Brethren of one and the same Church and Fellowship And we know not what other Church you mean but the Church of England some of you that are the Subscribers of this Paper not being Members of the particular Church at Manchester nor any of you acknowledging or owning our Presbyterian Classicall Church or Association And therefore you here take us to be of the same Church of England with your selves and confess that we are in fellowship with it notwithstanding Episcopacy be taken away and which is that which we our selves do constantly profess 2. That that Episcopacy that was submitted to by the Ministers of this Land of later times was burthensome and grievous It spoyled the Pastors of that power which of right did belong unto them and which they did not onely anciently exercise as Doctor Vsher shews in his Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodicall Government received in the ancient Church Pag. 3 4 5. but which also by the order of the Church of England as the same Author out of the Book of Ordination shews did belong unto them For he there saith By the Order of the Church of England all Presbyters are charged to administer the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as this Realm hath received and that they might better understand what the Lord hath commanded them the Exhortation of St. Paul to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus is appointed to be read unto them at the time of their Ordination Take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock among whom the Holy-ghost hath made you Overseers to rule the Congregation of God which he hath purchased with his blood All which power the Pastors were deprived of during the prevalency of Episcopacy the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven being taken out of their hands they having neither power to cast out of the Church the vilest of Offenders that were often kept in against their minds nor any power to restore into the Churches Communion such as had been never so unjustly excommunicated though of the best of their Flock And so that Episcopacy that formerly was submitted unto was a plain and manifest usurpation upon the Pastors Office and Authority was very oppressive and grievous unto the Church and injurious to her Communion and whereupon it will follow that there is no breach of that Union which ought to be maintained in the Church by not admitting of it again but rather the Churches peace the power that of right belongs unto the Pastors and the Priviledges of the Members are all better secured in the absence then in the presence of it 3. That however both godly Conformists as well as Nonconformists did groan under the burthensomness of it yet in licitis honest is they submitted and yielded Obedience to it whilst it continued established by the Laws of the Land And that out of respect to the peace of the Church although they did not thereby take themselves obliged to forbeare the use of any lawfull means for their deliverance from that bondage as opportunity was offered And hereupon they petitioned the Parliament of late for an abolition of it as had been formerly desired in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James as when other Laws have been found to be inconvenient and mischievous it was never accounted any disturbance of the civil peace to remonstrate the grievousness of such Laws to the Parliament that they might be abolished 4. Let it also be further weighed that that Episcopacy to which you would perswade us by this Argument to return is now abolished and taken away by the Authority of Parliament as appears by the Acts and Ordinances for that purpose See them cited in our Animadversions on your next Paper Sect. 4. And therefore both the Bishops as such and that Superiority which they challenged and exercised over the Ministers in this Land are dead in Law and so there can be no guilt of Schisme lying on the Ministers in this Land for not returning to that Canonicall Obedience that is not hereupon any longer due or for not submitting themselves to that power and jurisdiction that is extinct There is the greater strength in this consideration if it be observed 1. That whatever Jurisdiction the Diocesan Bishops did exercise over Presbyters they did obtain onely by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church 2. That the Parliament did lawfully take away that Jurisdiction from them and had therein the concurrence of a reverend and learned Assembly of Divines The first of these Propositions is clear upon this consideration that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter all one This is clear from Titus 1. Ver. 5. compared with the seventh whence it appears that those whom the Apostle had called Elders or Presbyters Ver. 5. he calls Bishops Ver. 7. And indeed otherwise he had reasoned very inconsequently when laying down the qualifications of Elders Ver. 6. he saith Ver. 7. For a Bishop c. For a Bishop must be blameless Whereunto may be added that other known place Act. 20. 17. compared with Ver. 28. For the Apostle saith to those Elders that the Holy-ghost had made them Bishops or Overseers of the Church Besides what Office the Bishops had that the Elders had Both are charged to feed the Flock of Christ Act. 20. 28. 1 Pet. 5. 12. and which is both by Doctrine and Government The Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven were committed to them Mat. 16. 19. both the Key of Doctrine and the Key of Discipline The former is not denyed and for the other it is proved from 1 Thes 5. 12. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Heb. 13. 7 17 24. where we see they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are over them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that rule well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that rule And for power to Ordain we may see its plain from 1 Tim. 4. 14. where Timothy is charged not to neglect the Gift that was in him which was given him by Prophesie with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery This Text you your selves tell us in your next Paper Sect. 5. is understood by the Greek Fathers as Ignatius Chrysostome Theodoret Theophylact Oecumenius and others and some few of the Latines also Of the company of Presbyters i. e. Bishops who lay hands on the new made Bishops or Priests But from these several Texts thus urged it is very manifest that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter both one or one and the same order of Ministry And hereupon it follows that whatever Jurisdiction the Diocesan Bishops exercised over Presbyters they had it not by Divine Right but obtained it onely by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church And thus the first Proposition is clear We now come to make good the second And that the Parliament did lawfully take away the Jurisdiction and whole Office of Diocesan Bishops
truely qualified with a just power of conferring Orders Now these according to what you have declared in your former Paper are the Bishops without whom you there insinuate the Church of God cannot be continued amongst us in a succession of a lawfully ordained Ministry and so at once cashier out of the numbet of law-full Pastors all such Ministers either of our own or other reformed Churches that are ordained by Presbyters onely and to whom you allow not the power of Ordination as you here also do plainly declare your selves But we have in our answer to that clause quoted out of your former Paper sufficiently as we hope the Reader will judg declared the absurdity of this your opinion And you your selves as all men may see may hereby perceive how vain a thing it is for you and us to labour in any way of accommodation whilst you retain these principles they being destructive to union and your communion in severall of our Churches either in Baptisme or the Lords Supper For how can you have communion in those Ordinances dispensed by such Ministers amongst us as being ordained by Presbyters onely you on this ground will conclude to be no lawfully ordained Ministers And therefore if you be cordiall for union we wish you to revise what you have as touching this matter asserted and weigh what in our former Paper we have opposed unto it But as touching the power of ordaining Presbyters by Presbyters onely you will have it to be our opinion onely and that in this we are singular for you say we and you believe it is none but we presume one Presbyter may confer orders upon another And here indeed 1. If we held that one Presbyter might ordain another Presbyter you had reason to accuse us of singularity but we are professedly against all solitary power in ordination as well as in jurisdiction by whomsoever this power is or hath been exercised 2. But if your meaning be that it is we onely that hold Presbyters alone without any Bishops may ordain Presbyters 1. You might have known that this was and is the judgment of the reformed Churches abroad as well as ours 2. And further you may remember we alleadged out of Dr. Bernard the testimony of severall Episcopall men as well as of Dr. Usher asserting and proving that in places where Bishops cannot be had the ordination of Presbyters standeth valid which speciall restriction we mentioned in our Answer as the Reader will finde and which though added would not have hindred if you had been of the same opinion with them but you might have acknowledged that such as are with us ordained by Presbyters onely are notwithstanding lawfull Pastors Bishops being now taken away by the power of the civil Magistrate and excluded from having any liberty to ordain by those acts where Prelacy is exempted from that indulgence that is granted to some others If also that Catalogue of Divines Schoolmen and Fathers that we cited out of Dr. Bernard who are cited by him also out of others be consulted they will be found to affirm as we said in our Answer though you take no notice of it that Episcopacy non est ordo praecisè distinctus a Sacerdotio simplici Bishop Davenant as he is alleadged by Dr. Bernard for this purpose producing the principall of the Schoolmen Gulielmus Parisiensis Gerson Durand c. for this opinion Whence also it is evident that they are not by us frustraneously cited though it be an easie matter for you to assert the same without any reason or ever answering to what they were alleadged for to affirm We shall not here deny but Dr. Usher saith that the ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn canicall obedience could not possibly by him be excused from being schismaticall But yet he doth not say that the ordination by them is null and void although in his judgment there was thereby a schisme made There may be schismes in the Church yea some particular Churches may be schismaticall and yet for the substance of them continue true Churches of Jesus Christ as if it were to our purpose might be cleared both from Scriptures and also Fathers But as touching the aspersion of schisme that is cast on such Presbyters that have severed themselves from the Bishops we hope it is sufficiently wiped off by what we have already spoken in our answer to your second Paper 7. However it seems that charge was not high enough and therefore in this you proceed further charging us with perjury and obstinacy for you having mentioned that speciall restriction of Dr. Ushers of not invalidating the ordination by Presbyters where Bishops cannot be had add and say but this we must desire you to consider is ex necessitate non ex perjurio pertinacia and however you would smooth up the matter by bidding us examine our selves in this particular and saying you shall not judge any man yet it is plain enough to any discerning Reader who they are that are charged by such expressions But as touching the thing it self we shall now examine the justness of the charge And first we shall begin with that of perjury unto which we shall need to say the less considering that the grounds layd in our Answer to your second Paper proving that such Presbyters as since the Parliaments abolishing Prelacy have severed themselves from the Bishops or cast off Episcopacy are not justly to be charged with schisme do here also take place to acquit such Ministers that did swear Canonicall obedience to the Bishops from the guilt of perjury We shall here onely minde you and the Reader of two things 1. That seeing the superiority which the Bishops chalenged and exercised above Presbyters in this Nation did belong unto them onely by the Law of the Land we having proved in our Answer to your second Paper that a Bishop and Presbyter in Scripture sense are both one and was taken away from them by the Legislative power of this Nation as they might lawfully take it away that power which they exercised not being due to them by Divine right nay being an usurpation upon the Pastors office as hath been also shewd and so their whole Office as Diocesans together with their jurisdiction as sundry also of their Persons are all extinct and as is manifest in particular touching him that was the Bishop of this Dioces we wonder much and we think every Reader will here wonder with us that your great heat for Prelacy should thus farre have transported you as to charge us with perjury for which there is not the least colour Consult Dr. Sanderson de juramenti promissorii obligatione consult all other Casuists and you shall finde that the best and soundest of them do determine with one consent that when the matter of an Oath ceaseth the obligation by vertue of that Oath ceaseth also and therefore Prelacy being taken away by
power of excommunication Some we know there are that would make the Diocesan Bishops the onely Pastors of the Church and that other Ministers do but officiate by deputation from them and under them We hope you are not of the minde of these For then as the dissent in judgement betwixt you and us would be farre greater than as yet we apprehend it is so hence it would follow that till Prelacy should be restored there must not if you would provide for the safety of the persons and estates of them that should mannage the Government be the dispensing of any Church censures at all For you may easily know that not only by Acts and Ordinances of Parliament before made for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops c. and which are confirmed by the late humble Advice assented unto by his Highnesse sect 12. the office and jurisdiction of Diocesan Bishops is taken away But there is yet a further Barre put in against Prelacy in the 11. sect of the aforesaid humble Advice where it is expresly cautioned and we judge it was out of a conscientious mindfulness of what had been in those very termes covenanted against that the liberty that is granted to some be not extended to Popery and Prelacy And therefore if any Diocesan Bishop should exercise his jurisdiction and excommunicate any person within this Land wherein by Authority as you may see afterward there is also an appointment of another Government we leave it to those that are learned in the Law to determine whether such Diocesan Bishops would not run themselves into a praemunire But if you do not restrain lawful Pastors to these onely out doubt yet is Whether you mean not onely such Ministers as were ordained by Diocesan Bishops excluding those out of the number that since their being taken away have been ordained by Presbyters only If this be your sense we shall onely at present minde you of what is published to be the Judgement of Doctor Vsher late Primate of Ireland in a Book lately put forth by Doctor Bernard Preacher to the Honourable Society of Grayes-Inne and whom though a stranger to us and one of a different judgement from us in the point of Episcopacy yet we reverence for his moderation and profession of his desires for peace wishing that such as do consent in substantials for matter of Doctrine would consider of some conjunction in point of Discipline That private interests and circumstantials might 〈◊〉 keep them thus far asunder In which wish as we do cordially joyn our selves so we heartily desire that all godly and moderate spirited men throughout the Land would also close But the book which the said Doctor hath lately published is intituled The Judgement of the late Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland c. In this Book this Doctor tels us that the late Primate in Answer to a letter of his sent to him as it should seem for that purpose declares his Judgement touching the ordination of the Ministry in the Reformed Churches in France and Holland There he saith that Episcopus Presbyter gradu tantum differunt non ordine And consequently that in places where Bishops cannot be had the ordination by Presbyters standeth valid And in the close of his Answer about this point he saith That for the testifying of his Communion with the Churches of the Low-Countryes of whom he had spoken immediately before and which he there professeth He doth love and bonour as true members of the Vniversal Church notwithstanding the difference that was betwixt him and them about the point of Episcopacy he doth professe That with like affection he should receive the blessed Sacrament at the hands of the Dutch Ministers if he were in Holland as he should do at the hands of the French Ministers if he were in Charenton See pag. 125. and 126. Hence you may perceive that the Judgement of Dr. Vsher was That the Ordination of Presbyters where Bishops cannot be had standeth valid And consequently if you be of his opinion and you must have stronger reason then ever yet we have seen to bear you out there in if you judge otherwise they ought to bee esteemed lawful Pastors to whom you grant the power of Excommunication Bishops being now taken away and may not therefore ordain according to the present Laws of the Land The said Doctor Bernard hath some animadvertisements upon this Leteer in which Doctor Vsher doth deliver his judgement as abovesaid and there shews that he was not in this judgement of his singular He alledgeth Doctor Davenant that pious and learned Bishop of Sarisbury as consenting with him in it in his determinations quaest 42. and produceth the principal of the Schoolmen Gulielmus Parisiensis Gerson Durand c. and declares it to be the General opinion of the Schoolemen Episcopatum ut distinguitur a simplie◠sacerdotio non esse alium ordinem c. see pag. 130. of the aforenamed Book as also pag. 131 132. Where the concurrence of Doctor Davenant with Doctor Vsher in his judgement about this matter is declared more fully He addes also others as in special Doctor Richard Field in his learned Book of the Church lib. 3. cap. 39. and lib. 5. cap. 27. And also that Book intituled A defence of the Ordination of the Ministers of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas maintained by Archdeacon Mason against the Romanists And further he saith He hath been assured it was not onely the Judgement of Bishop Overal but that he had a principal hand in it He tels us that the fore-mentioned Author produceth many testimonies The Master of the Sentences and most of the Schoolemen Bonaventure Thomas Aquinas Durand Dominicus Soto Richardus Armachanus Tostatus Alphonsus a Castro Gerson Petrus Canisius to have affirmed the same and at last quoteth Medina a principal Bishop of the Council of Trent who affirmed That Jerome Ambrose Augustine Sedulius Primasius Chrysostome Theodoret Theophylact were of the same judgement also But you may see these things your selves in Doctor Bernard pag. 132 133 134. We have been onely at the pains to transcribe them We could alledge many more Testimonies to prove this But we count these sufficient and doe alledge these the rather because brought by one that is of the same Judgement with you as we suppose But having declared how farre you accord with us in Judgement touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming the wicked persons and schismatical c. you tell us That you are not therein so wavering and unsettled in your apprehensions of the Case as to submit either it or them either wholly or in part to the contrary Judgement and determination of a general Council of the Eastern and Western Churches much lesse to a new termed Provincial Assembly at Preston wherein you professe no little to differ from us That which we submitted wholly to the Judgement of the Provincial Assembly was not whether Catechizing was a way appointed by
Government continued such during the time of the late Prelacy which yet was taken away in other reformed Churches that the Pastors were deprived of that power of rule that our Church acknowledgeth did belong to them of right and which did anciently belong to them however the exercise thereof did after grow into a long disuse as hath been shewed before And therefore when we consider on the one hand that the superiority which the Bishop obtained at the first above the Presbyter in the ancient Church and which was rather obtained consueâ—udine Ecclesiae then by Divine right did at the length grow to that height that the Pastors were spoiled of all power of rule so we cannot much wonder on the other hand that the ruling Elder was quite turned out of doors For the proof of the being and exercise of whose office in the purer times there are notwithstanding produced testimonies of the ancients by Divines both at home and abroad that have written about that subject and to which we do therein refer you As there doe remain some footsteps and shadow of their office in the Church-wardens and Sides-men even to this day And so upon the whole the premisses considered and that we are commanded not to follow a multitude to do evil though it were of the best of men and that therefore the examples and practises though it were of whole Churches are to be no further a rule for us then they follow Christ and as their examples be approved of in the Word of Christ notwithstanding the univerfality and long continuednesse of such practises Whereas you say that you pray for the establishment of such Church Government as is consonant to the will of God and universal practise of primitive Churches we believe you might cut the matter a great deal shorter and say That you are for the establishing of that Government that is most consonant to the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and that the Word of God alone and on which onely Faith must be built and into which at last be resolved when other records of Antiquity that yet are not so ancient as it is have been searcht into never so much shall determine what that is and so those wearisome and endlesse disputes about what is the universal and constant practise of primitive Churches and which if it could be found out in any good measure of probability for the first 300. years after Christ could never yet be so farre issued as to be a sure bottom whereon our faith may safely rest may be cut off It being a most certain rule and especially in matters of faith that the Factum is not to prescribe against the Jus The Practice against the Right or what ought to be done And it being out of all question the safest course for all to bring all doctrines and practices to the sure and infallible Standard and Touchstone the Word of God alone And after you have more seriously weighed the matter and remember how you professe that in the matters you propose in your Pâ—per You rest not in the Judgement or determination of any general Council of the Eastern or Western Churches determining contrary to what you are perswaded is so fully warranted by the Word of God as well as by the constant practice of the Catholick Church although what that was were more likely to be resolved by a general Council then by your selves the proposal of having the Word of God alone to be the Judge of the Controversie about Church Government cannot we think in reason be deny'd by you And we with you shall heartily pray That that Church-Government which is most consonant to the will of God revealed in Scriptures might be established in these Lands Although we must also professe that we believe that that Government which is established by Authority and which we exercise is for the substantials of it this Government and which we judge also to be most consonant to the practice of the primitive Churches in the purest times And therefore as there was some entrance made by the late Parliament in regard of establishing this Government by ordinances as the Church Government of these Nations And as to the putting those Ordinances in execution there hath been some beginning in the Province of London the Province of this County and in some other places throughout the Land So when there shall be the opportunity offered we shall not be wanting by petitioning or otherwayes to use our best endeavours that it may be fully settled throughout these Lands that so we may not as to Government in the Church any longer continue as a City without wals and a Vineyard without an hedge and so to the undoing of our posterity endanger Religion to be quite lost And upon which consideration we do earnestly desire that all conscientious and moderate spirited men throughout the Land though of different principles whether of the Episcopal or Congregational way would bend themselves so far as possibly they can to accommodate with us in point of practice In which there was so good a progresse made by the late Assembly as to those that were for the Congregational way And as we think also all those that were for the lawfulnesse of submission to the Government of the late Prelacy as it was then exercised and that are of the Judgement of the late Primate of Ireland in his reduction of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government mentioned before might doe if they would come up towards us so far as we judge their principles would allow them As we do also professe that however we cannot consent to part with the Ruling Elder unlesse we should betray the truth of Christ Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 5. as we judge and dare not give any like consent to admit of a moderate Episcopacy for fear of encroachments upon the Pastors right and whereof late sad experience lessons us to beware as we judge also that the superiority of a Bishop above a Presbyter in degree which some maintain is no Apostolical institution and so have the greater reason in that respect to caution against it Yet we do here professe we should so farre as will consist with our principles and the peace of our own consciences be ready to abate or tolerate much for peace sake That so at the length all parties throughout the Land that have any soundness in them in matters of faith and that are sober and godly though of different judgements in lesser matters being weary of their divisions might fall in the necks one of another with mutual embraces and kisses and so at last through the tender mercy of our God there might be an happy closure of breaches and restoring of peace and union in this poor unsettled rent and distracted Church to the glory of God throughout all the Churches SECT VII BUt now as to you and what follows in your Paper and in the mean season till this can be accomplished and
withheld you from running into the like and worse again as had there not been a further discovery of the distemper of your spirit we should have been willing to have passed them over and covered them in love upon this confession according to that hope thereof which you do here profess And as touching the impertinencies errors and mistakes which you say not improbably might be discovered in ours and which here you forbear to minde us of in your next paper you speak out what here might be in your thoughts and which we shall forbear to return any answer to untill we come thither But thus are we brought to the matter of this Paper And here the Reader will perceive that the main thing you do pitch upon in the first place is what we had quoted out of Dr. Bernard showing the judgement of Dr. Vsher concerning the antiquity of the Assemblies he mentions and particularly of Provincial and which the Reader may see more at large if he be pleased to peruse the third Section of our answer toward the latter end of it Concerning all this you profess you shall close and joyn issue with us and that you willingly submit your selves to that order and rule therein expressed which being that which was received in the ancient Church in the judgement of that reverend and learned Antiquary Dr. Vsher who was so acknowledged by all that know him or are acquainted with his workes And also the Assemblies there expressed holding proportion with ours set down in the form of our Church Government and being the same with ours in substance and being proposed as an expedient for prevention of further troubles which have arisen about the matter of Church Government you do hereupon infer that you fully expect we should also submit our selves unto for Peace and Unities sake and this the rather in regard of those full and free expressions of ours â—o that purpose in the places of our answer which you do here particularly recite Unto all which we â—ave several and sundry things to say 1. And first we desire it might here be took notice of what order and rule it is that is propounded by Dr. Vsher in his reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodical Government received in the ancient Church it is Episcopacy something moderated and limited it being there propounded That in every Parish the Rector or incumbent Pastor together with the Churchwardens and Sidesmen may every week take notice of such as live scandalously in the Congregation who are to receive such several admonitions and reproofes as the quality of their offence shall deserve and if by this means they cannot be reclaimed they may be presented to the next monthly Synod and in the mean time be debarred by the Pastor from accesse unto the Lords Table as is evident from the first proposal And he then propounds that the Suffragans in the several rural Deaneries supplying the place of those who in the ancient Church were called Chorepiscopi might every moneth assemble a Synod of all the Rectors or incumbent Pastors within the Precinct and according to the major part of their voices conclude all matters that shall be brought into debate before them as is manifest from the second Proposal And then further it is proposed that the Diocesan Synod might be held once or twice in the year as it should be thought most convenient and that therein all the Suffragans and the rest of the Rectors or incumbent Pastors or a certain select number of every Deanery within the Diocess might meet or with whose consent or the major part of them all things might be concluded by the Bishop or Superintendent c. This is the sum of the third Proposall The like is propounded for the Provincial and National Synods saving that here all the Bishops and Suffragans of every Diocess are to be members in these Assemblies and only such of the Clergy as should be elected and the Archbishops to be the Moderators of these Assemblies as is clear from the fourth Proposal Now this is that Order and rule that you do here professe your selves willing to submit unto And therefore you would consent that some Ministers at the least might for the present have some power in the governing of the Church but whether you would by these proposals take your selves obliged to submit to be governed by all the Ministers placed in Chappels throughout the several Parishes that yet for sure are equall to the rest of their fellow Presbyters in order and jurisdiction or only to those that are benefic'd men as they were wont to be called we do much question and wheâ—her you would consent that any other should vote in any of the fore mentioned Assemblies we do also doubt as we have also reason from what you expresse in your next paper to fear you would but consent only thus far because you may perceive by these proposals where the Suffragans Bishops and Archbishops are to be constant Moderators in the Assemblies mentioned and without whom as we apprehend you will understand them nothing might passe and be concluded notwithstanding what was concluded should be done by the major part of the incumbent Pastors or Rectors present and when in the Diocesan Synod all the Suffragans must be members and in the Provincial and National all the Suffragans and Bishops fair way is made to raise up Episcopacy again to the height to which it had attained of latter times especially when as you will perhaps further conceive from these proposals that all that were to be admitted into any Benefice must come in only by the Suffragans or Bishops and these likewise come in according as they had been wont to be admitted to these places in former times And if this be all you would willingly submit unto as we have some reason to believe it is that which you would yeeld unto for peace sake is not much 2. But since you lay great stresse upon what we quoted out of Dr. Vsher we desire the Reader would peruse our answer throughly in which he shall not finde that we did â—â—e him as approving of all that he had propounded nay we expresly cautioned against Moderate Episcopacy much lesse did we quote him as Umpire and composer of differences betwixt you and us or as our own man as in your next Paper much forgetting your selves you do confidently assert but we quoted him only to prove the Antiquity of Provinciall Assemblies where the Pastors of the severall Congregations to whom he alloweth a decisive Vote are Members And we conceived that if you should be for Episcopacie in the height of it he was the fittest Person to be quoted by us to moderate you as to that particular It 's true we sayd That the Assemblies that were by him proposed within certain limited bounds saving that they were something larger then ours which we sayd was but a circumstantiall difference did hold proportion with those set down
espouse their Quarrell emboldned them to these intolerable Exorbitances Now except it could be proved that the Superiority of a Bishop above a Presbyter were an Institution of Jesus Christ prudence teacheth to fly from that as far as we may with a good Conscience that heretofore hath proved so burthensome and grievous Especially considering that 2. If moderate Episcopacy should once have footing in this Land there is very great danger it would presently incroach upon the Pastors right and in time grow up to the full height that it was in heretofore Sad experience for Ages together hath shewed how through the Ambition pride of the Bishops that loved with Diotrephes to have the preheminence the Pastors as to the governing of their Flocks were spoiled of all power Out of what we quoted even now you might take notice that moderate Episcopacy brought in at the first upon prudentiall grounds yet became a Stirrop for Antichrist to get up into the Saddle that first Ambition crept in which at length begat Antichrist set him in his Chair and brought the Yoke of Bondage upon the Church for so Dr. Whitaker expressed himself concerning it And 1. Are there not still in the hearts of the Sons of men the same Seeds of Pride and Ambition as in former times And is there not hereupon cause to fear if there should be a tempting of God so far as to admit of that which would cherish and warm those Corruptions the same bitter Fruit would appear as heretofore Is it to be wondred that the same cause upon the same occasion being still like it self and ever for kind one and the same should produce the like effects as heretofore it hath done But 2. Yet further If moderate Episopacy be no Plant of Gods planting as if it be not Jure divino and yet an Officer introduced into Gods House there is no reason why it should lay claim to him as to its Author may it be thought strange if like unto a wild Vine it should grow luxuriant Or like a Weed that is set in a fat Soil it should grow as rank as ever especially if warmed by the Favour of Princes and great Ones that might be induced out of respect to their own Interests to smile upon it yea to countenance it so far as to discountenance the most faithfull Pastors in the Land that would not dance after their Pipe even to the outing them of their places and spoiling them of all Rule that so the Darling of Episcopy that might be charmed might grow the greater But 3. if yet we should not be so wise as to hearken to reason should not the experience of those that thereby purchased their after wisdome at a dear rate lesson us sufficiently to beware how we meddle with moderate Episcopacy that will hardly be moderated but would be found to the cost of those that would be so foolish as to make further triall to break all Bonds and limitations though never so many and strong and never so wisely made Little is propounded for the moderating of Episcopacy by Doctor Vsher in his Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodicall Government received in the ancient Church although we believe his Design in the Proposals there was very pious and proceeded as well from a sense of the great Exorbitancy that Prelacy was grown to of late times and its great unlikeness to what it was in the purer times of the Church when it was first admitted as out of a desire to tender some expedient for the prevention of those troubles which did afterwards arise about the matter of Church-government unto those strickt Bands nay Shackles and Fetters that so far as mans wisdome could foresee were layd upon it by the Church of Scotland and yet it burst them all and which shews that it is of that nature that it cannot easily be tamed In his Proposals so far as we can discern the Suffragans that were to be constant Moderators in the Assemblies oâ— rurall Deaneries as the Bishops and Archbishops in the higheâ— Assemblies were all of them to have Negative Votes These as from the Plat-form it self is manifest were to do all and conclude matters according to the major part of Voices in these Assemblies But it is not said that if the Suffragan or Bishop or Archbishop were dissenting any thing might pass according to the major part of the Voyces in the severall Assemblies notwithwanding And hereupon if these constant Moderators were corrupt they might propound matters or not propound them to the Assemblies as they pleased And when they were propounded yet not concurring with the Assemblies obstruct all their proceedings Besides if all persons that were admitted into any Pastorall Charges and having cure of Soules were to come in onely at their Doore how soon might the Ministry be so farre corrupted as that it were easie for them to procure the major part in those Assemblies to Vote according to their mindes to over-sway and over-ballance the rest of the Members of these Assemblies that though godly and able yet might not be so favoured by the times as to be admitted into any Benefices as they have been called of any considerable value and so might be like to be for outward estate poor and in that respect the more contemptible But yet further if the Suffragans must come into their places by the Bishops and the Bishops into theirs as in former times if there should be corruption here where there is more danger then in any in the higher Assemblies which yet should be the freest from corruption and should still be the better the higher we go in regard of the greater number of persons of the choicest and best Abilities there were danger of far greater corruption then in the lower For all the Suffragans are expresly by these Proposals to be Members of the Diocesan Synod and of the Rectors or incumbent Pastors besides the Suffragans it is said the rest or a select number out of every Deanry as appears from the third Proposall And as touching the Provinciall Synod it is sayd it might consist of all the Bishops and Suffragans and such other of the Clergy as should be elected out of every Diocess within the Province as is clear from the fourth Proposall And so if the Bishops and Suffragans should be corrupted that were to be as constant Moderators in these Assemblies so constant Members of the highest Assemblies by their Power and Dignity and greater port in the World and through the neglgence of the times it might easily come to pass that these might be so biassed that less good were to be expected from the higher Assemblies where yet the remedy should lye and whither Appeals were to be made then in the lower To say nothing that through the Favour of great ones if they should side with the Suffragans or Bishops that might be corrupted the meetings of these Assemblies though appointed by Law as well as Parliaments might
is proved from the grounds already layd For this Jurisdiction of theirs above Presbyters did not belong unto them by Divine Right we having proved that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter to be both one And therefore the Parliament that by Law gave them their power might seeing just cause for it by Law take it away They had also just reason for to take it away in regard of the oppressiveness and burthensomness of it both to Ministers and People to this whole Church and Nation as hath been proved before And therefore what they herein did was justly yea piously and prudently done and for which the Church of God in this Land both Ministers and People do for the present and will for the future see great cause to bless God for many Generations And that they had the concurrence herein of a reverend and learned Assembly of Divines is clear from their Exhortation annexed to the Ordinance of Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament with Instructions for taking the League and Covenant in the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales In this Exhortation of the Assembly of Divines in answer to some Objections they apprehended might be made against the taking of the Covenant they thus express themselves If it be sayd for the extirpation of Prelacy to wit the whole Hierarchiall Government standing as yet by the known Laws of the Kingdome is new and unwarrantable This will appear to all impartiall understandings though new to be not onely warrantable but necessary if they consider to omit what some say that this Government was never formally established by any Laws of this Kingdome at all that the very life and soul thereof is already taken from it by an Act passed this present Parliament so as like Jezabels Carkass of which no more was left but the Skull the Feet and the Palmes of her hands nothing of Jurisdiction remains but what is precarious in them and voluntary in those who submit unto them That their whole Government is at best but a humane Constitution and such as is found and adjudged by both Houses of Parliament in which the Judgment of the whole Kingdome is involved and declared not onely very perjudicial to the civil State but a great hinderance also to the perfect reformation of Religion Yea who knoweth it not to be too much an Enemy thereunto and destructive to the power of Godliness and pure administration of the Ordinances of Christ which moved the well-affected almost throughout this Kingdome long since to petition this Parliament as hath been desired before in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James for a total abolition of the same And then a little after And as for these Clergy-men who pretend that they above all other cannot covenant to extirpate that Government because they have as they say taken a solemn Oath to obey the Bishops in licitis honestis they can tell if they please that they that have sworne Obedience to the Laws of the Land are not thereby prohibited from endeavouring by all lawfull means the abolition of those Laws when they prove inconvenient or mischievous And yet if there should any Oath be found into which any Ministers or others have entred not warranted by the Laws of God and the Land in this case they must teach themselves and others that such Oathes call for repentance not pertinacy in them Thus far the Assembly of Divines in their Exhortation for the taking the solemne League and Covenant and which we have thought requisite to transcribe that so it may appear how fully they concurred with the Parliament in what they did touching the abolition of Episcopacy as it doth also confirme by their Testimony severall things that have been mentioned by us wherein the Reader may perceive their concurrence in Judgment with us From all which it is clear that seeing Diocesan Bishops did but obtaine that Jurisdiction they exercised over Presbyters by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church The Parliament finding this Government of Episcopacy to be very oppressive to this Church A great hinderance to the perfect Reformation of Religion and prejudiciall to the civill State they might both lawsully and laudably being therein also backed with the advice of a reverend and learned Synod take it away And hence it will follow that if the Ministers of this Land for severing themselves from the Bishops and with-drawing their Canonicall Obedience from them as some speake the Parliament according to the reverend Synod having before taken away from them all that Jurisdiction over Presbyters that did belong unto them must needs be accused of Schisme It is a good Schisme yea a blessed Schisme to use the words that Gerhard did defending the Protestants with-drawing from the Pope and the Church of Rome that they will be found to be guilty of The blot whereof as it is not to be much regarded so it is easily wiped off and as we think it is already done in the Eyes of all impartiall and unbyassed Readers by these Considerations which we have layd down We have onely one thing more to add which is the third generall Head we offer to the Reader here before we leave this first Argument with which you would perswade us to returne againe to our former Yoke of Bondag 3. For we offer it to the consideration of all impartiall men whether considering what hath been spoken touching the nature of Schisme in the generall and how lawfully and laudably the Parliament did abolish Episcopacy and how they passed by Ordinance the forme of Church-Government Anno 1648. establishing the Presbyterian in roome of the Episcopall and that how it was set up in this County by their Authority If they but observe what your actings have been and what your expressions are in your Papers they will not thereupon see just cause to impute Schisme taken in the worst part and as it is taken most usually unto you who have been so forward though without reason to fasten this blot upon us But we are sure during the prevalency of Episcopacy those that were not guilty of any such disturbance of the peace of the Church by any such boisterous Ventings of the Distempers of their Spirits as you are were counted and called by the Prelates Schismaticks And from which Aspersion though sundry of those being peaceable and godly however Non-conformists were free yet you being very unlike them are not thereby quit But we have now done with the first of those Arguments we promised to speak to particularly whereby you would perswade us to admit againe of Episcopacy and hope we have sayd to it that which is sufficient 2. We therefore now come to the second wherein you still rise higher for therein you insinuate a thing of a farre greater and more dangerous consequence if Episcopacy be not restored For you intimate that it is necessary That the Church of God may be continued amongst us from Age to Age to the
yet proved or can make good but we have not leasure at present to follow you further then our way lies and therefore come to the matter in hand The Animadversions of the first Class within the Province of Lancaster on this paper 1. FIrst There was no reason why though our answer was large which you complain of seeing it was in order to and necessary for your satisfaction that should hinder your acknowledgement of our civillity towards you especially considering those sharp reflections on us and on our Government in your first paper which in your second you do not deny and which ministred unto us occasion of provocation but we were resolved not to answer you in your own kind as through the grace of God we hope though we must deal faithfully with you we shall keep our selves still from returning railing for railing notwithstanding in this paper you deal farre more uncivilly and unchristianly with us as the Reader will perceive Secondly But whereas you acknowledge our civillity only so farre as it related unto you we cannot see any reason for this restriction we having not dealt uncivilly with any that we had occasion to mention or quote in our answer Thirdly Neither did we give any occasion by the answer we gave you to your second paper to conceive that we intended not an amicable union and composure of differences according to our profession of our cordial and hearty desires although we must needs confess whatever your hopes were we did not apprehend any great likelyhood of a closure with you or that you had reason so to conceive upon the termes you propounded in your second paper as we have said already in our answer to it except you thought we might be courted out of our principles upon your earnest entreaty without any grounds and reasons at all Fourthly We cannot but wonder that you should say with any qualification that you condiscend to come to our terms except it be as it were to come to our termes to propound in order unto peace What in that very place where we profess our selves so willing and desirous of union we had expresly cautioned against as being things we could not in conscience yeeld unto But when you speak of your condescension we cannot but thereby conceive your meaning to be this that if you grant preaching Presbyters any power in Ecclesiastical matters and to have decisive votes in Synods where the Bishops are to be the superintendents and perpetual moderatours according to the proposals of Dr. Vsher you think you condiscend very farre And upon this and other grounds we have cause to fear if the ruling Elders were removed and you should come to be censured by the preaching Presbyters your exceptions then would be as much against them in such a case as against the ruling Elders now and that then you would cry up the Bishops as having the solitary power of jurisdiction and that it belonged not to other Ministers to meddle therein at all Fifthly When mentioning our professions cordially to desire peace which you will have to be but a pretending to it only you say Oh that there had been such a heart in us We must needs tell you that we can approve our hearts to him that is the searcher of them that there was then and is still a cordial desire of peace and union with all that are truly godly and orthodox throughout the Land however differing from us in some points touching Discipline and Government and do heartily wish that you closed with us in those desires as cordially and heartily as we do But we hereby perceive that except we have an heart for Episcopacy condescended by you for the present to be moderated and to throw out the ruling Elders even to the forcing of our consciences against the Scriptures we urged in our answer for the divine right of their office and against the Scriptural arguments thence urged to which we referred you though by you sleighted and against the reasons also we urged in our answer where we cautioned against moderate Episcopacy never so much as attempted to be answered by you you judge us to have no hearts for peace Sixthly Whereas you say our discourse concerning the civill sanction of our Presbyterian Government which produced the authority that awarranted all that was in that paper we published in our several Congregations and whatever we have acted in the exercise of that Government from the first to the last since it was set up was needless we leave it to the Reader to judge of when he shall consider that in your first paper you told us of our making Laws and Edicts and publishing them openly in the Church for all to obey upon pain of Excommunication contrary to the Laws in force and that it concerned us to look unto it whether we had not run our selves into a praemunire Seventhly But it seems you count that discourse also tedious though it was necessary both for our own vindincation and to give you full and particular satisfaction touching the rules prescribed unto us in the forme of Church-Government to walk by besides that this fair manner of dealing with you in bringing to your hand what we judged you might never have enquired after gave you the opportunity to have excepted against us for transgressing our rule if you had any thing to have alleadged against us in that respect But perhaps the mentioning of any Ordinances of Parliament and rules therein expressed for the Presbyterian Government was that which was tedious to you and which we have some reason for to think and therefore afterward you endeavour though you performe not what you undertake to take them all away and utterly to nullifie all Ordinances of Parliament whatsoever Eightly You judge also that we quickly forget our selves when we said in our answer our leisure would not permit us to spend time about impertinencies and yet presently fall upon alleadging of sundry Orders and Ordinances of Parliament but these were not produced by us to prove that the Presbyterian Government was established by the Law of the Land but to give you some account how the setting up of the Presbyterian Government in this County the dividing it into several Classes the making those Classes into a Province and appointing this Class to be the first was all done by Authority of Parliament this being the inference that we made from our recital of the Orders and Ordinances of Parliament that were mentioned in our answer and which was occasioned by your selves who having intituled us in your first paper The first Class at Manchester within the Province of Lancaster then presently added Give us leave to salute you in your own terms We judged you might be ignorant of the particular Orders and Ordinances touching what concerned this Province of Lancaster and this Class in particular in the particulars above-mentioned though you might have seen some Ordinances in the general for the Presbyterian Government and which
submission to Synods and Councils is any sounder then as we understood you to have meant those words and which we doubt not but he will discern from what hath been said concerning it in the Animadversion going before 5. But by this explication of your selves you have created to us a further scruple for it aâ—peats to us from thence seeing you joyn the word of God and constant practice of the Catholique Church together as that which must make those matters of faith and articles of Religion so plain to you that you thereupon will refuse to submit such matters so made plain and your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council that except the plainest matters of faith and articles of Religion from Gods word be also made plain to have been the constant practice rather judgment as we think you should have expressed it of the Catholique Church they are not so plain to you as not to submit your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council and so the word of God alone even in the matters of faith and articles of Religion that are therein most plainly contained shall not be a sufficient foundation to bottom your faith upon except it be also evident what was the constant and universall practice rather judgment of the Church in those points and so your faith even in the plainest articles of Religion must be resolved into the constant practice or rather declared judgment of the universal Church and which makes it a meer humane not a divine faith But touching this as the rule in any cases of matters of Religion we shall have further occasion to speak in our animadversions on the sixth Section of this paper 6. As touching our selves we have declared that we did not submit to Synods and Councils so as to build our faith on their dictates or resolve it into their determinations and in this we would be understood touching all matters of faith whatsoever not only those that are most plainly contained in Gods word but also such as about which there may be some doubt and difficulty although we reverence Synods as an Ordinance of God and in way of means judg it more likely in doubtfull cases that what is Gods mind should be boulted forth to our satisfaction by the learned debates of learned judicious and godly Divines in such Assemblies then by the discussion of one Bishop or some few Ministers But as touching the juridicall power of Synods we profess our selves to be ready to submit to their judgment and did so submit our Paper wholly to the judgment of our Provinciall which was a Synod actually in being and to whom we knowing our selves to be accountable and judging we ought so to be thought it not meet to publish the Paper that was read in our severall Congregations except it had first been approved of by them Now how farre we do in this declaration of our judgements touching our submission to Synods and Councils concur with what here you declare to be yours we leave it to your selves and the Reader to judg of but we are sure there is herein a great distance betwixt your declared judgment and ours though you shall not finde afterwards that we do hardly grant that to a generall Council rightly constituted and regularly called which we either in truth or any shew do grant to our Provinciall The Gentlemens Paper Sect. III. Having done with our Preface you come to the matter and as we said so we finde we much dissent not onely in the third and last concerning the Heresie and Schism of those who Erre so grossely whether in Doctrinals or points of discipline You give us the reason wherefore you did not so expresly mention them their sin and punishment as the grossely ignorant and scandalous Which is because they are very inconsiderable in comparison of the other and in sundry of your Congregations if not in most not any at all that you know of But if you will seriously consider the number of those that have rent themselves from a true constituted Church and of those who have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical obedience and therefore in the Judgement of that Learned and Rever end Bishop Vsher and others cannot possibly be excused from being Schismaticall we say if you consider this you will finde a considerable number even within the verge of your own Association What we said touching the way of Catechising for Information of the ignorant we are glad to hear you so heartily wish for a more generall practise thereof in your Churches at home at you say it is practised abroad It was enjoyned and practised in the Church of England before your separation And if you by your pretended Reformation have destroyed that practise the fault lies at your own doors You understand us aright in this That we hold it not fitting that Persons grossely ignotant should be admitted so the Sacrament of the Lords Supper But your conclusion thence is not good viz. That we cannot therefore in reason deny that there ought to be an Examination and tryall of all Persons de novo before they be admitted c Especially by your Eldership To whom you say the power of judgement and examination is committed and not to any one Minister before whom all must come for re-examination whatsoever their tryall and examination heretofore hath been Those Persons who have anciently been Catechized and have been a long time Commoners at the Lords Table and witnessed a good confession for parts and piety must these again yeild themselves to the examination of an Eldership before they can be admitted Pardon us if herein we pronounce a dissent from you Concerning the scandalous and wicked in their lives you say we fully come up to you and are glad there is an agreement in judgement betwixt us thus farre viz. That the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to Excommunicate such upon which you say you cannot see how we in reason can finde fault with your proceedings in such a way against such Persons though your ruling Elders which in our judgement aâ—e but meer lay-men do joyn in the Government with you Ther 's another non sequitur a conclusion as bad as the former and the reason of that conclusion as weak as the rest Because High-Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries in the time of Episcopacy to which Government we submitted that were as much Lay-men as your ruling Elders had so great a share as to suspend Ministers c. and so farre as to decree the sentence of Excommunication against them and others as there was occasion for it For when you can prove that these Chancellors Commissaries c. did not officiate by deputation from and under a lawfull Pastor but in equall right with him and jure divino as your ruling Elders do Then your Comparison of them and your ruling Elders may hold good till then it is weak and frivolous Now whereas you desire to
know whom we mean by lawfull Pastors our Answer is we mean such Persons as have received their Ordination from men lawfully and truely qualified with a just power of conferring Orders which you and we believe 't is none but you presume one Presbyter may give another Whereupon you instance the opinion of Dr Vsher in a late Letter of his set forth by Dr Bernard and refer us to Dr Bernards animadversions upon it We have perused the Papers to which you refer us and finde that Dr Vsher doth not invalidate the Ordination by Presbyters but with a speciall restriction to such places where Bishops cannot be had But this we must desire you to consider is ex necessitate non ex perjurio pertinaciâ which he in the next page clearely dilucidates his words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworne Cannnical obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being schismaticall Examine your selves in this particular we shall not judge any man For this Purity amongst Church Officers an Errour first broacht by Ae rius and for which amongst other things he was most justly condemned of Heresie and Ordination by Presbyters otherwise then before expressed cannot possibly be made out by any instance out of Dr Vshers Letter or Dr Bernards animadversions upon it since he is clearly against it and so that Catalogue of Divines Schoolmen and Fathers by you out of him collected is frustraneously cited Concerning submission to the judgement of Councils rightly called and constituted we have said enough before In which point if you will hold to what you profess you shall not have us dissenting from you But we shall finde you of another minde before you come to a conclusion As for your Provinciall Assembly at Preston or any other elsewhere of that nature we say it is a new Termed Assembly Not for the words sake Assembly but new both in respect of the word Provinciall and place at Preston That this County of Lancaster should be termed the Province of Lancaster and the Synods and Assemblies therein convened at Preston or elsewhere should be termed Provinciall all new New also in respect of the Persons constituting this Assembly Lay-men to preside to rule and to have decisive voices in as ample manner as the highest and chiefest in holy Orders is a novelty no Antiquity can plead for it Nor doth Dr Bernard or Bishop Vsher that Learned and reverend Antiquary or the Fathers and Councils there alleadged and by you out of him so confidently cited any way make for such an Assembly And so your Provinciall Assembly at Preston may in the Judgement of Bishop Vshor be accounted a new termed Provinciall Assembly and remains as yet uncleared from all suspition of novelty The Animadversions of the Classe upon it FIrst We must desire the Reader to take the pains to peruse the third Section of our Answer to which you do here reply You do in the next Section tell us that the most considerable part of our Answer as to the bulke doth insist on the proof of the establishment of our Government by Authority this you also said in the close of your second Paper But if the Reader but compare what is contained in this Section with what is in the next where we prove this establishment of our Government by authority he will finde our answer here in this one Section is considerably larger then all that great bulk you complain of in the next and it will be found to be as much as all that we have touching this matter throughout our whole answer And therefore we cannot but wonder that you should so much forget your selves and so little consider what you say as again and again to assert with no small confidence what is so farre from truth But in this Section the Reader may further descern that you pass over some things in silence to which you should at the least have made some reply testifying either your assent to them and so your receiving satisfaction or have given us the grounds of your dissent but we shall desire that what was answered by us and is by you replyed unto might be compared together by the candid Reader that he may see with his own eyes wherein you fall short Secondly You profess that in some things you finde we much dissent not only in the third and last concerning the heresie and schisme of those who erre so grosly in Doctrinals or points of Discipline you mention the reason we gave you why we did not so expresly mention them their sin and punishment as the grosly ignorant and scandalous scil the inconsider ableness of the number of the former to the number of these But First This was not the only reason we gave but there was also another mentioned scil because we were to give in to the Provincial Assembly what our apprehensions were touching the case propounded to us by them touching some further meanes to be used for the information of the ignorant and reformation of the scandalous Secondly But yet this you pitch upon because you had a mind to charge us and all others that have in our Congregations severed themselves from the Bishops with schisme that so you might hereby also invalidate that reason rendered of our not mentioning expresly the heretical and schismatical But we hope we have in our answer to your second Paper said that which will be sufficient to wipe off that aspersion and you must pardon us if wherein Dr. Usher in this point differing from us in judgment expressed himself too farre we therein though we otherwise reverence him both for his piety and learning look upon him as a man We cannot as yet be perswaded that the Bishops were the only true constituted Church of England from whom because we have severed our selves you do here though without any reason charge us to be schismatical and to have rent our selves from a true constituted Church Thirdly But seeing in this third and last touching those that are chargeable with heresie and schisme you profess to diffent from us you might have testified either your assent to or dissent from that previous course that in our answer we mentioned was to be taken with these before they were to be excommunicated especially considering we had told you that though you allowed of admonition of the scandalous before there was process to the censure of them yet you said nothing of this course to be taken with the other and wherein therefore we purposely declared our selves that if you judged the previous course of admonition necessary to be held with the scandalous you might not censure us as indulgent toward any of the other that might be in any of our Congregations though we said the number of them was not considerable to the number of the scandalous because we took it to be our duty according to the practice of the
Apostles in the Synod at Jerusalem and the Fathers of the Nicene Council and others we instanced in to endeavour their conviction in the due use of all good meanes before there was a process to excommunication We remembred also how quick the Prelates were in thundering out their excommunications against such as though godly and religious were in those times accounted by them to be schismatical and we thought it requisite to bear witness against those manner of proceedings But of this you take no notice and we do not much wonder for we see you count all those that severed themselves from the Bishops schismatical and may be if they had power again in their hands you did not much matter though you are willing the scandalous should be admonished before if all these for their great schisme in your esteem were forthwith excommunicated Thirdly As touching publick Catechizing we said we heartily wished it had been more generally practised in our own Church at home as it is practised by the reformed Churches abroad But by our own Church we meant the Church of England as it is a national Church and in which though Catechizing was enjoyned in former times yet it was neither so generally and constantly practised as it should have been else we should not have had so much cause to have complained of the gross ignorance of so many aged persons in our Congregations who were nor trained up under the Presbyterian but Prelatical Government as now we have And here we observe that when you profess you are glad to hear us so heartily wish that Catechizing had been more generally practised it is but that you may take occasion to affix the greater blot upon us for you would have it to be our Churches in whom this neglect is chiefly or only to be found and it is we that are again by you charged with separation that have by our pretended reformation as you are pleased to speak destroyed this practice We wish as heartily in this case as we did in the other that you may be sensible how prone you are to revile and slander and pray to God that it may not be laid to your charge But you might have remembred that as we professed our selves to be for publick Catechizing which blessed be God is practised in our Churches though you would make the world to believe that we had destroyed it so we professed to be for private too that so such as were not like in regard of age or timorousness to be brought to instruction by the publick might yet by the private gain some knowledge In the Paper also that was published in the Congregations there was some order appointed for the better and more convenient practice of it And doubtless by how much we were willing to be at the more pains for the information of the ignorant the greater fault will lie at your doores and be charged upon you if you repent not of it that by your opposition you have not only laboured to obstruct the good courses by us propounded for the help of poor ignorant souls but accused us also that by our pretended reformation we have destroyed Catechizing Here also we take notice that however in your first Paper you had a proviso touching Catechizing that it be publick and that we thereupon gave you some reason though briefly for private Catechizing yet this you wholly pass over in silence and say nothing to it thus you pretend to make a reply to our answer and yet but speak to what of it you please But if you had manifested any dissatisfaction touching private Catechizing we should here have proceeded to have given further reasons for it although this work is so fully done to our hands by Mr. Baxter in his Gildas Salvianus that it would have been needless unto those that have read that Book and whereunto for his further satisfaction we referre the Reader if he desire it Fourthly If we understood you aright in this that you held it not fitting that persons grosly ignorant should be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the conclusion that we inferred hence stands good against any thing brought by you to invalidate it But here we observe you stretch it beyond its scope and that in two particulars 1. In that you would have it referre to examination before the Eldership which was not that which we spake of we only said there ought to be examination and triall of all persons before they be admitted to the Lords Supper not determining here touching the persons by whom this examination was to be made but only inferring that then there ought to be this examination that so the grosly ignorant might not be admitted as they might be if all promiscucusly were to be admitted without any triall at all and which was the reason that we alleadged in our answer for the inference we made and which still stands good you urging nothing at all to take away the strength of it It is true that the examination and judgement of all such as shall for their ignorance not be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is to be in the power of the Eldership of every Congregation and not in the power of one Minister only by the rules of our Government But this was not the thing we there spake of we only concluded that there ought to be an examination and hoped that we had gained from your own concession this one further step toward an agreement betwixt you and us that all such persons as should be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper must be examined by some or other not determining by whom there being no way to discover the ignorant but by triall And as touching our practice it is well known that when the Eldership is satiâ—fied touching the knowledge of such as offer themselves to that Sacrament upon the examination of a Minister and one Elder or upon the examination of two Ministers however none is to bâ— debarred for their ignorance but by the juridical act of the Eldership and which is for the better securing of the Church-priveledges to the members then to have left the power to the Minister alone such are not required to be examined before the Eldership but are upon the testimony of the examiners there being nothing to be objected justly against them admitted by the authority of the Eldership 2. There is also another thing wherein you would make our inference to be that which indeed it was not for neither did we speak concerning any examination de novo of such persons as had been formerly admitted our words recited even now and to be seen in our answer do plainly speak concerning an examination before admission to the Lords Supper not concerning an examination de novo Indeed we shall neither be ashamed of nor deny what is our practice which is to take a triall of all the communicants de novo before admission of them to the Lords Supper We
well remember how under the Episcopall government there was a generall admission and that sundry grosly ignorant did croud in amongst the rest unto this Ordinance and therefore that these might be discovered and kept off from this Sacrament till fitter for it we judged it requisite that according to that power that is glven to the Eldership in the form of Church-government for this purpose there should be a triall taken of all the communicants that so there might be some distinction made and not be a promiscuous admitting of all as heretofore And we are sure that such amongst us who having been anciently catechised and a long while commoners at the Lords Table to use your own expressions have witnessed the best confession for their parts and piety have been the most forward to draw on others to be willing to be re-examined by their own good example therein and that the greatest opposers of this course however they may be some of them persons of parts yet have been such as have been either scandalous in their lives or not so forward for piety as were to be desired We have thus given an account of what is our practice in this matter but this examination of communicants de novo was not the thing we here spake of as why the examination of them before their admission of them at the first was here mentioned we have delared before But we see you are willing to lay hold on any thing wherein you apprehend you have any advantage against us though it be never so small Fifthly You charge us again with another non sequitur when we inferre that if the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to excommunicate the scandalous we see not in reason how you can find fault with our proceedings if there should be occasion for our censuring any such persons but this inference yet stands good against any thing by you alleadged to the contrary and in it self is clear and manifest being there is no excommunication that passeth with us against any but by the juridical act of the lawfull Pastors of our several Churches or Congregations and whose power by you should not be questioned or the validity of their censures because of the concurrence of the ruling Elders as by way of preventing an Objection we hinted to you in our answer considering what power was exercised in the time of Episcopacy by the High Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries as much Lay-men then in your judgement as ruling Elders can be now to whom yet there was a submission by you This reason you say is weak but you do not prove it to be so Nay here you fall short in two main points For 1. You misrepresent the matter of fact and that in two particulars 1. When you would intimate that the High-Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries did all of them officiate by deputation from and under a lawfull Pastor when as it is manifest the High-Commissioners had no deputation from the Bishop but received their Commission from the King if not the Chancellors also and did act in those Ecclesiasticall censures that were by them passed in joynt and equall power with the Bishop by virtue of their Commission 2. The Parliament that did appoint the ruling-Elders in the form of Church government did not oblige any that were to submit to them to acknowledg the jus divinum of their Office neither do we impose this opinion of them upon any And therefore notwithstanding our own judgment concerning them in this respect the comparison betwixt them and the other as to what is necessary for your satisfaction doth still hould good and is neither weak nor frivolous as you say 2. But if the matter of fact should be granted to have been according to your representation sc that High-Commissioners Chancellours c. did all of them officiate by deputation from or under a lawfull Pastor how doth this help the matter to make your submission to these lawfull and yet your submission to the ruling Elders unlawfull For 1. we are as yet to learn and we think you will never be able to make it good that a trust committed to one by man much less reposed by God in an officer in the Church and particularly in the Pastor may be delegated If this be so he might sufficiently discharge his duty by another preach by another administer the Sacrament by another as well as dispense the censures of the Church by another who yet himself is to give an account of their souls unto God which he will never be able to make in the omission of those duties in his own person though he appoint another unto them But being the highest officer in the Church doth not himself act out of plenitude of power for that were to make him a Pope and Antichrist that belonging only to Jesus Christ the King and Lord of the Church to whom all power is given in Heaven and earth and hath no more but a ministry committed to him which he hath received of Christ as his servant who hath required him to fulfill it he may not depute any other as under him or as his servant to do that which his Lord and master hath intrusted him with and appointed him to do himself 2. But further we do here enquire of you whether by virtue of that deputation which the persons spoken of received from a lawfull Pastor according to your allegation you will have them to be Ecclesiasticall officers or but meer lay-men still If notwithstanding that deputation they be but meer lay-men how will you awarrant them to meddle with Ecelesiasticall censures because deputed thereunto by the Bishop when God hath excluded all those that are but meer lay-men from medling authoritatively with Ecclesiasticall matters If the High-Priest in the time of the Law had given to Vzziah a Commission to have gone into the Temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the Altar of incense and he had so officiated by deputation from and under him would that have been sufficient to have born him out in so doing whenas that work pertained not unto him but unto the Priests the sonnes of Aaron that were consecrated to burn incense If by vertue of that deputation they had from the Bishops they were Ecclesiasticall officers invested with authority to exercise Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction and dispense Church-censures and so not meer lay-men we may say much more for the outward call unto that office that our ruling Elders do execute they having been elected by the people that anciently had a vote in the choice even of the very Bishops as is clear from the Records of Antiquity and examined by the Pastors of the Churches and by them approved as fit and set apart solemnly to rule in the house of God by exhortation and Prayer as hath been said before 6. But you now go on and declare whom you mean by lawfull Pastors sc such persons as have received their Ordination from men lawfully and
Scriptures and that the Word of God alone should determine this controversie c. Who can forbear laughter to see Scripturists under the Gospel as these under the Law Templum Domini Templum Domini crie Verbum Domini Verbum Domiui nothing but Scripture the Word of God being there the onely rule of faith and manners Take to your Bibles then and burn all other Books as the Anabaptists of old did who when they and their Bibles were left together what strange and Phantastical opinion soever came into their brain Their usual manner was to say The spirit taught it them as Mr Hooker in his preface to his Eccles Pol. The determination of Councils and Fathers and the Churches Universal practise for matters of Church Government must all be abandoned and then to that old Question of the Papists Where was your Church before Lutber or that of ours to you Where was your Church before Calvin Just like the Arguing of the Samaritanes with the Jeâ—â—s about the Antiquity of their Church on Mount Gerizim recorded by Joseplus per Saltum by a high Jump over all the Universal practise and successions of the Church you can make your Church and Church Government as ancient as you list by saying it is to be found in the Scriptures referring it to Christ and the Apostles nay higher yet if you please to the Jewish Sanhedrim 1500. years at least before Christ Mr Henderson will assist you much in thâ—s who in his dispute with his Majesty averring that Presbyterian Government was never practised before Calvins time replyeth Your Majesty knows the Cammon Objection of the Papists against the Reformed Churches Where was your Church your Reformation your Doctrine before Luthers time One part of the Common Answer is it is to be sound in the Scriptures the same I affirm of Presbyterian Government Thus he Make you such defence in behalf of your Church but thanks be to God the Protestant cause hath not doth not nor we hope will ever want far abler Disputants and Champions in her defence against her adversaries then he or you be For though we grant and shall ever pay that reverence to the sacred Scriptures that it is an unsallible unerring rule yet may we not crie up Scripture to the contempt and neglect of the Church which the Scripture it self teacheth men both to honour and obey We will indeavour therefore to give either their due according to Christs institution that the Scripture where it is plain should guide the Church and the Church where there 's doubt or difficulty should expound the Scriptures as saith a Bishop And you your selves may remember what you affirm of General Councils the Churches Representative nay more of your Provincial Assemblies even in your Answer to that you call the preface to our Paper That there is in them invested an Authoritative juridicall power to whose Authority you profess your selves to be subject and to which all ought to submit alledging 1 Cor. 14. 32. Matth. 18. and Acts 15. for proof hereof to Inquire into Trie Examine Censure and judge of Matters of Doctrine as well as of Discipline And tax us as if we refused to submit in such matters to the Judgement of a General Council Though here you retract and eat your own words casting it out as unsound and Hetrodox what was before a Christians duty to practise You still own subjection in matters of Doctrine and discipline to the Judgement and determination of your Provincial Assemblies though you deny the Authority of General Councils and the Catholique Church That those should be our guide and rule and comment upon the Word of God to tell us what is his will revealed there touching Church Government and discipline Said we not truely that you seem to submit to your Provincial what you will hardly grant to a General Council But the Church as we have said where there 's doubt or difficulty may expound the Scripture though it be tied as you have said to the rule of Gods Words in such proceedings as Judges to the Law and we are concluded and bound up by that as we are to those cases in the Law which are the Judgement and Exposition of the Judges upon the dark places of the same The Churches exposition and practise is our rule in such cases and the best rule too As our late King affirmeth viz. Where the Scripture is not so clear and punctuall in precepts there the constant and Vniversal practise of the Church in things not contrary to reason faith good manners or any positive command is the best rule that Christians can follow So when there is a difference about â—nterpretation of Scripture that we may not seem to abound in our own sense or give way to private interpretation Dominari fidei to Lord it over the faith of others we are not to utter our own phansies or desires to be believed upon our bare word but to deliver that sense which hath been a foretime given by our fore-Fathers and fore-runners in the Christian saith and so we necessarily make another Judge and rule for interpretation of Scripture or else we prove nothing Thus have the best and ablest defenders of our Protestant Religion defended it against the Papists out of the Word of God too but not according to their own but the sense which the Fathers unanimously in the primitive Church and Councils gave See Mr Philpot that glorious Martyr in Queen Maries dayes to the like Question propounded viz. How long hath your Church stood Answereth from the beginning from Christ from the Apostles and their Immediate Successors And for proof thereof desires no better rule then what the Papists many times bring in on their side to wit Antiquity Universality and Unity And Calvin acknowledgeth as in our last Paper we shewed you there can be no better nor surer remedy for Interpretation of Scripture then what the Fathers in the primitive Churches gave especially in the first four General Councils of Nice Constantinople Ephesus and Chalcedon which contain nothing saith he but the pure and genuine Interpretation of Scripture and which he professeth to embrace and reverence as hallowed and inviolable So they rest not in private interpretation but willingly submit to a judg and rule besides the Scriptures even such as the Papists themselves cannot except against viz. the primitive Churches practise and Universal and unanimous consent of Fathers and general Councils By these our Church is content to be tryed and to this rule we bring the Church Government to be tried thereby And on this score your Presbytery is quite our of doors being of examples and practise of the Church and Testimonies of the Fathers wholly destitute wherein as the King hath it the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that that there 's not the least rivulet for any others Which you being sensible of have no way to evade this rule but una liturâ to blot out all records and monuments
of Antiquity for the space of three hundred years after Christ as imperfect and far from shewing the Universal practise of the Church then and to brand the most approved Authors of those times as spurious and corrupt void of all modesty and shewing thereby no great store either of judgement or honesty But suppose the Monuments and Records of Antiquity for the space of three hundred years after Christ were now as you say grown unperfect and not able to shew what was then the Churches practise yet come we to the General Councils which are the best Expositors of Scripture and of the Churches practise and we by them shall find the practise of the Church in former time That famous Council of Nice which must be and is of all wise and Learned men reverenced esteemed and imbraced next unto the Scriptures themselves shews you the practise of the Church in its form of Church Government by Patriarch Metropolitan Arch-Bishop Bishop c. as by the 6th 7th 13th 25th 26th and 27th Canons of the same Council appeareth Not that this Council did constitute and create as some falsly conceit but did onely confirm and strengthen those orders and degrees which were in the Church even from the beginning so are the words of the Council Can. 6. The very first words of that Canon whereby it is ordained that the whole power of all Aegypt Lybia and Pentapolis should belong to the Patriarch of Alexandria even as it is also there decreed that the ancient Customes and Priviledges which belonged to the Bishop of Rome Antioch and the Metropolitanes of other Provinces should be preserved are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very words which Ignatius useth to express the Apostolical Traditions Anriqui mores obtineant in Aegypto Lybiâ Pentapoli c. i. e. Let the ancient customes in Aegypt Lybia and Pâ—ntapolis continue that the Patriarcks of Alexandria should have power over all these even those Customes which were deduced down to those times from St Mark the Evangelist not only Bishop of Alexandria but of the Churches of Aegypt Lybia and Pentapolis also So Eusebius lib 2. cap. 15 16. and others So that these Canons here made gave no new thing did not de novo institute or establish this standing subordination in the Church viz. of all inferiour Officers in the Church to the Bishop in every Diocess of the Bishop in every Province to the Metropolitan of the Metropolitane in every Region to the Patriarch or Primate but did onely confirm it These standing powers and subjection being defined and asserted by the ancient Canons yea the most Ancient even in memorial Apostolicall Tradition and Custome avouched for it as may appear Concil Nicen. 1. cap. 4 6. Concil Antioch cap. 1 20. Concil Chalced. cap. 119. See more of this in Dr Hammond of Schism Cap. 3. sect 22. 23 24 25. cap. 8. sect 8. Thus much to shew the practice of the Church in point of Church Government for the first three hundred years even from generall Councils the best Expositors of the practice of the Church in those times And as they are our best Informers of the Churches practise so are they the best Interpreters of the mind and will of God in Scripture touching Church Government Calvin reckoning up the severall orders and degrees of Bishops Arch-Bishops Metropolitane and Patriarch and rendring the reason of such Governours ordained by the said Council of Nice though he dislike the name Hierarchie which some gave unto that Government yet saith he omitting the name if we look into the thing we shall find that these ancient Bishops did not frame a form of Church Government differing from that which Christ hath prescribed in his word Mark we pray the Churches practice in the form of Church Government was hitherto according to the prescript of Gods Word in Calvins judgment And this was 330. years after Christ Yea Beza likewise that earnest â—atron of Presbyterian discipline confesseth That those things which were ordained of the ancient Fathers concerning the seats of Bishops Metropolitanes and Patriarchs assigning their limits and attributing to them certain Authority were appointed optimo zelo out of a very good zeal and therefore such sure as was according to knowledg and the word of God otherwise it would be far from being optimus the best zeal And thus we have found a Church Government agreeable to the will of God and universall practise of primitive Churches such a one as we pray for may be established in this Nation putting both together not the word of God alone nor the Churches practice alone but both together and both in their due piaces not crying up the Church above the Scripture nor crying up the Scripture to the contempt and neglect of the Church but restoring the practice and customes of the Church into that credit is due unto them by invalidating of which all hereticall and schismaticall persons seek to overthrow the Church Nay but yours is that Government which is most consonant to the will of God revealed in Scriptures and your ruling Elders are jure divino which you cannot part with unless you should betray the truth of Christ Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 5. We answer these Texts are too generall to prove a ruling Presbytery out of and so you have been often told by many more learned Doctors of our English Church Yet ruling Elders must be found here for so you will have it let Gideâ—ns fleece be wet or dry That is whether there be dew enough in those Texts to water the sense or no Therefore being resolyed on it you wrest the Scriptures which St Peter complains of with Expositions and glosses newly coined to make them speak what they never meant giving such new and strange senses to places of Scripture as the Church of Christ never heard of till of late years This wresting of Scripture Dr Andrews taxeth the Papists withall saying Malus hic Cardinalium mos and we as truly Malus hic Presbyterorum mos rem facias rem si possis rectè si non quocunque modo rem c. such a sense you give of these places which none of the Fathers â—ave or heard of and being a stranger to them we can but terme it an Imagination of yours and so leave it and you to what we have in our last Paper further spoken of it Touching which no reply hath been as yet sent us from you The Animadversions of the Class upon it WE are sure we are now come to that which is the worst part in all your Paper your principles here being very corrupt even in a Doctrinall matter of high concernment and that distemper which was upon your spirit breaking out here into railing in an high degree if not to blasphemie besides your flandering of us and scoffing at us which is ordinary with you of which we shall speak anon particularly 1. But we shall begin with that Representation which you first make of what we
customes not to be found mentioned or awarranted by the Scriptures making with them the Scriptures imperfect and that their imperfection must be supplyed by these unwritten traditions but wherein they are opposed by our Protestant Divines to whom we send you touching this matter 3. But that we may come to speak to the Canons themselves that you cite out of this Council particularly 1. First We do not find in that sixth Canon that you do chiefly insist on any of the words Patriarch Primate or Archbishop at all there used only it is decreed that the Bishop of Alexandria he is not called the Patriarch as you call him have power over Egypt Lybia and Pentapolis We confess the word Metropolitane is used in this Canon but not any of the other above-mentioned the like whereunto is to be observed touching the seventh Canon by you cited And yet we lay no great stress on this that these words are not there found but hint only thus much to you by the way who take advantage at us in regard of words though without reason but shall grant unto you that the things understood by those words may be there found As touching the thirteenth which you here quote that speakes nothing at all touching the business but wholly concernes the lapsed Catechumeni And whereas you cite the twenty fifth twenty sixth and twenty seventh Canons of this Council you do therein both wrong this Council and your selves in fathering upon them supposititious Canons there being not above twenty Canons that are genuine Indeed it is well observed by Lucas Osiander after he had recited in his Epitome of Ecclesiastical History Centur. 4. lib. 2. Chap. 10. the twenty Canons of this Council and which only he judged to be genuine that there are other besides these that are read in some supposititious writings of the Fathers under the names of Athanasius and Ambrose but he judges them and that rightly to be falsly ascribed to the Synod of Nice Perhaps you judged us to be so little conversant in the Fathers and Councils as that we should have let all these things pass for currant if otherwise we see you are so addicted to the Episcopall cause that you matter not so you can make it out though it be out of supposititious writings 2. As to the main thing you cite this Council for and that which indeed is chiefly to be here insisted on sc the ancient custome that the sixth Canon speakes of touching the power and dignity of the Metropolitanes which yet was not such as you imagine at the first appointing them and of which more anon Let it be granted as you would have it that this Council did not constitute and create those Metropolitans but confirme them and what power and dignity they had before according to an ancient custome yet we say that ancient custome is to be limited in in regard of its Antiquity And 1. It cannot referre so high as to the times of the Apostles there being then no Metropolitan Bishops they being never at all mentioned in the New Testament either by that name or the thing thereby signified 2. Neither can it referre to the age next unto the Apostles because in that age and a good while after a Bishop and Presbyter were all one We shall for the proof of this first mention a very observable passage in a Letter written by the Lord Digby unto Sir Kenelmne Digby and which for the observableness of it is cited by others and with good reason considering how much he was for that kind of Episcopacy that you contend for His words are these He that will reduce the Church now to the forme of Government in the most Primitive times should not take in my opinion the best nor wisest course I am sure not the safest for he would be found pecking toward the Presbytery of Scotland which for my part I believe in point of Government hath a greater resemblance then either yours or ours to the first age of Christs Church and yet it is never a whit the better for it since it was a forme not chosen for the best but imposed by adversity under oppression which in the beginning forced the Church from what it wisht to what it might not suffering the dignity and State Ecclesiastical which rightly belonged unto it and which soon afterward upon the least lucida intervâlla shone forth so gloriously in the happier as well as more Monarchical condition of Episcopacy c. You see this Gentleman who was firme for Monarchical Episcopacy doth yet acknowledge that in the most Primitive times and first age of the Church that kind of Episcopacy had no footing and that the Presbyterian Government as it is in Scotland and so consequently as it is in other reformed Churches and with us is nearer to the Primitive patterne of the Church then that Episcopal Governement which you would prove from the Council of Nice And therefore in those times there was no such superiority of a Bishop over a Presbyter no Archbishops and Metropolitans or Primates and Patriarehs as you speak of and for which you quote this sixth Canon of the Council of Nice But if you would peruse Blondellus his Apologia pro sententiâ Hieronymi de Episcopis Presbyteris he would give you a particular and large account touching this matter he undertaking to prove as he is a man of vast reading that untill the year 140. or thereabout there was not any Bishop over Presbyters And in the dayes of Polycarpe we find in his Epistle to the Philippians but two orders of Ministery mentioned sc Bishops and Deacons according to what Paul in his Epistle to the Church had signified more anciently Hear his own words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. therefore you ought to abstain from all these things being subject to the Presbyters and Deacons as unto God and Christ And therefore this ancient custome mentioned in this sixth Canon of the Council of Nice which you quote must hereupon be limited and restrained in regard of ancientness and is not to be understood so as to referre to the whole space of 327. years after Christ or thereabout before its assembling although the custome of appointing Metropolitans before might be called ancient comparatively with those customes which were but sprung up more lately or were very new And though we shall not undertake to shew what was the universal and constant practice of the Church for either the whole space of the first three hundred yeares after Christ or the greatest part thereof though it concerned you who are so confident that the whole stream of testimonies to be produced shewing the unanimous consent of Fathers and the universal and constant practice of the Church even up to the Apostles dayes runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others to have made this out yet this we may say that Episcopacy did not grow up to that height that it was in at that
time when the Council of Nice assembled all at once but by steps and degrees and that it was then nothing like to what it grew up to afterward and further that however those godly Fathers that did first set it up and afterwards upheld it did so out of a good intention yet that therein they were but subservient to what afterward was effected in the Bishop of Rome to lift up Antichrist into his seat and which is not much to be wondred at whenas the Apostle tells us that in his dayes the mystery of iniquity did then already work and that good men may be instrumental though unwittingly to promote and advance a very ill and bad designe God therein leaving them to themselves and he thereby in his secret and unsearchable providence though just holy and wise bringing that about which he had before appointed in his eternal counsel And yet for all this we do averre that however as Hierome doth well observe at the first a Bishop and a Presbyter were the same and that before by the instinct of the Devil there were contentions in Religion and it was said amongst the people I am of Paul I of Apollo I of Cephas the Churches were governed by the common counsell of the Presbyters but that after every one thought that those were his which he did baptize not Christs it was decreed throughout the whole world that one of the Presbyters should be chosen and set over the rest unto whom all the care of the Church should belong and the seeds of schismes taken away Yet not only in that age but long afterward as also long before the assembling of the Council of Nice that speakes of Metropolitans and confirming their power a Bishop and Presbyter were acknowledged to be one order of Ministery as they did also joyn with the Bishops after their setting up in the Governement of the Church as is acknowledged and proved by Dr. Usher in his reduction of Episcopacy to the forme of Synodical Governement in the ancient Church and which indeed is that which is acknowledged by your selves For you confessed before that Ignatius Chrysostome Theodoret Theophilact Oecumenius and others of the Greek Fathers with some of the Latines also did take the word Presbytery 1 Tim. 4. for the company of Presbyters i. e. Bishops who lay hands on the new made Bishops or Priests as you express it making Bishops and Presbyters mutually to expound each other as hath been already observed And herein you are not alone as hath been partly shewed before and is abundantly shewed by others and particularly by our reverend Brethren of the Province of London who in their Jus divinum Ministerij Evangelici prove not only from the Scriptures that a Bishop and Presbyter are all one but do urge also sundry other testimonies for the proof thereof not only out of Hierome and Augustine but likewise do alleadg Dr. Reynolds in his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowles shewing the same thing out of Chrysostome Hierome Ambrose Augustine Theodoret Primasius Sedulius Theophilact and do further urge that Michael Medina affirmes lib. 1. de Sacris originibus that not only Hierome but also that Ambrose Augustine Sedulius Primasius Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius Theophilact were of the same judgement with Ae rius and held that there was no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter by Scripture besides other testimonies which they do there urge But David Blondellus in his Apologia pro sententiâ Hieronymi doth clear this up so fully in that his large Treatise penned on purpose to shew what concurrence of Antiquity there is for this opinion of Hierome that we believe those that are unprejudiced that will but take the paines to read and weigh what he there presents will readily grant that long before the Council of Nice and long after it was acknowledged that a Bishop and Presbyter are one order of Ministery We have thus said that which we judge sufficient unto the Canons themselves that you cite out of the Council of Nice and particularly to the sixth Canon of that Council on which you lay the greatest weight and shall now proceed to examine what follows 4. For you will have the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we used in the 6th Canon of the Council of Nice to be the very words which Ignatius useth to express the Apostolicall traditions Antiqui mores obtineant in Egypto Lybia Pentapoli c. i. e. Let the ancient customes of Egypt Lybia and Pentapoli continue that the Patriarch of Alexandria should have power over all these But concerning the Epistles that go under the name of Ignatius you might know there are different opinions of the Learned about them Salmasius conceives they were written by a pseudo-Ignatius to bring into credit that Episcopall Government that deviated from the primitive institution and that they were written at that very time when that was set up Others that conceive any of them to be genuine yet do not receive them all Mr. Perkins in his Preparatives to the demonstration of the Probleme observes that seaven Epistles of his Hierome and Eusebius lib. 3. cap. 35 36. reckon for true but now they are increased unto twelve five whereof he judges to be counterfeit and these to be 1. ad Mariam 2. ad Tarsenses 3. ad Hieron 4. ad Antiochenos 5. ad Philippenses Dr. Usher that Reverend and Learned Antiquary acknowledgeth onely six of these Epistles to be genuine and saith the other six are spurious and of those six that he acknowledgeth he saith they are depraved and corrupted Nay Mr. Perkins observes that Bellarmine himself confesseth of these Epistles that the Greek copies are corrupted And to evidence this we wish you to consider two passages onely that we shall instance in In his Epistle to the Trallians he boasteth of his knowledg for he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am able to understand heavenly things the orders of Angels the differences of Archangels and of the heavenly Hoast the differences between powers and dominations the distances of thrones and powers yea as followes a little after the Kingdom of the Lord and the incomparable Divinity of the Lord God Almighty These expressions savour not of that humility that was in that faithfull servant of Christ the true Ignatius And in his Epistle ad Smyrnenses he takes upon him to correct if not to contradict Solomon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He saith my son honour God and the King but I say honour God as the Author and Lord of all things and the Bishop as the Prince of Priests c. and after him it behoveth you to honour the King More here might be urged but these and other passages that might be instanced in do shew plainly that these Epistles are either counterfeit or corrupted And this was the reason of those expressions we used in our Answer when we said it would not be easie to assure us that some Works that
go under the Names of the most approved Authors of the Primitive times referring therein after a more especiall manner to the Epistles of Ignatius are neither spurious nor corrupted But hence it will follow that what is alleadged by you out of Ignatius for the support of the Episcopall cause is not of that waight as to prove what was the practice of the Church in the time of the true Ignatius much less to prove what was the universall practice of the Primitive Church long before the assembling of the Council of Nice or to evidence that that Council in the 6th Canon had any reference to the words of Ignatius which you cite and which might as well be foysted into his works afterwards as other things and so nothing thence to be concluded either with the shew of any certainty or of any good measure of probability 5. Now whereas you will have these ancient customes touching the power and priviledges of the Metrapolitans and Patriarchs to be deduced from St. Marke the Evangelist who you say was not onely Bishop of Alexandria but of the Churches of Egipt Lybia and Pentapolis and will have the subordination of all inferiour Officers in the Church to the Bishop in every Diocess of the Bishop in every Province to the Metropolitan of the Metropolitan in every region to the Patriarch or Primate these standing Powers as you call them and subjection to be defined and asserted by the ancient Canons yea the most ancient even immemoriall Apostolicall tradition and custome you must either prove that the customes standing Powers and subjection that you speak of are warranted defined and asserted by the Canon of Scripture which you will never be able to do or else you do hereby intimate that you would have it to be believed that there are some customes and traditions that are Apostolicall and to be received as such that are not found written in the Canon of the Scripture But by this assertion you gratifie the Papists and open a door to let into the Church the many unwritten traditions they would obtrude upon it under the specious name and title of Apostolicall traditions though you might have known they are abundantly therein consuted by our Divines that yet were never answered by them or any other patrons of unwritten traditions And upon this account we hope we shall be sufficiently excused though we forbear to either examin or say any thing particularly to the Councils and Dr. Hammond that you cite for this purpose But as touching Marke the Evangelist whom you will have to be not onely Bishop of Alexandria but also of Egypt Lybia and Pent apolis also you do herein assert things inconsistent sc that he was an Evangelist and yet an ordinary Bishop For Evangelists properly were extraordinary Officers extraordinarily employd in Preaching of the Gospel without any setled residence upon any one charge were companions of the Apostles and under the Apostles had the care of all Churches and in which sense Mark was an Evangelist as well as in regard of the Gospel which he wrote But Bishops were Officers that were ordinary and fixed to one particular charge neither did they ordinarily travell with the Apostles from place to place as the Evangelists did Neither could Evangelists be any more called Bishops properly then the Apostles could be so called who were not such formally but onely eminently and virtually But as touching Eusebius whom you cite Scaliger saith concerning him that he read ancient Histories parum attentè But further you are to consider that the Apostles themselves were called Bishops in those times and yet they could not be so called properly as is proved by Mr. Banes in his Diocesan Triall who there gives reasons why Apostles neither were nor might be both Apostles and Bishops properly We shall onely urge one of the reasons there mentioned which also doth strongly prove that Mark the Evangelist neither was nor could be an ordinary Bishop for then he is made liable to errour as all ordinary Bishops were and are and then in writing of his Gospel as well as in his teaching he might erre and hereupon occasion is given to call that part of Canonical Scripture in question as the asserting the Apostles to be Bishops properly gives the like occasion to call all their writings in question which is dangerous and no wayes to be admitted of And hence it will follow in what sense soever you call Mark an Evangelist yet he could not be a Bishop properly although it should be granted he had an inspection under the Apostles of all those parts you mention 6. But thus farre we hope it is manifest unto the Reader that as yet you are to shew what the practice of the Church was in point of Church-Government for the space of the first three hundred years after Christ that which you have alleadged out of the Council of Nice not manifesting it either for the whole space or the greatest part thereof as appears by what we have said touching this matter Neither must we allow what again you here further assert sc that General Councils are the best enterpreters of the mind and wiâ—l of God in Scripture touching Church Government the Scripture it self being a farre more sure and safe interpreter of Gods will and minde therein revealed in the plain places thereof when there is a doubt and difficulty arising from the darkness of some other places and as hath been fully shewed as also considering that there was some swerving in point of Church Government from Scripture rule before the first general Council met or assembled when yet there was more purity as to that matter then there was afterward 7. Neither must we suffer that to pass for currant which you here say of Calvin sc that though he disliked the name Hierarchy yet he allowed the thing The place you here chiefly referre to is as we judge that place in his Institutions lib. 4. cap. 4. Sect. 1 2 3. but especially what we find Sect. 4. where we grant having mentioned Bishops Archbishops and Patriarchs and having given the reason of the first institution of them in that fourth Section he hath these words Gubernationem sic constitutam nonnulli Hierarchiam vocarunt nomine ut mihi videtur improprie certè Scripturis inusitato c. Verum si rem omisso vocabulo intuemur reperiemus veteres Episcopos non aliam regendae Ecclesiae formam voluisse fingere ab ea quam Deus verbo suo praescripsit i. e. the Governement of the Church so constituted some called the Hierarchie by an improper name as it seems unto me certainly by a name not used in the Scriptures c. But if omitting the Word we look upon the thing we shall find that the ancient Bishops would not frame another forme of governing the Church from that which God hath prescribed in his Word He speaks then here of what was in their intention not as approving every thing they did He saith they
would not they had not any such a will purpose or intention he doth not say as you say that they did not frame a forme of Church Government differing from that which Christ hath prescribed in his Word He had intimated in the first Section that many of the Canons that were made in those times sc of the ancient Church did seem to express more then was to be found in sacred Scripture and though in regard of that good measure of purity of Governement and Discipline that did remain in those times he doth seem to extenuate what deviation there was from the word of God yet he doth not allow of every thing that was then appointed In the second Section he comes to shew how Bishop came up at the first sc that for the prevention of Schisme the Presbyters chose out of their number in every City one to whom they gave the title of Bishop and that upon this reason lest dissentions should arise from equality But withall there shewes that the Bishop thus superiour to the rest of the Presbyters in honour and dignity had not any dominion over the Presbyters whom he calls his Colleagues but only had that office as the Consul in the Senate and as indeed the Moderatour hath in our Assemblies as from that which he there instaneeth in that did at the first belong to him is clear and manifest And then he addes and saith even this it self the Ancients themselves confess was at the first brought in Pro temporum necessitate in regard of the necessity of the times and humano consensu by the consent and agreement of men as he proves out of Hierome And in the fourth Section which you chiefly here referre to he saith whereas every Province had amongst the Bishops one Archbishop and whereas also in the Synod of Nice there were constituted Patriarchs who were above the Archbishops in regard of dignity that did belong as he there saith to the conservation of the discipline But yet addes Quanquam in hâe disputatione praeteriri non potest quod â—arissimi â—rat usus i e. although in this disputation it may not be omitted that it was of most seldome or rare use And then he shews that the use of the Archbishop was for the calling a Provincial Synod as there might be occasion when the matter requiring it could not be determined by fewer and so by a lesser Assembly and in case the cause was more weighty or difficult that then the Patriarch was to call a more general Synod from which there was to be no appeal but to a general Council And thus Calvin shewes what was the reason of the first institution of Bishops Archbishops and Patriarchs but from that account given by him of this their first appointment it is manifest that their superiority above their fellow Brethren was not from the beginning it being but an humane constitution only and that at the first yea even in the time of the Nicene Council it was nothing like to what it grew to be afterward And that that power even of the Patriarchs and Metropolitans that was appointed or confirmed by the Nicene Council was nothing like unto that power that was exercised by the Bishops and Archbishops in this Land whilest Episcopacy stood their power at that time being chiefly if not only for the calling of Synods sc Provinciall or of a larger circuit as there might be need and they having therein only a presidency or moderatorship and not exercising any dominion over their Colleagues according to that representation of the matter of fact that Calvin truely makes And because the appointment of them was done out of a good intent without any will or purpose to appoint any forme of Government in the Church differing from that which God had appointed in his word and as an Ecclesiastical constitution only which the godly Fathers in those times thought might be of use though afterward as we have before shewed it proved otherwise and considering what a good measure of the ancient discipline remained entire in those times Calvin did therefore speak moderately of what they did though he did not as is manifest approve of all they did But thus the Reader may discerne that you have not dealt any more fairly with Calvin here whom in this place you would make to be a justifier and patron of Prelacy then you have dealt with him elsewhere though by what we have said we hope he is sufficiently vindicated and the contrary to what you alleadge him for fully evidenced And this that hath been said concerning Calvin will likewise shew how Beza is to be understood if he any where say what the ancient Fathers appointed touching the Hierarchy was done optimo zelâ— out of a very good zeal For by that expression he only approves of their pious and good intent in what they did but not of all that was done and when you call him that earnest patron of Presbyterian discipline you should not by stretching his words beyond their scope have represented him to have approved of that which the Presbyterian discipline doth not own 8. And thus having answered fully to what you have said for that Government which you are for and pray might be established in this Nation we must still mind you that whatever you here again say to the contrary as yet you have not proved this Church Government to be agreeable either to the will of God which was not as yet attempted to be made out by you or to the universal practice of Primitive Churches your proof for this falling far short and that however now you would mince the matter speaking of the rule whereby we are to judge touching Church Government or other matters of Religion in saying you put both together not the word of God alone nor the Churches practice alone but both together and which is not to be disallowed of when it is clear that the Churches practice is agreeable to the word of God yet by what you have discovered to be your opinion in this Section and of which we have fully spoken it is manifest you have given that to the Church Councils and Fathers and their exposition which is proper to the Scripture sc to be the only sure interpreter of it self and judge in all controversies of Religion and which is that which we have asserted and defended against you in this answer and by giving of which unto the Scripture we have detracted nothing from the credit that is due unto the Church or her lawfull and laudable customes which we are so farre from any wayes invalidating that we do assert and defend the same as also her authority against all heretical and schismatical persons that seek her overthrow although we see no reason to count those heretical and schismatical persons that seek to overthrow the Church that cannot either believe that the Church is the only iudge of coutroversies in matters of Religion or her exposition the best and surest rule
there which you doing but partially and catching only at some passages that you think makes for your purpose do most grosly wrong him by your misrepresentation And if we should deal by other Authors even such as are for the Episcopal Government as you deal by Calvin which of them almost but we might make to appear Patronizers of the Presbyterian Government But you will have Calvin to say that in the ancient Church the Bishops did all viz. make and publish Canons a note certainly of rule and jurisdiction in the Church Thus you represent him to hold forth the Bishops exercising solitary power of jurisdiction in those times which as it is in it self as contrary to truth as light is to darkeness so it is expresly contrary to what Calvin saith in the very next Section to that which you cite For in the former Section he saith that they to whom the Office of preaching was enjoyned speaking still of the ancient Church they called all those Presbyters These saith he did in every City chcose out one out of their own number to whom they gave more specially the title of Bishop lest dissentions should arise from equality as oft it comes to pass But yet he presently adds and saith Neque tamen honore dignitate superior er at Episcopus ut dominium in Collegas haberet sed quas partes habet Consul in Senatu ut referret de negotijs sententtias roget consulendo monendo hortando alijs praeeat authoritate suâ totam actionem regat quod decretum communi consilio fuerit exequatur id muneris sustinebat Episcopus in Presbyterorum caetu atque id ipsum pro temporum necessitate fuisse humano consensu inductum fatentur ipsi veteres And then he quotes Hierome asserting a Bishop and a Presbyter to be all one We wonder very much where your modesty and ingenuity nay common honesty was when being you could not but take notice of these things in Calvin in this second Section else you read him very negligently yet you say as you here do that according to Calvin's representation of the Government of the ancient Church the Bishops did all make and publish Canons a note certainly of rule and jurisdiction in the Church Whereas you see Calvin saith the Bishop had no dominion over the rest of the Presbyters whom he here calls his Colleagues that he had but only that Office which the Consul had in the Senate and is no more then what the Moderators have in our Assemblies as is clear from what he here particularly recites and further shews that he was only to execute what was decreed by common counsell and further saith that even this that did belong unto him the Ancients themselves confess was introduced by humane consent and that in regard of the necessity of the times And as touching what was appointed by the Council of Nice touching Archbishops and Patriarchs and whereof he makes mention in Section fourth we have told you before what you may find in Calvin himself in that place where he saith they were rarissimi usus of very seldome use and that their use was chiefly for the assembling of Synods But thus we believe all men will see that Calvin is so express and full for the Presbyterian Government and no patronizer of the Episcopall that they will conclude such as represent him otherwise are either very weak or make little conscience of falsifying the Authors which they cite and that you have taken off our Calvin no otherwise then by misinterpreting and grosly wronging him as after the same manner you took off Beza before and both whom however you in scorn call Modern Doctors yet are such Doctors as both you and we may learn much from 4. And thus we are brought to the Authors which we quoted for Fathers you say we have none though that also is not true we having in our Answer to your second Paper produced clear testimonies out of Origen Ambrose Augustine Optatus giving in clear evidence for the being of the ruling Elders office in their times But as touching our modern Authors the Assembly of Divines the London Ministers in their Jus divinum the Provinciall Synod of London in their Vindication Mr. Rutherford and Mr. Gillespie however you despise them again as before as being but of yesterday yet they are such who as in regard of their known and approved piety and learning as they are deservedly in high esteem in the Church so they are such as we reverence and are not ashamed to cite though this you count but a painting of our margent with them and further say of them they may serve our turn amongst the ignorant and vulgar sort who measure all by tale and not by weight whereby you pour forth such scorn and contempt upon so many reverend and glorious lights as we beleeve all moderate spirited men though in their judgments for the cause which you profess to love will be ashamed of and will disown in you And however you say that others that know what and who many of them are will sc for our referring you to them conclude we draw very near the dreggs yet you had approved your selves to have been farre more profound persons if being sent by us to consider what arguments they urged for the Jus divinum of the Presbyterian Government you had in your reply to our Answer answered them and so rather discovered their weakness then by such expressions as you here use to have branded either us for referring you to them or them by saying that others know what and who they are who yet do neither know any thing by them nor can by their detracting pens publish any thing touching them to the world that will ever lessen their esteem with learned godly sober and judicious persons that are acquainted with their learned Labours And however you may please your selves in your vâ—lifying them and us for referring you to them yet this is that which you should have remembred must be accounted for one day But why did not you who tell us of drawing very near the dregs here take notice of what in our answer immediately followed you having in your first Paper enquired of us why we had called our Government the present Government and then demanded is there no present Government in any Church or assembly of Saints but where our discipline is erected are all the rest at present without Government or where hath ours been this fifteen hundred years past till this present c. unto all which and that which followed there in your Paper we returned you our Answer yet you take not notice of it though if we had dealt thus by you and yet had made a shew to have answered you as you do pretend to answer us we should not have thought you had wronged us in your telling us here of drawing near the dreggs 5. And now to conclude this Section whereas you here again tell us that as for