from Presbyters pag. 21. arrogate unto themselves the sole power of Ordaining Ministers and to be the chief Conservators Cisterns and Conduits of Ecclesiastical authority and Ministerial power page 12. who have not only Precedency and Order but paternal authority page 18. and that not only over people but their Pastors who are by this antithesis fraternal with them and so fillial to the paternal power of the Bishops and make up the paternal fraternal and filial unity of Bishops Presbyters and people pa. 5. Nay in opposition to whom the ordinary Minister or Presbyter is divested of all power and degraded of all dignity among the people and the Bishop as dignified above him so distinguished from him by his Lawn sleeves which is plainly suggested when he tells us The people of England are not to be governed by their equals and inferiors because they are in black Coats page 17. All these expressions with many of the like nature do seem to set up and point out such an Episcopacy as is not Primitive and Regular And I say if this be the meaning of his Episcopacy as the word in the vulgar acceptation by the too long appropriation of it to such an unjust and Anti-christian frame of Government may be understood Truly Sir then I must be free to tell him the sence and very Letter of the Covenant is clear against it and binds the taker in terminis to the extirpation of Prelacy that is to say the Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy So that it is the thing not its abuse the subject not its adjuncts the Fabrick not its defects and excesses is covenanted against nor will the Covenant be accomplished or the conscience be satisfied by the removal of the pride presumption dulnesse covetousnesse and tyranny of Bishops whilst the preheminence prerogative paternal power and juridical authority assumed by them as distinct from and above all other Ministers of the Gospel as the only immediate Successours of the Apostles and enforced by their High Commission and starchamher with other imperial Courts Officers and proceedings are continued and established nor must he think by his Sophistical comparison to deceive and delude the conscience telling us page 17 18. That they that Covenanted against Popery cannot think they did abjure or must abhorre all those saving truths and duties of Christianity which are mixed with Popery for whatsoever is formal popery though it be an English Masse or Altar that all that though only that must be abhorred and I conceive it yet remains to be proved that the paternal authority of Episcopacy is a saving truth or Christian duty or not of the formality of prelacy and that government covenanted against It is no hard case of conscience to resolve whether a man may use the good and substantial materials of a destroyed Fabrick but I conceive it an high fallacy from thence to impose the very form resolved against You see Sir at what uncertainty we are left whilst the object of the obligation is propounded under a general term whose proper primitive and genuine signification suggests one thing and the vulgar and long-used acceptation suggests another and our resolution is darkned by the multitude of expressions concluding sometimes one and sometimes the other thing which of these shall a conscientious Covenanter embrace You cannot Sir but know the work of a Casuist is to be full and clear in the discovery of the Ratio formalis thing or matter concerning which the conscience conceiveth it self obliged and that it is a great unhappiness in an Interpreter and much greater in a Casuist to resolve obscura per obscuriora But Sir that I may testifie my willingness to understand him and cement what in me lieth the sad differences in the Church Shall I intreat you will please to provoke the Dr. and his Anti-covenant brethren such as seem to advance and promote an Episcopacy scrupled by Covenanters to speak out and clearly to declare whether they will admit the removal of the Government by Arch-Bishops and that late Hierarchy which he concludes page 18 is dead and must rise in another quality and according to what is suggested in the Reduction by him urged consent to the establishment of Congregational Classical Provincial and National Assembâ—ies oâ— Synods of Church-Officers Presbytarial Episcopacy admitted Communi concilio Presbyterorâ—m to debate and determine the affairs of the Church and exercise all Acts of discipline and Ecclesiastick power In each of which if there be Ignatius his Angel Tertullian his Summus sacerdos or Armagh's Bishop or Super-intendent for order-sake to call Assemblies propound questions gather suffrages require Order and composure in audience and debate pronounce sentence and sign Decrees and to be fixed in that place enjoying all the dignities thereto belonging and to be distinguished by some special denomination from his Chorepiscopi or Colleagues they shall not only enjoy my consent who I hope make conscience of the Covenant but also endeavour which I think will not much need that all the Covenanted Ministers may joyne with them in a Petition to His Majesty that by a Synod by His Majesties Authority called it may be speedily consulted and concluded on under which I doubt not but the Peace of the Church will be preserved and power truth and godliness promoted But if nothing will serve them but Bishops distinct in Office from Presbyters and exercising over them a paternal authority appropriating to themselves the power of ordaining Ministers Domineering Prelacy refused and the succession ro the Apostles and the Jurisdiction before noted we must intreat him to produce those clear pregnant and constant beams of right reason and true Religion which shineth in the brightness and stability of Divine and Humane Laws which may be the pillars of this truth firm supports of duty sure bounds of obedience and safe repose of conscience in this point greatly darkned by the many disputes of Bishops and Presbyters Papists and Protestants nay by the positive assertions of both Papists and Protestant Divines and determinations of Schoolmen who have concluded Bishops and Presbyters to be Ministers ejusdem ordinis equal in Office and authority and in this very case of government all which his very Reduction proposed doth not obscurely suggest Sir the conscience is by him confessed to be more tender than to be deluded with Sophistry or silenced by a pretence of Regulation and Moderation which intends no other save a Reduction of Episcopacy to its pristine and corrupt estate not unto Presbytery Thus Sir I have noted the first Rock and the Doctor 's unhappy dashing against it which must needs render ineffectual whatever he after writeth The inadvertency of his expressions will appear no less evident Inadvertency of expression than his ambiguous state of the Scruple and its resolution if we either observe its fierceness or falsehood The
ΑÎΑΛΗΨΙΣ OR Saint PETERS BONDS abide FOR RHETORICK Worketh no RELEASE Is evidenced in A serious and sober consideration of Dr. John Gauden's sence and solution of the Solemn League and Covenant SO FAR As it relates to the Government of the Church by Episcopacy By ZECH. CROFTON Josh 9. 19. VVe have sworne unto them by the Lord God of Israel now therefore we may not touch them London Printed for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhill near the Royal Exchange 1660. TO THE HONOURED Sir LAWRENCE BROMFEILD Knight and Colonel in LONDON Honoured Sir YOU have been pleased in order to composure of our unhappy differences to suggest unto a grave and learned Divine a considerable case of conscience Relating to Church-Discipline viz. The consistency of Episcopacy with the Solemn League and Covenant and you have thereby produced his Resolution unto the loosing of Saint Peters Bonds as he is pleased to Entitle it You may Sir remember it is Solomons experienced Rule It is a snare or stumbling stone to devoure holy things Pro. 20. 2â— and after vows to make enquiry How to keep or retract them saith Mercer for that indeed many times the Resolution proveth more entangling than the Obligation I wish that this were not found the unhappy fate of Dr. Gawden his sence and solution of the Covenant in point of Episcopacy Truly Sir according to that little skill that I have in things of this nature this Resolution to your enquiry is so sadly shipwrackt on the uncertainty of the object in advertency of expression and imbecillity of answer and Argument those three Rocks that lay-way conscience-satisfaction that it cannot arrive at its desired haven but notwithstanding its Angelical voice will leave Saint Peter as fast fettered as it found him If Sir I may do it without offence I would make bold to discover it that some other attempt for Saint Peters rescue may be undertaken First Uncertain proposal of the object Sir there is not a greater danger to be shunned by a Casuist than a mistake or uncertain proposal of the object or Ratio formalis of the obligation scrupled and to be discharged whereby the scrupulous conscience doth easily start from the most pinching Conclusions that are put upon it and herein Sir if I mistake not the Dr. is very unhappy for he propounds the object or Ratio formalis of the Covenant under the general term Episcopacy the which he well knoweth is owned as an appellation common to all and every the Governours of the Church Acts 20. 28. who are in Scripture denominated Bishops and by good demonstration Bishop and Presbyter have been asserted to be synominous titles of Church-Officers and are found to have been so used in the Primitive times of the Church and Writings of the Fathers The true sence of Episcopacy consistent with the Covenant and in this sence the Episcopacy which he supposeth to be the object of the Covenant intends only the Government of the Church by the Ministers and Officers thereof who may and must in their several Assemblies ordinis causâ have a President or Moderator to Regulate and dispose all things which belong to order as in all policy to the Chair belongeth and if this be it he means by his Episcopacy Primitive Regular Reformed and paternal Episcopacy which I could easily imagine when I observe the Emphasis of his universal discretive All Episcopacy page 9. and elsewhere oftenmentioned and that in an opposition to some Episcopacy abjured and fit to be extirpated and that it is explained by the adjuncts Reformed and Regulated as it ought to be as page 8. and opposed to an Episcopacy the confessed Subject of abusive excesses and defects not only in the execution of its authority through the faults and infirmities of some Bishops and their instruments who possibly were not so worthy and good or not so wise and discreet as became Christian Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours of Christs Church but also in the very inconveniency of its constitution and Customs in England p. 10. In both which he confesseth page 21. there needeth an honest and ingenuous Reformation of Episcopacy beyond the former excessive or defective constitution or execution of it And more particularly by that Explication which is annexed in page 14. The efficacious conjunction of it with Presbyterie according to the Reduction of the most reverend Primate of Armagh and the considerations of the Lord Verulam offered to King James if I say this be the Episcopacy he means I humbly conceive in his Book he doth sudare de nugis labour to little purpose for so farre is any intelligent Covenanter from looking on their looking back to the Primitive Catholick and Universal government of this or any other ancient Churches to endanger the turning of them into Pillars of Apostacy as Lots wife was into a Pillar of Salt that they judge an arrival at it to be their Zoar in their escape from Sodom and hereof he might have assured himself by what page 22. he professeth himself to know to have been the sence of the Learned men in the late Assemby of Divines and by Mr. Marshal's Declaration that the Covenant was levelled at the Despoticum Tyrannicum Regimen there are no Covenanters that know any thing of the true nature of Presbytery but they will embrace this Episcopacy as not only consistent with but the very complement of the Covenant as to that point and Article and will confess this is not only the honest but literal and complexive meaning of it and with him will condemn them for rigid Bigots and virulent spirits to be slighted not striven with who conceive themselves bound against such a Primitive Reformed and Regular Episcopacy under such a reduction as I conceive would prove the formal corruption of the Episcopacy covenanted against and I hope he will finde few very few such Covenanters in England But if Sir by Episcopacy he mean as I must confess I am jealous he doth that frame and fabrick by which the man of sin was made manifest did advance himself in the Temple of God The vulgar and late acceptation of Episcopacy repugnant to the Covenant above not only all his fellow Ministers or Bishops but even Magistrates all that were called God which was by his appearance and exaltation innovated into and obtruded on the Churches of God in these Nations on the fall of the Monks of Bangor and was so exercised that Anselm whom Laude succeeded as in place so in property and almost power did appear papa alterius mundi wherein Bishops as a species or kind of Ministers different and distinct from Presbyters and so Superior to them not only in point of Order but Office and Authority together with all that Hierarchy by which it was executed all which his terms do too plainly suggest when he speaks of the Episcopacy which England sometimes had was lately desproyed the legal Episcopacy pa. 19 an Episcopacy wherein the Bishops are distinct
and solemn Declaration it shall stand and be established But Sir suppose the Dr. can pull down this defence and manage his battery so as to make a breach on the Covenant yet before he enter I must sound a parlee with him and desire him to tell us whether the quod fieri non debuit factum valet pleaded to defend the wanton Baptisme of Children and hasty Baptisme of Women be not more really pleadable in our case To make the worst of it a tumultuous Assembly convene and come before us with sword and Scepter and say they are a Parliament and have lawful constant and compleat authority to command us and therefore will put an Oath and Covenant upon us and silly inconsiderate we are not so well skill'd in politicks or acquainted with the constitutions of our Countrey to detect their fallacy but think all authority is within those walls and obedience must be yielded to what is there commanded and so we are beguiled into the Oath May we thence cry out A Cheat and so cast off the Covenant and conclude it cannot binde I doubt such Doctrine embraced will expose us to a three yeares Famine His first battery was so fiercely made that it recoileth with a more than ordinary Rumour and makes him enforce it pa. 6. with an I might Eccho as indeed he hath for I find no certain sound in what he saith the violence and noise of those times in which it was hatched in England and brought forth by the midwifry of tumults and Armies of engaged yea enraged parties and factions All which it is well known was not so great or loud but that the Lords and Commons in Parliament the Commissioners of the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland Violence of times with an Assembly of Grave and Learned Divines did after Solemn Humiliation and seeking God serious consultation and sober debates digest and determine the Covenant and both matter and form doth bespeak it to have been no rash or preposterous product of fancy But suppose the worst will the violence of the times put a nullity and non-obligation on the Oath how comes the sentence to be so severe against Zedekiah He hath despised the Oath and broken the Covenant he shall not escape Ezek. 17. 18. Was not this Oath extorted by Armies without and tumults within and yet is it so austerely binding whatever Turks Papists or Politicians say shall a Christian and Protestant suggest a nullity of the Oath because of the violence of the times in which it was taken His next suggestion is a sound no less uncertain he saith he might urge the novelty and partiality of the Covenant as to the English Laws and Genius His third indirect answer to the Covenant That he might and might when he hath urged it explain it for the matter of it is neither new nor partial it hath been often heard and endeavoured in England in the very point of Episcopacy the removal of Englands Hierarchy hath been sued for from * Wiâ—ness Dr. White 's Epistle to Lawde before his Treatise of the Sabbath Queen Elizabeths time downward unto this day and the Covenant secures all Interests without partiality his surmise of forraign influence invâ—ntion and obtrusion calls for proof and then it will but little relieve him for an Oath enforced by forraign Conâ—uest or couzenage new to the Nation and contrary to its Laws binds the conscience and the supposed contrariety of the Law is of no force to them who conclude a power in the Parliament to put a period to those Laws and a Solemn Oath or Covenant sworne by the Legislators and by them put on the people seem to be the most full discharge of all seeming-contrary Laws that can be imagined especially when the Royal assent is publiquely given to it His fourth suggestion in his indirect answer He proceeds It might seem odious to reflect upon the Covenant as to the effects and unblest consequences which like black shadows have attended its appearing and prevailing in England what havocks improsperities c. as before we have noted This Reflection I confess cannot but seem odious but not to the Covenant unless these sad effects and unblest consequences be found to attend it as its proper brood and natural issue not accidental sequels produced by its genuine tendency to them not by wicked mens reluctancy to order and piety or perfidy as to what they had covenanted but the odium will of its own accord reflect on him who is a Covenanter and yet exposeth his Solemn League and Covenant to vulgar scorn and contempt who is a man of justice and sobriety and yet calumniateth the Covenant with those sad effects which had their being and progress before the Covenant it self Sure he dreams that seeth the shadow before the substance is in being and who is a Divine detesting the plea of success as the Judge or Rule of any cause and yet maketh it the measure of the Solemn League and Covenant Nor can his next suggestion be considered unto the encrease of his credit 5th Suggestion in his indirect answer p. 7. in which he tells us He will not insist on the bafflings of the Covenant before it was adult or many yeares old how it was soon made a Nehushtan and reduced to nothing by counter and cross engagements after it had served as one of the great Rocks for the King's shipwrack and been water'd with the King's blood c. Truly Sir had I been at your Doctors elbow when he wrote this I would have advised him to have been so far from insisting that he should not have inserted this which he calls Baffling of the Covenant For Sir will not every one cry shame that shall hear him say the Covenant was one of the great Rocks which shipwrackt the King and the Covenant was watered with the King's blood Who can consider the King's reluctancy to the Covenant was not so much as inserted into His charge nor once taken notice of by Bradshaw amongst those many reasons by him produced to justifie that most execrable Sentence pronounced against Him Who observeth the Resolves of the Parliament that His Majesties Concessions though He refused the Covenant were satisfactory and that untill the faithful Covenanters were pulled out of the House by military violence and the Band of the Covenant broken by the raging lusts of some proud perjured Apostates there neither was nor could be the least proceeding against His Most Sacred Majesty and yet conclude Him shipwrackt by the Covenant because some that had taken the Covenant did perpetrate that wickedness will any Rules of Justice or Religion charge it on the Covenant because the Covenant was violated by force suppressed by power and slighted by policy was it therefore vacated when by whom or with what Arguments of Right reason or Religion was it ever bafled was not its vigour made visible by the London Ministers Representation and Vindication and its bond on