enemies the Netherland Remonstants as ever we did the words of Aerius Quod attinet Praxin antiquitatis ex â—â videlicet id demonstrari posse idoneis argumentis ut Censor asserit audaciae temeritatis est and again Tota antiquitatis Praxis ei repugnat but oh that our Remonstrant would once learn to take the counsell he gives And he that adviseth us to give glory to God in yielding to undoubted and cleere truth would do so himselfe For if it be not more cleere that there were elders anciently in the Church then that there were none and that these elders were not civill Aldermen but ecclesiasticall Officers Not meere Churchwardens and Vestry men busied about inferiour things of seats and rates but employed in matters of higher nature let the Remonstrant never renounce episcopacy But if it be let him take heed he do not renounce his word which he utters pag. 147. I doe here solemnely professe that if any one such instance can be brought I will renounce episcopacy for ever SECT XVI XVII XVIII THe rest of our Answer you say is but a meere declamation And good Sir what was your whole Remonstrance but a declamation And what is your Defence but a Satyre But ours is worthy of no other answer then contempt and silence You are very dextrous and happy in those kind of Answers your whole Defence is full of them It is true you say The religious Bishops of all times have strongly upheld the truth of God against Satan and against his Antichrist And it is as true that we told you that others have upheld the truth as strongly as Bishops ever did Yea at sometimes when there was never a Bishop in the world to appeare for the truth And therefore never impropriate all the glory to Episcopacie It is also true that wee told you that some irreligious Bishops have upheld Satan and his Antichrist against the truth of God and what can you say to this What is this to their calling Sir their upholding Antichrist makes as much against their calling as their upholding the truth makes for their calling If you fetch an argument from the one for their calling we may as Logically fetch an argument from the other against their calling with as much concluding strength but you can tell us of Presbyters wicked and irreligious shall the function it self therefore suffer Like enough And we could tell you that they find more coâ—ntenance from Bishops then the painfullest Ministers But if Presbyters should be as generally corrupted as Bishops now are have as much strength to suppresse the Gospell and promote Popery as the Bishops by their supreame power have if they can bring no more evidence of Divine institution then Bishops can and are of no more necessity to the Church then Bishops are let the Function suffer We told you what an unpreaching Bishop said of a preaching Bishop this say you is our slander not their just Epithite and challenge us to shew any unpreaching Bishop in the Church of England this day Sir pardon us if we tell you that you put us in minde of a poore Sir Iohn that because he had made one Sermon in 40. yeeres would needs be counted a preaching minister if you speake of preaching after that rate then indeed you may call all the Bishops in England preaching Bishops But the people of England can so well tell who deserves the name of a preaching Bishop that it is not the preaching of a
meant and if we ever did use the word Communicated it was onely to note a Community in that power not a derivation of it as for his authors which he alleages for sole Ordination let the Reader please to view our answer pag. 37. 38. wherein hee may receive full satisfaction and the rather because the Remonstrant passeth over it The third part of that office which the Bishops call theirs is ruling To prove this to belong to Presbyters as well as Bishops we cite Heb. 13. 17. Here the Remonstrant cryes out Oh injurious imputation do wee not give you the title of Rectores Ecclesiarum And doe we not commit to you regimen Animarum So then you grant this place is rightly both interpreted and applied but you give us say you the title of rectores Animarum regimen Animarum You give us No it is the Scripture gives it us yet you would assume it to your selves and perswad that as the Pope communicates to his Bishops partem solicitudinis so you to us Presbyters but if the Scriptures gave us no more then you do it would prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You make your selves the sole Pastors us but the Curates your selves Chancellours Officials the sole Iudges us but the executioners of your and their sentences whether just or unjust The other Text 1 Thes. 5. 12. and those four things observed from thence for the confirming of this assertion the Remonstrant passeth over so hee doth our argument which was this They which have the same name the same Ordination to their office the same qualification for their office the same work to feed the flock of God to ordain Pastors and Elders to rule and governe they are one and the same But such are Bishops and Presbyters ergo And thus deals hee also with the two quotations the one of the Councell of Aquisgra the other out of the writing of Smalcald all which being to hard for the Remonstrant to evade hee leaps over to a conclusion of such strange things as hee never went about to prove in his Section SECT VI. HAving from Scripture manifested the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters in their originall institution we applied our selves in this section to finde out the authors and occasion of this imparity which now appeares between them To expedite our selves from needlesse controversies we laid downe three particulars as consented to by both sides First that the first and best antiquity used the names of Bishops and Presbyters promiscuously this the Remonstrant subscribes to Secondly that in processe of time some one was honoured with the name of Bishop the rest were called Presbyters this the Remonstrant quarrels and desires to know what was this processe of time chargeth us either with error or fraud confidently defends this time had no processe at all but was in the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living Apostles and undertakes to make this good in the sequell And how he doth that you shall find in this very section page 59. where to that of Hierom The Presbyters governed the Church by their common Councel he answers So they did doubtlesse altogether till Episcopacy was setled who dare deny it Here the Remonstrant grants a processe of time betweene the planting of the Church by the Apostles and the setling of Episcopacy in the Churches Shall we say now this is the Remonstrants either errour or fraud not to set downe how long it was before Episcopacy was setled in the Church let him take heed another time how he charge men with error or fraud for affirming that which himselfe cannot but give his Suffrage to The third thing agreed upon was that this was not nomen inane an idle title but attended upon with some kind of imparity the question was digested into these tearmes Whether the impropriation of the name and the imparity of the place and power of a Bishop be of divine right The Remonstrant for feare of mistaking desires to explicate the tearmes of the question and therefore tels how fetching the pedegree of Episcopacy from Apostolicall and therefore in that right divine institution he interprets himselfe to understand by divine right not any expresse Law of God requiring it as of absolute necessity to the being of a Church but an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had but Nihil infelicius Retorico definiente the Remonstrant if he would avoyd mistaking or at least would not say that he was mistaken should have dealt a little more clearely and punctually in the stateing of the Question For first he tels us that it is an institution of the Apostles inspired by the Holy ghost if the Remonstrant be not here mistaken why doth he page 47. in expresse terms grant us that in originall authority of Scripture Bishops and Presbyters were originally the same For so were our words not as the Remonstrant reports them went for the same and why againe when we tell him we never finde in Scripture these three orders Bishops Presbyters Deacons we say not the names but orders why doth he grant that in the same page and flie from the writings of the Apostles to the monuments of their immediate successers can we imagine that the Apostles did by inspiration from the holy Ghost ordaine any thing in the Church of God as of perpetuall use the record where of is not found in sacred Scripture which was given by the same inspiration to the same men if we may imagine it sure we cannot beleeve it And if it be an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost why must it be distinguished from the expresse law of God doth he make it but an evangelicall counsell not requiring it as necessary to the being of a Church sure this is some opinion of a newer cut for the last defendant of Episcopacy before this Remonstrant saies thus The power of Ordination hath beene ever held so intrinsecall to Episcopacy that I would faine see where it can be shewed that any extremity of necessity was ever acknowledged a warrant sufficient for others to ordaine So that in his judgement where there is no Bishop there can be no lawfull ordination let it be in the case of extreamest necessity and where no ordination no ministery and so consequently no Word and Sacraments and no Church and how then in the judgement of these men is Episcopacy not required to the being of a Church And if not requiring it to the being of a Church how then requiring it onely where it may be had what a strange limitation is this where is it that Episcopacy may not must not be had if it be an ordinance of Christ where is it that the Churches of Christ may not have Word Sacraments Pastors and Bishops too if they be his ordinance It is true indeed some there are that cannot have Lord Bishops pompous Bishops and once