by Divine Right 2. Part. 4. and to second it they are challenged in my Defence to name any one of our Writers that hath not proclaimed this truth Where then lyes the contradiction The clear nominall distinction of the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters Deacons I professed to prove onely out of the writings of those who were the next successors to the Apostles What is here of either yeeldance or contradiction And if I have ingenuously granted that the Primitive Bishops were elected by the Clergie with the assent of the people That Bishops neither do nor may challenge to themselves such a sole interest in Ordination or Iurisdiction as utterly to exclude Presbyters from some participation in this charge and Act That they ought not to devest themselves of their Iurisdictive power by delegating it to others That the ordinary managing of secular imployments is improper for them If in all these I have gratified them why do they complain and if I have disadvantaged my cause why is it not urged to my conviction It is warily said of these men that I almost grant Lay-Elders in Antiquity I do so almost grant them in my own sense that I utterly deny them in theirs Why should I make any doubt to yeeld unto the Iustice of their complaints in the Post-script against the insolence and tyrannie of Popish Prelates What lose we by this condescent Or how can they plead they are not justly taxed for diffusing other mens crimes to the innocent when their consciences cannot but flye in their faces for this injustice Lastly I am charged with shamefull self-contradictions which surely must needs argue great rashnesse or much weaknesse of judgement See the instances In the same Epistle I professe not to tax their abilities and yet call them impotent assailants And why not both of these He that taxeth not their abilities doth not therfore presently approve them they may perhaps not want good abilities in themselves and yet be unable to prove their cause they may be able men and yet impotent matches The contradiction they would raise in the words concerning Euangelists is meerly cavillatory May you be pleased to turn to the ninety fourth Page of my Defence you shall clearly acknowledge it The word in a common sense signifies any Preacher of the Gospel but in the peculiar sense of the New Testament it signifies some persons extraordinarily gifted and imployed not setled in any one place but sent abroad by the Apostles on that blessed errand Now to say that any of these latter were such as had ordinary places and ordinary gifts as they do Sect. 13. pag. 48. I do justly blame as a meer fancie not herein contradicting any thing but their light imagination In the contradiction pretended to be concerning the extent of Episcopacie sure they cannot but check themselves In my Remonstrance and Defence they report men to say somewhere but where no man can tell that Bishops had been every where and that all Churches through the whole Christian world have uniformly and constantly maintained Episcopacie Elswhere that I say they were not every where and that there are lesse noble Churches that do not confer to Episcopall government Words are more easily accorded then acknowledged There are not there have not been every where setled Christian Churches Where ever there have been setled Christian Churches there have been Bishops From the Apostles times to this present Age there have been Bishops in all Christian Regions now some late Reformed Churches have been necessitated to forbear them Where I beseech you lies the contradiction I have often granted that the name of Bishops and Presbyters was at the first promiscuously used and yet I do no lesse justly maintain that for this sixteen hundred years the name of Bishops hath been ordinarily appropriated in a contra-distinctive sense to Church-governors in an apparent superiority Distinguish times and reconcile Histories The two next exceptions concerning Diocesan Bishops and Civill government are fully cleared and convinced in the due places of this insuing Answer I shall not blur paper in an unseasonable anticipating my own Discourse Sole Ordination and sole Iurisdiction we so disclaim as that we hold the power of both primarily in the Bishop the concurrent assistance in the Presbyters What opposition is there in an orderly subordination The last contradiction clearly reconciles it self In stating the question concerning Episcopacie I distinguish betwixt Divine and Apostolicall Authority professing not to affirm that Bishops were immediatly ordained by Christ and yet averring that Christ laid the grounds of this imparity in his first agents What discordance is in these two Is the ground-work of an house the whole frame of it Can they finde the roof in the foundation In the Epistles to the seven Asian Churches Christ I truly say acknowledges at least intimates the Hierarchie of those seven Angels Do I imply that he did immediately ordain them Readers ye have seen the poor stuff of these their selected exceptions Beleeve it such are all their contradictions to me as these contradictions which they finde in me to my self groundlesse and worthlesse As I shall make good in this following Discourse concerning the ancient holy and beneficiall use of set-Leiturgies in the Church This subject because as it is untracked with any frequent pens of others so it is that wherein my Adversaries seem most to pride themselves as supposing to have in it the most probable advantages against me I have somewhat largely handled to your ample satisfaction But as for that other head of Episcopacie which hath already filled so many rhemes of waste-paper for as much as I see they offer nothing but that which hath passed an hundred ventilations Transeat I have resolved to bestow my time better then in drawing this Sawe to and fro to no purpose Let them first give a full and punctuall Answer to that which hath been already in an intire body of a Treatise written concerning the Divine Right of Episcopacie and then let them expect that I should trouble my self with sweeping away these loose scraps of their exceptions Till then let them if they can be silent at least I shall as one that know how to give a better account of the remainder of my precious hours A Short ANSWER To the Tedious VINDICATION OF SMECTYMNVVS SECT. I. I Am sorry Brethren that your own importunitie will needs make you guiltie of your further shame Had you sate down silent in the conscience of a just reproof your blame had been by this time dead and forgotten but now your impetuous Defence shall let the world see you did in vain hope to face out an ill cause with a seeming boldnesse I may not spend Volumes upon you but some Lines I must enow to convince the Reader of the justice of my Charge and the miserable insufficiencie of your Vindication It is not your stiff deniall that can make it other then Gods truth which I maintain or that can justifie your
which we have oft blusht and sighed to see laid in our dish by Popish Authors who it was that said Kings Princes and Governors have their authority of the people and upon occasion they may take it away againe as men may revoke their proxies who it was that said It is not enough for subjects not to obey but they must withstand wicked Princes Sure they were no fautors of Episcopacy that have written so bloody lines against the safety and lives of lawful Princes as I dare not transcribe that have so undervalued their power and so abased their originall small reason had you to twit me with this hatefull guilt It is but a poor put-off that you censure not my words as treasonable from my pen which from yours had received no better construction The words are the same the intimation evident and not lesse evincible then your vilifying of the judgement of that wise above all examples learned K. Iames whom whiles you smooth in words and directly oppose in his well-grounded Edict concerning the Liturgy of the Church what do you but verbally praise and really check Ye cannot therefore so easily wipe off these aspersions of uncharitablenesse by either stiffe deniall or unjust recrimination For me such is my malice towards you that I can at once convince your want of charitie and forgive it IF the Religion of King William Rufus or the infallible judgement of Pope Pius may do you any service make your best of them to me they are much alike Whatsoever Daniel the Poet not the Prophet pleased to say All Historians were not Monks nor all Monks false-tongued Would God all Divines were true The actions of this Prince blazon him more then the Historians pens whereof some have taxed him for favour of Judaisme others for touches of Atheisme all for indevotion As for the Bishops of those times I say they were Popish and in that notion tyrannicall for that dependance which they had upon him who exalts himself above all that is called GOD exalted them to their proud contestation with Princes It was their Popery therefore that made them insolent and their insolence that made them odious to Kings It hath been ye say the usuall quality of former and later Bishops to tyrannize over such as fear them and to flatter such as they fear Your tongues are your own But Brethren if this be their qualitie it is your fault that you will not suffer it to be their propertie There are those that can do this and more can tyrannize over those whom they ought to reverence and flatter those whom they should not fear As for your Pius should not the Pope have been my Antichrist I am sure he is yours Little reason therefore could you have to use his testimonie against your own profession But Why may we not you say use the testimony of Antichrist against Antichristian Bishops Brethren I understand you not I hope you have more grace then to call ours so If you have so much of the Separatist in you many good hearts will justly grieve to see that ye pretend to come forth under License sure you dare not mean you dare not say that the publique Government established here by Law is Antichristian this were to strike where you would not or if you could be so bold Authoritie might over-see but would never allow so lawlesse an affront If our Bishops be Antichristian whence is your Ordination Good speed may you have Brethren towards Amsterdam Full wittie and sound is the inference which you draw from the grounds which I give of the Popes unwillingnesse to yeeld a Divine Right to Bishops for that hee would have them derive their authoritie meerly from himself Therefore say you it follows That they have no more Divine Right then the Pope Just for the Pope thinks so pretending his own false Right and disclaiming their true But what 's this I ask to our Bishops who professe notwithstanding the Apostolicall that is Divine Right of their calling to hold the places and exercise of their Jurisdiction wholly from His Majestie You answer Surely ours have begun to affect the same exemption from secular power to make large and haughty strides towards an independent Hierarchie Where or wherein Brethren Will any Justice hold it enough to accuse I challenge your instances If you can finde an universall guiltinesse this way spare us not I shall yeeld we cannot suffer too much But if your exceptions be either none as your silence argues or particular why should not you smart for the unjust branding of a whole Order Me thinks you should shame and feare to speake of our affected independence of Hierarchy when ye know that an independent parochiall Hierarchy if it could be worth so high a name is in publique Pamphlets and open Sermons set a-foote with much earnestnesse by those who would be thought no meane ones in your fraternity And when you cannot but know that the Bishops Bench is openly challenged in the name of too much dependence upon Soveraignty Away with these idle sclanders of your innocent grave and modest governors For Mr Hooker we know you love and honour his memory dearly nothing of his can be unwelcome to us neither doubt we but that you will bee no lesse edified by his last works if they may see the light then with his first That man doth not looke as if hee meant to contradict his owne truths YE doubt to bee chid for this licentiousnesse of your pen and so you well may for it can be no lesse then a foule sclander to charge that faction upon whole Episcopacy which you dare upon urging impute but to a few The more ye say is your misery that a few Bishops can put both the Kingdomes into so dangerous a combustion True But if it be your miserie it is not our sinne Blame the guilty strike not the innocent But if but a few can doe this ye say what a stir would they all make if they should unite their powers This is in your owne phrase argumentum galeatum If a few factious Preachers in our neighbour Pulpits since the entring of this Parliament have kindled such a fire in the City and Kingdome what would they all do if their seditious tongues were all united But now ye speake to purpose If but a few were factors for this attempt how was it that one of the Episcopall tribe in open Court called the Scottish designe Bellum Episcopale Who can forbeare to smile at this doughty proofe Why Brethren was that word too big for one mans mouth Could hee not utter it without help of his fellowes Did they either say or think it the more because hee spake it What reason have you to feoffe a private conceit on all especally when the words may be capable of a lesse evill construction as referring to the Northerne rise of that quarrell not to our prosecution But where ye say were the rest of the peaceable and
prayer be good and holy why should I more refuse it as comming from a Papists mouth then I would make use of a vicious prayer comming from the best Protestant Where I said If the Divell confesse Christ to be the Sonne of God shall I disclaime the truth because it passed through a damned mouth You answer But you know Sir that Christ would not receive such a confession from the Divels mouth nor Paul neither Act. 16. True in respect of the person confessing not of the truth confessed As it came from an evill spirit our Saviour and St. Paul had reason to refuse it but neither of them would disclaime the matter of that truth which was so averred There is great difference betwixt the words of a foule spirit and a faulty man but if you will needs make a parallel it must be personall Christ would not allow a Divell to confesse him we will not allow a Popish sacrificer to usurpe our good prayers but if my Saviour would not dis-allow that I should make use of the good Confession of an evill spirit much lesse would hee dislike that I should make use of that good prayer which was once the expression of an evill man And yet these were not such being taken from the composures of holy men and ill places so as this is no other then to take up gold mis-laid in a channell which could not impure it you may well aske why it was laid there you have no reason to aske why a wise man should take it up Your question therefore What need wee go to the Roman Portuise for a prayer when wee can have one more free from jealousies in another place might have been moved to those Worthies which gathered this pile of devotion who would easily have answered you that your jealousie is causelesse whiles the prayers themselves are past exception but can with no colour of reason bee charged upon us who take holy prayers from good hands not needing to enquire whence they had them YOur second reason is as forcelesse as your first Our Liturgie was composed you say into this forme on purpose to bring the Papist to our Churches that failing there is no reason to retaine it The argument failes in every part First our Liturgie was thus composed on purpose that all Christians might have a form of holy devotion wherein they might safely and comfortably joyne together both publickly and privately in an acceptable service to their God and this end I am sure failes not in respect of the intention of the composers however it speed in the practise of the users of it Secondly there is no reason that where the issue of things faileth the good intention of the agent should bee held frustrate or his act void Our end in preaching the Gospel is to win soules to God if we prevaile not shall we surcease and condemne our errand as vaine But here I say the project sped for till the eleventh yeare of Queene Elizabeth there was no Recusant You tell me It was not the converting power of the Liturgie but the constraining power of the Law that effected this But brethren what constraining power was of any use where there was no Recusant Every constraint implies a reluctation here was none If then our Liturgie had no power of converting to our Churches yet it had no operation of averting from them What the Popes negotiations were with Queen Elizabeth at this time imports nothing I am sure I have those Manuscript Decisions of the Jesuitish Casuists which first determined it unlawfull to joyne with our assemblies till which our Liturgie had so good effect that those who differed from us in opinion were not separated in our devotion But how am I mistaken That which I boasted of as the praise is objected to mee as the reproach of our divine service What credit is this to our Church you say to have such a forme of publicke worship as Papists may without offence joyne with us in c. Or How shall that reclaime an erring soule that brings their bodies to Church and leaves their hearts still in errour I beseech you brethren what thinke you of the Lords Prayer Is that a perfect platforme of our devotion or is it not Tell me then what Christian is there in the world of what nation language sect soever except the Separatist onely will refuse to joyne with their fellow Christians in that forme of prayer And What credit is it to our Christian profession to have such a forme of publicke prayer as Papists Grecians Moscovites Armenians Jacobites Abassines may without offence joyne with us in I had thought you would have looked for the reclamation of erring soules by the power of preaching Here is no unteaching or confutation of errors no confirmations of either Doctrines or Uses in the formes of our prayers And if I should aske you how many you have reclaimed by your conceived prayers you would not I feare need to spend too much breath in the answer When I therefore impute the rare gaine of soules to the want or weaknesse in preaching you think to choak me by an exprobration of the fault of your Governors Let the Bishops see how they will cleare their soules of this sinne who having the sole power of admitting Ministers into the Church have admitted so many weake ones and have rejected so many faithfull able Preachers for not conforming to their beggerly rudiments Let those whose guiltinesse findes themselves galled with this crimination flie out in an angry answer but if there be those who have beene conscionably carefull not to admit them that are not competently {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not to eject any peaceable and conscionable Divine for meere matter of ceremonie how injuriously have you fastened upon them other mens delinquences although it is not unpossible that men may be able Preachers and yet turbulent and there may bee ceremoniall rites neither theirs nor beggerly You are deceived brethren it is not our Liturgie that hath lost any too many have lost themselves by a mis-taught prejudice against our Liturgie as for the mis-catholick part tell me I pray you whether is it more likely that a staggering Papist will rather joyne with a Church that useth a Liturgie or one that hath none With a Church that allowes some of their wholesome prayers or that which rejects and defies all though never so holy because theirs And for our own surely if our acute Jesuits had no keener arguments then this you bring we should be in small feare to lose Proselytes For what weake Protestant could not easily replie The Church of Rome was ancient but yours is new that was orthodox this false The service was not yours but borrowed and usurped from better hands we make use of it as wee may in the right of Christianitie not in any relation to you and your errours So much for you and your Jesuit in the second reason YOur third Reason is
my cause however you are pleased to scandalize my discourse hath no whit transported me to any over-reaching expressions in lifting up the Antiquity and extolling the universality of Episcopall government beyond truth That which I spake of the Libellers abroad your charity would faine have extended to forraine Churches now as ashamed of the misprision you would faine salve it up with a pretended probability of your mis-taken sense for my part now that my innocence is cleared if you can put any honest colour upon your mis-understanding I shall willingly connive at it although I must tell you there is enough dissimilitude in your instance In what sense you meant the self-confoundednesse you impute to me what matters it to the Reader such a one you confesse it was that makes men speake they know not what It is a faire Livery and well beseeming the bounty of such munificent hands I justly professed my selfe so self-confounded as to say confidently that he is no peaceable and well affected Son of the Church of England that doth not hate Libels and wish well to Leiturgie and Episcopacy Your charity presuming upon advantages dares to choake me with the name of a Parliament wherein how you will answer your injurious imputation to that High Court I appeale to their Bar. To make the matter altogether envious you guiltily leave out the first clause concerning Libels and aggravate the second and that which I professedly spake of Complainants you spightfully draw home to the Iudges whom I must still suppose you doe hainously wrong in fastening upon them this bold imputation of illaffectednesse to a well established Leiturgie and a well-regulated Episcopacie I beleeve those honourable Peeres and noble Commons will give you small thanks for this insolent assertion What I said concerning the derivation of Episcopall government from the times of the Apostles without the contradiction of any one Congregation in the Christian world I am ready to make good against all your frivolous clamours Purposely to lay the ground of a quarrell you intersert Diocesan which came not within the termes of my proposition and to confute your owne addition tell us how late Dioceses came into the Church and now will needs inforce me to maintaine what your so magistrall power will put upon me Pardon me Brethren I undertake to defend my owne words not yours But you say as good to have said nothing at all as not this and we know what kinde of government it is that the Remonstrant pleads for I grant you have reason to guesse it but what is that to my proposition Whether they were Bishops of Cities or Dicceses or Parishes or Provinces that is not essentiall to the question Neither doe we speake of them quà Diocesani but quà Episcopi if they were such as were placed in an imparity of degree above Presbyters and were induced with an eminent power of jurisdiction and ordination what ever the limits of their government were my assertion holds good On this ground well might B. Hall say that Timothy was a Diocesan Bishop that is sustained that place and did those offices which his successors being formall Diocesans held and performed This kinde of Bishops I defend to have continued in the Christian world unto this age without the contradiction of any one Congregation You tell me of Scotland as if I had affirmed that there had beene Bishops alwayes every where It is no small wonder to me how you can with such sober vehemence presse upon me so impossible an absurdity when you plainly see that all I contend for is this that there hath beene no time no age from the Apostles dayes wherein this forme of Episcopall government hath not been without contradiction continued Yet your importunity will force a Tenet upon me mal-grè and tels me you are sure it is the assertion of Episcopall men amongst whom you cite D. Halls irrefragable proposition No man living no history can shew any wel allowed and setled Nationall Church in the whole Christian world that hath beene governed otherwise then by Bishops in a meet and moderate imparity ever since the times of Christ and his Apostles untill this present age and the like passage you bring out of his Episcopacy by Divine right part 2. p. 110. What can you make of these Allegations There is no one line in them which I am not ready to justifie what one word is here liable to exception Will it follow from hence that I affirme Bishops to have beene alwayes every where You see first it is limited to the Christian world not the Pagan and in that not to every Parochiall Church but a nationall and not to every nationall Church which is in fieri and inchoatè such as that of Scotland in those first times was but a setled Nationall Church and to make yet more sure lest any schismaticall company might put in for a share it is super-added a well-allowed setled nationall Church I should have acknowledged you brave vindicators indeed if now in the height of your learned valour you could have choaked me with direct and particular instances of any well-allowed setled national Churches in Christendome before this present age that were otherwise governed IN stead of this you tell me a tale of a sorry quarrell taken up against the Bishop of Pampelona by some barbarous Biscainers whose rudenesse when I proved to you by their Savage deportment to their King you give a very civill and charitable construction of my Marginall as intimating it no lesse crime to offer an affront to a Prelate then to a King Thus love creepes where it cannot goe But to mend the matter you instance in the Reformed Churches they have made contradiction to Episcopal government True but not till this present age That period was set before in my assertion whence now arises your suddaine passion Sir bethinke you take up your Remonstrance reade your own words mark the Parenthesis Sir I have done all this and wonder what it is that you would have me to see or to say The words are plaine without either welt or gard say what you would inferre upon them The limitation of time here you say hath reference to the continuance of Episcopacy not the contradiction of Episcopacy Certainly in any indifferent Readers eye to both neither doth the verie scope of the place evince any lesse for could you suppose any man so utterly insensate as to say By the joynt confession of Reformed Divines the Reformed Churches of this age have never contradicted Episcopacy This were indeed a paradox fit for none but a self-confounded man fasten it upon those that are fit for dark roomes and Ellebore Iust such another is the next you say Such another indeed as truly affirmed and as unjustly excepted to That Episcopall government hath continued in this Iland since the first plantation of the Gospell to this present day without contradiction what talke you of taking in the manner and salving of credit as if