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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89568	The humble answer of the Divines attending the Honorable Commissioners of Parliament, at the treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight. To the second paper delivered to them by his Majesty, Octob. 6. 1648. about episcopall government. Delivered to his Majesty, October 17. I appoint Abel Roper to print this copie, entituled The humble answer of the Divines, &c. Richard Vines,	Westminster Assembly; Marshall, Stephen, 1594?-1655, attributed name.	1648 (1648)	Wing M757; Thomason E468_21; ESTC R204007	22,916	44

〈◊〉 without 〈◊〉 And whereas your 〈…〉 of their work 〈…〉 in the Apostles we could wish that you had declared whether it belong to their Mission or Unction for we humbly conceive that their Authorative Power to do their Work in all places of the world did properly belong to their Mission and consequently that their Office as wel as their Abilities was extraordinary and so by your Majesties own concession not to be succeded into by the Bishops As to the Orders of standing Officers of the Church your Majesty doth reply That although in the places cited Phil. 1. 1. 1 Tim. 3. 8. there be no mention but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbiters and Deacons Yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides which we humbly conceive is justly proved not only because there are no other named but because there is no rule of Ordeyning any third no Warrant or way of Mission and so the Argument is as good as can be made a non cause ad non effectum for we do not yet apprehend that the Bishops pretending to the Apostolick Office do also pretend to the same manner of Mission nor do we know hat those very many Divines that have afferted two orders onely have concluded it from any other grounds then the Scriptures cited There appears as your Majesty saith two other manifest reasons why the Office of Bishops might not bee so proper to be mentioned in those places And wee humbly conceive there is a third more manifest then those two vizt because It was not The one reasun given by your Majesty is because in the Churches which the Appostles themselves planted they placed Presbiters under them for the Office of Teaching but reserved in their own hands the Power of Governing those Churches for a longer or shorter time before they set Bishops over them Which under your Majesties favour is not so much a reason why Bishops are not mentiioned to bee in those places as that they indeed were not the variety of reasons may we say or conjectures rendred why Bishops were not set up at first as namely because fit men could not be so soon found out which is Epiphanius his reason or for remedy of Schisme which is Jeromes reason or because the Apostles saw it not expedient which is your Majesties reason doth shew that this cause labours under a manifest weaknesse for the Apostles reserving in their own hands the power of Governing we grant it they could no more devest themselves of power of Governing then as Dr. Bilson saith they could loose their Apostleship had they set up Bishops in all Churches they had no more pa●ted with their power of Governing then they did in seting up the Presbyters for we have proved that Presbyters being called Rulers Governours Bishops had the power of Governing in Ordinary committed to them as well as the Office of Teaching and that both the Keys as they are called being by our Saviour comitted into one hand were not by the Apostles divided into two Nor do we see how the Apostles could reasonably commit the Government of the Church to the Presbyters of Ephesus Act. 20 and yet reserve the power of Governing viz. in Ordinary in his own hands who took his solemn leave of them as never to see their faces more As that part of the power of Government which for distinction sa●e may be called Legis-Lative and which is one of the three fore-mentioned things challenged by the Bishops viz giving Rules the reserving of it in the Apostles hands hindred not but that in your Majesties Iudgment Timothy and Titus were Bishops of 〈◊〉 and Creete to whom the Apostles gives Rules for ●●●ring and Governing of the Church Nor is there ●●y more reason that the Apostles reserving that part of the Power of Governing which is called E●●cuti●● in such cases and upon such occasions as they thought 〈◊〉 should hinder the setting up of Bishops if they had intended it and therefore the reserving of Power in their hands can be no greater reason why they did not set up Bishops at the first then that they never did And since by your Majesties Concession the Presbiters were placed by the Apostles first in the Churches by them planted and that with Power of Governi●● as wee prove by Scripture you must prove the 〈…〉 of a Bishop over the Presbyters by the Apostles in some after times or else we must conclude that the Bishop got both his Name and Power of Government out of the Presbyters hand as the Tree in the ●●ll m●ns out the stones by little and little as i● 〈◊〉 grows As touching Phillippi where you Majesty saith it may be probable there was yet 〈◊〉 Bishop it is certaine there were many like them 〈…〉 at Epheful to whom if only the Office of Teaching did belong they had the most labori●us and honorable part that which was less honorable being reserved in the Apostles hands and the Churches left in the mean time without ordinary Government The other reason given why two Orders only a●● mentioned in those places is because he wrot in the 〈◊〉 to Timothy and Titus to them that were Bishops ●● there was no need to writ any thing concerning the 〈…〉 Qualification of any other sort of 〈◊〉 then such as belonged to their Ordination or inspection which were Presbyters and Deacons only and no Bishops The former reason why two only Orders are mentioned in the Epistle to the Philip●●ans was because there was yet ●● Bishop this latter reason why the same two onely are mentioned in these Epistles is because there was no Bishop i●●● Ordained we might own the reason for good if there may bee found any rule for the Ordination of the other order of Bishops in some other place of Scripture but if the Ordination cannot be found how should we find the Order and it is reasonable to think that the Apostle in the Chapter formerly alleadged 1 Tim. 3. where he passes immediatly from the Bish to the De●●on would have 〈◊〉 exprest or at least hinted what sort of Bishop he meant whither the Bishop ●ver Presbyters or the Presbiter Bishop to have avoyded the confusion of the name and to have set as it were some mark of difference in the 〈◊〉 of the Presbiter-Bish if there had bin some other Bishop of 〈…〉 And wheras your Ma● saith there was no need to writ to them about 〈…〉 in a distinct sence who belonged not to their Ordination and inspection We conceive that in your Majesties judgment Bishops might then have Ordeined Bishops like themselves for there was then no Ca●●● forbiding one single Bish to ordain another of his own rank and ther being many Cities in Creete Titus might have found it expedient as those ancient Fathers that call him Arch-Bishop think he did to have set up Bishops in some of those Cities So that this reasoning his against the principles of those 〈…〉

The Humble ANSWER Of the DIVINES Attending the Honorable COMMISSIONERS OF Parliament At the TREATY at Newport in the Isle of WIGHT To the second Paper delivered to them by his MAJESTY Octob. 6. 1648. About Episcopall Government Delivered to his Majesty October 17. I appoint Abel Roper to Print this Copie entituled The Humble Answer of the Divines c. Richard Vines London Printed for Abel Roper at the Signe of the Sunne over against S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1648. The humble ANSWER of the Divines attending the Honorable Commissioners of PARLIAMENT at the Treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight To the second Paper delivered to them by his MAIESTY Octob. 6. 1648. Delivered to his MAIESTY Octob. 17. May it please your Mahesty AS in our Paper of October the third in Answer to your Majesties of October the second We did so now againe we do acknowledge that the Scriptures cited in the Margin of your Majesties Paper do prove that the Apostles in their own persons That Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the Churches had power respectively to do those things which are in those places of Scripture specified But as then so now also we humbly do deny that any of the persons or Officers fore-mentioned were Bishops as district from Presbyters or did exercise Episcopall Government in that sence Or that this was in the least measure proved by the alleadged Scriptures and therefore our Negative not being to the same point or state of the Question which was affirmed We humby conceive that we should not be interpreted to have in effect denyed the very same thing which we had before granted or to have acknowledged that the severall Scriptures do prove the thing for which they are cited by your Majesty And if that which we granted were all that by the Scriptures cited in your Margin your Majesty intended to prove It will follow That nothing hath yet beene proved on your Majesties part to make up that conclusion which is pretended As then we stood upon the Negative to that assertion so we now crave leave to represent to your Majesty that your reply doth not infirme the Evidence given in maintenance thereof The Reason given by your Majesty in this Paper to support your assertion That the persons that exercised the power aforesaid were Bishops in distinct sence is taken from a description of Episcopall Government which is as your Majesty saith nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certaine Precinct commonly called a Diocesse committed to one single person with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end which Government so described being for substance of the thing it selfe in all the three forementioned particulars Ordaining giving rules of Discipline and Censures found in Scriptures except we will contend about names words must be acknowledged in the sense aforesaid to be sufficiently proved from Scriptures and your Majesty saith further that the Bishops do not challeng more or other power to belong to them in respect of their Episcopal office as it is distinct from that of Presbyters then what properly fals under one of those three We desire to speak both to the Bishops challenge and to your Majesties description of Episcopal government And first to their Challenge because it is first exprest in your Majesties reply The Challenge we undertake in two respects 1. In respect of the Power challenged 2. In respect of that ground or Tenure upon which the claim is laid The Power challenged consists of three particulars Ordaining giving Rules of Discipline and Censures No more no other in respect of their Episcopal office We see not by what warrant this Writ of partition is taken forth by which the Apostolical office is thus sha●ed or divided The Governing part into the Bishops hands the Teaching and administring Sacraments into the Pr●●byters For besides that the Scripture makes no such inclosure or partition wall it appeares the challenge is grown to more then was pretended unto in the times of growne Episcopacie Jerome and Chrysostome do both acknowledge for their time that the Bishop and Presbyter differed only in the matter of Ordination and learned Doctor Bilson makes some abatement in the claim of three saying the things proper to Bishops which might not be common to Presbyters are singularly of Succeeding and superiority in Ordaining The tenure or ground upon which the claim is made is Apostolical which with us is all one with Divine Institution And this as far as we have learned hath not been anciently openly or generally avowed in this Church of England either in time of Popery or of the first Reformation and whensoever the pretension hath been made it was not without the contradiction of learned and godly men The abettors of the challenge that they might resolve it at last into the Scripture did chuse the most plausible way of ascending by the scale of Succession going up the River to find the Head but when they came to Scriptures found it like the head of Nile which cannot be found they shrowded it under the name and countenance of the Angels of the Churches and of Timothy and Titus Those that would carry it higher endeavoured to impe it into the Apostolical office and so at last called it a Divine Institution not in force of any expresse precept but implicite practise of the Apostles and so the Apostolical office excepting the gifts or enablements confest only extraordinary is brought down to be Episcopal and the Episcopal raised up to be Apostolical Whereupon it follows that the highest Officers in the Church are put into a lower orb an extraordinary office turn'd into an ordinary distinct office confounded with that which in the Scripture is not found a temporary and an extinct office revived And indeed if the definitions of both be rightly made they are so incompatible to the same subject that he that will take both must lose the one aut Apostolus Episcopatum aut Apostolatum Episcopus For the Apostles though they did not in many things ut aliud yet they acted alio nomine alio munere then Presbyters or Bishops can do and if they were indeed Bishops and their government properly Episcopal in distinct sense then it is not needfull to go so far about to prove Episcopal government of Divine institution because they practised it but to assert expressely that Christ instituted it immediately in them For your Majesties definition of Episcopal government it is extracted out of the Bishops of later date then Scripture times and doth not sute to that Meridian under which there were more Bishops then one in a Precinct or Church and it is as fully competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal government as Episcopal The parts of this definition materially and abstractly considered may be found in Scripture The Apostles Timothy and Titus were single persons but not limited to a Precinct The government of the Angels was limited to

us to proceed the same way and to finde many antient rites and customs generally received in the Church counted by the antients Apostolicall traditions as neer the Apostles times as Bishops which yet are confessedly not of Divine institution and further if Timothy and the rest that are first in the catalogue were Bishops with such sole Power of Ordination and Censures as is asserted how came their pretended successors who were but Primi Presbyterorum as the Fathers themselves call them to lose so much Episcopall power as was in their Predecessors and as was not recovered in 300 years and therefore we cannot upon any thing yet said recide from that of our Saviour ab initio non fuit sic from the begining is was not so Your Majesty saith that wee affirme but upon very weak proofes that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places the contrary whereunto hath been demonstrated by some who have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and order of the severall journeyes and stations of Paul and Timothy It is confessed that our assertion that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists lies with some stresse upon this that they removed from place to place as they were sent by or accompanied the Apostles the proofe whereof appeares to us to bee of greaten strength then can bee taken off by the comparison which your Majesty makes of the Divines of the Assembly at Westminster Wee begin with the Travailes of Timothy as we finde them in order recorded in the Scripture-places cited in the Margin and we set forth from a Berea where we finde Timothy then next at b Athens fromwhence Paul sends him to c Thessalonica afteward having been in Macedonia he came to Paul at d Corinth and after that he is with Paul at Ephesus and thence sent by him into e Macedonia whether Paul went after him and was by Timothy accompanied into f Asia who was with him at g Troas and h Miletus to which place Saint Paul sent for the Presbyters of the Church in Ephesus and gave them that solemne charge to take heede unto themselves and to all the flock over which the holy Ghost hath made them Bishops not speaking a word of recommendation of that Church to Timothy or of him to the Elders And if Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus he must bee so when the first Epistle was sent to him in which he is pretended to receive the charge of exercising his Episcopall power in Ordination and government but it is manifest that after this Epistle sent to him he was in continuall journeyes or absent from Ephesus For Paul left him at Ephesus when he went into i Macedonia and he left him there to exercise his Office in regulating and ordering that Church and in ordaining but it was after this time that Timothy is found with Paul at Miletus for aftur Paul had been at Miletus he went to Jerusalem whence he was sent prisoner to Rome and never came more into Macedonia and at k Rome we find Timothy a prisoner with him and these Epistles which Paul wrote while he was prisoner at Rome namely the Epistle to the Philippians to Philemon to the Colossians to the Hebrewes doe make mention of Timothy as his companion at these times nor doe we ever finde him againe at Ephesus for we finde that after all this towards the end of Saint Pauls life after his first answering before Nero and when he said his departing was at hand hee sent for Timothy to Rome not from Ephesus for it seemes that Timothy was not there because Paul giving Timothy an account of the absence of most of his companions sent into divers parts he saith Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus Now if your Majesty shall bee pleased to cast up into one totall that which is said the severall journeyes and stations of Timothy the order of them the time spent in them the nature of his imployment to negotiate the affaires of Christ in severall Churches and places the silence of the Scriptures as touching his being Bishop of any one Church you will acknowledge that such a man was not a Bishop fixed to one Church or precinct and then by assuming that Timothy was such a man you wil conclude that he was not Bishop of Ephesus The like conclusion may be inforced from the like premisses from the instance of Titus whom we finde at a Jerusalem before he came to Crete from whence hee is sent for to b Nicopolis after that he is sent to Corinth from whence he is expected at c Troas and met with Paul in d Macedonia whence he is sent againe to e Corinth and after all this is neere the time of Pauls death at Rome from whence he went not into Crete but unto f Dalmatia and after this is not heard on in the Scripture and so we hope your Majesty doth conceive that we affirme not upon very weak proofes that Tymothy and Titus were from Ephesus Crete removed to other places In the fifth exception your Majesty takes notice of two places of Scripture cited by us to prove that they were called away from those places of Ephesus Crete which if they doe not conclude much of themselves yet being accompanied by two other places which your Majesty takes no notice of may seeme to conclude more and these are 1 Tim. v. 1. 3. Titus 1. 5. As I be sought thee to abide still at Ephesus for this cause left I thee in Creete in both which is specifed the occasionall imployment for which they made stay in those places and the expressions used I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus I left thee in Crete doe not sound like words of installment of a man into a Bishoprick but of an intendment to call them away again and if the first and last be put together his actuall revocation of them both the intimation of his intention that they should not stay there for continuance and the reason of his beseeching the one to stay of his leaving the other behind him which was some present defects and distempers in those Churches they will put faire to prove that the Apostle intended not to establish them Bishops of those places and therefore did not For the Postscripts because your Majesty layes no great weight upon them We shall not be solicitous in producing evidence against them though they doe bear witnesse in a matter of fact which in our opinion never was and in your Majesties Judgement was long before they were borne and so we conclude this discourse about Timothy and Titus with this observation that in the same very Epistle of Paul to Timothy out of which your Majesty hath endeavoured to prove that he was a Bishop and did exercise Episcopall Government there is cleare evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in ordination and for their Ruling In the next point concerning the Angels of

to have been Bishops for our part we beleeve that ●Word-● belonged unto 〈◊〉 and Titus with 〈…〉 Churches where they might 〈…〉 any time have the Office of Ordeyning and Governing as it is written in the same Chapter 1 Tim. 3. 14 15. Those things I have written unto th●● c. that thou mayest know how to be have thy selfe in the House of God which is the Church and therefore if there had been any proper Character or Qualification of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter if any Ordination or Office we think the Apostle would have signified it but because he did not we conclude and the more strongly from the insufficiency of your Majesties two reasons that there are onely two Orders of Officers and consequently that a Bishop is not superiour to a Presbyter for we find not as we said in our Answer that one Officer is superiour to another who is of the same Order Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles Your Majesty having in your first Paper said that you could not in Conscience consent to Abolish Episcopall Government because you did conceive it to be of Apostolicall Institution Practised by the Apostles themselves and by them comitted and derived to particular persons as their Successors and have ever since til these last times bin exercised by Bishops in al the Churchs of Christ We thought it necessary in our Answer to subjoyne to that we had said out of the Scriptures the Iudgment of divers ancient ●riters and Fathers by whom Bishops were not acknowledged as a Divine but as an Ecclesias●ticall Institution as that which might very much conduce both to the easing of your Majesties scruple to consider that howsoever Episcopal Government was generally currant yet the superscription was not jugded Divine by some of those that either were themselves Bishops or lived under that Government to the vindication of the opinion which we hold from the prejudice of Novellisme or of recesse from the Iudgement of all Antiquity We doe as firmely beleeve as to matter of fact that Chrysostome and Austin were Bishops as that Aristotle was a Philosopher Cicer● an Orator though wee should rather call out Faith and beliefe thereof ●●rtaine in matter of fact upon humane Testimonies uncontrouled then infallible in respect of the Testimonies themselves But where is your Majestie saith That the darknesse of the Historie of the Church in the time succeeding the Apostles is a strong Argument for Episcopacie which notwithstanding that darknesse hath found so full proofe by unquestioned Catalogues as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like Wee humbly conceive that those fore-mentioned times were darke to the Catalogue-makers who must derive the series of Succession from and through those Historicall darknesses and so make up their Catalogues very much from Tradition and Reports which can give no great Evidence because they agree not amongst themselves and that which is the great blemish of their Evidence is that the neerer they come to the Apostles times wherein they should be most of all clear to establish the succession firm and cleare at first the more doubtfull uncertaine and indeed contradictorie to one another are the Testimonies Some say that Clemens was first Bishop of Rome after Peter some say the third and the intricacies about the Order of Succession in Lin●s Anacletus Clemens and another called Cletus as some affirme are inextricable Some say that Titus was Bishop of Crate some say Arch-bishop and some Bishop of Dalmatia Some say that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus and some say that Iohn was Bishop of Ephesus at the same time Some say that Polycarpus was first Bishop of Smyrna another saith that he succeeded one B●colus and another that Arist● was first Some say that Alexandria had but one Bishop and other Cities two and others that there was but one Bishop of one Citie at the same time And how should those Catalogues be unquestionable which must be made up out of Testimonies that fight one with another Wee confesse that the Ancient Fathers Tertulltan Irenaus c. made use of Succession as an Argument against Heretikes or Innovators to prove that they had the traduces Apostoliei seminis and that the Godly and Orthodox Fathers were on their side But that which we now have in hand is Succession in Office which according to the Catalogues resolves it selfe into some Apostle or Evangelist as the first Bishop of such a Citie or Place who as we conceive could not be Bishops of those places being of an higher Office though according to the language of after-times they might by them that drew up the Catalogues be so called because they planted and founded or watered those Churches to which they are entituled and had their greatest residence in them or else the Catalogues are drawne from some eminent men that were of great veneration and reverence in the times and places where they lived and Presidents or Moderators of the Presbyteries whereof themselves were Members from whom to pretend the Succession of after-Bishops is as if it should be said that Caesar was Successor to the Roman Consuls And we humbly conceive that there are some Rites and Ceremonies used continually in the Church of old which are asserted to be found in the Apostolicall and Primitive times and yet have no colour of Divine Institution and which is Argument above all other the Fathers whose Names wee exhibited to your Majestie in our Answer were doubtlesse acquainted with the Catalogues of Bishops who had beene before them and yet did hold them to be of Ecclesiasticall Institution And lest your Majestie might reply That however the Testimonies and Catalogues may varie or be mistaken in the order or times or names of those persons that succeeded the Apostles yet all agree that there was a Succession of some persons and so though the credit of the Catalogues be infirmed yet the thing intended is confirmed thereby We grant that Succession of men to feed and governe those Churches while they continued Churches cannot be denyed and that the Apostles and Evangelists that planted and watered those Churches though extraordinarie and temporarie Officers were by Ecclesiasticall Writers in complyance with the Language and usage of their owne times called Bishops and so were other eminent men of chiefe note presiding in the Presbyteries of the Cities or Churches called by such Writers as wrote after the division or distinction of the names of Presbyters and Bishops But that those first and ancientest Presbyters were Bishops in proper sence according to your Majesties description invested with power over Presbyters and people to whom as distinct from Presbyters did belong the power of Ordaining giving Rules and Censures wee humbly conceive can never be proved by authentike or competent Testimonies And granting that your Majestie should prove the Succession of Bishops from the Primitive times seriatim yet if these from whom you draw and through whom you derive it be found either more then Bishops as