his Remonstrance hee made no mention of Diocesan Bishops whereas all know that he undertooke the defence of such Bishops which were petitioned against in Parliament whom none will deny to bee Diocesan Bishops In his 5. pag. speaking of the changing of Civill governement mentioned in the Remonstrance he professeth that he did not aime at our Civill Governement Let but the Reader survey the words of the Remonstance pag. 8. and it will appeare plainely ac si solaribus radijs descriptum esset That the comparison was purposely made betwixt the attempts of them that would have altered our Civill governement and those that indeavored the alteration of our Church governement And whereas he bids as pag. 135. to take our soleordination and sole jurisdiction to sole our next paire of shoes withall yet notwitstanding hee makes it his great worke to answer all our arguments against the sole power of Bishops and when all is done allowes the Presbyter onely an assistance but no power in Ordination nor jurisdiction Lastly in the stating of the question he distinguisheth betweene divine and Apostolicall authority and denyeth that Bishops are of Divine authority as ordained immediately by Christ. And yet he saith That Christ himselfe hath laid the ground of this imparitie in his first agents And that by the evidence of Timothy and Titus and the Asian Angels to whom Christ himselfe wrote he hath made good that just claime of the sacred Hierarchy This is the summe of that good Reader that we thought fit to praemonish thee of Wee now dismisse thee to the booke it selfe and commend thee and it to the blessing of God A Vindication of the ANSWER to the humble Remonstrance SECT I. IF wee thought our silence would onely prejudice our selves wee could contentedly sit downe and forbeare Replyes not doubting but intelligent men comparing cause with cause and reason with reason would easily see with whom the truth rests but wee fearing that many who have not either ability or leisure to search into the grounds of things themselves would fearce thinke it possible that so much confidence as the Remonstrant shewes should be severed from a good cause or so much contempt should bee powred upon us that are not the bad defenders of a cause much worse Wee must discharge our duty in cleering the cause and truth of God and that will cleer us from all the foule aspersions which the Remonstrant hath been nothing sparing to cast upon us Whose Defence in every Leafe terms us either ignorant lyers witlesse falsifiers malicious spightfull slanderous violent and subtill Machinators against the Church and disturbers of her peace c. and this not onely in a cursory way but in such a devout and religious form as we make question whether ever any man before him did so solemnly traduce speaking it in the presence of God that he never saw any Writer professing Christian sincerity so fouly to overlash To the presence of God before whom his protestation is made our accesse is equall and at that Tribunall wee doubt not through the grace of Christ but to approve both our selves our cause And had we the same accesse unto our Sovereigne wee should lesse regard those bitter invective accusations wherewith hee hath so profusely charged us in his Sacred eares But our meanesse forbids us to make immediate addresses to the throne which he hath made his refuge yet may it please that Royall Majesty whom God hath anointed over us to vouchsafe an eye unto these papers wee have that trust in the Justice of our Sovereigne the goodnesse of our Cause the integrity of our consciences in all our Quotations as we doubt not but his Majesty will cleerly see that our Persons cause and carriage have been misrepresented to him The cause our Remonstrant saith is Gods it is true of the cause agitated though not of the cause by him defended and we desire what ever he hath done to manage it in Gods way to love in the truth and speak the truth in love The charity of our Remonstrant wee will not question though in the first congresse hee doth as good as call us Devils because so often in his book he cals us Brethren But that which hee calls truth and the truth of God we must crave leave to doe more then bring in question notwithstanding the impregnable confidence of this Irrefragable Doctor Our Histories record of Harold Cupbearer to Edward the Confessor that wayting on the Cup he stumbled with one foot and almost fell but that hee recovered himself with the other at which his father smiling said Now one brother helps another The Remonstrant calls us Brethren and supposeth hee sees us stumbling in the very entrance of our answer and what help doth our Brother lend us Onely entertains us Sannis Cathinnis and tels us it is an ill signe to stumble at the threshold Yet not alwayes an ill signe Sir wee accept this stumbling for such an Omen as Caesar had at his Landing in Affrick and our William the Conquerour at his first landing in England which they tooke for the first signe of their victory and possession An what 's this Stumble The Answer mentions the Areopagi instead of the Areopagites Grande nefas Of such an impiety as this did Duraeus once accuse our Learned Whitakers from whom wee will in part borrow our answer It is well the good of the Church depends not upon a piece of Latine But can our Remonstrant perswade himselfe that his Answerers should have so much Clarklike ignorance as never to have heard of Areopagita If he can yet we are sure he can never perswade his ingenious Readers but some one at least of that Legion which hee fancies conjured up against his Remonstrance might have heard of Dionysius Areopagita that by a man that had not studied to cast contempt upon us it might have beene thought rather a stumble in the Transcribers or Printers then the Authours But what if there be no stumble here What if the fault be in the Remonstrants eyes and not in the Answerers words What if hee stumble and not they and what if it be but a straw he stumbles at For though Areopagus be the name of the place and Areopagitae the name of the persons yet it is no such impropriety in speech to signifie the persons by the place had wee said the Admired sonnes of Iustice the two Houses of Parliament had this been such a Soloecisme and will this Remonstrant deny us that liberty for which we have Natures Patent and the example of the best Authors in other Tongues To smooth or square to lengthen or cut off Exoticke words according as will best suit with our own Dialect If we were called to give an account of this Syllabicall Errour before a Deske of Grammarians wee could with ease produce presidents enough in approved Authors but we will onely give an instance in the word it self from Ioan. Sarisburi lib. 5. de Nugis
purpose to bring the Papist to our Churches which wee finde to bee with so little successe c. In answer to which the Remonstrant first commends the project as charitable and gracious The nature of the project wee never intended to dispute onely wee produced this to shew that there was not the same reason for the retaining of this forme that there was for the first introducing of it because experience tels us it hath not prevailed to that end to which it was at first designed Yes it did saith the Remonstrant for Sir Edward Coke tels us till the eleventh yeere of Queene Elizabeth all came to Church those times knew no recusant Pardon us Sir If we tell you that it was not the converting power of the Liturgie but the constraining power of the Law that brought them thither which afterwards not being pressed with that life and vigour that it had bin gave incouragemeÌ„t to the Popish fact oÌ„ to take heart adde also that at the same time the Pope negotiated to have her Liturgie to be allowed by his authority so as the Queene would acknowledge his Supremacie which when it grew hopelesse then the Jesuitish Casuists begun to draw on the Papists to a Recusancie But might the complying of our Papists be attributed soly to the inoffensivenesse of our Liturgie Yet what credit is this to our Church to have such a forme of publike worship as Papists may without offence joyne with us in and yet their Popish principles live in their hearts still How shall that reclayme an erring soule that brings their bodies to Church leaves their hearts stil in error And wheras the Remonstrant would impute the not winning of Papists rather to the want or weaknesse in preaching Be it so in the mean time let the Bishops see how they will cleere their souls of this sinne who having the sole power of admitting Ministers into the Church have admitted so many weak ones and have rejected so many faithfull able Preachers for not conforming to their beggerly rudiments And when we said that this our Liturgie hath lost us many rather then wonne any Wee meant not onely of such as are lost to the Popish part But let the Remonstrant take it so it is neither paradox nor slander For let an acute Jesuite have but this argument to weild against a Protestant not well grounded in our Religion as too many such there are in England It is evident that the Church of Rome is the ancient and true Church and not yours for you see your Service is wholly taken out of ours How would a weake Christian expedite himselfe here To the third reason this quaere was grounded upon the many stumbling blocks the Liturgie lays before the feet of many He tels us that these stumbling blocks are removâ—d by many We confesse indeed endeavours used by many whether effected or no that we question wee know it is no easie thing when a scruple hath once taken possession of the conscience to cast it out again Among the many the Remonstrant is pleased to refer us to Master Fisher for himself will not vouchsafe to foule his fingers with the removing of one of those blocks we mentioned whose book among all that have travelled in that way we think that any intâ—lligent Reader will judge most unable to give solid satisfaction to a scrupling conscience Tell us wee beseech you is it enough for a conscience that scruples the Surplice to say That it is as lawfull for you to enjoyn the Surplice and punish the omitting of it as it was for Solomon to enjoin Shimei not to goe out of Jerusalem and to punish him for the breach of that injunction or That the Surplice is a significative of divine alacritie and integritie and the expectation of glory Is it possible that a man that reads this should stuÌ„ble at the Surplice after The Cross is not onely lawfull in the use of it but the removall of it would be scandalous and perillous to the State Baptisme is necessary to salvation Children dying unbaptized are in a forlorne condition therefore Midwives may baptize c. Let the Reader judge whether this be to remove stumbling blocks from before the feet of men or to lay more But if this Remonstrant think Master Fisher so able and happy a remover of those occasions of offence wee wonder how his quick sight could see cause of any alteration so much as in the manner of the expression knowing Master Fisher undertakes the defence not onely of the Substance but of the very Circumstances and Syllables in the whole Book But his last put off is this that if there be ought in it that may danger scandall it is under carefull hands to remove it The Lord be praysed it is so it is under carefull hands and hearts more mercifull then this Remonstrant is to remit troubled Consciences to No Better Cure then Master Fishers Book who we hope will do by those as the Helvetians did by some things that were stumbled at among them though they were none but Anabaptists that stumbled at them yet the State did by Authority remove them and Zwinglius their professed adversary gives them thanks for occasioning the removall To the fourth which was that it is Idolized and accounted as the onely worship of God in England c. At Amsterdame saith hee but hee knew wee spoke of such as adore it as an Idoll not such as abhorre it as an Idoll though it pleaseth him to put it off with a scoffe retorting upon us others say rather too many doe injuriously make an Idoll of preaching shall wee therefore consider of abandoning it We hope Sir you are not serious if you be that not a little your self is guilty of Idolizing the Liturgy Dare you in cool bloodequalize this very individuall Liturgy with Gods Ordinance of preaching and say there is as little sinne or danger in considering of the utter abandoning of preaching as there is in the abandoning of this present established Liturgie Cave dixeris The fift Argument was from the great distaste it meets with in many This hee imputes to nothing but their ill teaching and betakes himselfe to his old shifts of diversion and saith By the same reason multitudes of people distasting the truth of wholsome doctrine shall we to humour them abandon both It is a griefe to see this distast grow to such a height as tends to a separation and it is as strange to us that this Remonstrant should have a heart so void of pity as that the yielding to the altering or removing of a thing indifferent which stands as a wall of separation betwixt us and our brethren should be presented to publike view under no better notion then the humouring of a company of ill taught men or as the Remonstrant elsewhere calls them brainsick men or as another Booke men that have need of dark roomes and Ellebore For that ill teaching to which hee imputes this generall
who have laboured about the Reformation of the Church these five hundred yeeres of whom he names abundance have taught that all Pastors be they intitulated Bishops or Priests have equall authority and power by the Word of God and by this the Reader may know Doctor Reinolds his judgment concerning Episcopacie There is one thing more belongs to this Section as to the proper seat and that is the establishment which he seeks to Episcopacie froÌ„ the laws of the Kingdom to which we having answered that Laws are repealable the Parliament having a Nomotheticall power He answers though laws are repealable yet fundamentall laws are not subject to alteration upon personall abuses Secondly that he speaks not against an impossibility but an easinesse of change which our guiltinesse would willingly overlook But consider we beseech you how fitly is Episcopal Government made a piece of the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome How did the Kingdome then once stand without Bishops as in the very page you had now to answer you might have seen once it did For doth not the Marginall tell you from Sir Edward Coke or rather from an Act reported by him in the 23 yeere of Edward the first that the holy Church was founded in the state of Prelacie within the Realme of England by the King and his progenitors which your guiltinesse will needs overlooke for feare you should see that there was a King of this Realme of England before there was a Prelacie And how then is Episcopacie one of the fundamentals of the Kingdome And whereas you say you spake onely against an easinesse of change read your words in the eighteenth page of your Remonstrance A man would thinke it were plea enough to challenge a reverend respect and an immunitie from all thoughts of alteration is this to speake against an easinesse or rather against a possibility of change For your conclusion that things indifferent or good having by continuance and generall approbation beene well rooted in Church and State may not upon light grounds be pulled up Good Sir never trouble your selfe about such an indifferent thing as Episcopacie is Never feare but if Episcopacie be rooted up it will be done by such hands as will not doe it upon light grounds SECT V. THey that would defend the Divine right of Episcopacie derive the pedigree of it from no lesse then Apostolicall and in that right divine institution so did this Remonstrant This we laboured in this Section to disprove and shew that it might be said of our Bishops as of those men Ezra 62. These men sought their Register among those that were reckoned by Genealogie but they were not found therefore were they as polluted put from the Priesthoâ—d For the Bishops whose pedigree is derived from the Apostles were no others then Presbyters this we evinced by foure mediums out of Scripture but insisted onely upon two the identitie of their name and office Before wee come to the Remonstrants answer wee will minde the Reader of what the Remonstrant saith That we have a better faculty at gathering then at strewing which if we have we shall here make good use of our faculty in gathering the choice flowers which himself hath scattered yielding unto us the mayn Scripture grounds whereby the Patrons of Episcopacie have endevoured to uphold their cause For himselfe confesseth the Bishops cause to be bad if it stand not by divine Right and compares the leaving of divine right and supporting themselves by the indulgence and munificence of religious Princes unto the evill condition of such men who when God hath withdrawn himselfe make flesh their arme And whether himselfe hath not surrendred up this divine right judge by that which followeth Our main argument was That Bishops and Presbyters in the originall authority of Scripture were the same Hee answers in the name of himselfe and his Party This is in expresse terms granted by us We argue it further That we never find in Scripture any other orders of Ministery but Bishops and Deacons He answers Brethren you might have spared to tell mee that which I have told you before And adds That when wee alleage the Apostles writings for the identity of Bishops and Presbytâ—rs we oppose not his assertion because he speaks of the monuments of immediate succession to the Apostolike times but we of the writing of the Apostles And for the two other arguments drawn from the identitie of the qualifications of Bishops and Presbyters for their Office and Ordination to their office hee answers Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem And yet notwithstanding that the Reader may not perceive how the Remonstrant betrayes his own cause he deals like the fish Sepia and casteth out a great deal of black inke before the eyes of the Reader that so hee may escape without observation But wee will trace him and finde him out where hee thinks himselfe most secure For first he falsly quotes our answer Whereas wee say That in originall authority Bishops Presbyters are the same he tels us we say That Bishops and Presbyters went originally for the same That is saith he There was at first a plain indentity in their denomination Which two answers differ Immane quantum And yet howsoever this very identity of denomination in Scripture is of no small consequence what ever the Remonstrant makes of it For the proper ends of Names being to distinguish things according to the difference of their natures and the supream wisdome of God being the imposer of these names who could neither be ignorant of the nature of these offices nor mistake the proper end of the imposition of names nor want variety to expresse himselfe the argument taken from the constant identity of denomination is not so contemptible as the Remonstrant pretends Especially considering that all the texts brought to prove the identity of names prove as intrinsecally the identity of Offices which we did cleerly manifest by that text Titus 1. 5 6 7. Where the Apostle requiring Presbyters to be thus and thus qualified renders the reason because Bishops must be so Which argument would no ways evince what the Apostle intended if there were onely an idenditie of names and not also of offices and qualifications When the names are the same and the Offices distinct who but one that cares not what hee affirmes would infer the same offices as a consequent from the identity of their names Who would say that the properties of the Constellation called Canis ought to be the same with the bruit creature so called because they have both one name And this we desire the Reader to take the more notice of because the Remonstrant passeth it over in silence Secondly the Remonstrant seemes to recant that which he had before granted tels us that though in the Apostolike Epistles there be no nominal distinction of the titles yet here is a reall distinction and specification of the duties as we shall see in due place
meant and if we ever did use the word Communicated it was onely to note a Community in that power not a derivation of it as for his authors which he alleages for sole Ordination let the Reader please to view our answer pag. 37. 38. wherein hee may receive full satisfaction and the rather because the Remonstrant passeth over it The third part of that office which the Bishops call theirs is ruling To prove this to belong to Presbyters as well as Bishops we cite Heb. 13. 17. Here the Remonstrant cryes out Oh injurious imputation do wee not give you the title of Rectores Ecclesiarum And doe we not commit to you regimen Animarum So then you grant this place is rightly both interpreted and applied but you give us say you the title of rectores Animarum regimen Animarum You give us No it is the Scripture gives it us yet you would assume it to your selves and perswad that as the Pope communicates to his Bishops partem solicitudinis so you to us Presbyters but if the Scriptures gave us no more then you do it would prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You make your selves the sole Pastors us but the Curates your selves Chancellours Officials the sole Iudges us but the executioners of your and their sentences whether just or unjust The other Text 1 Thes. 5. 12. and those four things observed from thence for the confirming of this assertion the Remonstrant passeth over so hee doth our argument which was this They which have the same name the same Ordination to their office the same qualification for their office the same work to feed the flock of God to ordain Pastors and Elders to rule and governe they are one and the same But such are Bishops and Presbyters ergo And thus deals hee also with the two quotations the one of the Councell of Aquisgra the other out of the writing of Smalcald all which being to hard for the Remonstrant to evade hee leaps over to a conclusion of such strange things as hee never went about to prove in his Section SECT VI. HAving from Scripture manifested the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters in their originall institution we applied our selves in this section to finde out the authors and occasion of this imparity which now appeares between them To expedite our selves from needlesse controversies we laid downe three particulars as consented to by both sides First that the first and best antiquity used the names of Bishops and Presbyters promiscuously this the Remonstrant subscribes to Secondly that in processe of time some one was honoured with the name of Bishop the rest were called Presbyters this the Remonstrant quarrels and desires to know what was this processe of time chargeth us either with error or fraud confidently defends this time had no processe at all but was in the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living Apostles and undertakes to make this good in the sequell And how he doth that you shall find in this very section page 59. where to that of Hierom The Presbyters governed the Church by their common Councel he answers So they did doubtlesse altogether till Episcopacy was setled who dare deny it Here the Remonstrant grants a processe of time betweene the planting of the Church by the Apostles and the setling of Episcopacy in the Churches Shall we say now this is the Remonstrants either errour or fraud not to set downe how long it was before Episcopacy was setled in the Church let him take heed another time how he charge men with error or fraud for affirming that which himselfe cannot but give his Suffrage to The third thing agreed upon was that this was not nomen inane an idle title but attended upon with some kind of imparity the question was digested into these tearmes Whether the impropriation of the name and the imparity of the place and power of a Bishop be of divine right The Remonstrant for feare of mistaking desires to explicate the tearmes of the question and therefore tels how fetching the pedegree of Episcopacy from Apostolicall and therefore in that right divine institution he interprets himselfe to understand by divine right not any expresse Law of God requiring it as of absolute necessity to the being of a Church but an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had but Nihil infelicius Retorico definiente the Remonstrant if he would avoyd mistaking or at least would not say that he was mistaken should have dealt a little more clearely and punctually in the stateing of the Question For first he tels us that it is an institution of the Apostles inspired by the Holy ghost if the Remonstrant be not here mistaken why doth he page 47. in expresse terms grant us that in originall authority of Scripture Bishops and Presbyters were originally the same For so were our words not as the Remonstrant reports them went for the same and why againe when we tell him we never finde in Scripture these three orders Bishops Presbyters Deacons we say not the names but orders why doth he grant that in the same page and flie from the writings of the Apostles to the monuments of their immediate successers can we imagine that the Apostles did by inspiration from the holy Ghost ordaine any thing in the Church of God as of perpetuall use the record where of is not found in sacred Scripture which was given by the same inspiration to the same men if we may imagine it sure we cannot beleeve it And if it be an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost why must it be distinguished from the expresse law of God doth he make it but an evangelicall counsell not requiring it as necessary to the being of a Church sure this is some opinion of a newer cut for the last defendant of Episcopacy before this Remonstrant saies thus The power of Ordination hath beene ever held so intrinsecall to Episcopacy that I would faine see where it can be shewed that any extremity of necessity was ever acknowledged a warrant sufficient for others to ordaine So that in his judgement where there is no Bishop there can be no lawfull ordination let it be in the case of extreamest necessity and where no ordination no ministery and so consequently no Word and Sacraments and no Church and how then in the judgement of these men is Episcopacy not required to the being of a Church And if not requiring it to the being of a Church how then requiring it onely where it may be had what a strange limitation is this where is it that Episcopacy may not must not be had if it be an ordinance of Christ where is it that the Churches of Christ may not have Word Sacraments Pastors and Bishops too if they be his ordinance It is true indeed some there are that cannot have Lord Bishops pompous Bishops and once
in the beginning of the Section he saith This was one of the Acts that was APPROPRIATED to Bishops ALONE and is not this to challenge sole power of ordination afterwards in the same Section he saith Ordination is one of the things so Intrinsecall to Episcopacy that in the judgement of the Church no extremity of Necessity was sufficient warrant to diffuse it into other hands The same power of ordination doe Bishop Bilson Andrewes Davenant Mountague c. challenge to Episcopacy Now Reader judge is the sole theirs by challenge or no And what they challenge that they practise we doubt not but the Remonstrants conscience can tell him there are many instances in England to be produced of men ordained in England without the hands of any Presbyter The Remonstrant is as unhappy as peremptory in his challenge he makes I challenge them to shew any one instance in the Church of England Sir the instances are without number Some of us are ocular witnesses of many scores at severall ordinations ordained by a Bishop in his private Chappell without the presence of any Presbyter but his owne domesticke Chaplaine and without any assistance from him save onely in reading prayers But alasse what should we fall to instances Put case an Irish or Welsh Bishop ordaines one at London in his chamber or some Chappell and admits him which commends the person to him to joyne for fashion sake in the gesture of imposition of hands be hee of what place or Diocesse he will how little doth this differ from sole ordination and how much from that Regular and ordinate ordination of former times Sir these are poore toyes to mocke the Church withall if not God himselfe too Could such a Bishop say as well as Cyprian Ego Collegae You tell us our Bishops may say no lesse then Cyprian did But doth the stile of your Letters of orders speake any such thing Let the Reader judge by a copy Tenore praesentium nos N. N. Providentiâ Divinâ Episc. notum facimus universis quod die mensis Anno in Capella Nos praefatus Episcopus sacros ordines dei praesidio celebrantes dilectum nobis c. E. B. de vitâ sua laudabili c. a nobis examinat approbat ad sacro sanct Presbyt ordinem ad misimus rite Canonicè ordinavimus promovimus In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nostrum Episcopale praesentibus apponi fecimus Construe you this Ego Collegae brethren But you tell us Cyprians phrase Ego Collegae was in the case of Aurelius made a Lector much to your advantage If a Reader could not be ordained by a Bishop alone doe we thinke a Presbyter could As for Cyprians 58. Epist. we produced it not as a proofe of ordination in the hands of Presbyters much lesse for the concurrent act of the people as the Remonstrant would intimate but onely for the explication of the word Collegae But it seemes the Remonstrant was resolved to picke some quarrell and rather to play at small game then stand out And if it be the order of the Church of England as well as of the Councell of Carthage that when a Presbyter is ordained all the Presbyters that are present shall lay hands c. if there be such an order the more blame worthy the Bishops who being such severe censurers of the breach of Church orders in others are themselves in the same crime for though you set a stout face upon the businesse and tell us that this order is perpetually and infallibly kept by you Yet the world knowes it is no such matter unlesse you meane that all the Presbyters present doe infallibly and perpetually lay on hands in ordination because our ordinations are so carried that for the most part there is but one sometimes not one Presbyter there besides the Bishop But why doe you take notice here of one Canon of the Councell of Carthage and not of the other ut Episcopus sine c. that a Bishop should ordaine none of the Clergie without the Counsell of his Clergie unlesse it be because here is such a manifest deflexion in the practise of ours from former times as all the wit and Rhetoricke the Remonstrant hath cannot cover Your next evasion is a plaine leaving the question we are to prove that Bishops in ancient times did not ordaine without Presbyters You challenge us to prove a Presbyters Regular ordaining without a Bishop which is not the point in question Who doth here most abuse the Reader let himselfe judge but wee are accused not onely of abusing our Readers but our Authours too And the Remonstrant hopes he hath us here at such a vantage as shall try what modesty is in us Three foule scapes are laid to our charge First we abuse Firmilianus in casting upon him an opinion of Presbyters ordaining which he never held let us once againe view the place Firmilianus speaking of the true Church saith ubi Praesident Majores natu qui Baptizandi manum imponendi ordinandi possident potestatem the controversie is who these Majores natu be Bishops saith he Bishops and Elders say we To prove it we explicate Firmilian by Firmilian calling a little before those whom here he cals Majores natu Seniores praepositi Which are not so farre from that clause but that they may be brought without wire drawing or foysting and are not so remote from that place as those words which himselfe produceth which we desire the courteous Reader to consider because we are charged by him for foysting in and wyre drawing the words of the Authour and also because the very words there cited by the Remonstrant speake of a power of remitting sinnes which we hope he will not ingrosse to Bishops excluding Presbyters Pamelius himselfe is with us who understands by Seniores prepositi the Presbyters and Bishops Our next scape is but grosse ignorance in translating Ambroses Presbyteri consignant by Presbyters ordaining Every Novice knowes consigning signifies confirmation and not ordaining Sir we appeale from your Novices to judicious Readers and intreat them to peruse the text and wee doubt not but upon due consideration they will conclude for our sence let us then plead the case and tell you first That your Desiderius Heraldus shewes both the word signare or consignare in the phrase of antiquity to be as much as consecrare and so doth Cyprian Epist. 2. and therefore it is not incapable of such a sence as we have put upon it 2. If the Reader please to view the place in Ambrose he shall finde that Ambrose there is speaking of ordaining men to publique offices in the Church and not of confirmation 3. Though it should be taken for confirmation yet you gaine nothing for the same Canon that put power of ordination into the hands of Bishops places the power of confirmation also in their hands And they among us that challenge the sole power
it out of Hierome and Chrysostome Yet let the reader consult the 37. page of our answer which the Remonstrant leaves unanswered and judge betweene us how farre we are from such confession his onely shift now is to say our Bishops neither challenge nor exercise any such power We have evidently proved they doe both manet ergo inconcussum our Bishops and the Bishops of former times are two SECT IX HEre saith the Remonstrant we beat the aire And yet not the aire but the Remonstrant too into the confession of that which would not be confest heretofore by such of theÌ„ especially as have contended for such a Bishop as exercised spirituall jurisdiction out of his owne peculiarly demandated authority If iurisdiction exercised from an authority peculiarly demandated how not solely Well now it is granted that this sole is cryed downe by store of antiquity So then here we doe not falsifie and it is granted that Presbyters have and ought to have and exercise a jurisdiction within their owne charge But here the Remonstrant will distinguish againe it is in foro conscientiae But consider Reader whether this be the jurisdiction here under dispute Whether that store of antiquity which he confesseth to cry downe sole jurisdiction speake of a jurisdiction in foro conscientiae as his false Margent saith Clem Alexan. whom we cited doth But indeed this distinction of the Remonstrant of a jurisdiction in foro interno and in foro externo is like that distinction of Reflexivè and Archipodialiter For all humane jurisdiction is in foro externo If preaching the word which is especially aim'd at by the Remonstrant be an exercise of jurisdiction Then he that hath the Bishops licence to preach in the Diocesse hath power to exercise jurisdiction through the Diocesse and an University preacher throughout the whole Kingdome Away with these toyes He grants againe that Presbyters ought to be consulted with in the great affaires of the Church but doe our quotations prove no more Bishops had their Ecclesiasticall Councell of Presbyters with whom they did consult in the greatest matters and was it onely in the greatest matters Is this all that Cyprian saith All that the Councell of Carthage saith when it determines ut Episcopus nullius causam audiat absque praesentia Clericorum alioquin irrita erit sententia Episcopi nisi Clericorum praesentia confirmetur Doth this speak onely of great matters when it saith Nullius causam audiat Is this onely of a jurisdiction the Presbyters had in foro conscientiae Were Bishops with their Consistory wont to sit to heare and judge causes in foro conscientiae good Reader judge of this mans truth and ingenuity who not being able to divert the stroke of that Antiquity we brought to manifest a difference betweene ours and the former Bishops in the exercise of their jurisdiction would cast a mist before his Readers eyes and perswade him he grants the whole section when indeed hee grants nothing onely seekes to slide away in the darke But our Bishops have their Deanes and Chapters say you and the lawes of our Church frequently make that use of them Yes you have Deanes and Chapters but who knowes not that they have a jurisdiction distinct from the Bishops in which the Bishop hath nothing to doe with theirs nor they with his And the Bishops also derive the exercise of jurisdiction to others we know it too well to Chancellours Commissaries Officials and other of their underlings even to the commanding of Christs Ministers to denounce their censures without any discerning what equity is in the cause And what advise or assistance of Ministers is required appeares by the very stile of your excommunications G. R. Doctor of Law Commissary c. to all Rectors c. For as much as we proceeding rightly c. have adjudged all and every one whose names are under-written to be excommunicated We doe therefore commit to you c. to denounce openly under paine and perill c. Given under our Seale such a day c. Let any footsteps of such a power be shewed in antiquity Presbyters he grants had their votes in Provinciall synods we from good authority say more they had their votes in all ordinary Iudicatures But after all these grants which are as good as nothing now he comes to plead his owne We justly say that the superiority of jurisdiction is so in the Bishop as that Presbyters neither may nor did exercise it without him to what purpose is this if the Remonstrant speake of Scripture times We have proved there was no superiority in them if of latter times it is not to the question wee are proving Bishops never exercised jurisdiction without their Presbyters as ours doe He puts us to prove Presbyters exercised jurisdiction without Bishops quam iniquè But the exercise of externall jurisdiction is derived from by and under the Bishop No neither from by nor under the Bishop but from God who hath made them overseers and rulers and by the same Ecclesiasticall authority that hath made you Bishops and under Bishops not in respect of divine power but if at all in respect of Ecclesiasticall Canons onely Your Timothy and Titus we shall meet in due place Your Ignatius and the rest of your testimonies you could produce would as you say truely but surfeit the readers eyes unlesse you could bring them to prove that Bishops did and might exercise sole jurisdiction Onely because you so triumph in our supposed scapes let us intreat you or the reader for you to looke upon your cited Councell of Antioch 24 25 Canon where you say the Bishop hath power of those things that belong to the Church and see whether that speakes one word of jurisdiction or be not wholy to be understood of the distribution of the goods of the Church as both the instance given in the Canon and Zonaras on that place manifest One shift yet the Remonstrant hath more and that is to tell us that this joynt government was but occasionall and temporary in times of persecution But when a generall peace had blessed them and they had a concurrence of soveraigne and subordinate authority with them they began so much to â—emit this care of conjoyning their forces as they supposed to finde lesse need of it Doctor Downham to whom hee referres in the page before assignes other reasons Namely Presbyters desiring their ease and Scholasticall quietnesse which he saith and proves not and also the Bishops desiring to rule alone which we finde to be the true cause by experience For if the Bishops be of the Remonstrants mind perswaded that the more frequent communicating of all the important businesse of the Church whether censures or determinations with those grave assistants which in the eye of the Law are designed to this purpose were a thing not onely unprejudiciall to the honour of Episcopacy but behovefull to the Church Why should not the Bishops doe
it save onely that their ambitious desires of ruling alone swayes them against their owne judgement and the determinations of the law But indeed if this communicating of all the important businesse of the Church with those grave assistants you speake of or with the Presbyters of the whole Diocesse if you will be onely an assuming them into the fellowship of consulting and deliberating without any decisive suffrage leaving the Bishop to follow or not to follow their advise this is but a meere cosenage of the reader and doth not hinder the sole power of Episcopall jurisdiction And this is all that Downam grants lib. 1. c. 7. p. 161. where he saith that Bishops doe assume Presbyters for advise and direction as a Prince doth his Counsellors not as a Consull doth his Senators who are cojudges with the Consul And this we perceive the Remonstrant well likes of as that which makes much for the honour of their function And now sir you see that we have not fished all night and caught nothing wee have caught your sole jurisdiction and might have caught your selfe were you not such a Proteus such a Polypus to shift your selfe into all formes and Colours Having proved that Bishops in all times succeeding the Apostles had Presbyters joyned with them in the exercise of their jurisdiction and that our Bishops have none is more evident then that it needs proofe This is more to you then Baculus in Angulo it cannot but be Spina in oculis Sagittain visceribus a thorne in your eye and an arrow in your heart convincing you to your griefe that the Bishops you plead for and the Bishops of former times are two SECT X. OUr next Section the Remonstrant saith runs yet wilder it is then because we prosecute a practice of the Bishops more extravagant then the former And that is the delegation of the power of their jurisdictiō to others which the Remonstrant would first excuse as an accidentall errour of some particular man not to be fastned upon all But we desire to know the man the Bishop in all England who hath not given power to Chancellors Commissaries Officials to suspend excommunicate absolve execute all censures but one and doth the Remonstrant thinke now to stoppe our mouthes with saying it is a particular error of some men whereas it is evident enough that our English Episcopacy cannot possibly be exercised without delegating of their power to a multitude of inferiour instruments Can one Bishop having 500. or a 1000. Parishes under him discharge all businesses belonging to testamentary and decimall causes and suites to preach Word and administer the Sacraments c. to take a due oversight also of all Ministers and people without the helpe of others Nor will that other excuse doe it That it is but an accidentall error and though granted concludes not that our Bishops challenge to themselves any other spirituall power then was delegated to Timothy and Titus Sir we abhorre it as an unworthy thing to compare our Bishops with Timothy or Titus the comparison is betweene our Bishops and Bishops of former times But to please you this once we will admit the comparison and shew howeven in this particular that you count so monstrous our Bishops challenge a power never delegated to Timothy nor Titus And we prove it thus Timothy and Titus never had a power delegated to them to devolve that power of governing the Church which God had intrusted into their hands upon persons incapable of it by Gods ordinance But our Bishops doe so Ergo. The Remonstrant thinkes by impleading other reformed Churches as guilty of the same crime to force us either to condemne them or to acquit him But the reformed Churches if they doe practise any such thing are of age to answer for themselves Our businesse is with the Remonstrant and the persons and practices which he hath taken the tuition of Whom we charging as in a generality with wholy intrusting the power of spirituall jurisdiction to their Chancellors and their Commissaries their good friend tels us we foulely overreach The assistance of these creatures they use indeed but they neither negligently or wilfully devest themselves of that and wholy put it into Laicke hands This is a meere slander that Bishops devest themselves of their power we never said That they doe either negligently or wilfully decline that office which they call theirs we need not say it is so apparent And as apparent it is that they doe intrust the power of jurisdiction wholly into Laicke hands for their Chancellors and Commissaries having power of jurisdiction by patent setled upon them and exercising that jurisdiction in all the parts of it conventing admonishing suspending excommunicating absolving without the presence or assistance of a Bishop or recourse to him we thinke impartiall Judges will say wee are neither slanderers nor over-reachers In our former answer we fully cleared from Cyprian how farre hee was from delegating his power to a Chancellour c. This he sleights as a negative authority yet it is sufficient to condemne a practice that never had being in the thoughts of primitive times And we beleeve it satisfies all others because the Remonstrant saith it is very like it was so Though according to his old way of diversion he tels us as Cyprian did not referre to a Chancellor so neither to the bench of a Laicke Presbytery yet he that is but meanly versed in Cyprian may easily see that it is no unusuall thing in that holy martyr to referre the determinations of causes ad Clerum Plebe◠But the Remonstrant thinkes to patronize the practice of our present Bishops by Silvanus the good Bishop of Troas And what did Silvanus to the countenancing of this practice perceiving that some of his Clergie did corruptly make gaine of causes civill causes causes of difference betweene party and party or as you phrase it page 91. unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours he would no more appoint any of his Clergy to be Judge but made choice of some faithfull man of the Laity Now this is as much to the purpose good sir as Posthumus his pleading in Martiall We are confuting the practice of our Bishops in making over their spirituall jurisdiction to Laymen and he brings in a story of a good Bishop that having a bad Clergy intrusted honest men with civill judicature rather then them As full to the purpose is that of Ecclesiae ecdici or Episcoporum Ecdici to prove the Antiquity of Chancellors and Commissaries For their Ecdici were men appointed to be the advocates of the Church to plead the Churches cause before the Emperours against the tyranny of their potent adversaries But we never read that the Bishops did put over the government of the Church to them we could with all our hearts give this honour to Civilians to be the Churches advocates but not the Churches Judges which the Bishops give them leave to
because he knowes not what to say against it If he did intend to anger us he is much mistaken for it pleaseth us well to heare him give so full a testimony that secular imployments are unsuitable to the Ministers of the Gospell Vnlesse in those two excepted cases of the extraordinary occasions and services of a Prince or State And the composing of unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours We take what he grants us here so kindly that we pardon his unfit comparison betweene S. Pauls Tent-making to supply his owne necessities that he might not be burthensome to the Church the State imployment of our Bishops And should in this Section fully have joyned hands with him but that we must needs tell him at the parting that had our Bishops never ingaged themselves in secular affaires but ex officio generali Charitatis and had beene so free from ambition as he would make the world beleeve they are neither should wee have beene so large in this Section nor so aboundant in our processe nor would the Parliament have made that provision against the secular imployment of Clergy men as they have lately done SECT XIII THe best Charter pleaded for Episcopacy in former times was Ecclesiasticall constitution and the favour of Princes But our latter Bishops suspecting this would prove too weake and sandie a foundation to support a building of that transcending loftinesse that they have studied to advance the Babell of Episcopacy unto have indeavoured to under-pinne it with some texts of Scripture that they might plead a Ius divinum for it that the consciences of all might be tyed up from attempting to pull down their proud Fabricke but none of them is more confident in this plea then this Remonstrant who is content that Bishops should for ever be hooted out of the Church and be disclaimed as usurpers if they claime any other power then what the Scripture gives them especially bearing his cause upon Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the 7. Churches Now because one grain of Scripture is of more efficacy esteeme to faith then whole volumes of humane testimonies we indeavoured to shew the impertinency of his allegations especially in those two instances And concerning Timothy and Titus we undertooke two things First that they were not Bishops in his sence but Evangelists the companions of the Apostles in founding of Churches or sent by them from place to place but never setled in any fixed pastorall charge and this wee shewed out of the story of the Acts and the Epistles The other was that granting ex abundanti they had beene Bishops yet they never exercised any such jurisdiction as ours doe But because the great hinge of the controversie depends upon the instances of Timothy and Titus before we come to answer our Remonstrant we will promise these few propositions granted by most of the patrons of Episcopacy First Evangelists properly so called were men extraordinarily imployed in preaching the Gospell without a setled residence upon any one charge They were Comites Vicarii Apostolorum Vice-Apostles who had Curam Vicariam omnium Ecclesiarum as the Apostles had Curam principalem And did as Ambrose speakes Evangelizare sine Cathedra Secondly It is granted by our Remonstrant and his appendant Scultetus and many others That Timothy was properly an Evangelist while he travelled up and downe with the Apostles Thirdly It is expressely granted that Timothy and Titus were no Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome That is after the end of the Histories of the Acts of the Apostles Fourthly The first Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus from whence all their grounds for Episcopacy are fetcht were written by Paul before his first going to Rome And this is acknowledged by all interpreters and Chronologers that we have consulted with upon this point Baronius himselfe affirming it And the Remonstrants owne grounds will force him to acknowledge that the second Epistle to Timothy was also written at Pauls first being at Rome For that second Epistle orders him to bring Marke alone with him who by the Remonstrants account died five or six yeeres before Paul Which could not have beene if this Epistle were written at Pauls second comming to Rome Estius also following Baronius gives good reason that the second Epistle to Timothy was written at Pauls first being at Rome Fiftly If Timothy and Titus were not Bishops when these Epistles were written unto them then the maine grounds of Episcopacy by divine right sinke by their owne confession Bishop Hall in his Episcopacy by divine right part 2. sect 4. concludes thus peremptorily That that if the especiall power of ordination and power of ruling and censuring Presbyters be not cleare in the Apostles charge to these two Bishops the one of Creete the other of Ephesus I shall yeeld the cause and confesse to want my sences And it must needs be so for if Timothy were not then a Bishop the Bishops power of charging Presbyters of proving and examining Deacons of rebuking Elders and ruling over them and his imposition of hands to ordaine Presbyters c. doe all faile And Bishops in these can plead no succession to Timothy and Titus by these Scriptures more then other Presbyters may For if they were not Bishops then all these were done by them as extraordinary Officers to which there were no successors Sixtly By the confession of the patrons of Episcopacy It is not onely incongruous but sacrilegious for a Minister to descend from a superiour order to an inferiour according to the great Counsell of Chalcedon Seventhly In all that space of time from the end of the Acts of the Apostles untill the middle of Trajans raigne there is nothing certaine to be drawne out of Ecclesiasticall Authours about the affaires of the Church thus writeth Iosephus Scaliger Thus Tilenus when he was most Episcopall and Eusebius long before them both saith It cannot be easily shewed who were the true followers of the Apostles no further then it can be gathered out of the Epistles of Paul If the intelligent Reader weigh and consider these granted propositions he may with ease see how the life-blood of Episcopacy from Timothy and Titus is drayn'd out for if they were not Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome then not when the Epistles were written to them according to the fourth proposition and then their cause failes if any shall say they were Bishops before Pauls first being at Rome contrary to the third proposition then they make them Bishops while by the story its apparent they were Evangelists and did Evangelizare sine cathedra and so clash against the second In a word the office of an Evangelist being a higher degree of Ministery then that of Bishops make them Bishops when you please you degrade them contrary to our sixt proposition whiles the Remonstrant tryes to reconcile these things we shall make further use of them
but to ordaine Elders in every City which was an office above that of a Bishop For Creet was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now you know sir that iâ— is above the worke of an ordinary Bishop to plant and erect Churches to their due frame in an hundred Citties Bishops are given to particular Churches when they are framed to keepe them in the Apostolicall truth not to lay foundations or to exaessifie some imperfect beginnings This service Titus did in Creet the same worke which the Apostle did when he visited the Churches of Asia Acts 14. 23. which being finished the same Apostolicall power which sent him thither removed him thence againe for the service of other Churches as we have formerly shewed from Scripture And though the Remonstrant tels us this calling away could no whit have impeached the truth of his Episcopacy We must crave leave to tell him that though it may be one journey upon some extraordinary Church service might consist with such a fixed station as Episcopacy is Yet an ordinary frequent course of jornying such as Titus his was cannot unlesse he will grant that Timothy might be a Bishop and an Evangelist at the same time But this is contrary to the Remonstrants one definition of an Evangelist page 94. And therefore he chusâ—th rather to say Timothy was first an Evangelist when he travelled abroad and afterward a Bishop when he setled at home This is more absurd then the former For if ever Titus were a Bishop it was then when Paul left him in Creet to ordaine Elders in every City And after that time was the greatest part of his travels as we have shewed in our answer All these journeys did Titus make after he was left in Creet nor doe we finde any where record of his returne thither Therefore according to this rule Titus should be first a Bishop and afterwards an Evangelist Or if the greatest part of Titus his travels had beene before his delegation to Creet yet it had beene no lesse absurd to say that afterwards he did descend from the degree of an Evangelist to the station of Episcopacy We hope the Remonstrant will not deny but an Evangelist was as farre above a Bishop as any Bishop can fancy himselfe to be above a Presbyter And if for a Bishop to quit his Episcopacy and suffer himselfe to be reduced to the ranke of a meere Presbyter be a crime so hainous so odious that it had beene much better to have beene unborne then to live to give so hainous a scandall to Gods Church and so deepe a wound to his holy truth and ordinances a river an ocean can neither drowne nor wash off the offence What is it to reduce an Evangelist to the forme of a Bishop We had granted that some Fathers call Timothy and Titus Bishops the Remonstrant replies some nay all Be it so as long as himselfe hath granted the Fathers did use the titles of Bishops and Presbyters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But there is a Cloud of witnesses of much antiquity which avers Timothy and Titus to have livâ—d and died Bishop of Ephesus Creet But this cloud will soone blow over The Magdeburgenses tell us That there is nothing expressely or certainely delivered by any approved writer to shew how or how long Timothy was Doctour or Governour of the Church of Ephesus Therefore we cannot certainely affirme that he suffered martyrdome at Ephesus being stoned to death for reproving the idolatry of the Ephesians at the porch of Dianâ—s Temple which yet the most have reported Let the Reader further know that his cloud of witnesses who averre Timothy and Titus to be Bishops have borrowed their testimonies from Eusebius of whom Scaliger saith and Doctor Raynolds approves of it That he read ancient Histories parum attente which they prove by many instances And all that Eusebius saith is onely sic scribitur It is so reported But from whence had he this History even from Clemens fabulous and Hegesippus not exstant And therefore that which is answered by our learned Divines concerning Peters being at Rome and dying there which is also recorded by Eusebius That because Eusebiuâ— had it from Papias an Author of little esteeme hence they thinke it a sufficient argument to deny the truth of the History though asserted by never so many Authours relying upon one of so little credit The same answer will fully serve to all the authorities produced for Timothies and Titus being Bishops from antiquity And that which Thucidides saith of the ancient Greeke Historiaâ—s may as truely be said of Eusebius Irenaeus and others Quae a majoribus acceperant Posteri 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 securi examinis suis item posteris tradiderunt We further shewed how the Fathers called Timothy and Titus Bishops viz. in the same sence which learned D. Raynolds saies they also used to call the Apostles Bishops even in a generall signification because they did attend that Chuâ—ch for a time c. This the Remonstrant will not give us leave to doe but without his leave we shall make it good We say therefore further That when the Apostles or Evangelists perhaps Iames at Hierusalem Timothy at Ephesus Titus at Creet did stay longer at one Church and exercised such a power as the Bishops in succeeding ages did aspire unto when the Fathers would set forth this power of an Apostle or Evangelists long residing in one Church they labouring to doe it in a familâ—ar way did similitudinarily call them Bishops and sometimes Archbishops or Patriarcks which all confesse were offices not heard of in the Apostles times not meaning they were so formally but eminently neither could they call them so properly for the power they exercised was in them formally Apostolicall or Evangelicall reaching not only to the Church where then they resided but to all neighbouring and bordering Churches as farre as was possible for them to oversee or the occasions of the Church did require they having no bounded Diocesses but had the care of all the Churches In this sence they might call them so but for either an Apostle or Evangelist to be ordained a Bishop or Presbyter had beene both unnecessary and absurd unnecessary because the higher degree includes the inferiour eminently though not formally and absurd to descend lower that after they had been Apostolically or Evangelically employed in taking care of all the Churches they should be ordained to a worke which should so limit them as to make them lesse usefull to the Church of God But saith he all this discourse is needlesse whether Timothy or Titus were Evangelists or no sure we are here they stand for persons charged with those offices and cares which are delivered to the ordinary Church-governours in all succeeding generations Here first you give us no ground of your surenesse nor can give us any other then what may be said of the Apostles for they also stand as persons charged c. Secondly it is true
the substance of those cares and offices which belong to Apostles and Evangelists is transmitted to the ordinary Church-governours as farre as is necessary for the edification of the Church else the Lord had not sufficiently provided for his Church all the question is whether these Church-governours are by way of Aristocracy the common Councell of Presbyters or by way of Monarchy Diocesan Bishops Now unlesse you prove that Timothy and Titus were ordinary officers or as Doctor Hall cals them Diocesan Bishops to whom as to individuall persons such care and offices were individually intrusted you will never out of Timothy and Titus defend Diocesan Bishops Thirdly though the substance of these cares and offices were to be transmitted to ordinary Church-governours yet they are not transmitted in that eminency or personall height in which they were in the Apostles and Evangelists an Apostle where ever he lived might governe and command all Evangelists all Presbyters c. an Evangelist might governe all Presbyters c. but no Presbyter or Bishop might command others onely the common Councel of Presbyters may charge any or many Presbyters as occasion shall require In a word these ordinary Church-governours succeed the extraordinary officers not in the same line and degree as one brother dying another succeeds him in the inheritance but as men of an other order and in a different line Let the Remonstrant therefore take Timothy and Titus as he findes them that is Evangelists men of extraordinary dignity and authority in the Church of Christ Let him with his first confidence maintaine that our Bishops challenge no other spirituall power then was delegated to them We shall upon better grounds maintaine with better confidence that if they chalenge the same they ought to be disclaimed for usurpers But much more challenging such a power as was never exercised by Timothy and Titus as we demonstrated in our former answer in severall instances which are so commonly knowne as our Remonstrant is ashamed to deny them onely plaies them off partly with his old shift the abuse of the person not of the Calling But we beseech you sir tell us whether these persons doe not perpetrate these abuses though by their owne vice yet by vertue of their place and Callings Partly by retorting questions upon us when or where did our Bishops challenge to ordaine alone or to governe alone we have shewed you when and where already when or where did our Bishops challenge power to passe a rough and unbeseeming rebuke upon an Elder Sure your owne conscience can tell that hath taught you to apply that to an Elder in office which we onely spake in Scripture phrase of an Elder in generall It was your guilt not our ignorance that turned it to an Elder in office Where did say you our Bishops give Commission to Chancellors Commissaries c. to rayle upon Presbyters to accuse them without just ground c. where have not Chancellors done so and what power have they but by Bishops Commission to meddle with any thing in Church affaires And where is the Bishop that hath forbid it them Qui non prohibet facit Onely there is one practice of our Bishops he is something more laborious to justifie That is their casting out unconforming brethren commonly knowne in their Court language by the name of schismatickes and heretickes which Timothy and Titus never did nor had any such power delegated to them heretickes indeed the Apostles gave them power to reject but wee had hoped the refusall of the use of a ceremony should never have beene equalized in the punishment either to heresie or schisme But the Remonstrant hath found Scripture for it Loth not the Apostle wish that they were cut off that trouble you but sure it is one thing to wish men cut off by God and another thing to cut them off by the censure of the Church Besides this was written to the Galatians and they that troubled them were such as maintained doctrines against the foundation i. Justification by workes of the Law c. which we thinke are very neere of kinne to heretickes I am sure farre above the crime of the Remonstrants unconforming brethren who are unsetled in points of a meane difference which their usuall language knowes by no better termes then of schismatickes and factious yet even such have fallen under the heaviest censures of suspension excommunication deprivation c. which the Remonstrant unable to deny would justifie which when he shall be able to doe he may do something towards the patronizing of Bishops But in the meane time let him not say they are our owne ill raised suggestions but their owne ill assumed and worse mannaged authority that makes them feare to be disclaimed as usurpers The second Scripture ground which the Remonstrant is ambitious to draw in for the support of his Episcopall cause is the instance of the Angels of the seven Churches which because it is locus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cried up as argumentum verè Achilleum we did on purpose inlarge our selves about it And for our paines the Remonstrant as if all learning and acutenesse were lockt up in his breast Narcissus like in love with his owne shadow professeth that this peece of the taske fell unhappily upon some dull and tedious hand c. Which if it be so it will redound the more to the Remonstrants discredit when it shall appeare that he is so shamefully foiled and wounded by so dull an adversary He objects Colemorts oft sod when he cannot but know that the whole substance of his owne booke is borrowed from Bishop Bilson and Doctor Downham And that there is nothing in this discourse about the Angels but either it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But before we come to answer our Remonstrants particulars we will premise something in generall about these Asian Angels It may seeme strange that the defenders of Episcopacy lay so much weight of argument upon the word or appellation of Angell which themselves know to be a title not impropriated to the chiefe Ministers of the Church but common to all that bring the glad tidings of the Gospell yea to all the messengers of the Lord of Hosts We conceive there are 2. maine reasons that induce them to insist so much on this First they finde it the most easie way of avoyding the dint of all the Arguments brought against them out of the History of the Acts and Epistles by placing one above the rest of the Presbyters in the period of the Apostles times And so finding in the Revelation which was written the last of all the parts of the Scripture except peradventure the Gospell written by the same penne an expression which may seeme to favour their cause they improve it to the utmost Partly because hereby they evade all our arguments which we bring out of the Scripture Doe we prove out of the
that the Apostle Iohn sate many yeeres B. of Ephesus and was the Metropolitan of all Asia in which we suppose the Remonstrant will allow his readers a liberty of beleeving him and allow us a liberty to tell him that D Whitakers saith Patres cum Iacobum Episcopum vocant aut etiam Petrum non propriè sumunt Episcopi nomen sed vocant eos Episcopos illarum Ecclesiarum in quibus aliquamdin commorati sunt And in the same place Et si propriè de Episcopo loquatur absurdum est Apostolos suisse Episcopos Nam qui propriè Episcopus est is Apostolous non potest esse quia Episcopus est unius tantum Ecclesiae At Apostoli plurium Ecclesiarum fundatores inspectores erant And againe Hoc enim non mulâ—um distat ab insaniâ dicere Petrum fuisse propriè Episcopum out reliquos Apostolos Now we returne to our Remonstrant Our answer to his objection from the Angels was That the word Angell is to be taken collectively not individually which he cals pro more suo a shift and a conceit which no wise man can ever beleeve And yet he could not but take notice that we alleaged Austin Gregory Fulke Perkins Fox Brightman Mede and divers others for this interpretation which will make the world to accuse him for want of wisdome for calling the wisedome of such men into question Before he addresseth himself to answer our reasons he propounds two queres 1. If the interest be common and equally appertaining to all why should one be singled out above the rest A very dull question which is indeed a very begging of the cause For the question in agitation is whether when Christ writes to the 7. Angels he meant to single out 7. individuall persons above the rest or else writes to the 7. Angels collectively meaning all the Angels that were in all the Churches The second question is as dull as the first If you will yeeld the person to be such as had more then others a right in the administration of all it is that weseeke for But he knew we would not yield it And therefore we may justly use his owne words that those questions are tedious and might well have beene spared And so also the instances of a letter indorsed from the Lords of the Councell to the Bishop of Durham concerning some affaires of the whole Clergy of his Diocesse No man will deny but that the Bishop of Durham is an individuall Bishop This example supposeth the Angell about whom we dispute to be meant individually which you know is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 betweene you and us Quid haec ad Rhombum We will give you instances more suitable to the purpose Suppose one in Christs time or his Apostles had indorsed a letter to the Chiefe-priest concerning the affaires of the Sanhedrim and another letter to the chiefe Ruler of the Synagogue concerning the affaires of the Synagogue and another letter to the Captaine of the Temple concerning the businesse of the Temple could any man imagine but that these indorsments must necessarily be understood collectively considering there were more Chiefe-priests then one in Ierusalem Luke 22. 4. and more chiefe Rulers of the Synagogue then one Math. 19. 18. compared with Acts 18. 8. 17. And more Captaines of the Temple then one Acts 4 1. compared with Luke the â—2 4. and so also semblably more Angels and Ministers in the seven Churches then seven But stay sir we hope you are not of opinion that any of your Asian Bishops had as much spirituall and temporall power as the Lord Bishop of Salisbury and the Lord Bishop and Palatine of Durham Cave dixeris At last you come to our proofes which you scoffingly call invincible You should have done better to have called them irrefragable like your good friends irrefragable propositions Our first argument is drawne from the Epistle to Thyatira Revel 2. 24. But I say unto you in the plurall number not unto thee in the singular and unto the rest in Thyatira Here is a plaine distinction betweene the Governours and the governed And the Governours in the plurall number which apparently proves that the Angell is collective The Remonstrant hath no way to put this off but by a pittifull shift to use his owne words He tels us he hath found a better coppy which is a very unhappy and unbecoming expression apt to make ignorant people doubt of the originall text and so in time rather to deny the Divinity of the Scriptures then of Episcopacy But this better coppy is but lately searcht into for we finde that Bishop Hall in his Episcopacy by Divine right reads it as we doe But I say unto you and the rest in Thyatira But what is this better Coppy It is a Manuscript written by the hand of Teela which if it be no truer then Itinerarium Pauli Teclae it will have little credit among the Learned But that which makes you to magnifie it the more is that doughty argument which it helped you to against us concerning the same Church of â—hyatira in which the Angell is charged for suffering that woman Iezabel And now you say in that memorable copy of Tecla it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which you interpret thy wife Iczebel And just as Archimedes you come with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And call upon us to blush for shame What say you in a different character shall we thinke she was wife to the whole company or to one Bishop alone But for our part we doe thinke you have more cause to blush for making such a Translation and rather then you will not prove the Angell of Thyatira to be an individuall Bishop you will un-Angell him and make him an other Ahab to marry a cursed Iezebel We wonder that never any protestant writer had the wit to bring this text against the papists to prove the lawfulnesse of Priests marriages no not Doctor Hall himselfe in his defence of the married Clergy Give us leave here to use your owne words page 108. Forbeare Reader if you can to smile at this curious subtilty what Cabalisme have we here judge Reader what to expect of so deepe speculations And also to repeate what you say page 110. If you please your selfe with this new subtilty it is well from us you have no cause to expect an answer it can neither draw our assent nor merit our confutation We beleeve it to be as true that Iezebel was the wife of the Bishop of Thyatira as that Tecla was the wife of Paul But to returne to the former text Let any judicious reader survey the latter part of the 23. verse which is the verse before that out of which we bring our reason there he shall finde Christ speaking to the Church of Thyatira saith And I will give to every one of you in the plurall number And then followes But I say unto you and the rest in
we alledged Obiter Tindals translating the seven Churches seven Congregations All you answer is onely to shew that in other places of the Scripture by Congregation in Tindals sence cannot be meant a parishionall meeting But what if it be not so in other places how doe you make it appeare that it is not so in this place We are sure it is so taken in twenty other places of Tindals translation and may very properly be taken here also We alledge also that in Ephesus which was one of these Candlestickes there was but one flocke You demand whether this flocke were Nationall Provinciall or Diocesan And why doe you not demand whether it were not Oecumenicall also that so the Pope may in time come to challenge his flocke universall But you are sure you say that this flocke was not a parochiall flocke because it cannot be proved that all the Elders to whom Paul spake were onely belonging to Ephesus But can this Remonstant prove that there were more Elders or Bishops then those of Ephesus This is to answer Socratically and in answering not to answer Howsoever it is not so much materiall You your selfe confesse that the Elders or Bishops of Ephesus had but one flocke And if divers Bishops were over one flocke in the Apostles daies where is your individuall Bishops over divers flockes in the Apostles daies Our second argument is also drawne from the Church of Ephesus which was one of the seven Candlestickes in which we are sure in Saint Pauls daies there were many Angels and those called Bishops Acts 20. 28. And to one of those in all likelyhood was the Epistle to Ephesus directed if the direction be meant individually But yet wee read not a word of any superiority or superintendency of one Bishop over another To them the Church in generall is committed without any respect to Timothy who stood at his elbow But to all this ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quideuâ— onely he tels us it is answered in answering the first But how true this is let any Reader judge At the end of this reason wee produce Epiphanlus affirming that in ancient time it was peculiar to Alexandria that it had but one Bishop whereas other Cities had two Here our Remonstrant takes a great deale of paines not to confute us but to confute Epiphanius All that we will reply is this to desire the Reader to consider that this Epiphanius was the first that out of his owne private opinion accused Aerius of madnesse and as this Authour saith of heresie for denying the superiority of Bishops over Presbyters And if this Remonstrant thinke it no disparagement to himselfe to be a confuter of Epiphanius why should we be cryed downe so heavily for not agreeing with Epiphanius in his judgement concerning Aerius The third argument the Remonstrant cuts off in the midst For whereas wee say that there is nothing sayd in the seven Epistles that implyeth any superiority or majority of rule or power that those Angels had over the other Angels that were joyned with them in their Churches the answerer makes it runne thus That there is nothing said in the seven Epistles that implies a superiority which indeed is to spoile the argument For wee grant there is something said to imply a superiority of the Ministers over the people but the question is of a superiority of power of one Angell over the other Angels which were joyned with him in his Church But this he conceales because hee knew it was unanswerable Onely he tels us First that the Epistles are superscribed to the Angell not Angels This is crambe millies cocta But what is this to a majority of rule or power Secondly he tels us it will appeare from the matter of the severall Epistles For hee askes Why should an ordinary Presbyter be taxed for that which hee hath no power to redresse That the Angell of Pergamus should be blamed for having those which hold the doctrine of Balaam or the Nicolaâ—tans when he had no power to proceed against them Or the Angell of the Church of Thyatira for suffering the woman Iezebel if it must be so read to teach and seduce when he had no power of publique censure to restraine her This discourse is very loose and wild Vt nihil pejus dicamus Doth not the Remonstrant plead here for sole power of jurisdiction which hee doth so much disclaime in other places of his booke when hee would have the singular Angel of Pergamus and Thyatira to have power to proceed against offendors either he doth this or nothing For our parts we answer without lisping That it was in the power not of one Angell but of all the Angels of Pergamus and Thyatira to proceed against those that held the doctrine of Balaam and the Nicolaitans To restraine that woman Iezebel or the Bishop of Thyatira his wife if it must needs be so read wee doe not thinke that one ordinary Presbyter as you call him was to exercise censures alone nor one extraordinary Bishop neither We find the contrary Matth. 8. 1 Corinth 5. And therefore we referre it to the Minister or Ministers of each Congregation with the advice and consent of the Presbyters adjoyning which we are sure is more consonant to the word then to leave it to the Hierarchicall Bishop and his Chancellor Commissary or Officiall In the next paragraph wee challenge you to shew us what kind of superiority this Angell had if he had any at all We require you to prove that he had any more then a superiority in parts and abilities or of order Where is it said that the Angell was a superiour degree or order of Ministery above Presbyters Or that he had solepower of ordination and jurisdiction But you flie from those questions as farre as from a Snake that would sting you and disdaining all that we say which is your accustomed way of answering you tell us that you are able to shâ—w who were the parties to whom some of these Epistles were directed and to evince the high degree of their superiority Parturiunt montes nascetur ridiculus mus Alas sir you tell us but what we told you before and what others have ingeminated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You say That Ignatius and Tertullian tell us that Onesimus was now the Angell or Bishop of Ephesus and Polycarpus of Smyrna But marke what we answer First we doubt of the truth of the story For others tell us that Timothy was Bishop as they call him of Ephesus when Christ wrote this Epistle and this opinion Ribera Lyra and Pererius follow Others leave it in medio and say it is uncertaine But suppose the story were true we answer Secondly it doth not follow because Onesimus was Bishop of Ephesus in Saint Iohns daies that therefore he was the onely party to whom Christ wrote his Epistle For Saint Paul tels us that there were many Bishops at Ephesus besides Onesimus and he
have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church And why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then Ours We answer First That to our knowledge some have beene urged to subscribe to other ceremonies then have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church and to promise obedience editis â—dendis Secondly that this very urging of us to subscribe to the ceremonies established is more then the Lawes require For the Lawes require to subscription onely to the thirty nine Articles Thirdly We cannot but justly dislike your distinction of The Lawes of this Realme and Church For we know no Lawes of the Church obligatory but such as are established by the Lawes of the Realme as both Houses of Parliament have lately determined And whereas you aske Why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then ours We answer First because it is ordinarily said No Ceremony no Bishop But it was never said No Ceremony no Presbyter Secondly because in the Convocation which you here terme the Church the Bishops or rather the Archbishop swayes all And there are five or six which are there Ex mâ—ero Officio and for the most part are the Bishops creatures and hang their suffrages upon his lippes and but two Clerkes for the Presbyters which also for the most part are forced upon them by the Bishop and his Officers Thirdly because they are ours if ours as a burden But theirs as their crowne and glory for which they fight as for a second Purgatory to uphold their Courts and Kitchins In the next place we propounded an objection framed by Bishop Andrewes and divers others from the inequality in the Ministery appointed by Christ himselfe betweene the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples To which wee answered First that it cannot be proved that the Apostles had any superiority over the seventy either of ordination or jurisdiction Sâ—condly suppose it could yet That superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of different kindes will not prove that there should be a superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of the same kinde To which you reply first That the Apostles ordained the Deacons that Paul laid hands on Timothy But this is no solution of the objection unlesse you can prove the Deacons and Timothy to have beene amongst the number of the seventy Disciples or Paul to have beene one of the twelve Apostles Secondly you answer That Bishops and Presbyters differ toto genere and are Offieers of different kind as much as the Apostles and the seventy Disciples Which is an assertion not onely contrary to the Fathers who accounted the Bishop to be but Primus Presbyter and as Hierome saith Vnum ex se electum celsiori gradu collocatum But also more unsound then most of the Papists who freely acknowledge that Presbyteratus is the highest order in the ministry and that Episcopacy is but a different degree of the same order and not a superior order from Presbyters An order may be reputed higher either because it hath intrinsecally an higher vertue or because it hath an higher degree of honour and dignity Now we deny not but the latter antiquity did by their Canons make Episcopacy an higher Order in regard of dignity and honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Councell speakes but did never account it an higher power by divine right This last branch the Remonstrant would faine prove if he could by an argument drawne from succession because saith he the Bishops succeed the Apostles and the Presbyters the seventy Disciples And we are challenged page 158. to shew whether ever any Father or Doctor of the Church till this present age held that Presbyters were the successors to the Apostles and not to the seventy Disciples rather But here is nothing in which the Remonstrant shewes more wilfull ignorance then in this For the ancient Fathers doe make the Presbyters successors of the Apostles as well as Bishops Thus Irenaeus liber 4. cap. 43 44. Quapropter eis qui in Ecclesiâ sunt Presbyteris obedire oportet his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis sicut ostendimus qui eum Episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum patris acceperunt So also cap 44. and lib. 3. cap. 2. Thus also our Ierome as you call him in his Epistle ad Heliodorum Clerici dicuntur Apostolico gradâ—i successisse So Origen in Matth. 16. saith all Presbyters succeeded the Apostles in the power of the keyes And Ignatius ad Smyâ—nonses saith the same Yet still like as you say you have heard page 125. some beaten cocke you dare erow and tell your Reader that all antiquity hath acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three severall rankes in the Church Hierarchie But where will you begin your antiquity We say with the Father iâ— verum quod antiquissimum Shew us your three degrees in Scripture You confesse page 47. that these three orders are not there to be found We read in Scripture the Deacon to be a step to a Presbyter but not a Presbyter to a Bishop And wee deny that ever it was accounted in antiquity that a Bishop did ever differ from a Presbyter as a Presbyter from a Deacon For these differ Genere proximo No â—erint Diaconi se ad ministerium non ad sacerdotium vocari But a Bishop differs from a Presbyter as from one who hath that power of Priesthood no lesse than himselfe and therefore the difference betweene these Priests be circumstantiall and not so essentiall as betwixt the other Thus Bishops and Archbishops are divers orders of Bishops according to some Canons of the Church not that one excelled the other as a power of higher vertue but of higher dignity then the other Indeed of late yeeres Episcopacy hath beene a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to preferment and a ladder for all pious and conscientious men to be suspended upon as Mordecai upon Hamans gallowes but now is in danger to become like Hamans ladder their owne ruine and downe-fall Iam sumus ergo pares In your transition to your next Paragraph that you might disparage the opposets of the Hierarchicall Episcopacy by divine right you endeavour to make them the Disciples of none but Ierome But here in you cannot but know how injuriously you deale with them considering the numberlesse number of Authors both ancient and moderne that assert that which you would fasten upon him alone In the Paragraph it selfe you confesse what we undertooke to prove That the ancient Bishops and others differ in regard of their Accessories dignities titles and maintenance But onely whereas among other instances we told you of golden Chalices and wooden Priests You tell us That if in time we should see wooden Chalicer and wooden Priests we may thanke our selves Truely sir we may thanke you and not our selves for the Lordlinesse and in solent carriages of some Bishops under the great revenues and the multitude of wooden Priests
which they have made who have beene intoxicated with the Golden Chalice of the whore of Babylons abominations hath so alienated the affections of people from them as that what doome so ever they are sentenced unto it is no other then what they have brought upon themselves As for our part we are still of the same mind that honourable maintenance ought to be given to the Ministers of the Gospell not onely to live but to be hospitable Indeed we instanced in many that did abuse their large revenues But you are pleased to say That in this Ablative age the fault is rare and hardly instanceable We thinke the contrary is more hardly instanceable And as for your Ablative age if you meane it of poore Presbyters who have beene deprived of all their subsistance by the unmercifulnesse of Bishops whom they with teares have besought to pitty their wives and children we yeeld it to be too true Or if you meane in regard of the purity of the ordinances the frequency of preaching the freedome of conceived prayer We denie not but in this sence also it may be called the Ablative age But if you relate it to Episcopacy and their Cathedrals with whom it is now the Accusative age We hope that the yeere of recompense is come and that in due time for all their Ablations they may be made a gratefull ablation We have done with this section and feare not to appeale to the same judicious eyes the Remonstrant doth to judge to whose part that Vale of absurd inconsequences and bold ignorance which hee brands us withall doth most properly appertaine SECT XIV IN this Section hee comes to make good his anâ—wers formerly given to some objections by him propounded and by us further urged The first objection was from that prejudice which Episcopacy challenging a divine originall doth to Soveraignty which was wont to be acknowledged not onely as the conserving but as the creating cause of it in former times The Remonstrant thinks this objection is sufficiently removed by telling us there is a compatiblenesse in this case of Gods act and the Kings And what can wee say to this Sir you know what we have said already and not onely said but proved it and yet will confidently tell us you have made good by undeniable proofes that besides the ground which our Saviour layd of this imparity the blessed Apostles by inspiration from God made this difference c. Made good when where by what proofs Something you have told us about the Apostles but not a word in all the defence of any ground laid by our Saviour of this imparitie yet the man dreams of undeniable proofs of that whereof he never spake word Wee must therefore tell you againe take it as you please that if the Bishops disclaime the influence of Soveraignty into their creation and say that the King doth not make them Bishops they must have no being at all Nor can your questions stop our mouthes Where or when did the King ever create a Bishop Name the man and take the cause Wee grant you Sir that so much as there is of a Presbyter in a Bishop so much is Divine But that imparity and jurisdiction exercised out of his own demandated authority which are the very formalities of Episcopacie these had their first derivation from the Consent Customes Councell Constitution of the Church which did first demandate this Episcopall authority to one particular person afterwards the Pope having obtained a Monarchie over the Church did from himself demandate that authority that formerly the Church did and since the happy ejection of the Popes tyrannicall usurpations out of these Dominions our Princes being invested with all that Ecclesiasticall power which that Tyrant had usurped that same imparity and authority which was originally demandated from the Church successively from the Pope is now from the King Looke what influence the Church ever had into the creation of Bishops the same the Pope had after and looke what influence the Pope had heretofore the same our Laws have placed in the King which is so cleere that the Remonstrant dares not touch or answer There was a Statute made the first of Edward the sixth inabling the King to make Bishops by his Letters patents Onely Hence all the Bishops in King Edwards the sixt time were created Bishops by the Kings Letters patents ONELY in which all parts of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction are granted them in precise words praeter ultra jus divinum Besides and beyond divine right to be executed onely nomine vice Authoritate nostri Regis in the Kings royall stead name and Authority as the patents of severall Bishops in the Rolls declare But besides the Kings Letters the Bishop is solemnly ordained by the imposition of the hands of the Metropolitan and other of his brethren these as from God invest him in his holy calling As from God Good sir prove that prove that the Metropolitan and Bishops in such imposition of hands are the instruments of God not the instruments of the King prove they doe it by Commission received from God and not by command of the King onely Produce one warrant from Scripture one president of a Bishop so ordained by a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops and without more dispute take all Shortly resolve us but this one thing what is it that takes a man out of the ordinary ranke of Presbyters and advanceth him to an imparity and power of jurisdiction is it humane authority testified in the Letters of the King or is it divine authority testified by the significative action of imposition of hands by the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops if the former you grant the cause if the latter consider with what good warrant you can make a form of Ordination by the hands of a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops which is a meer humane invention to be not onely a signe but a mean of conveying a peculiar and superiour power from Divine Authority and of making a Presbyter a Bishop Iuredivino Finally Sir make as much as you can of your Ordination by a Metropolitan slight as much as you please your unworthy comparison between the King and our Patrons yet did the Kings Conge d'eslire give you no more humane right to Episcopacie then the hands of the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops give you of right Divine you would be Bishops by neither It is not your confident re-inforcing of your comparison that shal call carry it till you have first proved it from Scripture that God never instituted an order of Presbyters or Ministers in his Church as wee have proved God never instituted an order of Bishops Secondly that by the Laws of the land as much of the Ministeriall power over a particular Congregation is in the patron as there is of Episcopall power in the King Till then wee beseech you let it rest undetermined whether your self or we may best be sent to Simons Cell We say no more
lest you should think we flout your modesty with an unbeseeming frumpe which whither our answer be guilty of as you here charge us let the Reader compare the 28 and 29 pages of your Remonstrance and our Answer to those pages and determine The second objection was from that imputation which this truth casts upon all Reformed Churches which want this government this the Remonstrant must needs endevour to satisfie that hee may decline the envie that attends this opinion But what needs the Remonstrant feare this envy Alasse the Reformed Churches are but a poore handfull Rumpantur ilia need the Remonstrant care Yet is it neither his large protestation of his honourable esteeme of those Sister Churches nor his solicitous cleering himselfe from the scandalous censures and disgracefull termes cast upon them by others under whose colours he now militares that will divert this envie unlesse he either desert his opinion or make a more just defence then he hath yet done The Defence is That from the opinion of the Di. right of Episc. no such consequence can be drawn as that those Churches that want Bishops are no Churches Episcopacy though reckoned among matters essential to the Church yet is not of the essence of a Church and this is no contradiction neither If you would have avoided the contradiction you should have expressed your selfe more distinctly knowing that things essentiall are of two sorts either such as are essentiall constitutivè or such as are essentiall consecutivè You had done well here had you declared whether you count Episcopacie essentiall to a Church constitutive or consecutivé if constitutivè then it is necessary to the being of a Church and it must follow where there is no Bishop there can be no Church If essentiall onely consecutivè wee would be glad to learne how those officers which by Divine institution have demandated to them peculiarly a power of ordaining all other officers in the Church without which the Church it selfe cannot be constituted and such a power as that those officers cannot be ordained without their hands should not bee essentiall to the Constitution of a Church or tend onely to the well being not to the being of it Either you must disclaim your own propositions or owne this inference and not think to put it off with telling your Reader It is enough for our friends to hold discipline of the being of a Church you dare not be so zealous If heat in an Episcopall cause may be called zeale you dare be as zealous as any man we know Your friends wee are sure are as zealous in the cause of their Episcopacie as any of ours have been in the defence of discipline Did ever any of our friends in their zeale rise higher then to frame an oath whereby to bind all men to maintaine their discipline You know some of yours have done as much but them wee know you will leave to their owne defence as you doe your learned Bishop of Norwich now he is dead It is work enough for you to defend your selfe and give satisfaction to the questions propounded First we demanded the reason why Popish Priests converted to our Religion are admitted without new ordination when some of our brethren flying in Queen Maries time and having received Ordination in the Reformed Churches were urged at their return to receive it again from our Bishops This shamelesse and partiall practice of our Prelats hee could not deny but frames two such answers of which the second confutes the first and neither second nor first justifies their practice In the first he denies a capability of admittance by our laws and yet in his second he confesseth many to be admitted without any legall exception which how well they consist let the Reader judge The second question was whether that office which by divine Right hath sole power of Ordination and ruling of all other officers in the Church belong not to the being but onely to the glory and perfection of a Church The Remonstrant is so angry at this question that before hee can finde leisure to answer it he must needs give a little vent to his choller Can we tell what these men would have saith he have they a mind to go beyond us in asserting that necessity and essentiall use of Episcopacie which we dare not avow What is that which you dare not avow is it that Episcopacy hath sole power of ordaining and ruling all other Officers in the Church But this wee are sure you will avow That imposition of hands in ordination and confirmation have ever been held so intrinsecall to Episcopacie that I would faine see where it can be shewed that ANY EXTREMITY OF NECESSITY was by the Catholike Church of Christ ever yet acknowledged for a warrant sufficient to diffuse them into other hands Is not this to say that the sole power of ordaining Officers is in the hands of the Bishop And dare not WE avow this now Blessed be they that have taken downe your confidence And where you are witty by the way you tell us we still talke of sole Ordination and sole Iurisdiction we may if we please keep that paire of soles for our next shooes Good Sir wee thanke you for your liberality but wee doubt you either part with them out of fear you shall no longer keep them or they will prove no longer worth the keeping But consider one thing we beseech you if you make this donation not onely in your own name but in the name of the whole Episcopall order you and they may turn Fratres Mendicantes and go bare foot if you part with these paire of soles and what will become of your Quid facit Episcopus quod non facit Presbyter exceptâ ordinatione You doe not contend say you for such a height of propriety c. that in what case soever of extremity and irresistable necessity this should be done onely by Episcopall hands You do not It is well you doe not but did you never meane to affirme it none of you Consider we beseech that forecited place Episcopacie Divine Right part 2. pag. 91. weigh the words and then speake and tell the Authour your judgement Our third question was There being in this mans thoughts the same jus divinum for Bishops that there is for Pastors and Elders whether if those reformed Churches wanted Pastors Elders too they should want nothing of the essence of a Church but onely of the glory and perfection of it The answer saith he is ready which is indeed no answer it is in sum but this that it would be better with them if they had Bishops too But how it would be if they wanted Bishops and Pastors and Elders too of that he saith nothing The Remonstrant had presumed to know so much of the mind of the Reformed Churches as to averre that if they might have their option they would gladly imbrace Episcopall government a foule imputation saith the Remonstrant
triumph over it It is truth not wit wee contend for yet Ridentem dicere verum quis vetat You might have done as wisely to omit the flourish of your wit in scorne of ours as you say wee did to omit those three knowne texts which we omitted because the question betweene us was not whether ruling Elders are an ordinance of God and founded in the word or no But whether ever they had existence in the Christian Church before this present age For the determining of this question being de facto not de â—ure it is more proper to produce the practice of the Churches then texts of Scripture this doth not please him Alpatrons of Layeldership before us would not after the rakings of all the channells of time have forborne the utmost urging of those Testimonies if they had not knowne them so far from being convictive that they are unprooving Is this the man whose chief plea for his divine right is the monument of succeeding ages and Testimony of Antiquity and will he now vouchsafe the search after the footsteps of antiquity no better name Then the raking of the Channell of time had we spoken so much in the vilification of Antiquity it would have beene accounted hatefull and intolerable insolencie in us But our evidences are not proving and convictive Let us put them to the tryall Our testimony from Origen cannot you say but shame us if yet we can blush belike you remember you have so often without just cause put us to the blush you beginne to feare the colour is spent you charge us with willing concealing the Chap. on purpose that we might not be discovered Were this a fault and worthy of blame yet little reason hath the Remonstrant to quarrell with us it is but this one place in which the Remonstrant chargeth us wee are punctuall in our other quotations How-many quotations are there in this defence in which the Remonstrance hath not cited so much as the Book onely thinks it enough to name the Authour But here we are not so culpable as the Remonstrant makes us The translation of Origen which we followed did not distinguish the booke into Chapters No more then the Originall doth Nor other translations with which we have consulted Nor are wee yet so happy as to meete with that edition where the Chapters are distinguished so here is no just cause of suspicion either of fraud or feare For the text it selfe whether your collection or ours be most according to the sence of the Authour let the learned reader judge from the text it selfe which wee heere set downe translated faithfully according to the Originall Videamus an non Christiani magis melius istis populum ad bonam frugem excitent nam Philosophi quidem qui in publico disputant discrimen auditorum adhibent nullum sed quisquis volet adstet licet atque audiat Christiani vero quoad possunt eorum qui ipsos audire cupiunt animos prius explorantes eosdemque privatimerudientes cum videbuntur illi qui auditores sunt futuri priusquam in publicum processerint usque eò profecisse satis ut velint benè vivere tum demum eos introducunt sive admittunt separatim quendem ordinem constituentes eorum qui initiati recens introductique sunt signumque expiationis nondum acceperunt alter autem ordo est eorum qui pro virili studium suum repraesentant non aliud velle se quam quae Christianis recta videntur Apud quos vel supra quos sunt quidam constituti qui in vitam mores advenientium inquirant ut qui flagitiosa perpetrant illos à communi eorum coetu prohibeant qui verò istiusmodi non sunt eos ex animo amplexantes indies reddant meliores Cujusmodi quoque institutum habent in eos qui peccant maximèque si protervè se gerant quos à suo coetu ejiciunt illi qui Celso judice similes sunt iis qui inhonestissimas quasque res in foro ostentant Et Pythagoreorum quidem schola illa gravissima illis qui ab ipsorum philosophia desciverant sepulchra inania conficiebat eosque perinde aestimans ac si demortui planè essent Hi autem quasi pereuntes mortuos Deo qui petulantiae aut gravi cuipiam facinori obstringendos se tradiderunt tanquam mortuos lugent tanquam è mortuis excitatos si non spernendam modo oftenderint resispicentiam longiori temporis spatio quà m qui primo introducti sunt tandem recipiunt neque ad ullum gubernandi munus in Ecclesiâ Dei quae dicitur eligimus eum qui priùs fuerit lapsus postquam ad verbum accesserit c. The sence of this place saith the Remonstrant is this That those which were newly admitted into the Church who by reason of their late acquaintance with such as were left behind them in Pagan superstition might be fit Monitors to know and notifie the condition of such Candidates as did offer to come into the Church were designed to that office of Monitorship Here we desired the Reader to consider first that the scope of the place is to vindicate the Christian assemblies from the imputations unjustly cast upon them by Celsus as if they were a confluence of base and worthlesse people To cleer this hee divides all Christians into two Orders the first were Catechumeni or beginners and first he shews the care they took about them before they were baptized The other order comprehends all such as were baptized whom he describes in these words There is another order of such who according to their ability expresse their endevours to desire nothing but what seems right to Christians which two orders are in antiquity distinguished in Catechumenos Fideles Now that this same alter ordo might be kept to live acording to there profession 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there were some designed or constituted who should look to the manners of all such as come to them that is to their meetings that they that lived wickedly might be banished their assemblies and heartily embracing such as lived well they might make them better Those persons here spoken of the Remonstrant grants to be lay persons as we terme them and doth not so much as once goe about to affirme them Presbyters Onely the question is who those so constituted were He saith Novices newly added to the Church Secondly of whome they had the inspection hee saith onely of such as were comming out of paganisme and offered themselves to be added to their Assemblies Thirdly what their power was hee saith onely to notifie the lives of such to be as it were Monitores and no more For the two first we conceive it impossible for him to shew in all antiquity that ever the Church did appoint Novices over Novices to be overseers of their manners and much more impossible to collect it from this place since Origen speaks indefinitely of any of this order to
wit of Fideles and punctually of such who had attained such a measure of grace as they were able to expresse endevours to do that which is right and were fit and able by their acquaintance to better others and therefore these could not be Novices For the second to wit over whom they had power they were not onely such as were lately admitted for Origen speakes generally of all wicked or scandalous livers among them who were to be inhibited their assemblies For the third the power they had which saith hee was onely to be Monitors it appeares from the text that they had power either to keepe back from their assemblies or to receive into their assemblies according as the lives of men were good or bad and were of that ability as that they could better them daily with their good counsell And if any were froward or contumacious what course was further to be taken with them the following words declare and although it is true the acts of casting such out of the Church is attributed primarily to the teachers yet who dare exclude those former 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from all interest in this act when Origen himselfe saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the like custome they have about offenders and chiefely such as are incorrigible But this great Corrector of Translations cannot let us passe here without a castigation for translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praepositi sunt Vnfaithfully deceitfully saith he Sir it would have become you to spare your censure till you considered better if you had but looked in your Lexicon you might have found that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not onely constituor but praeficior and betweene Praefecti and praepâ—siti certainly there is no such great difference as might deserve the censure of unfaithfulnesse for using the one instead of the other besides Turrianus translated it thus before us who we perswade our selves was as able to understand the language of Origen as our Criticall Remonstranâ— if wee may judge of him as hee here discovers himselfe would any man so confidently charge unfaithfulnesse upon the translation of others and himselfe go translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They do privatly examine such as are bewitched with Paganisme it is true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies incantâ— as well as frequenter admoneo to inchaunt as well as to instruct or admonish but heer it must of necessity be rendred in the latter signification because it is here the participle of the active voice and the case agrees nâ—t with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wch is put in the beginning of that clause so again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he tâ—anslates the rest that are like themselves they may gladly Receive whereas it should be thus but receiving those that are not such that is as those wicked persons last spoke of These are poore Grammarpec adillio's not worth tâ—e taking notice of but that our Remonstrant is so busie with his Ferula that no sooner can he thinke we trip but he is presently upon us Corrigâ— Magn ficat The rest of our testimonies produced in this cause hee thus answers First he could double our files and produce many more But secondly in sadierms we do nothing herein but abuse our Reader For all the places are nothing at all to the purpose in hand For the first The numbers he could adde to our forces are no more then our own except one onely place out of Gregory Turonen is all the rest were urged by us Even that which he saith is more pregnant then any we have brought Did ever poore man make so great a brag of nothing Truly Sir you have much enriched us by paying us with our owne colne Onely here wee are beholding to you for your testimony of the pregnancie of some of them when as you said before All of them were nothing to the purpose in hand it seemes your second thoughts correct your former For his second answer hee tels us all these places are nothing to the purpose And why because those Seniors are Civill Magistrates such as wee call Aldermen whose advice and assistance was used in all great occasions of the Church To prove this he brings the African Canons Can. 100. where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are mentioned and expounds it by the 91 Canon of the African which he cals a Commentary upon this point Debere unumquemque no strum in civitate sua coÌ„venire Donatistarum Praepositos aut adjungere sibi vicinum collegam ut pariter eos in singulis qnibusque civitatibus per Magistratus vel Seniores locorum conveniant To which we answer That this his Commentary corrupts the text For in this 91 Canon there is no mention of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By the Magistrate or those that are of chief authority in those places these wee grant were as it were our Aldermen men of civill power and authority but they were not as those Elders mentioned in the 100 Canon And why should the Remonstrant choose rather to follow Iustellus in reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seniores locorum then Balsamon and Zonaras who read it Quiprimas ferant unlesse it were to deceive his credulous Reader and induce him to thinke there were no other Elders in the Church then such as were Civill Magistrates whereas his own Iustellus in his exposition of the 100 Canon saith Erant Seniores Laici extra Ecclesiam de quibus supra ad Can. 91. Erant Seniores Ecclesiastici There were Lay-elders out of the Church of whom wee spake Can. 91 and there are Ecclesiastick or Church-elders To prove which hee brings forth the very testimonies which wee produced from Baronius and others And certainly he that compares the two Canons quoted by the Remonstrant will see how absurdly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the one Canon are drawn to expound the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the other For the former were the Magistrates who having a coercive power might compell the Donatists to meet for conference and disputations if they did refuse it The other were not Magistrates but Seniores sent by the Church to accuse their Bishop Now how well is the one expounded by the other But if the Seniors were not Aldermen yet they were say you but as our Churchwardens and Vestry-men onely trusted with the Viensils Stocks and outward affaires of the Church businesse of seats and rates c. This the Remonstrant will if you will believe him evince out of our owne testimonies and yet meddles not with that which is the most pregnant testimony to prove that the power of these elders did reach to things of a higher nature then seats and rates and that is the Letter of Puâ—purius which gives to the Seniors a concurrent power with the Clergie to enquire about the dissentions which troubled the Church that by their wisdome and care peace
might be setled in the same These dissentions were not about seats or rates but a contention betweene Silvanus the Bishop and Nundinarius the Deacon in a matter of a high nature too high for our Church Wardens or Vestrymen to meddle in The Bishop being accused that hee was Traditor fur rerum pauperum Did ever Church-wardens or Vestry men among us heare inquire judge compose such differences as these are What should John a Nokes and John a Stiles and Smug the Smith meddle with a businesse of Bishops saith Episcopacie by Divine Right part 3. pag. 32. But how doth hee prove they were but as our Churchwardens or Vestrymen First because Deacons are named before these Seniors where ever they are mentioned Secondly because Optatus reckoning up quatuor genera capitum mentions not Elders For the first though the order of reckoning them be not so much to be insisted upon yet wee can tell you if here your confidence had not beene greater then your consideration that you might have observed that in some places they are mentioned not onely before Deacons but the whole cleargie For so Gregories letter cited by us Tabellarium cum consensu Seniorum Cleri memineris ordinandum Are not Seniors here mentioned before the cleargie His second proofe that these Elders were no better then meere Churchmardens and Vestry men was because Optatus mentioning foure sorts of men in the Church mentions not these Elders But is this the man that hath with such height of scorne vilified poore negative arguments though drawn from sacred Scripture And will he now lay such weight upon a negative argument Surely if all the truth and practice of the primitive times were bound up in one Optatus as all Divine truth is lodged in the sacred Volume of the Scriptures the Remonstrant might have made much of his negative argument yet hee scornes to heare us reasoning that because we do not read that the holy Ghost did by the Apostles appoint Bishops in remedium Schismatis therefore we cannot believe Bishops are of Divine or Apostolicall institution but of humane Away saith he with this poore negative argument And because the Apostle Ephesians the fourth reckoning the Officers whom Christ hath given and gifted for the edification of his Church reckons up onely Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers if wee should conclude Ergo there were no Bishops The Remonstrant would cry out again Away with these negative arguments yet such an argument froÌ„ Scripture may be valid though from no other authority As for Optatus First though in these places he mentions not Elders yet that other place which wee brought out of the same Author doth which the learned Antiquary Albaspinaeus though a Papist with us acknowledgeth Secondly these places produced by the Remonstrant crosse one another as much as they crosse us for Ministri are left out in one as well as Seniores in both Thirdly these Seniores are included in turba fidelium as the Apostle Rom. 10. 14. comprehends all the Church under these two hearers and teachers and so again Heb. 13. 24. Rulers and Saints Yet the Remonstrant is resolved to hold the conclusion Elders in a ranke above Deacons in a setled power of government with the Pastors shall be damned by him for a new and unjustifiable opinion Yet this is the man that would by no meanes be thought to condemne the Reformed Churches Though hee fall as unhappily neere the very words of their profest enemies the Netherland Remonstants as ever we did the words of Aerius Quod attinet Praxin antiquitatis ex â—â videlicet id demonstrari posse idoneis argumentis ut Censor asserit audaciae temeritatis est and again Tota antiquitatis Praxis ei repugnat but oh that our Remonstrant would once learn to take the counsell he gives And he that adviseth us to give glory to God in yielding to undoubted and cleere truth would do so himselfe For if it be not more cleere that there were elders anciently in the Church then that there were none and that these elders were not civill Aldermen but ecclesiasticall Officers Not meere Churchwardens and Vestry men busied about inferiour things of seats and rates but employed in matters of higher nature let the Remonstrant never renounce episcopacy But if it be let him take heed he do not renounce his word which he utters pag. 147. I doe here solemnely professe that if any one such instance can be brought I will renounce episcopacy for ever SECT XVI XVII XVIII THe rest of our Answer you say is but a meere declamation And good Sir what was your whole Remonstrance but a declamation And what is your Defence but a Satyre But ours is worthy of no other answer then contempt and silence You are very dextrous and happy in those kind of Answers your whole Defence is full of them It is true you say The religious Bishops of all times have strongly upheld the truth of God against Satan and against his Antichrist And it is as true that we told you that others have upheld the truth as strongly as Bishops ever did Yea at sometimes when there was never a Bishop in the world to appeare for the truth And therefore never impropriate all the glory to Episcopacie It is also true that wee told you that some irreligious Bishops have upheld Satan and his Antichrist against the truth of God and what can you say to this What is this to their calling Sir their upholding Antichrist makes as much against their calling as their upholding the truth makes for their calling If you fetch an argument from the one for their calling we may as Logically fetch an argument from the other against their calling with as much concluding strength but you can tell us of Presbyters wicked and irreligious shall the function it self therefore suffer Like enough And we could tell you that they find more coâ—ntenance from Bishops then the painfullest Ministers But if Presbyters should be as generally corrupted as Bishops now are have as much strength to suppresse the Gospell and promote Popery as the Bishops by their supreame power have if they can bring no more evidence of Divine institution then Bishops can and are of no more necessity to the Church then Bishops are let the Function suffer We told you what an unpreaching Bishop said of a preaching Bishop this say you is our slander not their just Epithite and challenge us to shew any unpreaching Bishop in the Church of England this day Sir pardon us if we tell you that you put us in minde of a poore Sir Iohn that because he had made one Sermon in 40. yeeres would needs be counted a preaching minister if you speake of preaching after that rate then indeed you may call all the Bishops in England preaching Bishops But the people of England can so well tell who deserves the name of a preaching Bishop that it is not the preaching of a
which the Remonstrant directly doth not deny onely bids us lay our hands upon our hearts and consider whether our fomenting of so unjust and deep dislikes of lawfull government have not been too much guilty of those wofull breaches Sir wee have considered it and can before the great heart-searching God plead not guilty The dislike of present Church government which its own exorbitancy hath caused we have not fomented but have smothered our thoughts and griefs even untill this present wherein the gracious hand of God hath inclined the heart of our gracious Soveraigne to call a Parliament that hee and they might together consult of the pressures and grievances of his people and conclude their removall And now we cannot wee dare not hold our peace but declare our judgments that if it shall seem good to our dread Sovereigne and this Honourable Parliament upon the many complaints brought in against Bishops and their Hierarchicall government to remove the Hierarchie This Act of State may appeare to all to be farre from sinne this not being a government appointed by Christ nor stamped with a Ius Divinum though some will make that their protection As One that loves the peace of the Church which wee you say are willing to trouble You aske after the Bounders c. Are you one that loves the peace of the Church Wee pray of what Church Sure that Church that is called Prelaticall and no other Where of we give you the boundaries and characters which it seems please you not The bounders we shewed from your late Canons which say you are too narrow let them see to that that first made them It is apparent that the Canons made by Archbishops Bishops Deanes and Archdeacons in their Convocation were never consented to much lesse confirmed by Parliament and yet those are called the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England And therfore sure though wee doe not exclude Bishops Deanes c. from being members of the Church yet They have excluded all the rest of the Nation For distinction wee brought bowing to the East to Altars c. Now these say you are not fit distinctions whereon to ground different Churches Yes Sir if it be true that some have held that the outward Formes of worship and ceremonies attending it are the characters whereby one Church is differenced from another but especially when such as will not practise these shall be disclaimed by such as doe them as none of the sonnes of the Church When men shall be forced to subscribe to the practice of these things or else they shall not bee admitted either into Livings or Cures as in the instanced particulars wee have knowne it then they make a difference of Churches And who are the authours of such differences but such as thus urge them Next wee brought their Creed and instanced in Episcopacie by divine right Hee replies Did ever man make this an Article of Faith Judge you by what Bishop Hall saith in his Episcopacie by Divine right part 2. pag. 47. I am so confident of the Divine institution of the Majority of Bishops above Presbyters that I dare boldly say there are weighty points of faith that have not so strong ground in Scripture Is this to make it an article of Faith or no And if not an Article of Faith yet we are sure it is made an Article of the Church For whereas by the orders of the Church of England a man upon the admission to his ministry is to be examined upon no other Articles then the Articles of Religion established in the Church of ENGLAND we have knowne more then one whose first question hath been what doe you thinke of Episcopaice We added absolute blind obedience to all commands of the Bishop Ordinaries you bid us blush But alas Sir we are not such strangers in England nor your selfe neither we believe as not to know but that this hath been the common doctrine and almost the sole Doctrine preached by prelaticall men these many yeeres together And the blinder the better This we have heard nor is it your limitation of the Oath of canonicall obedience in Omnibus licitis honestis will help you when some in stead of that have put in In omnibus editis edendis We added Election upon faith foreseen The Remonstrant cries What nothing but grosse untruthes Is this the Doctrine of the Bishops of England have they not strongly confuted it Yes sure some few have we know it And doth not the Remonstrant know that these few have been had in suspicion as no true friends of the Church much lesse sonnes of the Church more puritanicall then prelaticall And we would none of them had said They have beene labouring these twelve yeeres to get off the name of Puritan and yet tt will not doe and because of this have beene printed Tantum non in Episcopatu Puritani And the same Authour in an other booke after that Dico iterum iterumque dicam Tantam non in Episcopatu Puritani As for the Scriptures of Prelaticall men we mentioned Apocripha and unwritten traditions meaning that that generation lay as much weight almost upon traditions and Apocrypha as upon a genuine text and are more observant many of them of a custome and tradition then of the command of God For Sacraments we instanced a Baptisme of absolute necessity an Eucharist that must be administred upon an Altar What are these say you to the Church of England Nothing but to the Prelaticall Church they are Call them if you will Popish fooles and addleheads that maintaine these opinions yet we know the number of them is not small that have declined into these popish waies we acknowledge also that these are men if not that chiesly support the Prelacy yet such as have beene chiefely suppoted and countenanced by it We acknowledge there are many men learned and orthodox that have in their judgments approved of Episcopall government but what little incouragement these have had from the Prelates especially if laborious in their ministery or any way opposing the Prelaticall innovation in respect of the incouragements of those popish fooles and addle-heads as the Remonstrant cals them a man may see with halfe an eye You demanded what Christ the Prelaticall Church had Our answer is a Christ that hath given the same power of obsolution to a Priest that himsefe hath which answer you say is neere to blasphemy truely an opinion so neere to blasphemy can hardly be delivered in a language much distant from it but this you say is a slanderous fiction no Christian Divine ever held Priests power of absolution was any other then ministeriall If we know the man bring him forth that hee may be stoned Truely sir we knew the man that said the Priests power in absolution was more then Ministeriall it was judiciary but he is past stoning hee is dead and we know another said as much but he sung Agags song
Convictive where 's your argument from the long standing of Episcopacie The other things which hee refers to their more proper place we shall expect there Onely for his confident challenge he makes to us to name any man in this Nation that hath contradicted Episcopacie till this present age We must put him in remembrance that in his Remonstrance his words were unto this present day Which unlesse hee will have recourse to his Trope is more then this Age if by this age hee mean this last Century but let it be this age we can produce instances of some and that long before this Age in this Kingdome that have contradicted Episcopacie and our instances shall not be mean That blessed man Wickliffe ages ago did judge there ought onely to be two Orders of Ministers and who these be hee expresseth in the following words viz. Presbyters and Deacons if there be but two Orders of Ministers in the Church Presbyters and Deacons then where is your Sacred Order of Episcopacie And if Wickliffe deny the being of that Order doth hee not contradict it In the following page he saith Pauli c. That in the time of Paul two distinct Orders of Clergie men were sufficient Priests and Deacons Neither was there in the time of the Apostles any distinction of Popes Patriarchs Archbishops it was enough that there were Presbyters and Deacons So there is one in this Nation who before this age contradicts Episcopacie Of him also Walsingham saith That this was one of Wickliffs errours that every Priest rightly ordained hath sufficient power to administer all Sacraments and consequently Orders and Penance for they were then esteemed Sacraments Consonant to this of Wickliffe was the judgment of Iohn Lambert who in his answer to Articles objected against him saith thus As touching Priesthood in the Primitive Church when vertue bare as Ancient Doctors doe deem and Scripture in mine opinion recordeth the same most room there were no more officers in the Churches of God then Bishops and Deacons that it Ministers as witnesses besides Scripture Hierome full apertly in his Commentaries upon the Epistles of Paul Though these were but single men yet they were Martyrs therefore wee hope their words will beare some weight Wee could tell you further that Richardus de media Valla in 4. Sent. Dist. 24. quaest 2. Non ordo qui est Sacramentum sed potius quaedam ordinis dignitas Episcopatus dicendus est Episcopacie is not to be called order but a kind of a dignity of an order Guli Occam Anno 1330 Quod Sacerdotes omnes cujuscunque gradus existant sunt aequalis autoritatis potestatis jurisdictionis institutione Christi sed Caesaris institutione Papam esse Superiorem qui etiam potest hoc revocare That all Priests of whatsoever degree they be are of equall authority power and jurisdiction by the institution of Christ but by Caesars institution the Pope is the Superiour who may also recall this We could tell you further of one Gualter Mapes a man whom History records famous for Learning who flourisht in the yeere 1210 that wrote many books among the rest one called A Complaint against Bishops Another against the Pope and his Court. Another to the wicked Prelats In which he cals the Pope Plutonem Asinum Prelats Animalia bruta stercora Whether this man did contradict Episcopacie or no let themselves judge But we are sure if any man a few yeers agoe should have so written or spoken it had been a crime next Lâ—sae Majestatis we could tell them of many more but the Remonstrant desired but to name any one we hope we shall indifferently well satisfie his desire by that time we have mentioned one more Robert Longland a Scholer of Wickliffs who put forth a Book in English called the Ploughmans Dream which ends thus God save the King and speed the plough And send the Prelates care enough Enough enough enough enough If single instances will not serve the turn wee can give instance of a combination of learned and godly men in Oxford who being called in question before the King and the Bishops of the Kingdome were condemned to be stigmatized and banished the Kingdome the fatall punishment of the Adversaries of Episcopacie for saying that the Church of Rome was the Whore of Babylon the barren fig-tree that God had cursed and for saying non obediendum esse Papae Episcopis that neither Pope nor Bishops are to be obeyed If this be not enough wee can produce the combination of the whole Kingdome Anno 1537 somewhat above an age ago out of a Book called The institution of a Christian Man made by the whole Clergie in their Provinciall Synod set forth by the authoritie of the Kings Majesty and approved by the whole Parliament and commanded to be preach't to the whole Kingdome wherein speaking of the Sacrament of Orders it is said expresly that although the Fathers of the succeeding Church after the Apostles instituted certain inferiour degrees of Ministery yet the truth is that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any other degrees or distinction in Orders but onely of Deacons or Ministers and Presbyters or Bishops and throughout the whole discourse makes Presbyters Bishops the same from whence it is evident that in that age the whole Clergy knew not any difference made by the Scriptures between Presbyters and Bishops and by this time we hope you have more then one in this Kingdome who have contradicted your Episcopacie before this age And if we should expatiate beyond the bounds of this Kingdome wee might with ease produce not onely testimonies of Schoolmen but of others who acknowledge but two Orders in the Ministery but seeing you required onely home-born witnesses wee ll trouble you with no other and intreat you to make much of them Onely we shall intreat the Reader to view to his abundant satisfaction Doctor Reinolds his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowls who shews out of Chrysostome Hierom Ambrose Augustine Theod. Primasius Sedulius Theophilact that Bishops and Presbyters are all one in Scripture and that Aerius could be no more justly condemned for heresie for holding Bishops and Presbyters to be all one then all those Fathers with whom agree saith he Oecumenius and Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury and another Anselme and Gregory and Gratian and affirms that it was once enrolled in the Canon Law for sound and Catholike doctrine and thereupon taught by learned men he adds further that it is unlikely that Anselme should have beene Canonized for a Saint by the Pope of Rome and the other Anselme and Gregory so esteemed in the Popes Library that Gratians Works should be allowed so long time by so many Popes for the golden fountain of the Canon law if they had taught that for sound doctrine which by the whole Church in her most flourishing time was condemned for heresie and concludes that they