so no Diocaesan Bishop as our Prelates and their flatterers vainely pretend Timothy therefore being neither a Bishop nor first sole or any Bishop of Ephesus or of any other place or if a Bishop no Diocaesan Bishop but of one Church and congregation onely as these premises evidence all our Prelates inferences drawne from his example to proove their Episcopall Authority and Jurisdiction Iure Divino which for the most part hang upon his Episcopall rochet onely fall quite to ground and their Episcopall Authority together with it I now proceed to the next Question wherein I shall likewise discusse whether the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops not to Presbyters And whether this Paradoxe of the Prelates be true that ordainers are greater in Iurisdiction and degree then those that are ordained to wit Whether Titus were ever Bishop or Archbishop of Crete What ever the common bruite and Error of these or former times conceive under correction I perswade my selfe that Titus was no Bishop nor Archbishop of Crete and that for these ensuing reasons First because the Scripture never stiles him a Bishop nor S. Paul who often stiles him his partner and fellow-helper concerning the Corinthians not Cretians the Messenger of the Churches not Bishop and the glory of Christ 2 Cor. 8 23 6 16. his Sonne Titus 1 6 his brother 2. Cor. 7. 6 13 14. never Bishop as some would make him Secondly Because his cheifest imployment was to the Church of Corinth after that hee had been left by Paul in Creet as Paules partner and fellow-helper in that Church 2. Cor. 2. 13. c. 7. 6. 13. c. 8. 6. 16. 23. c. 12 18. Thirdly Because hee was Paules companion attendant partner fellow-helper Messenger fixed to no setled place of residence as Bishops were 2. Cor. 2. 13. c. 7. 6. 13. c. 8. 6. 16. 23. c. 12. 18. Gal. 2 1. 3. 2. Tim. 4. 10. sent by him from Rome long after his being in Crete into Dalmatia 2. Tim. 4. 10. Fourthly Because Paul writes expresly to him Tit. 1. 5. not that hee ordained him Archbishop or Bishop of Crete but that hee left him in Creet for a season for this cause that hee should sett in order the things that were wanting and ordaine Elders in every Citty as hee had appointed him Therefore was hee there onely as Paules Vicar generall Commissary or substitute to order those things in such sort as hee had appointed him which Paul could not dispatch whiles hee was residing not as the Archbishop or Lord Bishop of Creet to order all things there by his owne Episcopall Jurisdiction and authority as hee listed himselfe Fifthly Hee expresly charged him to come to him diligently to Nicopolis when hee should sent Arthemas or Tychicus to him for there hee intended to winter Tit. 3. 12. By which it is evident that his stay in Creet by Paules appointement was very short not above halfe a yeare if so much after which wee never read hee returned thither though we finde hee was sent to Corinth and Dalmatia that hee went up to Hierusalem with Paul and came to him during his imprisonment at Rome Gal. 2. 1. 3. 2. Cor. 2. 13. c. 7. 13. 14. c. 8. 6 16. 23. c. 12. 8. 2. Tim. 4. 10. His short abode therefore in Creet without returning thither prooves him to be no Bishop Sixtly Paul chargeth him to bring Zenas the Lawyer and and Apollos diligently on their way that nothing might be wanting to them Tit. 3. 13. Now it is very unlikely that an Arch-bishop or Bishop of Creete wherein were 90. walled Cities would stoope so low as to waite thus upon Lawyer as Zenas or a Disciple as Apollos was unlesse hee were far more Humble then any Archbishops or Prelates in these our times who are commonly so insolently proud as to disdaine all familiar conversations with Lawyers or Ministers Seaventhly Paul left Titus Bishop of no one Citty in Creete and hee expresly enjoynes him to ordaine not one but many Elders in the plurall number in every Citty of Creete Tit. 1. 5. 7. where there were no lesse then 90. walled Citties in Homerus time which Elders were no other but Bishops and so tearmed by him v. 7. For a BISHOP must be blamelesse c. as Hierom. Chrysostome Ambrose Theodoret Sedulius Primasius Remigius Beda Raubanus Maurus Bruno Theophilact Oecumenius Anselme Lyra Hugo Cardinalis Aquinas with other moderne Commentators on this text accord If then Paul gives expresse directions to Titus to ordaine many Elders and Bishops in every Citty of Creete constituting him a Bishop in none of them that we read of an apparant argument that hee was no Bishop there because hee had there no Bishops See at all and was no sole Bishop of any one Citty it is not probable that hee constituted him sole Archbishop or Bishop of all Creet which had anciently no lesse then 4. Archbishops and 21. Bishops in it it being the Apostles practise to place many Bishops and Elders in one Church but never one Bishop or Archbishop over many Churches Phil. 1. 1. Acts. 20. 28. Hence Athanasius Chrysostome Oecumenius and Theophilact on Titus 1. 5. 7. write thus Here hee will have Bishops to be understood for Presbyters or Ministers as we have elsewhere often said neither verily would hee have the charge of the whole Iland to be permitted or granted to one man but that every one should have his owne proper cure charge allotted him for hee knew that the labour paines would be the lighter and that the people would be governed with greater diligence if that the Doctor or teacher should not be distracted with the government of many Churches but should onely give himselfe to the government of one and study to compose and adorne it with his maners So also Peter Lombard Alphonsus de Castro Doctor Barnes and others on and from this text determine Eightly All generally accord that Archbishops yea Metropolitanes BISHOPS themselves are not of divine or Apo stolicall but Papall and humane Constitution witnesse Pope Nicolas apud Gratianum Distinct 22. c. 1. Omnes sive Patriarchae cujuslibet apicem sive Metropolis primatus aut Episcopatuum Cathedras vel Ecclesiarum sive cujuscunque ordinis dignitatem INSTITVIT ROMANA ECCLESIA Which Pope Anacletus in his 3. Epist. c. 3. doth likewise averre and Pope Lucinus and Clement in Gratian Distinct 80. affirme as much informing us that Archbishops and Primates are the Successors of the Hathenish Arch-Flamens and to be placed onely in those Citties where the Arch-Flamens had their Sees with which Peter Lombard accords lib. 4. Distinct. 24. Hence our Historians record of King Lucius the first Christian Prince of this our Realme that hee instituted 3. Archbishoprickes and 25. Bishop-rickes and Bishops in stead of the 3. Arch-Flamens and 25. Flamens changing their Sees into Bishoprickes and Archbishop-rickes by which it is evident that Archbishops Patriarkes and Metropolitans
by the Canons of 1571. and 1603. to sett in order and provide such bookes ornaments and necessaries as are wanting in Parish Churches and see them well repaired Ergo Churchwardens are Bishops For Titus was here left to sett in order the things that were wanting AS PAVL HAD APPOINTED HIM and no other wise Tit. 1. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. hee did all by his direction and authority not his owne There is nothing therefore in this of ordering things that were wanting in the Church of Creete which savours of Episcopall Iurisdiction And I may better argue hence Titus did nothing at all in Creet but by Paules speciall appointment and Cōmission Ergo hee was no Bishop or if a Bishop Ergo Bishops should order nothing in their Bishoprikes nor keepe any visitations but by speciall direction Commission from the Apostles King or State authorizing them Then the Objectors conclude Ergo hee was a Bishop and Bishops Archbishops yea Archdeacons too without any speciall commission from the Apostles King and State may make and institute what orders constitutions Articles and Ceremonies they please as now they doe in their illegall Courts and visitations kept in their owne names without any Patent from the King Obj. 3. If any object in the third place That Titus was lest to ordaine Elders in every Citty in Creete Tit. 1. 5. Ergo hee was a Bishop because none have power to ordaine Elders but Bishops since none ordained Elders in Creete but Titus who was a Bishop Answ 3. I answer first that this is as bad a consequence as the former and a meere circular argumentation For first they will needs proove Titus a Bishop because hee ordained Elders and none but Bishops can ordaine Elders and then next they proove that none but Bishops can ordaine because Titus foresooth was a Bishop and hee onely did ordaine Elders in Creete A meere Circle and Petitio Principij yet this is the Logicke of our great Rabbi Prelates Secondly I answer that this proposition whereon they ground themselves and their Prelacy that none have any right Ture divino to ordaine Elders or Ministers but Bishops and that quatenus Bishops too which they must adde or else their argument is unsound is a notorious falsehood and meere sandy foundation For first not to remember how Moses a Civill Magistrate consecrated Aaron and his sonnes by Gods owne appointement Levit. 8. 5. to 32. Exod. 29. 9. 35. First The Apostles themselves were ordained Apostles and consecrated Ministers by Christ himselfe Matth. 28. 19. 20. Marke 16. 15. 16. Iohn 20. 22. 23. 24. Acts. 1. 4. 5. Rom. 1. 5. 2. Cor. 3. 6. To whom the power of ordination principally appertaines Ephes 4. 11. 12. 1. Cor. 12. 28. Acts. 20. 28. 1. Pet. 1. 4. Secondly The Apostles and Euangelists ordained Elders in every Church Acts. 14. 23. c. 19. 1. 6. 7. c. 7. 6. yet they were properly no Bishops as all learned men acknowledge Thirdly The Disciples inferior to the Apostles and Euangelists as the objectors teach ordained Ministers and Elders too though they were no such Bishops as the objectors mean Acts. 14. 1. 2. 3. c. 9. 10. to 22. Fourthly Presbyters and ordinary Ministers ordainea Elders and Ministers yea Timothy himselfe was made a Minister by the imposition of the handes of the Presbytery 1. Tim. 4. 14. Thus did they in the primitive Church this doe they still in our owne Church as the booke of ordination it selfe confirmed by two Acts of Parliament the 35. Canon and experience witnesse this doe they in all the reformed Churches now which should have no lawfull Ministers and so no true Church if the power of ordination were Jure divino appropriated onely to Bishops and not common with them unto other Ministers Fiftly Patriarkes Metropolitanes Archbishops and Chorall Bishops neither of which are properly Bishops in the objectors sence ordaine Ministers If then all these have ordained Elders and Ministers though no Bishops by sufficient divine Authority as the objectors cannot deny of the 4. first and dare not contradict it in the last then it is most false that the power of ordination Jure divino belongs onely to Bishops as Bishops in the objectors sence for then none of those 5. being not properly such Bishops could lawfully have ordained Ministers or Presbyters as they did and doe Thirdly There is no one syllable in the Scripture to proove that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops quatenus Bishops neither is there any one example to warrant it We read of Apostles Euangelists Disciples Presbyters that layd hands on others to ordaine them Ministers but of Bishops I mean distinct from Presbyters we read not a word to this purpose how then can this be true that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops quatenus Bishops Jure divino Fourthly We read not a word to this purpose in Scripture of any Bishops distinct from or superior in order degree and dignity to Presbyters if therefore such Bishops themselves be not Jure divino the power of ordination cannot belong to them Jure divino the rather because we read of no man whom the Scripture cals a Bishop ordaining Ministers Admit there were such Bishops Jure divino yet that the power of ordination belongs to them Jure Divino quatenus such Bishops is most false but onely quatenus they are Ministers For it appertained to the Apostles to the Euangelists to Disciples and Presbyters Iure divino though no such Bishops and the objectors will acknowledge that it belongs to Popes Patriarkes Metropolitans and Archbishops though they neither were nor are properly such Bishops and are no divine but meere humane institutions therefore it must appertaine unto them onely as they are Ministers in which respect they all accord and are not differenced one from another not quatenus Bishops for then the Apostles Euangelists Disciples Presbyters Popes Patriarkes Metropolitanes and Arch-bishops being not properly such Bishops could not lawfully ordaine The power therefore of ordination belonging to the Apostles Euangelists Disciples Presbyters and others as well as to Bishops not to Bishops onely or to them as Bishops but as Ministers it being a meere Ministeriall act inferior to preaching administring the Sacrament and baptizing as all acknowledge it can be no good evidence to proove Titus a Bishop Now because this power of ordination which our Prelates would Monopolize unto themselves is the maine pillar whereon they now suspend their Episcopall Jurisdiction over ther Ministers I shall produce some humane authorities to proove the right the power of ordination and imposition of hands to be by Gods Law common to Presbyters as well as to Bishops I shall beginne with Councells The 4. Councell of Carthage Can. 3. about the yeare of our Lord 418. prescribes this forme of ordination of Ministers When a Minister is ordained the Bishop blessing him and holding his hand upon his head all the Presbyters or Ministers likewise that
him to consecrate Aaron with his Sonnes the Tabernacle and Altar and after him King Salomon not the High Preist consecrated the Temple Altar Court and all the furniture of the Temple and Altar So that if these examples proove any thing it is but this That the power of ordination of consecrating Bishops Ministers Churches Altars c. appertaines not to Archbishops Bishops Popes Preistes Ministers but to the cheife temporall Magistrates But admit that Moses were a Preist and an High Preist and that the power of consecrating Preistes Temples Altars appertained to him in that regard yet this is no argument to proove that the right and power of ordination should belong to Bishops onely and that for these three reasons First because the Aaronicall Preisthood was utterly extinct and abolished by Christ as meerely typicall and ceremoniall and so al â—he appurtenances thereunto belonging Secondly Because the High Preist was no Emblem type or resemblance of Bishops which are many changeable mortall but onely of Christ our true High Preist who is but one and remaines an High Preist forever without succession or change So that this allusion prooves the power of ordaining Ministers to belong originally to none but Christ our High Preist cheife Shepheard and Bishop of our soules as the Scripture expresly resolves and ministerially secondarily to every Minister of Christ as his Embassador instrument and Vicegerent Thirdly Because the office and power of the High Preists and Bishops are different distinct yea incompatible one with the other and the maner of ordination of Ministers and Deacons under the Law different from that under the Gospell as the Scriptures and all Authors joyntly witnes the one of them therefore can be no solid or convincing argument to make good the authority Iurisdiction or practise of other So that this Councell and Constitution makes nothing at all against the divine right and Title of Presbyters to ordaine or for the Bishops sole Monopoly of imposition of hands by any divine charter from Christ or the Holy Ghost Finally Neither of these Councells or Constitutions simply debarre Ministers from the imposition of hands on others together with the Bishop which they ever practised and were authorized to doe both by God himselfe and the fourth Councell of Carthage Can. 3. But from laying on hands and ordaining Ministers of themselves alone without the Bishop who cannot ordaine or lay hands on any Ministers by vertue of these constitutions without them Since therfore the Bishop of himselfe alone cannot impose hands on any Minister without their assistance or consent nor they without the Bishops it is apparant that the right of ordination is not wholly and originally vested in the Bishop by any divine or humane right but in both The Councell of Aquisgran or Aken under Ludovicus Pius An. 816. c. 8. out of Isidor Hispalensis De Ecclesiasticis Officiis l. 2. c. 7. determines thus The dispensation of the Mysteries of God are committed to Presbyters as they are to Bishops for they are over the Church of Christ and are consorts with Bishops in the confection of the body and blood of Christ and likewise also in the instruction of the people and in the office of preaching and onely the ordination and Consecration of Clerkes is reserved to the High Preist or Bishop because of his authority lest the discipline of the Church challenged or exercised by many should dissolve concord and engender scandals For Paul the Apostle cals Elders and Preists by the name of Bishops Tit. 1. 5. 7. Acts. 20. 28. Phil. 1. 1. 1. Tim. 3. D. Rabanus Maurus De Instit Clericorum l. 1. c. 6. writes thus That Presbyters allthough they be Preistes yet they have not attained the top or Highest degree of Preisthood because they cannot signe the fore-head with Chrisme nor give the Holy Ghost neither can they ordaine Clerkes in sacred orders which is reserved to Bishops for unity and concords sake The Epistle de 7. Gradibus Ecclesiae in the neinth Tome of Ieromes workes avers in expresse tearmes that the ordination of Clerkes and consecration of Virgins was reserved onely to the High-Preist or Bishop for his greater honor And Tertullian de Baptismo c. 17. writes that the High Preist who is the Bishop hath the right of giving Baptisme after him Presbyters and Deacons yet not without the Bishops authority for the honor of the Church By all which it is evident that Bishops have not the sole executive power of ordination by any divine right or institution of which there is not one syllable either in these or other Councels or Fathers but onely by Canons and humane Constitutions made by Bishops themselves to advance their owne honor power and dignity yet notwithstanding the right of ordination remaines still in Ministers and belongs to Bishops onely as they are Ministers by divine right not as they are Bishops as is evident by the 9. Chapter of the same Councell of Aken taken out of Isidor De Eccles Officiis l. 2. c. 6. where writing of Bishops ordination by imposition of hands and the originall thereof they use this expression which H. Rabanus Maurus likewise hath But that Bishops are ordained by imposition of handes A PRAECESSORIBVS DEI SACERDOTIBVS by the Preistes of God their predecessors is an ancient constitution For the holy Patriarke Isaac laying his handes upon the head of Iacob blessed him and Iacob in like maner gave a benediction to his sonnes c. Where the Councell and Fathers both affirme that even Bishops themselves are ordained by Priestes or Presbyters not Bishops their predecessors therefore the right and power of ordaining Ministers and Bishops too belongs to Presbyters as well as Bishops and to Bishops onely as Presbyters not Bishops and so can no wayes advance them in Iurisdiction order or degree above Ministers The Popish Councell of Trent Sessio 23. De Sacramento ordinis c. 4. determines that Bishops are superior to Presbyters and that they can conferre the Sacrament of Confirmation ordaine Ministers of the Church and doe many other things which those inferior order have no power to doe And Can. 7. De Sacramento Ordinis If any shall say that Bishops are not superior to Preistes or that they have not the power of ordination or confirmation or that this power which they have is common to them with Presbyters or that the orders conferred by them without the consent or calling of the secular power are voyd let him be Anathema Loe here this Councell appropriates the power of ordination onely to Bishops by denying it to be common to them with Ministers and in this regard makes Bishops superior in degree to Ministers yet not by any divine right or institution of which there is not one word but onely by humane and Canonicall as the History of the Councell of Trent and Chemnitius well observe For in the same Session de
Reformatione Can. 7. 8. it enjoynes that according to the ancient Canons when Ministers or Deacons are to be ordained that the Bishop calling to him the Preistes and other prudent men skilfull of the divine Law and exercised in Ecclesiasticall constitutions should diligently enquire and examine before them the stocke person age institution maners doctrine and faith of those that were to be ordained and that those orders should be publikely conferred and celebrated in the Cathedrall Church the Canons of the Church being called to and present at it or if in any other place or Church of the Diocesse Praesenti Clero Loci the Clergy of the place being present Pope Anacletus and the Canon Law having long before that time ordained That Preists and Deacons should be ordained by their owne Bishop Ita ut Cives Alij SACERDOTES assensum praebent So as the Citizens and other Preistes assented thereunto which they usually did and ought to doe as Gratian with others proove at large So that though this Councell and the other Canons and Constitutions debarre Presbyters and Ministers from the act and exercise of ordination which yet they ever use and practise as assistants to the Bishops who can ordaine none but by their assent since they ought to joyne with them in the imposition of hands yet they deprive them not of their inherent right nor yet of the exercise of it as assistants to the Bishop which they have ever used I passe now from these Councels and Constitutions to the Fathers who jumpe in judgment with them It is true that S. Hierome Epiphanius * Isidor Hispalensis Ambrose Augustine Leo and ‡ others affirme that Bishops onely in their time did use to ordaine Ministers and Deacons and that Presbyters might doe all things that Bishops did except the conferring of Orders and some other trifling toyes as consecrating of Altars Churches virgins Chrisme c. not warranted by Gods word yet none of them determine that the right and power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops by divine institution and appointment that Presbyters have no right at all by the word of God to conferre Orders or that they might not doe it in any case but they expresly averre the contrary For as they did joyne with the Bishop in the imposition of hands as appeares by the third Canon of the fourth Councell of Carthage forecited so in S. Ambrose his time in Egypt if the Bishop were absent the Presbyters use to consigne and conferre Orders as this Father testifieth and S. Augustine records That in Alexandria and throughout all Aegypt if the Bishop were wanting the Presbyter did consecrate and give orders Hence Aërius as Epiphanius reports his words reasoned in this maner What is a Bishop to a Presbyter one differs nothing from the other it is one order saith hee one honor and one dignity Imponit manus Episcopus ITA ETIAM PRESBYTER The Bishop imposeth his hands or ordaines Ministers so likewise doth the Presbyter The Bishop baptizeth so also doth the Presbyter The Bishop sitts in a throne so also doth the Presbyter And hee alleadged that the Apostle saith to a Bishop Neglect not the gift that is in thee which thou hast received by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery Epiphanius there denieth not directly that Presbyters then did use to ordaine but demaunds how it is possible for a Presbyter to ordaine not having imposition of hands in the election of Ministers or to say that hee is equall with a Bishop A false and miserable shift since all Histories Fathers Authors Councels testifie that in that age Presbyters had alwayes their voyces in the Elelection yea their hands in the ordination of Ministers and Deacons S. Hierome in his Commentary on Zeph. c. 2. Tom. 5. p. 218. D. writes exprefly SACERDOTES and that Preists and Presbyters who give baptisme and imprecate the Lords advent to the Eucharist make also the oyle of Chrisme MANVS IMPONVNT impose hands instruct the catechumeny LEVIT AS ET ALIOS CONSTITVVNT SACERDOTES ordaine Levites and other Preists Therefore Presbyters in S. Hieronymus time ordained Ministers Deacons and layd on hands as well as Bishops Yea Anastatius in the life of Pope Pelagius the first recordes that this Pope An. Christi 555. for want of three Bishops to ordaine him was ordained Pope by John Bishop of Perusia and Bonus Bishop of Florence and Andreas Presbyter de Hostia and Andrew Elder or Minister of Hostia which Luitprandius de Vitis Pontificum p. 84. and Albo Floriacensis in his life p. 140. likewise testifie Loe here a Presbyter or ordinary Minister ordaining not onely another Elder but a Bishop yea a Pope and supplying the place of a Bishop the generall Councell of Nice Can. 4. the first Councell of Arelat Can. 21. the second Councell of Carthage Can. 12. the third Councell of Carthage Can. â—9 the Councell of Aphricke Can. 16. the Councell of Rhegium An. 472 the Councell of Arausica Can. 21. the Councell of Chalcedon Act. 13. p. 187. with sundry Popes Decrees ordaining that no man shall be consecrated a Bishop but by three Bishops at least and that a consecration made onely by two Bishops shall be voyd and so this Pope no lawfully ordained Pope rules this Presbyter supplyed the place of a Bishop in his consecration and his Ordination good and valid by the Law of God though invalid and a meere nullity by the Canons An. 1390. about Wicklifs time there arose in England certaine bold Clerkes who affirmed that it was lawfull for them to make new Presbyters and Clerkes and conferre orders like Bishops teaching likewise that they were endued with the same power in Ecclesiasticall affaires as Bishops were whereupon they layd hands on many and ordained divers Ministers who affirmed likewise that they had equall and the selfesame Ecclesiasticall power with Bishops which was the constant Doctrine of Wicklife and the Waldensis which Doctrine of theirs was true but their practise discommended yet the Ministers thus ordained by them their ordination held lawfull by Gods Law yea and their ordination of others in those times in darknesse and persecution when no Wickilvists Lollards or other orthodox professors of the Gospel could be admitted into orders by the Bishops of that age unlesse they would subscribe to their Popish assertions as some of our Prelates now will admit none to receive orders unlesse they will first subscribe to such private positions and Ceremonies as are directly contrary to the established Doctrine and discipline of the Church of England by meanes whereof many godly men are kept from the Ministery And though Chrysostome Primasius Theodoret Ambrose Rabanus Maurus Oecumenius Theophilact Haymo with some others interpret that of the 1. Tim. 4. 14. By the Laying on of the hands of che Presbytery to be meant either of Paul himselfe or of the Senate of the Apostles or
of such who had Apostolicall authority or of Bishops and not of the bare Presbyters because say they Presbyters to wit according to the practise of their though not of former times could not ordaine a Bishop but onely Apostles or Bishops yet none of them so much as once asffirme that they cannot by the Law of God ordaine Deacons ordinary Ministers or that they ought by Gods Law and divine institution to be ordained onely by Bishops yea Theophilact on that text writes thus Behold a wonderfull thing See how much the imposition SACERDOTALIVM MANVVM of Sacerdotall or Preists hands can doe A cleare demonstration that Preists as well as Bishops and Bishops onely as they are Preists not Bishops have power of laying on hands And Theodoret thus glosseth the text here hee cals those the Presbytery who had attained Apostolicall grace For saith hee divine Scripture hath called those who were honored in Israell Elders The Fathers therefore confessing that Presbyters and Elders might and did in some cases and places ordaine and consecrate Ministers without the Bishop and likewise joyne with the Bishop in all places in the imposition of hands grant that the right of ordination and imposing hands belongeth to them by the word of God as well as to Bishops the rather because this is the constant doctrine of the Fathers that Bishops and Presbyters by Gods Law and institution are both one and the same and so continued till long after the Apostles times Therefore their power of ordination the same with theirs Neither doe the Papists dissent from this Aquinas writes That the imposition of hands belongs onely to those who are the Ministers of Christ which was double one which was made by Deacons the other by Ministers and because hee adds not the third by Bishops hee plainly intimates that the ordination made by Ministers and Bishops is one and the same and that Bishops ordaine onely as Bishops not as Ministers Caâ—etan on that text saith That Paul relates that the imposition of hands S ACERDOTALIS OFFICII is a part of the Sacerdotall or Preists office not the Bishops and Faber in 1. Tim. 4. 14. writes that Presbyters did use to lay their hands on the heads of those who were to be ordained purged or made compleate Ministers powring forth holy prayers I know indeed that Aquinas and other Schoolemen hold that it belongs onely to Bishops to conferre holy orders yet hee and Durandus grant that this is not by vertue of any divine right orinstitution but onely by humane Constitutions and Canons by reason of the more excellent power and Jurisdiction that the Bishop hath over and above Ministers and for order sake yea they both affirme that Presbyters doe and ought to joyne with the Bishop in the imposition of hands in the ordination of Ministers The Rhemists in their annotations on the 1. Tim. 4. 14. confesse that when a Preist is ordained the rest of the Preists and Elders present doe together with the Bishop even at this day among them and have anciently used heretofore to lay hands on those that are to be ordained citing the fourth Councell of Carthage Can. 3. for proofe thereof And the Canonists with some Schoolemen grant that Preists and Ministers by the Popes dispensation and License may without a Bishops concurrents ordaine Deacons and Ministers but a meere Layman or one that is no Minister cannot doe it A cleare proofe that the imposition of hands appertained to Presbyters as well as Bishops and that the power of ordination rests more in the Ministers person then in the Popes grant or License else why might not a Lay man as well as a Minister grant Orders by vertue of the Popes License or why should Ministers joyne with Bishops in the imposition of hands But to passe from these to the reformed Churches beyond the Seas We know that most of them have no Bishops that all their Ministers and Deacons are ordained by the Common election of the people and Magistrates and imposition of the Senate or Colledge of Ministers hands yet none of our Prelates have beene so impudently shamelesse as to deny their ordination and Ministers to be lawfull or their practise to be dissonant from the Scriptures or them to be true Churches What their writers have determined concerning the power of ordination incident to Ministers as well as Bishops and to Bishops onely as Ministers and servants to the Church not Lords these ensuing passages will declare Ioannes Lukawitz in his Confession of the â—aborites against Rokenzana c. 13. of the Sacrament of order writes thus They confesse that the conferring of Orders onely by Bishops and that they have more effectuall authority of his nature then other Ministers is not from any faith or authority of the Scriptures Sed ex consuetudine habetur Ecclesiae but from the Custome of the Church This being the constant doctrine of the Waldenses and Toborites that the power of giving orders and imposing handes belonged to Presbyters as well as Bishops and that Bishops and Ministers by Gods Law where both one and no Bishop greater then any Presbyter in honor or Iurisdiction Melanchton writes That if Bishops and Ordinaries are enemies of the Church or will not give orders yet the Churches retaine their right For wheresoever there is a Church there is a right of administring the Gospell wherefore there is a necessity that the Church should retaine the right of calling electing and ordaining Ministers And this right is a guift given to the Church which no humane authority can take from the Church as Paul witnesseth in the fourth of the Ephesians where hee saith When hee ascended upon High hee gave guifts unto men and hee reckons Doctors and Pastors among the proper guifts of the Church and adds that such are given for the Worke of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ where therefore there is a true Church there must needs be a right of Electing and ordaining Ministers One thing hath made a difference of Bishops and Pastors to wit ordination because it is instituted that one Bishop might ordaine in many Churches but seeing that by Gods Law there are not divers degrees of a Bishop and Pastor it is evident that an ordination made by a Pastorin his Church is ratified by Gods Law Marsilius Patavinus in his Defensoris Pacis pars 2. 〈◊〉 15. 17. affirmes that the power of ordaining Ministers belongs not to Preists and Bishops but to the Magistrates and people where hee is to be a Minister That every Preist by divine authority may conferre all Sacraments and give orders as well as any Bishop and that every Preists hath power to ordaine and promote any beleever that is willing to the Preisthood hee preparing him Ministerially but God simply and immediately impressing the Sacerdotall power or character the originall property of ordaining Ministers being onely in Christ the head of the Church
Hyperius thus seconds him The imposition of hands in the election of a Bishop or Deacon to approove the person to the multitude or people was made by THE ELDERS in whom this authority rested whence it is here added with the laying on of hands by the authority of the Preisthood or as it is more significantly and plainely expressed in the Greeke with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery which signifieth the whole Congregation of Elders And they agreed that hee who was elected by the Consent of many should be commended and approoved as a fitt person by this externall signe Which is thus backed by Hemingius The imposition of the hands of the Presbytery is the right of ordination which the SENATE or Eldership of the Church or other Ministers of the Gospell did administer Pezelius thus jumpes in Iudgement with them Heretofore the authority of ordination was granted to Bishops at least by a humane institution yet so that the suffrages of the Church might not be excluded from the Election of Ministers and that the other Presbyters should be present at the examination and lay their hands together on him that was to be ordained For so Gratian Can. Presbyter Distinct. 23. when a Presbyter is ordained the Bishop blessing him and holding his hand upon his head all the Presbyters likewese that are present shall hold their hands upon his head close to the Bishops hands which tended to this purpose that the Presbyters likewise might retaine the right of conscerating or ordaining to themselves and that so they might manifest that what ever the Bishop should doe that hee did it not in his owne name alone but in the name of all Musculuâ— Harpes on the same string thus It must plainely be confessed that the Ministers of Christ heretofore were elected the people being present and consenting and they were ordained and confirmed OF THE ELDERS by the laying on of hands This forme of electing Ministers is Apostolicall and lawfull which hee there prooves at large The Noble Mornay Lord of Tlessis sings the same tune in these wordes These things being thus prooved we adde that the right of laying on of hands and ordaining Ministers is in the power of the Presbyters And this verily concerning the Apostles dayes is more apparent then that it can be so much as doubted of For saith Paul to Timothy Neglect not the gift that is in thee by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery that is of the Presbyters or Elders Moreover Timothy himselfe ordained Elders and since a Bishop and a Presbyter are names of one and the same function if the Bishops challenge this right to themselves from the Scriptures the Presbyters also may doe the same but if they deny it to Presbyters in this very thing they aâ—rogate this right to themselves And verily this was a good forme of argument in the Church in Ancient times Hee can baptise hee can consecrate and administer the Sacrament of the Lords body which are the greater an more honourable Actions because Sacraments of undoubted truth of Highest note and use Therefore hee may lay on hands which is lesse Now in ordaining Elders the Bishop laying his hands on the head of those that were to be ordained the rest of the Elders likewise did lay on their hands as appeares out of many places of the Decrees The Centurie writers informe us That in the Apostles time the Apostles did not assume to themselves the power of electing and ordaining Elders and Deacons but they had the suffrage and consent of the whole Church and that they and the other Ministers of the Church with them did ordaine and lay hands on them which they proove by Acts. 6. and 13. and 14. and 19. and 1. Tim. 4. 14. And in the 2. and third Century following c. 6. they affirme that Bishops and Ministers were thus elected and ordained the Elders as well as the Bishops laying their hands on them The Confession of Saxonie c. 12. resolves expresly that it belongs to the Ministers of the word to ordaine Ministers lawfully elected and called The Synod of Petrocomia Artic. 6. in Poland decreed That no Patron should receive or admit any Minister to teach in his Church unlesse hee were lawfully ordained and sent by the Superintendents and the Elders and had a good and certaine testimoniall from them and the Synod of Wlodislania Artic. 8. and 12. determines thus The ordination and mission of Ministers into certaine places to worke in the Lords vineyard is committed to the Superintendents and to the Ministers and Elders their Colleagues not to Bishops Georgius Major in his Enar in Philip. 1. 1. writes thus That there is no difference betweene a Bishop and a Presbyter Paul witnesseth in the 1. Tim. 4. 14. where hee saith Neglect not the grace that is in thee c. by the laying on the hands of the Presbytery that is of the Order or Colleadge of the Presbyters by which it is shewed that Timothy was called and ordained to his Episcopall function by the Presbyters Therefore at that time PRESBYTERS HAD THE RIGHT OF ORDINATION as well as Bishops neither was there any difference betweene them To these I might adde Master John Calvin Piscator Marlorat and most other Protestant Commentators on the 1. Tim. 4. 14. Zanchius Destatu peccati Legal in quartum Praeceptum Chemnitius Loc. Com. pars 3. De Eccles c. 4. and Examen Concilij Tridentini pars 2. De Sacram. Ordinis pag. 224. 225. c. where hee prooves at large that the election and vocation of Ministers belongs to the whole Church to the people as well as the Clergy that the imposition of hands belongs to Presbyters as well as Bishops Wherefore the Apostle sâ—ith 1. Tim. 4. 14. that Timothy had a grace and a guift by the imposition of hands neither saith hee onely of my hands but hee addes also of the Presbytery that there should be thought no difference whether any one were ordained either by the Apostles or by the Elders Aâ—tonius Sadeel Respons ad Repetita Turriani Sophism pars 2. Locus 12. Beza de diversis Ministrorum Gradibus Iunius Contr. 5. l. c. 3. n. 3. Chamierus Paustratia Cathol Tom. 2. de Oecum Pontif. c. 6. with sundry other writers of the reformed Churches who averre and proove against the Papists and Iesuites that the power of election and ordination of Ministers by the word of God belonges to the whole Church and Congregation and the imposition of hands to Ministers Elders and Presbyters as well as to Bishops and to Bishops onely as they are Ministers But hee that hath handeled and prooved this most largely and fully of all others is Gersonius Bucerus de Gubernatione Ecclesiae being an answer to Bishop Downhams Sermon of Bishops p. 261. 262. 283. 287. 292. 294. 299. 310. 318. to 367. 464. 465. 493. 498. 499. 524. 618. where this point is so learnedly and substantially
prooved by Scripture reason and Authors of all sorts that none which read these passages of his can ever hereafter call this into question more Having runne thus long abroade I now in the last place returne to our owne Church and writers The Booke of ordination of Ministers ratified by two severall Acts of Parliament namely 3. Ed. 6. c. 12. and 8. Eliz. c. 1. and subscribed to by all our Prelates and Ministers by vertue of the 36. Canon as containing nothing in it contrary to the word of God expresly orders that when Ministers are ordained ALL THE MINISTERS PRESENT AT THE ORDINATION SHALL LAY THEIR HANDS TOGETHER WITH THE BISHOP ON THOSE THAT ARE TO BE ORDAINED And the 35. Can. made in Convocation by the Bishops and Clergy An. 1603. prescribes that the Bishop before hee admit any person to holy Orders shall diligently examine him in the presence of those Ministers that shall ASSIST HIM AT THE IMPOSITION OF HANDS And if the said Bishop have any lawfull impediment hee shall cause the sayd Ministers carefully to examine every such person so to be ordered Provided that they who shall assist the Bishop in examining AND LAYING ON OF HANDS shall be of his Cathedrall Church if they may be conveniently had or other sufficient preachers of the same Diocesse to the number of three at the least And according to this Booke of Ordination and Canon when ever any Ministers are ordained all the Ministers there present joyne with and assist the Bishop in layng on of hands on every one that is ordained So that both by the established Doctrine and practise of the Church of England the power of laying on hands and right of ordination is common to every of our Ministers as well as to our Bishops who as they cannot ordaine or lay hands on any without the Bishop so the Bishop can ordaine or lay hands on no Ministers without them so that the power and right of ordination rests equally in them both With what face or shadowe then of truth our Prelates now can or dare to Monopolize this priviledge to themselves alone against this Booke of Ordination their owne Canons subscriptions yea their owne and their Predecessors common practise to the contrary which perchance their overgreat imployments in temporall businesses secular state affaires have caused them wholly to forgett at least not to consider let the indifferent judge But to passe from them to some of our learned writers Alcuvinus De Divinis Officiis c. 37. writes that Bishops Presbyters and Deacons were anciently and in his time too elected by the Clergy and people and that they were present at their Ordination and consenting to it That the Bishops consecration in his dayes used in the Church of Rome wherein two Bishops held the Gospell or New Testament over the head of the Bishop consecrated and a third uttered the blessing after which the other Bishops present layde their hands on his head was but a Novelty not found in the old or new Testament nor in the Roman tradition And then heâ— prooves out of Hieroms Epistle to Evagrius and his Commentary on the first to Titus that the ancient consecration of Bishops was nothing else but their election and inthronization by the Elders who chose out one of their company for a Bishop and placed him in a higher seat then the rest and called him a Bishop without further Ceremony just as an Army makes a Generall or as if the Deacons should choose one from among them and call him an Archdeacon having no other consecration but such as the other Deacons had being advaunced above others onely by the Election of his fellow-brethren without other solemnity By which it is plaine that in the primitive Church Presbyters did not onely ordaine Presbyters and Deacons before there were any Bishops elected and instituted but likewise that after Bishops were instituted they ordained and consecrated Bishops as well as Elders and Deacons and that the sole ordination and consecration of Bishops in the Primitive and purest times was nothing but the Presbyters bare election and inthronization of them without more solemnity So that the other Rites and Ceremonies now used are but Novelties Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury on the 1. Tim. 4. 14. expounds these words with the laying on of hands of the Presbytery in this maner Hee cals that the laying on of hands which was made in his ordination which imposition of hands was in the Presbytery because that by this imposition of hands hee received an Eldership that is a Bishopricke For a Bishop is oftentimes called a Presbyter by the Apostle and a Presbyter a Bishop which in his Commentary on the third Chapter on Phil. 1. 1. Tit. 1. 5. 7. hee prooves to be but one and the same in the Apostles time and in the Primitive Church So that by his resolution the imposition of hands and power of ordaining Elders and Bishops belongs to Presbyters as well as to Bishops Our English Apostle John Wickliffe and his Coaetanean Richard Fitzralphe otherwise called Richardus Armachanus Arch-bishop and Primate of Ardmagh in Ireland if we beleeve either their owne writings or Thomas Walden who recites their opinions arguments and takes a great deale of paines though in vaine to refute them affirmed and taught First that in the defect of Bishops any one that was but a meere Preist was sufficient to administer any Sacrament or Sacramentals whatsoever either found in Scripture or added since Secondly That one who was but a meere Preist might ordaine another and that hee who was ordained onely by a simple Preist ought not to doubt of his Presbytership or to be ordained againe so as hee rightly performed his clericall office because the ordination comes from God who supplies all defects Thirdly That meere Preists may ordaine Preists Deacons and Bishops too even as the inferior Preists among the Jewes did ordaine and consecrate the High Preist as Bishops consecrate Archbishops and the Cardinals the Pope Fourthly That the power of order is equall and the same in Bishops and Preists and that by their very ordination they have power given them by Christ to administer all Sacraments alike therefore to conferre orders and confirme children which is the lesse as well as to baptise administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and preach the Gospell which is the greater Fiftly That Christ sitting in heaven hath given the power of consecrating and ordaining Preists and Deacons of Confirmation and all other things which Bishops now challenge to themselves to just Presbyters and that these things were but of late times even above 300. yeares after Christ reserved and appropriated to Bishops onely by their owne Canons and Constitutions to increase their Caesarian Pompe and pride And Waldensis himselfe who undertakes to refute these propositions saith expresly That no man hitherto â—ath denied that God in an urgent case of necessity gave the power of ordination to any one that is
but a meere Preist to wit in the want or defect of Bishops All the Archbishops Bishops Archdeacons and Clergy of England in their Booke intituled The institution of a Christian man subscribed with all their hands and dedicated to King Henry the 8. An. 1537. Chapter of Orders and King Henry the 8. himselfe in his Booke stiled A necessary â—rudition for any Christian man set out by authority of the Statute of 32. H. 8. c. 26. approoved by the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Netherhowse of Parliament prefaced with the Kings owne Royall Epistle and published by his speciall commaund in the yeare 1543. in the chapter of Orders expresly resolve that â—reists and Bishops by Gods Law are one and the same and that the power of ordination and excommunication belongs equally to them both Learned Martin Bucer in his Booke of recalling and bringing into use againe the lawfull ordination of Ministers and of the office of Pastors in his Scripta Anglicana written here in England p. 254. 255. 259. 291. 292. 293. and on Math. 16. layes downe these Conclusions First That the power of ordination rests principally and originally in Christ himselfe Prince of Pastors Secondly That this power is secondarily and derivately in the whole Church whose consent is requisite in the election and ordination of Ministers Thirdly That the actuall power of Ordination and imposition of hands belongs as well to Presbyters as to Bishops that they ought to joyne with the Bishop in the laying on hands and that Timothy was ordained by the Presbyters Fourthly That Bishops and Ministers have the power of imposition of hands in them onely instrumentally not originally as servants to the whole Congregation Fifâ—ly That the examination and ordination of Ministers ought to be made publikely in the Church where they are elected to be Ministers before all the Congregation All which he prooves by sundry Scriptures and Histories Peter Martyr his coaetaman Regius professor in the â—niversity of Oxford in the dayes of King Edward the 6. in his Commentary upon the 2. Kings 2. 23. and in his Common places printed at London Cum Privilegio An. 1576. Class 4. Loc. 1. Sect. 23. p. 849. writes thus The Papists cannot object grievous sinnes against the Ministers of the Gospell but they oppose onely some slight that I say not ridiculous thinge they say that our Pastors have no imposition of hands and thence they indeavour to conclude that they are not to be reputed just Governours of the Church and that the Congregations which are taught and governed by them are no true Churches but Convenâ—â—cles of revâ—lters And this they say as if the imposition of hands were so necessary that without it there can be no ministry in the Church when notwithstanding Moses consecrated Aaron his Brother and his Children offering divers kindes of Sacrifices on which no man formerly had layd on hands Likâ—wâ—se Iohn the Baptist brought in a new right of Baptisme and administred it to the Iewes when as yet no hands had beene layd upon him and hee himselfe had beene baptised of no man Paul also called by Christ in his journey did not presently goe to the Apostles that they might lay hands upon him but hee taught in Arabia for 3. yeares space and ministred to the Churches before that hee went up to the Apostles his Antecessors as himselfe witnesseth in his Epistle to the Galathians We reject not the imposition of hands but retaine it in many Churches which if we receive not from their Bishops we are not to be blamed for it for they would not confâ—rre it on us unlesse wee would depart from sound Doctrine and likewise bind our selves by Oâ—th to the Roman Antichrist In which words hee resolves First That the imposition of hands is no such essentiall part of a Ministers ordination but that it may be omitted and that those who are elected and lawfully called to the Ministery by the suffrage of the whole Church and people are Ministers lawfully called and ordained without this Ceremony Secondly That the imposition of hands belongs to Ministers as well as Bishops and that those who are ordained Ministers in the reformed Churches where they have no Bishops onely by the laying on of hands of other Ministers are lawfully ordained Thirdly That this position that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops that those are no true Ministers who are ordained without a Bishop is but a vaine ridiculous Popish Cavill Our Prelates therefore should be ashamed to ground both their owne and Titus his Episcopall Hierarchie upon it Learned Doctor Whitaker writing against Bellarmine saith that this text of the 1. Tim. 4. 14. makes very much against the adversaries For from this place wee understand that Timâ—thy receiveth imposition of hands from the Elders who at that time governed the Church by a common Councell and against Duraeus hee argues thus Luther Zwinglius Oecolampadius Bucer and others were Presbyters and Presbyters by Gods Law are the same with Bishops therefore they might lawfully ordaine other Presâ—yters Doctor Fulke in his Confutation of the Rhemâ—sh Testament Annot. on Tit. 1. Sect. 2. and Doctor Willet in his Synopsis Papismi the 5. generall Controversie quaest 3. part 2. write thus Although in the Scripture a Bishop and an Elder is of one order and authority in preaching the word c. yet in government by ancient use of speech hee is onely called a Bishop which is in the Scripture called cheife in governement to whom the ordination or consecration by imposition of hands was allwayes principally committed Not that imposition of hands belongeth onely to him for the rest of the Elders that were present at ordination did lay on their hands or else the Bishop did lay on his hands in the name of the rest We differ from the Papists in this They affirme that not principally and cheifly but solely and wholly the right of consecrating and giving Orders appertaineth unto Bishops But concerning the power of giving Orders we say that though it were cheifly in the Apostles yet the Pastors and Elders together with them layd on their hands Acts. 13. 3. 4. and as S. Paul speaketh of his laying on of hands 2. Tim. 1. 6. so hee maketh mention of imposition of hands by the Eldership 1. Tim. 4. 14. And the Rhemists on that place mislike not the practise of their Church that their Preists doe lay on their hands together with the Bishop upon his head that is to be ordained What else doth this signifie but that they have some interest in ordaining together with the Bishop The 4. Councell of Carthage Can. 3. Decrees thus Let all the Preists that are present hold their hands next to the Bishops hand upon the head of him that is to be ordained Againe Can. 14. of the same Councell The Bishop must not give orders but in the presence and assembly of the Clergy By this then it is manifest that imposition of hands doth not wholly and
soly belong to the Bishops seeing the rest of the Elders were wont to lay on their hands likewise or the Bishop in the name of the rest So that the Elders were not excluded Doctor Feild in his 5. Booke of the Church c. 27. is of the same opinion where hee prooves out of Durandus and other Papists that the power of consecration and order is not greater in Bishops then in any other Ministers that the power of ordination was reserved to Bishops not by any divine but humane Constitutions onely rather for to honor the Bishops preistly place then for that it might not be done by any other and for the avoyding of confusion and schisme in the Church Concluding that in cases of necessity as when Bishops are extinguished by death or fallen into haeresie or obstinately refuse to ordaine men to preach the Word and Gospell of Christ sincerely and the like then Ministers onely may ordaine other Ministers without any Bishops assistance And Master Cartwright in his Confutation of the Rhemâ—sh Testament on the 1. Tim. 1. 14. Sect. 18. and on Tit. 1. Sect. 2. prâ—oves both by the Rhemists owne practise and Confession by the 4. Councell of Carthage cited by them and the History of Eradius his ordination who succeeded Augustine to which sixe Elders as well as two Bishops were called and by the text of Timothy itselfe that the imposition of hands belongs to Elders as well as Bishops which hee manifests to be one and the same by divine institution Finally acute and learned Doctor Ames in his Bellarminus Enervatus Tom. 2. l. 3. c. 2. of the vocation and ordination of Ministers Sect. 4. c. De Ordinatione Concludes thus against Bellarmine who affirmes that the ordination vocation and election of Bishops and other Ministers of the Church belongeth onely to Bishops First That it cannot belong Iure Divino to Popish Bishops superior to Presbyters in degree because they themselves are onely vel juris vel injuriae humanae of humane right or rather injurie not of divine institution Secondly That the very act of ordination belongs to divine Bishops that is to Presbyters in a Church well ordered Thirdly That as to the right force and vertue which it hath in constituting the Minister of the Church it alwayes appertaines to the whole Church as the celebration of Matrimony receives all its force and vertue from the consent of the parties married Fourthly That in corrupted and collapsed State of the Church the Ministery and Order failing the very act of ordination so farre forth as it is necessary to the constitution of a Minister may in such a case be lawfully executed by the people Fiftly That the Act of ordination is attributed to Presbyters 1. Tim. 4. 14. And that the Apostles themselves did not ordaine ordinary Ministers but by the concurrence and consent of the people Acts. 14. 23. Sixtly That in the primitive Church which was governed by the common Counsell of the Presbyters before there were any Bishops the very first Bishops were not ordained by Bishops which then were not but by Ministers Seaventhly That all the Councels Degrees and Testimonies of Fathers objected to the contrary proove nothing else but that the Act and Right of Ordination partly by Custome and partly by humane Decrees was given to the cheife Presbyter or Bishop after the Apostles time not belonging to them by any divine right Eightly That the imposition of hands is not absolutely necessary to the essence of a Pastor no more then a Coronation to the essence of a King or the celebration of a mariage to the essence of a mariage Ninthly That the power of Ordination according to the Schoolemen and Canonists is not an Act of Iurisdiction but of simple office which Presbyters may performe without any Commaund or Iurisdiction Tenthly That the Papists themselves teach that baptisme conferred by any Christian though a lay man or woman is good by reason of the necessity of it that a simple Presbyter by the common consent of the Popish Doctors may administer the Sacrament of Confirmation or conferre any of the greater Orders and that all the Pontificians teach with unanimous consent that a Bishop once consecrated although hee be a Simoniack Heretick excommunicate person or the like may yet firmely ordaine others Therefore a fortiori Godly Presbyters or the people and Church of Christ may lawfully conferre orders without the helpe or concurrence of a Bishop Which authority of his ought not to be slighted as Schismaticall or Erronious it being consonant to the Doctrine both of our owne and other Protestant writers Churches and this booke of his printed by Authority in the university of Oxford no longer since then Anno 1629. It is evident then by this whole cloud of witnesses to omit others that the power and right of ordination and imposition of hands which sayth Gratian is nothing else but a prayer over a man and as Aquinas writes signifieth onely the conferring of grace which is given by Christ and not that Ministers not Bishops who are here but Ministers give this grace and so as proper for Ministers as Bishops both by divine and humane right and practise belongs to Presbyters and ordinary Ministers as well as Bishops therefore Bishops cannot be paramount Presbyters and ordinary Ministers in order and Iurisdiction in this regard neither will this power of ordination proove Timothy or Titus Bishops as they now vainely surmise Hence therefore I retort the objection in this maner against the opposites That power or authority which is common by divine right and institution to Ministers and Presbyters as well as Bishops can neither proove Timothy or Titus to be Bishops or Bishops to be superior to Presbyters or Ministers in Jurisdiction order dignity or degree Iure divino or humano But the power of authority of ordaining Presbyters Ministers and Deacons is such as the premises undeniably evidence Therefore it can neither proove Timothy or Titus to be Bishops nor Bishops to be superior to Presbyters or Ministers in Iurisdiction order dignity or degree Iure divino or humano Sixtly S. Paul in the 1. Tim. 3. and Titus 1. 6. c. makes a particular enumeration and recitall both of the qualifications and offices of a Bishop But among all these hee speakes not a word concerning the power of act of ordination neither doth hee make it a part of a Bishops qualification or duty to be apt and able discreetly to conferre orders as hee doth particularly require hee should be apt to teach How therefore this should be a cheife property or principall quality of a Bishop I cannot yet conjecture since the Scripture makes it none but rather a property an act of the Presbytery 1. Tim. 4. 14. Acts. 13. 3. 4. I shall desire Bishops therefore to produce some divine Charter or other for this pretended Monopoliâ—e of ordination which they would ingrosse unto themselves alone perchance to make the more advantage by it
but not in respect of the profession or degree of Doctorship it selfe yea every Minister made by any Bishop is as much as truly and fully a Minister as the Bishop as all Protestants and Papists doe acknowledge therefore the same in specie with and equall to a Bishop Our Bishops pretend themselves Spirituall Fathers and they call the Ministers ordained by them Sonnes So Epiphanius long since argues against Aërius As therefore in naturall generations a man begets a man a beast a beast and in Civill respects a Gentleman begets a Gentleman a peasant a peasant c. but not a man a beast a beast a man a Gentleman a peasant nor a peasant a Gentleman So Bishops when they engender naturall children beget them as men not Bishops and their children are as much men as themselves when they spiritually ordaine or engender Ministers they doe it onely as they are Ministers not Bishops and those they thus beget and ordaine are as much Ministers as themselves when they beget and consecrate Bishops they doe it as they are Bishops and those thus begot and consecrated are as much Bishops as themselves Since therefore they ordaine Ministers onely as they are Ministers not as Bishops as is cleare else it were an unnaturall an incongruous yea a monstrous generation to beget one of a different kinde order quality and degree from themselves and as much as if a man should beget a beast an horse or an Asse and since every Minister is as much as compleatly a Minister every way as the Bishop and Ministers who ordaine him how this proposition can be true that the ordainer is higher in Jurisdiction or different Iure divino in order or degree from the ordained I cannot yet perceive neither can our Prelates ever make it good We know there are now divers Ministers living who not only baptized but likewise ordained some of our Bishops to be Ministers and layd hands upon them with the Bishop at the time of their ordination yea every of our Bishops and Archbishops were first ordained Ministers by Ministers before they were made Bishops or Arcbishops And the first Bishops that were ordained in the Church paramount Ministers were ordained Bishops by Ministers as Hierom writes in his Epistle to Evagrius and all since acknowlege out of him Are these Ministers therefore in point of order honor jurisdiction dignity and degree greater then our Archbishops or Bishops If so then the controversie is at end and the truth most apparant that our Ministers are greater and higher in degree then our Bishops and Arch-bishops not our Bishops and Archbishops higher greater then they as they vainely contend If not then the Prelates maxime on which they ground their Hierarchie is most false in that sence in which they urge it and so will yeild no supportation to their Hierarchie Thirdly I answer that this Proposition of theirs is warranted by no Scripture nor backed with any convincing reason drawen from Scripture therefore it prooves nothing either for Titus his Episcopall authority or for Bishops superiority above other Ministers by any divine right or institution As for that text of Hebr. 7. 7. And without all contradiction the lesser is blessed of the greater it is nothing to the putpose First Because it it not spoken concerning ordination or of one Ministers ordaining or blessing another but onely of Melchizedechs blessing of Abraham and Ministers blessing of the people as the words and all Commentators joyntly testifie Secondly Because it is not meant of Ministers who blesse others onely Ministerially instrumentally by way of duty and service as Bishops ordaine Ministers not inherent originall authority for then Ministers should be better and greater then God whom they blesse and praise but of Christ himselfe who by Melchisedech his type blessed Abraham by his owne inherent authority and power as the onely true High-Preist and châ—ife Shepheard of our soules If therefore our Prelates take their maxime in this sence hee that ordaines Ministers to wit originally by his owne inherent primitive authority and power is greater then those who are ordained in Jurisdiction power and degree then the proposition thus interpreted is true and warranted by this text but yet they gaine no advantage by it because no Bishops do or can ordaine Ministers thus but onely God and Christ alone whose Ministers and Servants both the ordainers and ordained are But if thâ—â—meane that they who ordaine Ministers onely instrumentally and Ministerially as servants to Christ his Church and the whole Congregation in whom the originall and primitive right of ordination is onely vested are greater in Iurisdiction order and degree then those who are ordained as they doe and must doe then the proposition is most false and not justified by this Scripture as the premised instances manifest Fourthly Admit this proposition true that those who are to ordaine others are greater in power and authority then the parties to be ordained before their ordination fully executed because they have an office a calling of Ministery which the others want in which sense the proposition may be true yet it is not true that the ordainers are greater in power office and authority then the parties actually ordained after the ordination past and finished because the very end of ordination is to conferre the selfe-fame office of Ministery on the parties ordained which the ordainers themselves have in as large and ample manner as they enjoye it and the parties once ordained are thereby made as compleate 〈◊〉 absolute Ministers every way in respect of their orders and office as any of those who ordained them though they were not so when they came to be ordained This appeares by the examples of Mathias and Paul before they were called and ordained to be Apostles they were inferior to the other Apostles but being once called and ordained Apostles they became equall with the other Apostles in Apostolicall power dignity and degree So that from all these premises I may conclude that this maxime of our Prelates whereon they build their Episcopall Hierarchie in that sence they take it is most false and neither prooves Titus to be a Diocaesan Bishop nor yet Bishops to be superior to other Ministers in dignity power order or degree by divine right and institution as they pretend they are Finally Admit the proposition true yet it prooves but this that Bishops are superior to those Ministers onely which themselves ordaine so that if they ordaine none they are superior to none not to those ordained by others which may be their equals notwithstanding this allegation seing they were not ordained by them this proposition extending onely to the act not to the power of ordination If any extend it further in this sort that they who have power to ordaine Ministers are greater in order Iurisdiction degree and dignity then those who want this power then it will follow that Bishops suspended from ordaining others either for advauncing unworthy Ministers
have been inserted p. 123. l. 27. after mistake not I shall close up this concerning the power and right of Ordination with these ensuing Authorities and memorable examples Anno Dom. 1389. the Lollards Wiclifs-disciples as Walsingham records winning very many to their Sect grow so audacious that their Presbiters like Bishops created and ordayned new Presbiters affirming that every Priest had received as much power to binde and loose and to minister other Ecclesiasticall things as the Pope himselfe giveth or could give This power of Ordination they exercised in the Diocesse of Salisbury And those who were ordayned by them thinking all things to be lawfull to them presumed to celebrate Masses and feared not to handle Divine things and administer the Sacraments This wickednes writes he was discovered by a certaine man Ordayned a Minister by them to the Bishop of Salisbury at his Mannor of Sunnyng By which it is apparent that the Lollards and Wiclenists the Prctestants of that age beleeved that the power of Ordination belonged as much to Presbiters by Gods Law as to Bishops that one of them might as well as lawfully ordayne Ministers as the other and that as they might lawfully preach the Gospell without the Bishops licence first prescribed by the forged Statute of 2. H 5. c. 15. made onely by the Bishops without the commons consent to suppresse the preaching of the Gospell so likewise ordayne Ministers without it and that Ministers ordayned onely by Presbyters without a Bishops privity or assistance were lawfull Ministers and might lawfully with a good conscience discharge all Ministeriall Offices This being not onely their received Doctrine but their practise too I find moreover that b Janruay 20. 1542. Nicholas Amsdorffius a noble and learned unmaried man was ordayned Bishop of Newbury by Martin Luther Doctor Nicholas Medler pastor of Newbury George Spalatine of Aldenburge and Wolffgaugus Steinius of Lucopeira joyning with him in the imposition of hands Which Ordination Luâ—her afterwards publikely maintained to be lawfull in a printed Treatise Loe here wee have Presbiters not onely ordayning a Presbiter but a Bishop If therefore the Prelates Paradox be true That hee that ordayens is greater in Jursdiction and degree then he that is ordayned It will hence inevitably follow that these Presbiters and those who ordayned the first Bishops were greater in Iurisdiction degree and order then Bishops And then farewell their pretended Hierarchie Anno Dom. 1537. Christian the 3 King of Denmarke removed and suppressed by a publique Edict all the Bishops of his Kingdome for their intollerable Treasons and rebellions abolishing their Lordly Bishopricks as contrary to our Saviours institution the meanes that made them idle proud ambicious unpreaching Prelates and sedicious treacherous Rebells to their Princes and instead of the 7. Bishops of Denmarke he instituted 7. Superintendents to exercise the Office of Bishops give Orders to others and execute all ecclesiasticall affayres which 7. Superintendents August 26. 1537. received their Ordination from John Bugenbagius a Protestant Minister in the Cathedrall of Hafnia in the presence of the King and Senate of Denmarke Loe here all Bishops casheired as false rebellious Ttaytors to their Soveraigne as they have ever beene in all States and ages there having beene more notorious Traytors Rebells and Conspirators of Bishops then of all other rankes of men in the world as I am able to make good as contrary to Divine institution and so not Jure Divins as they now boast and Superintendents ordayned by a meere Presbiter in their steed to conferre Orders unto others in all the Danish Churches In the beginning of reformation in Germany and other places Luther and other Ministers usually ordayned Deacons and Ministers and set out Bookes of the manner of Ordination without any Bishops assistance Which power of Ordination and imposition of hands hath ever since beene practised by Ministers in all reformed Churches which have abandoned Bishops Such as ours are and make themselves as contrary to GODS Word Patrick Adamson Archbishop of Saint Andrewes in Scotland in his Recantation publiquely made in the Synode of Fiffe Aprill 8. 1591. confesseth That the office of a Diocesan Bishop Omni authoritate verbi Dei destituitur et solopolitico hominum commento fundatur is destitute of all authority from Gods Word and onely founded in the politick figment of men out of which the Primacy of the Pope or Antichrist hath sprung and that it is worthily to be condemned because the assembly of the Presbitery penes quem est Iurisdictio et Inspectio tum in Visitationibus tum in Ordinationibus which hath the Jurisdiction and inspection both in Visitations and in Ordinations will performe all these things with greater authority piety and zeale then any Bishop whatsoever Whosecare is for the most partintent not upon God or his function but the World which he especially serves A fatall blow to our Prelates Hierarchie For if Lord Bishops be not Jure Divino and have no foundation in the Word of GOD then the power of Ordination beloÌ„gs not to them Iure Divino as they are Lord Bishops neither can do or ought they to conferre Orders as they are Bishops but onely as they are Ministers And if so as is most certaine then this power of Ordination belongs not at all to Bishops as they are Bishops but onely as they are Ministers and every Minister as hee is a Minister hath as much divine right and authority to give Orders as any Bishop whatsoever the true reason Why anciently among the Papists as Durandus confesseth now too as the Rhemists witnesse and even in our owne English Church among us at this day Ministers ought to joyne with the Bishop in the imposition of hands Neither can our Bishops ordayne any one a Minister unlesse Three or Foure Ministers at least joyne with him in the Ordination and laying on of hands This being an apparent truth I shall hence from the Bishops owne principles prove Presbiters Superior and greater then Bishops in jurisdiction dignity and degree Those say they to whom the power of Ordination belongs by divine right are greater in jurisdiction dignity and degree then those who have not this power and the Ordayner is higher superior in all these then the Ordayned But the power of Ordination belongs Iure Divine onely to Presbyters as Presbyters not to Lord Bishops and to Lord Bishops themselves not as Bishops but Presbyters and Bishops when they ordayne in a lawfull manner doe it onely as Presbiters not as Bishops Therefore Presbiters are superiour to Bishops in jurisdiction order and degree and Bishops themselves farre greater in all these as they are Presbiters an office of Divine invention then as they are Lordly Prelates or Diocesan Bishops a meere humane institution Thus are our great Lord Bishops who vaunt of the weakenes of Puritan principles Whereas their Episcopall are farre more feeble and absurd wounded to death with their owne
Marcte Sebotho Bishop of Augusta Everhardus Bishop of Reformes Vlricus Bishop of Saltsburg Conradus Bishop of Hildesheim Conradus Bishop of Halberstat Ludolphus Bishop of the same See Gunterus Bishop of Magdeburge Iosia Odolpleus Archbishop of Vpsal 〈…〉 in S 〈…〉 hland with sundry other Patriarkes Archbishops and Bishops many of them by reason of age or sicknesse others out of discontent others out of a desire of peace quietnesse and case from unnecessary cares and troubles others of them meerly out of conscience of the unlawfulnesse danger hurt and sinnes accompanying the very office of Bishops as then it is and yet is used have voluntarily renounced revived relinquished their Patriarkships Archbishoprikes and Bishoprikes and betooke themselves to a more retired religious quiet private godly life wherein they might serve God better and showe those manifold occasions of evill and temptations unto which their Episcopall function would expresse them both a hazard of their Soules If these many forraigne examples will no wayes moove your Lordships as seeming over strange we have many pregnant Domestique presidents of like nature which may perswade you to make good your promise and induce you to an imitation of them For I find that Robert Gemetiensis S. Edmund Boniface and Robert Kalwarby Archbishops of Canterbury Richard Beaueyes and William de sancta Maria Bishops of London Iohn Bokingham and Philip Ripingdon Bishops of Lincolne Richard Peche and Roger de Weseham Bishops of Coventre and Lichfeild Herman Bishop of Sherborne Shaxton Bishop of Sabisbury William Warmest Iohn Voysy and Miles Coverdale who being deprived in Queene Maries time cared not to returne to his Bishoprike in Queene Elizabeths setling himselfe in London and there leading a private life as an ordinary Minister Bishops of Exeter Iohn Carpenter and Master Hugh Latimer Bishops of Worcester the later of whom skipped for joy when hee had cast off his Rochet for that hee was eased of so heavy a burthen and blessed God that he had given him grace to make himselfe a Quondam Bishop Ralfe de Maydestan Bishop of Hereford Putta Quickhelmus and Haymo Bishops of Rochester the first of them becoming a Schoolemaster spent the residue of his dayes in that kinde of life and could never abide to heare of returning to his Bishoprike Dubricius Bishop of Carleon Sulghein Bishop of S. Davids Iohn Hunden Bishop of Landaffe Caducanus Bishop of Bangor Elguensis Bishop of S. Assaph Colman S. Cuthbert Egelrit and Nicholas de Farnham Bishops of Lindesfarne and Durham the later of whom first of all twise refused and then at last resigned his Bishoprike out of conscience Paulinus de Leedes who peremptorily refused out of conscience to accept the Bishoprike of Carlile though thereunto elected and earnestly intreated by King Henry the second to accept the place who offer◠him 300. Markes yearly revenue for the increase of his living there as did Sylvester de Everdon for a time to Walter Malclerke Bishop of Carlile Cedda Coena aliàs Albert Athelwold Thurstan William Wickwane Archbishops of Yorke who all voluntarily most out of conscience some out of choller others for their ease some for their age others for other causes best knowen to themselves resigned both these their Archbishops and Bishoprikes being so many domesticke presidents to your Lordships who have long since given over the maine part of your Episcopall function preaching now to doe the like according to your joint and severall Promises in case you cannot proove your Archiepiscopall and Episcopall lurisdictions lure divino and give a satisfactory Answer to these few papers which I presume you can never doe since not onely Hieron Ambrose Chrysostom Augustine Sedulius Remigius Primasius Theodoret Haymo Beda Rabanus Maurus Theophilact Isidor Hispalensis Alcuminus Oecumenius Gratian the Councells of Carthag◠4. Con◠22. to 26. of Aquisgran c. 8. 10. 11. Iuo Camotensis Peter Lombard Bruno and other ancient but even Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Richard Archbishop of Ardmagh all the Archbishops Bishops and Cleargy of England in 37. H. 8. in their Institution of a Christen man chapter of Orders subscribed with all their names Stokesly Bishop of London Tonstall Bishop of Durham Reginald Peacocke Bishop of Chichester Bishop Hooper Bishop Latimer Bishop Iewel Bishop Alley but even Arch-bishop Whitgift himselfe and Bishop Bridges to omit Wickliffe Swinderby Walter Brute S. Iohn Oldcastle Master Iohn Lambert Master Iohn Bradford and other our Martyrs Master Thomas Beacon Master Iohn Fox Master Alexander Novell Doctor Whitaker Doctor Humfry Doctor Willet Doctor Agray Doctor Taylor Doctor Ames Doctor Raynolds Doctor Fulke and others in their authorized writings printed here in England cum privilegio and publike allowance with the forecited statutes of our Realme and all the Bishops Patents in the Raigne of King Edward the 6. in expresse termes conclude your Archiepiscopall and Episcopall Iurisdiction to over other Ministers to be a meere humaine invention long after the Apostles time to prevent or rather as the event hath ever since prooved to engender foment occasion all schismes factions errors and disorders in the Church when as Christ himselfe and his Apostles since ordained a Parity an equality both among his Apostles and Ministers and ever instituted many Bishops elders over every particular Church but never any one Bishop or Minister over many as the best meanes to preserve unity and roote out sinnes occasioned onely by the pride ambitious couvetousnesse power and Tyranny of domineering Prelates Thus craving pardon for my boldnesse in pressing your Lordships like two honest plaine dealing men to make good your words that so we may once againe become fellow-brethren and walke hand in hand together like equals without that infinite Lordly distance which is now between us I take my leave and rest Your Lordships faithfull Monitor A. B. C. A briefe Exhortation to the Archbishops and Bishops of England in respect of the present Pestilence MY LORDS for so you stile your selves and will be intiteled by all men notwithstanding the Lords owne inhibition to the contrary the Prophet Isay c. 26. 9. hath informed me that when Gods Judgements are on the earth the inhabitants of the world will learne righteousnes and who knowes whither your Lordships as properly inhabitants if not servants and louers to of the world as any of what ever profession though you should not be so may not now in this time of Pestilence when Gods Iudgements are everywhere so rife among us learne righteousnesse as well as others if you thinke not your selves to wise to learne to old to be instructed if any man will but take the paines to teach you Hearken therefore I beseech you as you tender either the preservation of your lives in this time of mortality or the salvation of your soules in the great day of Iudgement or the lives and soules of his Majesties Subjects committed to your pastorall charge to a short
instituted onely at first by severall Councells and Princes are no divine or Apostolicall but onely a humane institution This all the Archbishops Bishops and Clergy of England in their institution of a Christian man dedicated to King Henry the 8. fol. 59. 60. resolve in these tearmes IT IS OVT OF ALL DOVBT that there is no mention made neither in Scripture neither in the writings of any authenticall Doctor or Auctor of the Church being within the time of the Apostles that Christ did ever make or institute any distinction or difference to be in the preeminence of power order or Jurisdiction betweene the Apostles themselves or between the Bishops themselves but that they WERE ALL EQVALL IN POWER AVTHORITY AND IVRISDICTION And that there is now and since the time of the Apostles any such diversity or difference among the Bishops IT WAS DEVISED BY THE ANCIENT FATHERS of the primitive Church for the conservation of good order and unity of the Catholike Church and that either by the consent and authority or else at least BY THE PERMISSION AND SVFFRANCE OF THE PRINCES AND CIVILL POWERS for the time ruling For the sayd Fathers considering the great and infinite multitude of Christian men so largely increased through the world and taking examples of the old Testament thought it expedient to make an order of Degrees to be among Bishops and spirituall governours of the Church and so ordained some to be Patriarkes some to be Metropolitans some to be Archbishops some to be Bishops and to them did limit severally not onely their certaine Diocesse and Provinces wherein they should exercise their power and not exceed the same but also certaine bounds and limits of their Jurisdiction and power c. The same is averred by learned Bishop Hooper in his Exposition upon the 23. Psalme fol. 40. who sayth that Archbishops were first ordained in Constantines time yea Archbishop Whitgift himselfe confesseth as much that Archbishops are neither of divine or Apostolicall but humane institution since the Apostles times And Patricke Adamson Archbishop of S. Andrewes in Scotland in his publike recantation in the Synode of Fiffe in Scotland Anno 1591. professed sincerely ex animo that Bishops and Ministers by Gods word were all equall and the very same That the Hierarchy and superiority of Bishops over other Ministers NVLLO NITITVR VERBI DEI FVNDAMENTO had no foundation at all in the word of God but was a meere humane Institution long after the Apostles times from whence the Antichristian Papacis of the Bishop of Rome hath both its rise and progresse and that for 500. yeares last past it hath beene the cheifest instrument of persecuting and suppressing the truth and Saints of God in all Countries and Kingdomes as all Histories manifest Thus this Archbishop in his Palinody disclaiming not onely Archbishops but ever Diocaesan Bishops to be of divine but onely of humane institution long after the Apostles giving over his Archbishopricke thereupon and living a poore dejected life This being then granted on all hands it is cleare that Titus could not be Bishop of all Creete for then hee should be an Archbishop having divers Bishops under him those Elders which hee placed in every Citty of Creete being no other but Bishops Tit. 1. 7. as all acknowledge and Arch-bishops were not instituted till after the Apostles and Titus dayes For these reasons I conceive that Titus was not Bishop of Creete having no Episcopall or Archiepiscopall See there appointed to him which learned Gersonius Bucerus hath at large manifested to such who will take paines to peruse him Obj. 1. If any object 1. that the Postscript of the Epistle to Titus stiles him Titus ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Cretians Ergo hee was Bishop or Archbishop of Creete Answ 1. I answer 1. that as this and all other Postscripts are no part of the Scripture or Epistles as Mr. Perkins workes proove at large but an addition of some private person since as is evident by the words themselves in the preterimperfect tense and third person IT WAS WRITTEN TO TITVS c. therefore no convincing authority so this clause ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Cretians is no part of the Postscript but a late appendix to it not found in any of the Coppies of this Epistle which the Fathers follow in their Commentaries in few or no ancient Greeke Latine or English Coppies and Translations of this Epistle in few or no Testaments or late Commentators And had Titus been Bishop of Creete it is like Paul would have given him this Title in the Epistle where hee stiles him Titus his owne Sonne after the Common faith c. 1. v. 4. as well as in the Postscript which in truth is none of his but some others Perchance Oecumenius his addition the first that mentions it 1050. yeares after Christi since hee speakes of Bishops by name in that Epistle Tit. 1. 7. But of this see more in the answere to the Postscript of Timothy Secondly I answer that this Postscript is directly false for it saith that this Epistle was written from Nicopolls of Macedonia Now it is cleare by the 12. verse of the third chapter of this very Epistle that Paul was not at Nicopolis when hee writ it but at some other place for hee writes thus to Titus when I shall send Artemas unto thee or Tychicus be diligent â—ocome unto me to Nicopolis for THERE not here I have intended to winter Now had Paul then been at Nicopolis hee would have written thus for here not there I have intended to winter there being ever spoken of a place from which we are absent here only of a place present The Postscripâ— therfore being false as Mr. Perkins workes hence conclude can be no part of Canonicall scripture nor Epistle none of Paules penning but a meere ignorant Appendix of some scribe or comentator of after times and so no solid proofe to manifest Titus Bishop or Archbishop of Creete not at Nicopolis when this Epistle was written Obj. 2. If they secondly object that Paul left Titus in Creete to set in order the things that were wanting Tit. 1. 5. Ergo hee was a Bishop Answ 2. I answere that this is a meere inconsequent and I may argue in the like nature Our Archbishops and Bishops especially those who turne Courtiers Counsellers of State and Nonresidents leave their Archdeacons Chauncellers Commissaries Vicars generall and Officialls to visit order correct their Dioces and to set in order those Ceremonies Altars Images and Church ornaments which were well wanting now too much abounding in them Ergo Archdeacons Chauncellers Vicars generall and Officials are Archbishops and Bishops of those Dioces The King sends his Indges Commissioners and under Officers to some Counties or Citties to sett Causes Counties people Armes Forts Citties in good order and to see defects in these supplied Ergo Iudges Commissioners and Officers are Kings Churchwardens ought
are present shall lay their hands upon his head by the Bishops hand This Canon is incorporated by Gratian into the body of the Canon Law and hath been practised and put in ure in all ages since till now The very Glosse on Gratian yea and the Rhemists too assuring us that when a Preist is ordained all the Preists standing by doe lay their hands upon him neither is there any other forme of ordaining Ministers prescribed in the Canon Law or Councels but this alone which all Churches have observed and yet retaine Since therefore no Bishop may or ought of himselfe alone to ordaine Ministers without the assent and concurrence of the Clergy people and others there present as Gratian Illyricus and Gersome Bucerus proove at large and since all Ministers present ought joyne with the Bishop in the imposition of hands in all ordinations of Ministers and haue ever usually done it in all ages and Churches how this Prerogative of ordination should be peculiar to Bishops who may not doe it without Ministers concurrrence no more then Ministers without theirs I cannot yet conjecture True it is that the Councell of Ancyra about the yeare of our Lord 308. Can. 3. ordained That Chorall Bishops should not ordaine Presbyters or Deacons nor yet Presbyters of the Citty in another Parish but when the Bishop should permit them by his Letters And the Councell of Antioch under Pope Iulius Canon 10. decrees that Chorall Bishops should not ordaine Ministers and Deacons without the Bishops privity From whence I observe First That before these Councells restrained the power of Chorall Bishops and Presbyters that they did and might lawfully ordaine Ministers and Deacons without the Bishops privity or assent Secondly That by his assent and licence both the one and the other without the Bishops presence might lawfully ordaine Ministers and Deacons These Councels therefore plainly resolve that there is an inhaerent right and power of ordination in Presbyters and Chorall Bishops as they are Ministers and that with the Bishops consent and license they may lawfully execute it and conferre Orders therefore the right and power of ordination is not invested onely in Bishops as they are Bishops for then none else could ordaine but they alone The forged Constitutions of the Apostles fathered on Pope Clement prescribe That Presbyters and Deacons may not ordaine other Preists and Deacons but Bishops onely And the Councell of Hispalis or Spaw about the yeare 6 7. Canon 5. 7. out of Pope Leo Epist. 86. decrees that Presbyters and Chorall Bishops which are all one should not presume to ordaine Preistes or Deacons or to consecrate Altars or Churches For in holy writ by Gods Commaund Moses onely erected the Altar in the Tabernacle of the Lord hee onely annointed it because hee was the High Preist of God as it is written Moses and Aaron among his Preists Therefore that which was commaunded onely to the cheife Preists to doe of whom Moses and Aaron were a Type Presbyters who carry the figure of the sonnes of Aaron may not presume to enchroach upon For although they have in most things a common dispensation of Mysteries with Bishops yet they must know that some things are notwithstanding prohibited them by the authority of the old Law some things BY NEW ECCLESIASTICALL RVLES or CANONS as the CONSECRATION OF PRESBYTERS DEACONS and virgins as also the Constitution benediction or unction of the Altar Verily it is not lawfull for them to consecrate Churches or Altars not to give the Holy Ghost the comforter by imposition of hands to the faithfull who are to be baptized or to those who are converted from heresie nor to made Chrisme nor to signe the fore-head of those that are baptized with Chrisme nor yet publikely to reconcile any penitent person in the Masse nor to send formed Epistles to any All these things are unlawfull to Presbyters or Chorall Bishops because they have not Pontificatus apicem the highest degree of the High Preist-hood which by the AVTHORITY OF THE CANONS is commaunded to be due onely to Bishops that by this the distinction of the Degrees and the Hight of the dignity of the High Preist might be demonstrated Neither shall it be lawfull for the Presbyters to enter into the Baptistery before the Bishops presence not to baptize or signe an infant the Bishop being present nor to reconcile penitents without the Bishops commaund nor to consecrate the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ hee being present nor in his presence to teach or blesse or salute the people no nor yet to exhort them all which things are knowne to be prohibited by the See Apostolicke These two last authorities are the cheife that the Papists Jesuites and our Prelates insist on to Proove that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops not to Presbyters But to remove these twoo obstacles consider First that there is not a word in either of these two Constitutions that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops by divine right and institution or that Presbyters by Gods Law have no power to ordaine Ministers and Deacons the thing onely in question Secondly That the Councell expresly resolves that the power and right of ordination is prohibited Presbyters and appropriated onely to Bishops not by any Law of God or ancient Constitutions of the Apostles or those who immediately succeeded them but onely by some Ecclesiasticall Canons and Constitutions then newly made and by the authority onely of the See of Rome which cannot deprive Ministers of that power of ordination which the Scripture and God himselfe hath given them Thirdly That before these late Canons and Constitutions Presbyters might lawfully ordaine Ministers and Deacons Fourthly That the cheife reason why the power of ordination was taken from Ministers and thus monopolized to Bishops even by their owne Constitutions wherein they have ever favoured themselves was onely to advance the power authority dignity ambition and pride of the Pope and Prelates and to distinguish them in degree and order from ordinary Ministers which of right are and otherwise would be their equalls both in Jurisdiction power and degree Fiftly That they bring not one syllable out of the new Testament to proove that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops not to Ministers which they would have certainly done had there beene any text to warrant it but that all they alleadge is out of the old Testament to wit that Moses onely consecrated the Tabernacle and the Altar Ergo none but Bishops must consecrate Ministers Altars Churches A learned argument ergo none but Kings and temporall Magistrates no not Bishops themselves may doe it had beene a better consequent For Moses was no Preist muchlesse a Bishop the High Preist which was Aarons office not his there being but one High Preist at once and hee a type of our High Preist Christ but a civill Magigistrate yet God commaund
hee that ordaineth or consecrateth Ministers is greater in Iurisdiction power order or degree then the parties consecrated and ordained is a notorious dotage and untruth broached at first by Epiphanius to confute Aërius his orthodox opinion of the parity of Bishops and Presbyters and since that taken up at second hand by Bellarmine and other Iesuites the Councell of Trent Bishop Downham with other Patriots of the Popes and Prelates Monarchy and last of all like Coleworts twice sodde usurped by all our Prelates in their high Commission at Lambeth in their Censure of Doctor Bastwicke who laid the whole weight and burthen of their Episcopall superiority and precedency over other Ministers upon this rotten counterfeit Pillar unable any wayes to support it as these ensuing demonstrations will evidence at large bejond all contradiction For first of all we know that Cardinals and Bishops at this day as the people and Clergy yea the Emperor heretofore doe elect and consecrate the Pope yet they are not greater in order dignity power or Iurisdiction then the Pope but inferior and hee farre superior to them in all these We read that Metropolitanes Patriarkes Primates and Archbishops are created consecrated and installed by ordinary Bishops as the Arch-bishops of Canterburry and Yorke have oftentimes beene by the Bishops of London Rochester Winchester Salisbury and the like yet are they not greater in dignity power authority place or order then they but subordinate and subject to them whom they thus ordaine in every of these We know by dayly experience that one Bishop consecrates and ordaines another and hee a second and that second a third yet all of them are of equall power and Iurisdiction not different or distinct in order or degree and sometimes the last of the three in respect of his Bishopricke takes precedency of the rest that ordained him as the Bishops of London Durham and Winchester doe here with us and other Bishops the like in forraigne parts So some Ministers joyne with the Bishop in the ordination and laying of hands on others yet one of them is not superior in Iurisdiction order or degree to the other Now were this our Prelates objected Paradoxe true the Cardinals should be greater in order power and degree then the Popes the Bishops then Patriarkes Metropolitanes Primates and Archbishops one Bishop one Minister then another yea there should be so many different degrees among Bishops and Ministers as there are successive subordinate ordinations which is both false and absurd S. Hierom in his Epistle to Evagrius and on Titus 1. with Alcuvinus De Divinis Officiis c. 37. affirme that in the primitive Church Bishops were both Elected and consecrated by Presbyters and the Scripture is expresse that both Paul and Timothy were ordained by the Presbytery Acts 13. 3. 4. 1. Tim. 4. 14. If the Bishops reason then be orthodoxe it followes inevitably that in the Apostles times and the primitive Church Pres byters were superior in Iurisdiction order and Degree to Bishops yea to Paul and Timothy the one an Apostle the other an Euangelist and not Bishops Lords paramount over them as they now pretend and then farewell their Hierarchy which they so much contend for The Archbishop of Canterbury who stood much upon this argument at Doctor Bastwicks Censure both crowned our Soveraigne Lord King Charles and baptised his sonne Prince Charles will hee therefore conclude that hee is greater in power authority place and Iurisdiction then they The Archbishops of Canterbury have usually crowned and baptized the Kings of England and the Archbishops of Rheemes the Kings of France will they therefore inferre Ergo they are greater in power dignity and authority then they as the Popes argue that they are greater then the Emperors because the Bishops of Rome have usually crowned the Emperors Are the Princes Electors in Germany greater then the Emperors or of Poland Bohemia and Sweden greater then their Kings because they elect and create them Emperors and Kings Are the Lord Major of London and Yorke or the Major of other Citties inferior to the Commons or the Lord Chauncellors of our Vniversities of Oxford and Cambridge lesse honorable potent and inferior to the Doctors Procters and Masters of Arts or the heades or Masters of the Colleadges and Halls in them subordinate or lesse worshipfull or eminent then the fellowes because they are elected constituted and created by them to be such Are the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Parliament not so good as those freeholders Cittizens and Burgesses who elect them or the Masters of Companies inferior to those that choose them If not as all must grant how is this maxime true that hee who constitutes ordaines or consecrates another is greater then the parties constituted ordained or consecrated and that in Iurisdiction place order and degree Our Popish Preists are not afraid to proclaime that in their consecration of the Sacrament they create their very Creator and make no lesse then Christ himselfe are they therefore greater and higher in order and degree then Christ the great and onely High Preist the * Cheife Shepheard and Bishop of our Soules whose Vicar and Substitute the Pope himselfe doth but claime to be Certainly if this their Popish proposition be true they must needs be one order and degree Higher in point of Preisthood then Christ himselfe who must then lose his titles of High Preist and cheife Shepheard because every Masse-Preist will be paramount him in that hee not onely consecrates but creates him too We read in Scripture that Kings Preists and Prophets were usually annointed and consecrated to be such with oyle was therefore the oyle that consecrated them greater or better then they Are the font and water better then the children baptized in or with them The Diadems better then Kings because they crowne them or the very hands of Bishops and Ministers worthier then Ministers ordained by them If not then are not Bishops greater then the Ministers which they ordaine or consecrate since both are but instruments Servants not prime originall agents Lords or Supreme absolute actors in these severall consecrations and actions If we cast our eyes either upon nature or policy we finde this proposition of our Prelates a meere â—alsehood In nature we â—ee that a man begets a man an horse an horse an asse an asse a dogge a dogge c. equall one to the other in nature quality species and degree the sonne being as much a man as the Father the colt as much an horse as the steed that begott him In Civill or Politique Constitutions wee see the like In our Vniversities Doctors and Professors of Divinity Phisicke Law Musicke create other Doctors of the same Professions equall to themselves and as much Doctors in these arts as they one Doctor in each of these being as much and no more a Doctor then another save onely in point of time or antiquity
as well temporall and civill as Ecclesiasticall and all these their offices stiled in Greeke a Bishopricke since every Pastor Watchman Presbyter Minister Rector and Curate who takes care of watcheth feedeth overlooketh instructeth or keepeth the flock and people committed to his charge is even in the Scriptures Language called a Bishop and said to act to doe the office of a Bishop since those who out of charity love or freindship goe to visit others who are either sicke poore Fatherlesse or otherwise distressed and God himselfe when hee comes to punish or shew mercy unto others are in the Greeke and Scripture phrase said to visit and play the Bishops as appeareth by the forecited Scriptures and by Acts. 15. 36. Where Paul said to Barnabas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Let us goe againe and visit our Brethren in every City where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they doe From which text the Rhemists would make Bishops ordinary visitation to be Jure Divino but this was no Lordly Episcopall visitation such as our Bishops now keepe for we read of no visitation Articles oathes fees or presentmens in it neither were Paul and Barnabas Bishops but it was a meere visitation of love as one freind visits another not of Jurisdiction as the last words And see how they doe together with the Councell of Laodicea Can. 57. expound it and verse 14. Symon hath declared how God 〈◊〉 at the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name And Acts. 7. 23. When Moses was full 40. yeares old it came into his heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to visit his brethren the children of Israell and since these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to visit oversee or play the Bishop imply no Lordship Soveraingty Dominion Jurisdiction or Lordly Episcopall authority in them at least no such as our Bishops now claime and exercise but rather an Act of humility charity Service and inferiority to the persons visited as is evident by Mathew 25. 3. 6. 43. Acts. 7. 23. c. 15. 36. Iam. 1. 27. Heb. 2. 6. 1. Pet. 5. 2. 3. 5. It hence unanswerably followes that Bishops Episcopall Lordly visitations are not Iure Divino and that other Ministers are as much Visitors and may visit as well as they that every Presbyter Minister Curate who doth faithfully discharge his duty is as much as truly as properly a Bishop both in the Scriptures language and in Gods account as any Diocaesan Bishop or Prelate whatsoever That those Bishops who merge themselves in pleasures idlenesse or secular affaires and doe not diligently faithfully intirely give themselves to preach Gods word instruct and teach the people visit the Fatherlesse imprisoned sicke poore widdowes and flockes committed to them which few of our Prelates now deine to doe are in truth in Gods in Christs account and in the Scriptures language no Bishops at all what ever they pretend that the word Bishop is not a title of Dominion Soveraingty Jurisdiction Glory Power Preheminency Pompe State Authority and Commaund as our Bishops who now presume to monopolize it to themselves alone though common 〈…〉 God 's word and ancient writers to every Minister pretend but of humility office service labor care circumspection watchfulnesse meeknesse tender-heartednesse charity familiarity and brotherly kindnes which most Prelates have now quite shaken off The Fathers stiling therefore of Timothy Bishop of Ephesus or Titus Bishop of Crete or Bishops will neither proove them to be Diocaesan or sole Bishops of those Churches or that they had a superiority or Iurisdiction as they were Bishops over all other Ministers or Presbyters in those Churches or that Archbishops or Bishops are Iure Divino superior to or different in order or degree from Presbyters who have the selfesame Commission or authority given them by Christ as they and so have equall authority with them and are as much Bishops every way by Gods Law as they even as every High Commissioner of the Quorum is as much an High Commissioner as the Archbishop of Canterbury or Yorke and hath as much authority as an High Commissioner as they since they have all the selfesame Commission which gives no greater power to one of them then the other but the same to both Indeed had Christ given a different Commission to his Apostles and the seaventy Disciples or to Timothy and Titus then to other Elders and Bishops of the Churches of Ephesus and Crete or to Bishops then hee hath given to Presbyters and Ministers there might have beene some ground to have prooved the 12. Apostles Timothy Tytus and Bishops greater in Iurisdiction power authority and degree then the 70. Disciples Presbyters and other Ministers by divine institution But since it is apparant by the Scriptures that the 12. Apostles and 70. Disciples what ever some men have rashly determined to the contrary had but one and the selfe-same commission given unto them by Christ that Timothy Titus Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates have no other no larger Patent Commission or authority granted unto them by Christ then Presbyters and ordinary Ministers as the booke of Ordination manifests where the same words are used the same commission given from God to Ministers at the ordination of every Minister as there is to Bishops at the consecration of any Archbishop or Bishop since they are all joyned together in one and the selfesame divine Charter and all claime by one and the selfesame grant as is evident by Math. 28. 19. 20. Marke 6. 15 16. Iohn 20. 22. 23. Acts. 1. 8. c. 10. 47. c. 20. 17. 28. Col. 4. 17. 1. Tim. 3. 1. to 7. c. 4. 12. 13. c. 5. 17. 18. 20. 21. 22. c. 6. 11. 12. 17. 18. 19. 20. 2. Tim. 2. 14. 15. 16. c. 4. 1. to 16. Tit. 1. 5. to 14. c. 2. 1. to 15. c. 3. 1. 2. 8. 9. 10. 1. Pet. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 2. Pet. 1. 12. 13. 1. Cor. 1. 12. 13. 17. c. 3. 4. 5. to 11. 21. 22. c. 4. 1. 6. 7. 17. c. 9. 16. 17. c. 13. 29. 30. 31. 32. Ephes 4. 11. 12. with other Scriptures it is most apparant and undeniable that by Gods word and institution they are all equall both in point of office power Iurisdiction and authority not one of them greater higher or superior then the other having the selfe-same divine ordination commission office and charge Finally Eusebius records onely that Timothy IS REPORTED to be the First Bishop of Ephesus and Titus of the Churches in Crete So that all the Fathers Authorities who follow Eusebius are grounded onely upon this bare report not upon any certainty therfore not to be granted or relyed on The rather because there have beene anciently in Crete no lesse then 4. Archbishops and 21. Bishops Suffâ—â—aganes now it is very improbable that Paul would
THE VNBISHOPING OF TIMOTHY AND TITVS OR A briefe elaborate Discourse prooving Timothy to be no Bishop much lesse any sole or Diocaesan Bishop of Ephesus nor Titus of Crete and that the power of ordination or imposition of hands belongs Iure Divino to Presbyters as well as to Bishops and not to Bishops onely Wherein all Objections and Pretences to the contrary are fully answered and the pretended superiority of Bishops over other Ministers and Presbyters Iure Divino now much contended for utterly subverted in a most perspicuous maner By a Wellwisher to Gods truth and people Matthew 15. 13. Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out Chrysostom Opus imperfectum in Matth. Hom. 35. Quicunque desideraverit Primatum in terra inveniet in Coelo confusionem ut jam in ter servos Christi non sit de Primatu certamen In the Yeare M.DC.XXXVI To the Reader CHristian Reader what that Oracle of wisedome hath registred Proverb 13. 10. Onely by pride cometh contention was never more really verified in any one particular then in the Prelates whose ambitious windy tumor and overswelling pride as in al former ages so in this hath filled the whole Christian world with warres with civill dissensions and the Church it selfe with endlesse schismes controversies contentions which else would never had existence The pretended primacy of the great Pontificall Bishop of Rome what tumults battles warres treasons rebellions murders martyrdomes hath it ingendred on the one hand what disputes bookes of controversie and paper-battles on the other What innumerable Schismes Treatises which the endoubted parity of Ministers and Bishops Iure Divino had prevented have the Prelates pretended superiority by divine institution over Presbyters and their fellow-Ministers produced in all ages Churches especially in our owne which from the first glimmerings of the Gospell in Iohn Wiclifes dayes till now hath beene more or lesse disquieted with this unhappy controversie which being raked up in the ashes for a space by reason of our Bishops waiving of their divine right which not onely Archbishop Anselme Richardus Armachanus and Bishop Peacocke of old but likewise Bishop Tonstall Bishop Stokesly Bishop Hooper Bishop Iewell Bishop Alley Bishop Pilkington yea Archbishop Whitgift himselfe and Bishop Bridges to omitt all others have since them publikely disclaimed confessing Bishops and Presbyters lure Divino to be allone equall and the same and the Statutes of 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. 2. Mariaec 8. 1. Eliz ab c. 1. for ever judicially in full Parliament resolved against yet our present ambitious Prelates studying to surmount their predecessors not onely in worldly pompe and power derived from their indulgent Soveraigne but likewise in spirituall Iurisdiction claimed from God himselfe though they have neither time nor care to preach pray or doe him any Episcopall service being wholly taken up with secular offices and affaires and unable to serve God for serving his incompacible enemies MamoÌ„n and the world have lately blowne abroade the coales and resuscitated the violent flames of this contention afresh by a new ambitious claime of all their Episcopall Soveraignity and Iurisdiction Iure Divino even in the High Commission Court it selfe in the late censure of Doctor Bastwicke for a Booke written onely against the Pope and Italian Bishops without any reflection upon them as all men then conceived and therefore wondred at till their magnifying of the Church of Rome as a true Church in that Censure of his and some late licensed Pamphlets their Antichristian and Papall proceedings against Gods truth Ministers Ordinances and the late authorizing of Doctor Pocklingtons Sunday no Sabbath by the Archbishop of Canterburies owne Chaplaine Master Bray which expressly avers that our Arch-bishops and Bishops can and doe lineally derive their Pedigree and Succession from Peter and the Popes of Rome hath since in structed the ignorant people that Popes Italian and English Bishops are in truth all members of the same body whelpesof the same litter branches of the same tree and our present Prelates the Pope of Romes owne lineally discended sonnes so as they could not but be sensible of and highly offended if not actually lashed wounded with their fathers scourge Flagellum Pontificis Episcoporum Latialium being a whip for them as well as for the Italian Prelates Now because in that late Censure of theirs they all founded the divine right of their Episcopall Superintendency and Dominion over their Fellow-Pres byters onely on the examples of Timothy and Titus whom they then new consecrated Diocaesan Bishops over Ephesus and Crete 1608. yearely after their decease though Christ and Paul himselfe had never done it in their life times and on a supposed divine Monopoly of conferring Orders and imposing hands appropriated by God himselfe to Diocaesan Bishops distinct in Iurisdiction power and degree from Ministers and Presbyters I have therefore here for the future quieâ—â—â—ing of this much agitated controversie confined my discourse within the lists of such questions not formerly fully debated by any in the English tongue that I have met with by the discussion whereof I have I suppose so shaken these rotten pillars and undermined these sandy foundations of their high-towring over-swelling Hierarchy as that I have left them no divine prop or groundworke to support it longer so as it must now certainly for any stay is left it in Scripture come tumbling downe headlong to the very ground and me thinkes I heare the fall of it allready sounding in my eares unlesse with speed they wholly quit these false foundations and bottom their Prelacy and Iurisdiction onely on his Majesties Princely favour not Gods or Christs divine institution which because they have so lately judicially disclaimed in open Court and even at this present execute all Acts of Episcopall Iurisdiction by their owne inherent power without any speciall Commission from his Majesty under his greate Seale keeping their Courts visitations and making out all their citations proces excommunications probate of wils Letters of administration c. in their owne names and under their owne Seales as if they were absolute Popes and Monarches contrary to the Statutes of 25. H. 8. c. 19. 26. H. 8. c. 1. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. their Oath of Supremacy and their High-Commission it selfe which might teach them another lesson as that it confines them to doe all things by his Majesties speciall Commission in his name and under his Seale when they are all there joyned together much more therefore when they are divided in their severall Dioces and because they have blotted out Caesars Image and superscription his Armes and royall Title out of their Courts proces and all ecclesiasticall proceedings and inserted onely their owne in leive thereof that so they may appeare to all the world to be no longer
his but theirs and hee if hee should chance to chalenge and resume them as his owne might not henceforth owne or claime them to be his they have litle reason now to attempt and his Majesty farre lesse to suffer and so having neither God nor the King divine nor humaine Right to support them they must as the proverbe is between two stooles the arse goes to the ground now at last in the middest of their usurped greatnes fall flat upon the ground and this their fall q proove very great because they now of late are growen so not being content with the office of a Bishop but they must be also Kings temporall Lords and cheife state officers against Christs expresse commaund and Gods owne Law to sway both Church and state at pleasure so they may ingrosse into their sacred hands the sole rule and government of the world having great possessions and being great Lords also as they are Prelates and yet doing nothing therefore at all in point of preaching fecding and instructing the people committed to their spirituall charge but onely playing the part of a Bishop as a Christmas game-player doth of a King and as a Poppet which springeth up and downe and cryeth Peepe Peepe and goeth his way as Doctor Barnes writes wittily of the Bishops of his age Which swelling greatnesse 〈◊〉 ambition of theirs as it will make their downefall the greater so the speedier being a sure prognosticke of their approaching ruine as the greatnesse of any unnaturall swelling in the body is of its present ensuing rupture u Pride ever going before destruction and a lofty spirit before a fall and they usually dogging them at the heeles because God himselfe resisteth the proud but then most of all when they are at the highest according to that of the Psalmist Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth like drosse which assoone as ever it hath gotten up to the top of the pot and elevated it selfe above the 〈◊〉 mettle is then scummed off and cast away Towards which their desired speedy downfall if these my unworthy labours shall through Gods blessing on and thy prayers for them contribute any assistance for the ease releife or comfort of Gods poore people who are every where most wrongfully without yea against all Law and reason oppressed and cast out of their benefices freeholds possessions imprisoned fined excommunicated silenced suspended vilified crushed and troden under feet by their intolerable tyrannie might and unbounded extravagant power I shall neither repent me of the penning nor thou thy selfe of the reading of it wherefore here humbly prostrating it to thy impartiall Censure and commending it to the blessing of that omnipotent God who to shew the infinitenes of his wisedome and power doth oft times choose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise the weake things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the world and things that are despised yea and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence I shall take my leave of thee till some further occasion Farewell and pray for me To the Right Reverend Fathers in God William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury And Richard Lord Archbishop of Yorkes Primates and Metropolitanes of all England MY Lords I have sundry times heard both of you joyntly and severally protesting even in open Court not onely in the High-Commission but in Dr. Laytons and two other cases since Starchamber too whether seriously or vauntingly onely let the event determine That if you could not proove your Episcopall Iurisdiction and function which you now claime and exercise over other Ministers and your selves as you are Bishops to be superior in power dignity and degree to other Ministers Iure Divino a doctrine which Patricke Adamson Archbishop of S. Andrewes in Scotland publikely recanted in the Synod of Fiffe Anno 1591. as directly repugnant to and having no foundation at all in the word of God you would forthwith cast away your Rochets of your backes lay downe your Bishoprickes at his Majesties feet and not continue Bishops on ehower longer What your Lordships have so oft averred and publikely promised before many witnesses I hope bonâ fide because judicially in full Court upon goodadvise not rashly on some sodaine fitt of choler I shall make bold to challenge you to make good without more delay either by giving a solid satisfactorie speedy answere to this short Treatise consisting onely of 2. Questions which you may devide between you and so speedily reply to if your great secular occasions not your praying and frequent preaching which are onely truly Epicopall though you deeme them overmeane imployment for Arch-bishops interrupt you not which manifests all that Jus Divinum which hitherto both or either your Lordships have pretended for your Episcopalities to be but a meere absurd ridiculous faction having not the least shadow of Scripture to support it or in case you either cannot or faile to give such an Answer to it in convenient time by pulling off your Rochets and resingning up your Archbishoprikes which without all question are but a meere humaine and no divine Institution as I have evidenced into his Majesties hands from whom you dare not deny you onely and wholly received them with all your Episcopall Jurisdiction and Authority thereunto annexed whereby you difference your selves from or advance your selves above your Fellow-Ministers as their supreme Lords unlesse you will split your selves against the hard rocke of a Praemunire and the Statutes of 26. H. 8. c. 1. 31. H. 8. c. 9. 10. 37. H. c. 17. 1. Ed. 6. c. 2. 1. Eliz. c. 1. 5. Eliz. c. 1. 8. Eliz. c. 1. which Acts as they will informe your Lordships notwithstanding all your former vaunts and brags of divine right That the Archbishops Bishops Arch-deacons and other Ecclesiasticall persons of this Realme HAVE NO MANER OF IVRISDICTION ECCLESIASTICALL BVT BY VNDER AND FROM THE KINGS ROYALL MAJESTY to whom by holy Scripture ALL AVTHORITY AND POWER IS WHOLY GIVEN to heare and determine all maner causes Ecclesiasticall and to correct vice and sinne whatsoever and to all such persons as his Majesty shall appoint thereunto That all authority and Iurisdiction spirituall and temporall is derived and deducted from the Kings Majesty as supreme head of the Church and Realme of England and so justly acknowledged by the Cleargy thereof That all Courts Ecclesiasticall within the Realme were then and now ought to be though they are not kept by no other power or authority either forraigne or within the Realme but by the authority of his most excellent Majesty onely and that by vertue of some speciall commission or letters Patents under his Majesties great Seale and in his name and right alone That all power of Visitation of the Ecclesiasticall State and Persons much more then of our Vniversities
or to have enjoyned them in speciall maner to reverence honor and yeild him all Canonicall obedience as their supreame Diocaesan All which Paul utterly neglects or forgets to doe or particularly to charge Timothy to take heed to or feed this flocke hee being ofta Nonresident from it as I have prooved Yea making such hast to be at Hierusalem by the feast of Pentecost v. 16. that hee could not spare time to goe to Ephesus hee needed not to haue sent for the Elders of Ephesus to Miletus to give them these instructions since Timothy their Bishop was then present with him to whom hee might and would no doubt have imparted them without further trouble hath hee then in truth beene Bishop of that Church But this sending for these Elders in his hast and stiling them Bishops of that flocke c. without any mention at all of Timothy who was none of the Elders sent for to Ephesus is an infallible evidence that hee was neither Bishop nor first or sole Bishop of that Citty Adde wee to this that when Paul exhorted Timothy to abide at Ephesus there were then in that Citty Elders who did both rule well and labor in the word and doctrine and so were worthy double honor 〈◊〉 Tim. 5 1 17 19. Now these very Elders as Paul himselfe affirmes were made BISHOPS of the Church of Ephesus by the Holy Ghost Acts. 20 17 28. Therefore Timothy could not be the first the sole Bishop of the Ephesians as the false Postscript of the second Epistle to him stiles him Moreover it was the Apostles maner in those times to place many Bishops and Elders in every Church not to constitute one Monarchicall Bishop over many witnesse Acts. 11 30 c. 14 23 c. 15 2 4 6 22 13 c. 16 4 c. 20 17 28. c. 21 18 c. 22 5. Phil. 1 1. 1 Tim. 5 17. 1 Pet. 5 1 2 3 Tit. 1 5 7 Iam. 5 14. Hebr 13 17. Acts. 13 1 2. 1. Cor. 14 29 30 31 32. 1. Thes 5 12 15 Rom. 16 3 9 12. Col. 1 7 c. 4 9 12 17. which testify that there were many Bishops and Elders both at Ierusalem Corinth Philippi Rome Thessalonica Colosse Ephesus yea in all other Churches in Crete and elsewhere at one time by which the Church of God was taught and joyntly governed as by a common Councell of Bishops and Elders as Iraeneus Ignatius Ambrose Hierome and other ancients testifie Hence Epiphanius Eusebius testify that Paul and Peter were joynt Bishops of Rome at the same time Tertullian writing of the Church-governors in his age saith Praesident nobis probati Seniores c. that approoved Elders not one Diocaesan Bishop were Presidents over every severall Christian Congregation and in his booke de Corona Militis hee affirmes the same Since therefore the Apostles themselves ordained many Elders and Bishops in every Citty and in Ephesus too it is neither possible nor probable that Timothy alone should be constituted sole Bishop of Ephesus Finally it is recorded by Iraeneus Eusebius Nicephorus Metraphrastes Hierome Chytraeus Baronius and many others quoted to my hand by Gersonius Bucerus Dissertatio De Gubernatione Ecclesiae p. 520. to 526. That S. Iohn the beloved Apostle after the Councell held at Hierusalem Acts. 15. resorted to Ephesus residing governing and instructing that Church which Paul had planted after Pauls departure thence with the Churches in Asia thereunto adjoyning even till Trajanes dayes and that though he were banished thence by Domitian for a season yet after his exile hee returned thither againe writing an Epistle to that Church during the time of his banishment Revel 2. 1. which hee names before all the other Churches of Asia If S. Iohn then kept his residence at Ephesus and ruled that Church by his Apostolicall power even till Trajanes dayes how could Timothy be sole Bishop and Superintendent there there being no need of a Bishop where an Apostle was present and resident to governe by whose divine superior authority and presence all Episcopall Iurisdiction was suspended To close up this particular point Bucolcerus Fasciculus Temporum the Centuary writers and some others record that Timothy survived S. Iohn living till about the yeare of Christ 108. and was then martyred in the third persecution under Trajan or under Nero or Domitian If this were true and that Timothy continued Bishop of Ephesus till his death as the Patriotes of our Prelates affirme then by their owne doctrine it will necessarily follow that Timothy was the Angel of the Church of Ephesus which they interpret to be the Bishop of that Sea to whom S. Iohn writes Rev. 2. 1. 5. charging him that hee had left his first love and therefore admonished him to remember whence hee was fallen to repent and doe the first workes c. But it is not credible nor probable that Timothy a man so pious so laborious so vigilant and so much applauded by Paulin most of his Epistles should be this backsliding Angell of the Church of Ephesus which the contents of our authorized Bibles to omit all other Commentators of the last translation affirme to bee the Ministers not the Bishop of that Church as some Apostatizing Prelates glosse it therefore from thence and all other the premises I may now safely conclude that Timothy was not a Bishop nor yet the first sole Diocesan Bishop of Ephesus as our Prelates groundlesly affirme whose allegations to the contrary I shall next propose and refell that so the truth may be more perspicuous Object 〈◊〉 The first allegation to proove Timothy a Bishop when Paul writ the first Epistle to him is the Postscript of the second Epistle which runns thus the second Epistle unto Timothius ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Ephesians was written from Rome when Paul was brought before Nero the second time Hence Bishop White and others conclude Timothy to be a Bishop Answer To which I answer First that this Postscript is no Scripture all others as in M. Perkins workes is prooved at large no part of the Epistle no Appendix of S. Paules but a private observation annexed to it by some Scribe or other after the Epistle written without any divine inspiration as the words themselves demonstrate The SECOND Epistle unto Timotheus ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Ephesians was written from Rome when Paul was brought before Nero the second time Where observe First that this Postscript is written not in the name of Paul but of some third person as the whole frame of it Demonstrates Secondly that this Postscript is no direction given by Paul to Timothy as the words the second Epistle unto Timotheus ordained the first Bishop of the Church of the Ephesians was written c. evidence but a direction of some Notary or Commentator to the Reader who here speakes both of Paul and Timothy
not his second the Postscript therefore of his second Epistle is no argument to proove that he was a Bishop when the first Epistle was written for why then should not the Postscript of the first Epistle stile him a Bishop as wel as the second yea rather then the second since the first hath much matter in it both concerning the offices and qualities of a Bishop the second very little or nothing save onely of diligent and constant preaching in season and out of season which belongs indifferently to all Bishops and Ministers and is so farre from being proper and peculiar to Bishops in these dayes that it is hardly common to or with any of them Rare to most of them and altogether improper to some of them who like the dunsticall Bishop of Dunkleden thinke it no part of their Episcopall office and that they were never so much as ordained to preach but rather to sit mute and domineere like Lords and that preaching belongs onely to Curats and inferior Ministers not to Lordly Prelates who seldome climbe now into a Pulpit above once a yeare whereas Chrysostome Augustine Ambrose Cyrill Hooper and other Bishops anciently preached once at least every day Obj. 2. The second allegation is this that Paul describes to Timothy the office qualities carriage and duties of a Bishop instructing him how to demeane himselfe in that office 1. Tim. 3 4. and 5. Therefore hee was a Bisshop Answ 1. To this I answer first that Paul by a Bishop in this Epistle meanes no Diocaesan Bishop in dignity and degree above a Preshyter but onely such a Bishop as was equall the same and no wayes different from an Elder as all the Fathers and most moderne Expositors on this and other texts accord Such a Bishop I acknowledge Timothy to be and so this instruction to him implyes but that hee was a Diocaesan Bishop superior in dignity to a Presbyter this text and argument cannot evince Secondly Admit it meant of a Diocaesan Bishop yet it followes not thence that Timothy was such a one this Epistle being written rather to instruct others then Timothy who was so well tutered before both by his grand mother Lois and Paul 1. Tim. 6. 12. 20. c. 4. 6. 14. 16. 2. Tim. 1. 5. 6. 13. 14. c. 2. 2. c. 3. 10. 14. 15. rather for a patterne of the qualification and duety of Ministers to direct the Church in all future ages then to informe Timothy at that time whence in both these Epistles there are some predictions of the Apostacy and degeneracy of the last times more necessary for others then Timothy to know 1. Tim. 5. 24. 25. c. 6. 15. c. 4. 1. to 7. 2. Tim. 3. 1. to 10. Thirdly there is in the same chapter instructions given concerning Deacons Widdowes and others yet Timothy was neither Deacon nor Widdow which being necessary for the Church of God and for Timothy also to know as hee was an Euangelist a fellow-helper and assistant of Paul in his Ministeriall and Apostolicall function and as his delegate to order and regulate the Church accordingly argue him to be no more a Bishop as is surmised then that every Minister and Christian for whose instruction and direction this Epistle was written as well as for Timothies are Bishops or then any Archbishops or Bishops instructions to their Archdeacons Vicars Generalls Chauncellers or Officials for Ecclesiasticall affaires or Visitations argue them to be Archbishops or Bishops Fourthly We read of divers bookes concerning the office and regiment of Kings of Magistrates and Captaines dedicated to young Princes and others who were neither Kings Magistrates nor Captaines of diverse tractates concerning Bishops inscribed to such who were no Bishops yet the dedicating of such Treatises to them did neither constitute or necessarily imply them to be Kings Magistrates Captaines Bishops Why then should this Epistle to Timothy wherein are some things concerning the office qualities and duties of a Bishop proove him convincingly to be such a one Obj. 3. The third evidence to proove Timothy a Bishop is taken from the 1. Tim. 5. 22. Where hee is enjoyned to lay hands suddenly on no man that is to ordaine no man suddenly a Minister Therefore certainly hee was a Bishop because none but Bishops have power to ordaine Ministers Answ 1. I answer first that the laying on of hands hath divers significations in Scripture Sometimes it is taken for an apprehension of another as a Mal factor to punish or bring him to judgement for his offences Exod. 24. 11. Esther 8. 7. Gen. 37. 22. Exod. 6. 13. Nehem. 13. 1. Luke 21. 22. in which sence it may be well taken here as the proceeding verses evidence Sometimes it is used for reconciliation of persons at variance Iob. 9. 33. Sometimes for benediction or blessing of another Matth. 9. 15. Sometimes for curing and healing Mark 5. 23. Math. 19. 18. Mark 6. 5. Luke 4. 40. Sometimes for confirmation as many affirme Acts 8. 17. 18. 19. Sometimes for ordination as Acts. 6 6 cap. 8 17. 11. cap. 13. 3. 1. Timoth. 4. 14. 2. Timoth. 1. 6. Acts. 19. 6. In which of these sences it is here meant is not certainely resolved and so no inference can be infallibly raised thence Secondly Admit it is meant of ordination as most conceive it yet that prooves not Timothy to be a Bishop since not onely Apostles Euangelists and the Apostles fellow-helpers had power of ordination as they were such Act. 1 22 25 26. c. 6 6 c. 8 17 18 c. 13 1 2 3. c. 14 23 c. 19 6. Tit. 1 5. 2 Tim. 1. 6. but even Presbyters themselves Acts. 9 17. c. 13 1 2 3. c. 14 23 1. Tim. 4 14. and Timothy might exercise this power in all or either of these respects not as a Bishop which for ought appeares hee never was neither read wee in Scripture that ordination belongs of right to Bishops as Bishops muchlesse that it is appropriated unto them Obj. 4. The fourth objection to proove Timothy a Bishop is this that hee is commaunded to rebuke such as sinned openly before all men that others might feare 1 Tim. 5 20. Therefore hee was a Bishop Answ 1. I answere that the argument is an inconsequent First Because hee might doe this as an Euangelist or as Paules associate or substitute by vertue of his Apostolicall authority not of his owne Episcopall Iurisdiction as Bishops Officials Chauncellors and Vicars Generall rebuke correct and visit others not in their owne names or by their owne authorities but their Lords Secondly Hee might doe this as a Minister every Minister having power sufficient in the publike Ministery of the word openly to rebuke all sinnes and sinners Isay 5 8. 1 2. Tim. 4 2 3. Tit. 1 13 c. 2 15. Marke 6 18 19 20. 2 Sam. 12 7. Thirdly Hee might doe this as a private Christian every Christian being enjoyned in any case to rebuke his neighbour and not to suffer
it being a sweet and pleasant gaine as some handle it now before they lay any further Title thereunto even as they are Diocaesan Bishops Seaventhly I must informe our Bishops for their learning that An. 31. H. 8. in the Patent Rolls part 4. King Henry the 8. granted a Patent to all the Archbishops and Bishops of England to endble them to consecrate Churches Chapples and Churchyards by vertue of his speciall Patents and Commissions under his great Seale first obtained without which they could not doe it and that all the Bishops in King Edward the 6. time had speciall clauses in their Letters Patents authorizing them to ordaine and constitute Ministers and Deacons as Bishop Ponets Bishop Scoryes Bishop Coverdales Patents 5. Edw. 6. pars 1. 2. with others in his Raigne testifie at large Neither doe or can our Archbishops or Bps at this day consecrate any Bishop or Arch-bishop unlesse they have the Kings owne Letters Patents authorizing and commaunding them to doe it as the Patents directed to them uponevery Bishops consecration and experience witnesse It seemes therefore that their power to consecrate Churches Chapples Churchyards Ministers and Bishops belongs not to them as they are Bishops and that it is meerly humane not divine since they claime and execute it onely by vertue of the Kings Letters Patents therefore it cannot advance them above Pres byters by any divine right Eightly All accord that in cases of necessity when or where Bishops are wanting or when there are none but Simontacall or Hereticall Bishops who refuse to ordaine such as are Orthodoxe or will not subscribe to their heresies there Presbyters and ordinary Ministers may lawfully conferre orders confirme and doe other Acts which Bishops usually ingrosse to themselves so Ambrose Augustine Richardus Armachanus Wicliffe Thomas Waldensis Feild Ames with others in their forequoted places and generally all divines resolve without dispute Yea that learned Morney Lord of Plessis in his Booke De Ecclesia c. 11. Amesius with sundry others affirme that the people alone in case of necessity where there are no Bishops nor Ministers may lawfully elect and ordaine Ministers as well as baptise and preach both which Papists and Protestants affirme that Laymen may lawfully doe in cases of necessity the right of ordination and election of Ministers being originally in the whole Church and people Ministerially onely in Bishops and Ministers as servants to the Congregation and the imposition of hands no essentiall but a ceremoniall part of ordination which may be sufficiently made without it as Angelus de Clavasio Peter Martyr and others both Papists and Protestants affirme But when Paul left Titus in Crete to set in order the things that were wanting and to ordaine Elders in every City there where present no other Bishops or Elders to ordaine Ministers as is likely but Titus onely for we read of none else but Titus then in Creeâ—e which was then but newly converted to the faith and hee is enjoyned to ordaine Elders in every City which prooves there were none there before for what need then of any yea of many others to be newly ordained and that in every City Titus his example of ordination therefore in this exigent and necessity in a Church then newly planted is no argument to proove him a Diocaesan Bishop since other ordinary Ministers might ordaine in such a case as all acknowledge yea and the people too without either Minister or Bishop to assist them Ninthly I answer that it is most evident that Titus did not ordaine Elders in every City by vertue of any Episcopall inherent Iurisdiction of his owne but as Paules Substitute who appointed him to doe it and prescribed him what maner of persons hee should ordaine Tit. 1. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. This therefore cannot proove Titus to be a Bishop or that the sole right of ordination is appropriated unto Bishops as Bishops but rather the contrary Lastly Admit that the power of ordaining Pres byters belonged only to Bishops Iure Divino yet is no good consequent Ergo they are superior to Presbyters in order and degree Iure Divino since the conferring of orders an act of service of Ministry onely not of Authority and no more then an externall complement or Ceremony is farre inferior to the authority of preaching baptising consecrating and administring the Sacrament which every Minister may doe as well as a Bishop The Bishops and Ministers in the primitive Church had many of them the gift of tongues of prophecy of healing and working miracles which some Bishops then and all now want yet these extraordinary endowments made them not superior in Iurisdiction order or degree to those Bishops who then wanted those gifts or to ours now who take farre more state upon them then those Bishops did Many Bishops there are and have beene that could not at least would not preach though Bellarmine himselfe yea the Councell of Trent and all men acknowledge that it is the cheifest and most honourable part of their Episcopall function as making them Christs Ambassadors Are they then inferior in order dignity power and degree to Bishops yea to Ministers Vicars and poore Curates who are both able and willing to preach That which makes any man superior in order Iurisdiction or dignity to his equall must be an authority superior to that which his equall hath not the accession of any inferior dignity or power The making of an Earle a Knight or Country-Iustice addes nothing to his former honour in point of superiority or precedency If a Bishop be presented to an ordinary benefice prebendary or Deanery as some are and have beene by way of Commendam it accumulates nought to his Episcopall authority being inferior to the power of the Keyes preaching and administring the Sacraments which every enjoyes Iure divino as absolutely as any Archbishop or Bishop can no wayes advaunce Bishops in Iurisdiction or degree above Pres byters and ordinary Ministers no more then the Bishop of Durham his being a Count Palatine with his large temporall jurisdiction farre exceeding that of all our Archbishops and Bishops advaunceth him in order or degree above them all So that this grand objection to proove Titus a Bishop yea a Bishop superior in Jurisdiction order and degree to Ministers is both false and idle Obj. 4. If any object that it is a received maxime in the Schooles that hee which ordaines is greater then hee who is ordained and that the Apostle saith that the lesser is blessed of the greater Therefore Titus and so likewise Bishops who ordaine Ministers in point of Jurisdiction order dignity and degree Answ 1. I answer First that this objection takes that for granted which I formerly refuted and evidenced to be a falsehood to wit that the power of ordination belongs onely to Bishops not to Presbyters and so is build on a false sandy foundation Secondly I answer that this proposition
Lords flocke for whom hee shed his blood AND NEVER THEIR LABOVR CARE AND DILIGENCE HEREIN untill they had done all that lyeth in them according to their bounden duety to bring all such as were or should be committed to their charge unto that agreement of faith and knowledge of God and to that ripenes and perfectnes of age in Christ which none of them hath yet done that there should be no place left among them neither of errour in Religion or for viciousnes of life and that for the same cause they should and would forsake and sett aside as much as in them lyeth all worldly cares and studies and give themselves WHOLLY to this thing and draw all their cares and studies this way and to this end and that they should and would preach and be faithfull dispensers of Gods Word in their Congregations which charge being layd upon them by the Bishop at their ordination in the name of Christ by the whole Church and State of England and the Booke of Ordination confirmed by three severall Acts of Parliament the 8 Canon and their owne subscriptions to it and they particularly promising in a most solemne maner to performe it to the â—ttermost of their power How any Bishop can by Law suspend them from preaching as long as they continue Ministers and are not actually degraded or deprived of their livings for some just or lawfull cause warranted by an expresse Act of Parliament or how any godly Minister in point of Law or Conscience can give over his preaching or Ministry upon any unjust suspenâ—ion inhibition excommunication or commaund of any Bishop Visitor or Ordinary who cannot countermaund this charge or Booke of Ordination ratified by 3 Acts of Parliaments I cannot conjecture Finally That if Ministers will thus suffer every Bishop at his pleasure without any speciall Commission from his Maiesty vnder the great Seale of England or any just cause in point of Law upon every humor fancy or new minted Article of his owne which by the Statute of 25. H. 8. c. 19. and the 13. Canons resolution yea and his Maiesties too in his Declaration before the 39. Articles hee hath no power to make to suspend excommunicate and put them downe from preaching then it will be in the Bishops power to suppresse and alter Religion at their pleasure without his Maiesties or a Parliaments assent and so all shall hang vpon their wills who have no power at all either by the Lawes of God or the Realme to institute any new rites Ceremonies Articles Canons or Injunctions or to alter or innovate any thing in Religion much lesse to suspend or silence Ministers Wherefore in case our Prelates presently revoke not these their anti-christian illegall suspenâ—ions inhibitions injunctions or other Censures to hinder Ministers from preaching I hope every Godly Minister who hath any care either of his owne soule liberty people any love at all to God or Religion any zeale or courage for the truth or desire of the good either of Church or State taking these considerations into his thoughts and finding the Bishops Jurisdiction and proceedings to have no lawfull warrant either from the Lawes of God or man will readily protest both against their usurped authority and proceedings as meere nullities and vanities and proceed to preach pray and doe his duetie as the Apostles and Martyrs did of old without any feare or discouragement that so Gods judgements Plagues and punishments which the Prelates late practises with the Ministers silence and cowardize and all our sinnes have drawen downe upon us may be asswaged and remooved and wee may ever retaine the Ordinances and Word of God among vs in purity power sincerity and plenty both to our present and future happines I shall close all with this Syllogisme That calling authoritie and jurisdiction which obliterates persecutes suppresseth oppugneth the very Law Gospell and word of God with the frequent powerfull preaching preachers and professors thereof is doubtles not of divine right or institution but Anti-christian and Diabolicall 1. Thess 2. 14. 15. 16. Rom. 2. 13. 10. Iohn 8. 39. to 48. 1. Tim. 3. 1. to 7. Tit. 1. 5. to 10. But this doth the calling authority and jurisdiction of Lord Archbishops and Bishops as the premises and all stories witnes especially our Booke of Martyrs Therefore it is doubtles not of divine right or institution but Anti-christian and Diabolicall If the Minor be not sufficiently evidenced by the Premises by the silencing of many Ministers suppressing of so many Lectures throughout the Realme give me leave to instance but in two fresh examples more The first in Doctor Peirce Bishop of Bath and Wels who in his Visitation in the midst of August last expresly prohibited all Ministers in his Diocesse to preach on the Lords day afternoone threatning some Ministers to suspend them both from their office Benefice if they durst presume to preach any more on the Lords day afternoone without alleadging any Law or Canon which there is none or any danger of bringing or spreading the plague which there is not feared but onely out of his malice to preaching and to deprive poore people of the sprituall food of their soules to affront the Staâ—utes of 5. and 6. E. 6. c. 1. 3. and 1. Eli. c. 2. which require OFTEN PREACHING AND HEARING of the Gospell upon every Sunday and Holy day and prescribe preaching twice a day as well as much as Common-prayer coupling them together in the same words to oppugne the Homily of the right use of the Church p. 3. 4. 5. which prescribes and enforceth the dayly and continuall preaching of Gods word and specially on the Sabbath-dayes from our Saviours and his Apostles owne Precepts and Examples to make all Ministers perjured who at the time of their Ordination make a solemne promise and covenant before God diligently and painefully to instruct their people never to give over preaching c. as the Booke of Ordination and the Church and State of England both in and by it injoyne them and to spite S. Paulâ— himselse who as by the space of three yeares together hee ceased not to warne every one Night and Day therefore hee preached Evenings as well as mornings publikely from howse to howse Acts. 20. 20. 31. So hee chargeth Timothy and in him all Ministers To preach the word instantly in season out of season that is on Lords dayes and weekedayes Morning and Evening yea and at Midnight to if need be in times of prosperity and adversity of health and pestilence when preaching is most seasonable to raise men from their sinnes 2. Tim. 4. 2. which Apostle were hee in this Bishops and some other of his Brethrens Diocesse they would schoole him roundly for such good doctrine and stop his mouth to prevent the great mischeife of often preaching yea 〈◊〉 our Saviour Christ himselfe and his Apostles were now among our Prelates and should preach DAYLY in our temples as they
weapons and all their domineering swelling authority overthrowne by that very principle foundation on which they have presumed to erect it the ancient proverb being here truly verified Vis consilij expers moleruit sua I shall cloze up this with the words of acute Antonius Sadeel Who after a large proof of Bishops and Presbiters to be both one and the same by Divine institution Windes up all in this manner We conclude therefore seeing that superior Episcopall dignity is to be avowched onely by humane institution tantum esse humani Iuris that it is onely of humane right On the contrary Since it is evident by the expresse testimonies of Scripture that in the Apostles times Bishops were the same with Presbiters Iure Divino potestatem ordinandi non minus Presbiteris quam Episcopis convenire that by Gods law and Divine right the power of Ordination belongs as much to Presbiters as to Bishops Page 51. l. 17. betweene same and since this should have beene inscribed So Alexander Narcissus were both Bishops of Ierusalem at the same time Paulinus and Miletus both Bishops of Antioch together Theodosius and Agapetus were both Bishops of Synada at the same season Valerius and Augustine were both joynt Bishops of Hippotogether by the unanimous consent of the Clergie and people and when as Augustine was loath to be joyned a Bishop with Valerius alleaging it to be contrary to the Custome of the Church to have two Bishops in one City they repyled Non hoc esse inusitatum that this was no unusuallthing confirming this both by example of the African and other forraigne Churches Whereupon hee was satisfied In the Church of Rome wee know there have beene sometimes two sometimes three and once foure Popes and Bishops at one time Some adhering to the one some to the other but all of them conferring Orders making Cardinalls and exercising Papall jurisdiction In the Churches of Constantinople Alexandria Jerusalem Antioch and Affricke during the Arrian Macedonian Novatian heresies and Schisme of the Donatists there were successively two or three Bishops together in them and other Cities the one orthodox the other hereticall and schismaticall Yea the first Councell of Nice Canon 7. admitts the Novation Bishops which conformed themselves to the Church and renounced their Errors to enjoy the title and dignity of a Bishop and to be associated with the Orthodox Bishops if they thought fit And St. Augustine would have the Donatists Bishops where there was a Donatist Bishop and a Catholicke if the Donatists returned unto the unity of the Church that they should be received into the fellowship of the Bishops office with the Catholicke Bishops if the people would suffer it Poterit quippe unusquisque nostrum honoris sibi socio copulato vicissim sedere eminentius c. utroque alterum cum honore mutuo praeveniente Nec novum aliquid est c. As he there defines Therefore this was then reputed no novaltie Platina records of Rhotaris King of the Lombards who declined to the Arians that in all the Cities of his Kingdome hee permitted there should bee two Bishops of equall power the one a Catholicke the other an Arian and that hee placed two such Bishops in every City Danaeus proves out of Epiphanius that anciently in most Cities there were two or three Bishops Nicephorus writes That the Scythians neere Ister have many and great Cities all of them subject to one Bishop But among other people wee know there are Bishops not onely in every City but also in every Village especially among the Arabians in Phrygia and in Cyprus among the Novatians and Montanists Yea no longer since then the Councell of Later an under Innocent the 3d. there were divers Bishops in one Citie and Diocesse where there were divers Nations of divers languages and customes Which though his Councell disallowes where there is no necessity Yet it approves and Permitt where there is a necessity Nay those Canons Constitutions and Decretalls which prohibit that there should be many Bishops in one City or that there should be Bishops in Castles Villages or small Townes and Parishes least the dignity of Bishops should become common and contemptible Manifest that before these Canons and Constitutions there were many Bishops in one City and Diocesse and a Bishop in every little Castle Towne and Countrey Village And to come nearer home the Statute of 26. H. 8. c. 14. ordayneth that there shal be many suffragan Bishops exercising Episcopall jurisdiction in one and the same Diocesse of England with the Statutes of 31. H. 8. c 9. 33. H. 8. c. 31. 34. H. 8. c. 1. which erected divers new Bishopricks in England and divided one Diocesse into many both intimate and prove as much Why then there may not now bee divers Bishops in one City one Church aswell as there was in the Apostles time in the primitive Church and formes ages or as well as there are now divers Archbishops and Bishops in one Kingdome divers Ministers in one Cathedrall and Parish Church I cannot yet conceive unlesse Bishops will now make themselves such absolute Lordly Monarks and Kings as cannot admit of any equalls or corrivalls with them and bee more ambicious proud vayneglorious covetous unsociable then the Bishops in the Apostles and Primitive times whose successors they pretend themselves to bee in words though they disclay me them utterly in their manners lordlines pomp and supercilious deportment which they will not lay downe for the peace and unity of the Church of Christ I shall conclude this with that notable speech of Saint Augustine and those other almost 300. Bishops who were content to lay down their Bishopriks for the peace and unity of the Church Et non perdere sed Deo tutius comendare An vero Redemptor noster de caelis inhumana membra descendit ut membra eius esseâ—â—us et nos ne ipsa eius membra crudeli divisione lanientur de Cathedris descendere formidamus Episcopi propter Christianos populos ordinamur Quod ergo Christianis populis ad Christianam pacem prodest hoc de nostro Episcopatu faciamus Quod sum propter te sum si tibi prodest non sum si tibi obest Si Servi utiles sumus cur Domnini aeternis lucris pro nostris temporalibus sublimitatibus invidemus Episcopalis dignitas fructuosior nobis erit si gregem Christi deposita magis collegerit quam retenta disperserit Fratres mei si Dominum cogitamus locus ille altior specula vinitoris est non fastigium superbientis Sicum nolo retinere Episcopatum meum dispergo gregem Christi quomodo est damnum gregis honor Pastoris Nam qua fronte in futuro seculo promissum a Christo sperabimus honorem si Christianam in hoc seculo noster honor impedit unitatem To which I shall adde as a Corollary a like Speech of that holy devout man S. Bernard
r. who supplied the place of a Bishop in his consecration to be a Bishop Iure divine and c. p 95. l. 1. were to be l. 13 and their p. 95 l. 26. r. as Ministers not as Bishops p 96. l. 12. concurrence l. 32. Taborites p. 100. l. 23. â—etricw p. 111. l. 5 Decrees p. 112. l 23. 113. l. 3. of or l. 11. Monopolie p. 117. l. 27. in do p. 122. l. 11. they p. 123 l. 36. for ever p. 133. l. 6. interpretatur p. 134. l. 18. blot out hath p. 135. l. 11. commonly common by p. 137. l. 11. banded p. 144. l. 20. predecessors p. 145 l. 1. starved l. 5. preached l. 12. want warne p. 147. l. 14. fast fat l. 23. un on p. 148. l. 1. and in l. 8. deferre deterre l. 13. both by l. 21. what where l. 22. here twtch p. 150. l. 21. never cease p. 151. l. 23 13. 12 p. 154 l. 5. of if l. 17. much mute p. 155. l. 9. warded p. 156. l 2 the our In the Margin p. 5. l. 34 page p. 8. l. 12. Bccon p. 11. l 27 deslire p. 32. l. 7. animam annum p. 58. l. 6 when where p. 62. l. 4. Meluini p. 64 l. 17. Meldense p 70. l. 2. Aton p. 93. l. 2. Catalogo p. 103. l. 14. lib. 7. p. 113. l. 8. Seva p. 130. l. 4. Tim. 5. p. 149. l. 17. p. c. l. 25. 13. 12 p. 152. l. 5. favorers fainthearted Kind Reader ere thou peruse this Treatise be pleased to correct those Errors in the last page with these therein omitted p. 14. l. 4. forverily read freshly l. 12 Giver Grace p. 15. l. 6. how two l. 8. as or l. 12 most must l. 17. gemmie genuine l. 29. provise promise p. 16. l. 5. Hidrax Hicrax l. 30. elected p. 17. Studies l. 11. Shetne Sennes l. 20. Maucte Mentz l. 21. Augusta Reformes Rheemes l. 22. Salisbury Saltzburg l. 25. Visalis in Southland Vpsal in Suethland p. 18. l. 5. revived resigned l. 9. shows shunne l. 11. expresse expose both 〈◊〉 to the hazard l. 18. Kylwarby l. 25. Warwest p. 115. l. 9. it is p. 116. l 4. So the power of Ordination being inferiour l. 5. every Minister l. 19 are superiour to them in point p. 143. l. 13. rode thither made his chaplaine ride thither p. 162. l. 11. c. 5 l. 20. necessis p. 166. l. 29. Quia Qua. l. 33. sesus usus p. 167. l. 17. Wiclevists l. 32. 33 Newbury Naoburge p. 173. l. 6. nolo volo l. 27. acts ages l. 31. pingitur proditur p 175. l. 7. pari l. 8. fratres In the Margin p. 13. l. 18 19. by Characters any Charter l. 34 any out p. 14. l. 7. Godwins l. 25. 26. people to standing Replie to Harding p. 15. l. 2. Eccles hist l. 5. Socr. l. 12 Rome p. 163. l. 2. Vitis p. 164. l. 5. Scoticarum p. 171. l. 5. Theodoricus l. 8. Schismate p. 172. l. 9. r. Caesarue Pompeinsue Page 1. 6. l. 10. This should have been inserted Nor yet to recite the examples of Clement the 1 of Rome Pope Cornelius Ambrose Augustine Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen his father Pope Gregory the first Alexander Patriarch of Jerusalem Anatolius Bishop of Laodicea Eustathius Bishop of Antioch Antiochus Theophilus Alexandrinus Dioscorus Chrysanthus S. Martin Bishop of Towers S. Nicholas Paulinus of Nola Eusebius Pamphilus Flaiuanus of Antioch or Marchus who in ancient times were all inforced to accept of their Bishopricks full sore against their wills and judgements by the overpressing importunity of other Bishops Princes Ministers and people With others quoted to my hands by Claudius Espencaeus Or Eucherius Bishop of Lions or Otto Bishop of Bamburge enforced in the same manner to be Bishops full sore against their liking as was Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury Nor yet to mention Ephaaem Syrus Nilammon or S. Bernard who all constantly refused divers great and wealthy Bishopricks not onely offered but urged on them with much importunity or Adrian who refused the Archbishoprick of Canterbury though called to it and urged to accept it or Bassianus elected Bishop of the Vangensi whom furious Memnon whipped before the Altar for 3. houres space till he bedewed the Altar and new Testament with his blood because he refused to accept that Episcopall charge and office Or Brune Seguinas who rejected a Bishoprik offred to him saying A Bishoprick must be altogether forsaken of that man that would not be set at Christs left hand answerable whereunto is that of Pope Marcellus the 2 who smiting his hand upon the Table used these words I do not see how those that possesse this high place can besaved Or John Bugenhagius who of late times repudiated the Bishoprick of Camine in Pomerland to which he was freely chosen Pope Celestine the 5 Athanasius Bishop of the Pareni Eustathius Bishop of Pamphilia Rusticus Bishop of Narbon Remaclus Bishop of Virech Otgerus Bishop of Spire Lambert Bishop of Florence Lutulphus Bishop of Callens Hugh Bishop of Towres Burchardus Bishop of Wertzburge Michael Ephesinus Bishop of Antioch Desiderius Bishop of the Morini Geoffry Bishop of Sylvanecta Conrade Bishop of Batavia Albertus Magnus Bishop of Ratisbon of ancient times abroade Simon Langham Archbishop of Canterbu y Winifred Bishop of Coventry Robert Sherborne Bishop of Chichester Geoffry Bishop of S. Asaph with sundry others at home Lewes ab Eperstem Bartholmew Suavenius and John Fredericke Bishops of Camene in Pomerland Isaurus Archbishop of Riga Baldaser Bishop of Suerin Ericus John Duke of Saxonie and Otto Bishops of Heldesheim Hugh the 47. Bishop of Constans Fridericke a Weda and Salentine Archbishops of Colen Augustus Bishop of Mersburge Jodocus a Reke Bishop of Derbat Francis Henry and Iulius Bishops of Minda Theodosius a Rheden Bishop of Lubecke Christopher Bishop of Raceburge Christopher Bishop of Breme of later times beyond the Seas with divers others here and else where cited have all successively resigned and voluntarily relinquished their Bishopricks and Episcopall dignities out of conscience age discontent or otherpious considerations of the great danger and unlawfulnesse of this antichristian Lordly function which all or most holy men have ever declined or unwillingly accepted of though our Lord Prelats now post and hunt after Bishopricks and would rather die then part with them or the least title of that Lordly Jurisdiction which they now most antichristianly usurpe contrary to the Lawes of God and the Realme Giving over preaching their chiefest spirituall imployment contrary to their sole mne vow and covenant made unto God and the people at their Ordination to become great secular Lords and mannage temporall affaires not compatible with their calling a See Theodoricus à Niem Zabarel Ioannis Marius De Schismate Master Tyndals obedience of a Christian man and practise of Popish Prelates Doctor Iohn White his Defence of the way c. 6. the fifth part
c. 4. as Meredith Hammer an English Bishop Englished it in his English translation of Eusebius e 2. Tim. 4. 6. 7. 8. 9. with all Expositors on this Epistle and the Postscript of it if of any force or truth * 1. Tim. 1. 3. 4. ‡ 2. Tim. 4. 12. Ephes 6. 21. 22. f 2. Tim. 4. 1. 2. g Fox Acts Monuments pag. 1153. Nicolaus De Clemangijs de corrupto Eccl. Statu c. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Bishop Latymers Sermon of the plough See the Rhemists in their Preface to this Episile h Hierom Ambrose Chrysostome Sedulius Primasius Theodoret Theophylact Remigius Rabanus Maurus Anselmus Occumenius Alenfis Lombard Bruno with all late Expositors on 1. Tim. 3. Phil. 1. 1. Tit. 1. 5. 7. Acts. 20. 17. 28. and Master Cartwright in his Answer to the Rhemists Preface i Non solum Timotheum sed omnem per hoc admonet Episcopum Oecumenius in 1. Tim. 5. 1. k 2. Tim. 3. 16. 1. Tim. 6. 1. to 21. ‡ Div 〈…〉 Basilius it a interpretatus est quasi nihil hujus capitis ad ordinationem pertineat Occumenius in 1. Tim. 5. 22. †Conference at Hampton Court p. 89. 90. Meâ—ini Celsae Commissionis Anatomia Fullers argument 1607 The Petition of Greivances 7. Iacobi m Chrysost Theodoret. Theophilact Oecumenius and other on this text The Brethren of London in King Henry the 8. his dayes in their Letter to Thomas Philips Fox Acts and Monumens p. 951. †Concilium AntiochenuÌ„ Can 20. Gratian. Distinct. 18. Conc. Aphricanum Can. 18. Chalcedonense Can. 19. NicaenuÌ„ Can. 5. Toletanum 3. Can. 18. Synodus Francica Anno. 742. Conc. Meldense Can. 32. with many more n Dissertatio de Guber Ecclesiae p. 506. 507. 508. o Controv. 4. Quest 1 c. 2. Sect. 16. * Vide pag. 490. usque 524. ‡ See Gersonius Bucerus p. 518. 519. p Eccles hist l. 3. c. 4. as Meredith Hamner a Bishop Englisheth it * In 1. Tim. 3. ‡ See Doctor Raynolds conference with Hart. p. 213. q Defensor Pacis pars 2. c. 16. Vlricus Velenus Petrus non venisse Romam neque illicpassus est r Senatus Consulius Franciae contra abusus Paparum 162. to 172. s Doctor Raynolds conference with Hart. c. 6. Divis 3. p. 210. to 218. Balaeus in Act. Rom. Pontif. l. 1. Praefation Christopher Carlile his S. Peters life and Peregrination prooving that Peter was never at Rome R. Bernard his fabulous foundation of the Popedome * Fox Acts and Monuments p. 1465. Gersonius Bucerus De Gubernat Eccl. p. 432. usque 500. 519. 520. to 540. t Advers Haereses l. 3. c. 2. 3. l. 4. c. 43. 44. 45. u De Praescriptionibus advers Haereticos x Eusebius Eccles Hist l. 5. c. 12. 22 Fox Acts Monuments p. 1465. * Acts. 18. 18. 19. Timothy no Diocaesan Bishop of Ephesus * See Gersonius Bucerus Dissertatio De Gubern Eccl. p. 213. 246. 282. 302. 303. 304. 307. 308. 416. 417. 461. accordingly * Ioannes de At 〈…〉 Constit provin fol. 122. Lynd. provin Constit l 3. Tit. De Parochiis fol. 134. * Acts. 19. 10. c. 20. 31 Quaestion 2. * Homer Odys 19. ‡ Mercators Atlas in English London 1635. p. 812. * Quoted by Doctor Barnes in his Workes p. 210. See Gersonius Bucerus de Guberaat Ecclesiae p. 520 621 * Adversus Haereses Tit. Episcopus * p. 210. ‡ See Gersonius Bucerus p. 233. 261. 398. usque 402. 556. Th. Cartwright 2. Reply to Whitgift p. 404. to 616. * See Anacleti Epist 3. c. 3. Surius Concil Tom. 1. p. 165. a Galfridus Monumitensis histor l. 5. c. 19. Ponticus Verunnius Brit. hist l. 4. p. 106. Polichron l. 4. c. 16. f. 163. Antiquit. Eccles Brit. p. 7. with sundry others ‡ Surius Concil Tom. 1. p. 140. 163. 165. 342. 505 392. Tom. 2. p. 1046. Tom. 3. p. 547. Socrates Eccles Hist l. 5. 6. 8. Euagirus Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 18. * In his Re-ply to Tho. Cartwright See Cartwright his second Reply against Whitgift Tract 8. fol. 414. to 616. * An Mesuini Petri Adamsoni Palinodia printed An. 1620. d De Gubernat Eccl. p. 233. to 238. 299. to 390. 394. 395. 396. 397. 490. to 423 580. 581. * David Dickson his short explanation on the Epistle to the Hebrewes p. 332. 333. †Master Perkins his Commentary on Gal. 6. p. 496. 497 498. 499. * Commentary on Gal. 6. Vol 2. p. 499. ‡ Bishop Latimers fourth Sermon of the plough Fox Acts Monuments p. 119. 120. * So the Statutes of 25. H. 8 c. 29. 37. H. 8. c. 17. 27. H. 8. c. 15. 1. E. 6. c. 2. 1 Eliz c. 1. 2. 8. Eliz. c. 1. 25. H. 8. c. 21. 31. H. 8. c. 9. 14. 32. H. 8. 15. 16. 2. H. 5. c. 1. 14. Eliz. c. 5. expresly resolve That the power of ordination of Ministers belongs not onely to Bishops e Fox Acts Monuments p. 1465. ‡ Acts. 13. 1. 2. 3. * 3. Ed. 6. c. 32. 8. Elizab c. 1. g Gersonius Bucerus p. 33. 158. to 162. 262. 499. 500. 517. 518. 540. 622. 623. 318. to 367. h Surius Tom. 1. p. 513. * Distinct 23. k Notes on the 1. Tim. 4. 14. l Distinct 23. 24. 25. m Appendix ad Catal. Testium Veritatis n Dissertat deGubernat Eccles p. 318. to 367. 464. 465. 493. 498. 499. 524. See Canon 35. o Surius Tom. 1. p. 296. ‡ Surius Ibid. p. 403. 404 * Constit Apost l. 3. c. 10. 11. 20. †Surius Tom. 2. p. 719. Tom. 1. p. 800. ‡ Exod. 40. * Psal 98. ‡ See Concil Carthag 2. An. 428. c. 3. 4. Gratian Causa 20. quest 6. Concil Carthag 3. c. 36. Gratian. Caus 16. quest 6. * Leo Epist. 86. x Exod. 28. 1. to 43. c. 29. 5. to 45. c. 30. 7. 10. 30. Heb. 5. 4. 5. c. 7. 11. y Numb 25. 35. z Heb. 4. 14. 15. c. 5. 1. to 11. c. 6. 20. c. 7. 20. to 28. c 8. 1. to 7. c. 9. 1. to 28. c. 10. 11 to 23. a Exod. 29. 1. to 39. c. 30. 25 to 31 c. 40. 1. to 34. b 1. King 8. 2. Cron. c. 6. 8. c Heb. 7. 8. 9. 10. * Augustin Serm. 99. de tempore Whitekar Contr. 4. qu. 1. c. 2. Willet Symopsis Papismi Cont. 5. q. 3. d Heb. 9. 14. 15. c. 5. 1. to 11. c. 6. 20. c. 7. 8. 9. 10. e Heb. 6. 20. f Heb. 13. 20. 1. Pet. 5. 4. g 1. Pet. 2. 25. h Math. 18. 1. c. c. 28. 19. Mark 16. 15 Iohn 15. 16. 4. Ephes 8. 11. 12. 13. 1. Tim 4. 14. Acts. 13. 1. 2. 3. †Exod. c. 29 30. 40. compared with Acts 6. 1. to 8. c. 14. 23. c. 13. 1. 2. 3. Tit. 1. 5. 1. Tim. 4. 14. c. 5. 12. * Gersonius Bucerus de Gubernat Eccles p. 264. 265. 269. 291. 269. 308. 309. 446. 501. 502. k Acts. 13. 3. 1.
sinne upon him Levit. 19. 17. Prov. 9 8. Eccles 9 5. and so is every Magistrate to doe Nehem. 13. 11. to 31. Psal 141. 5. This therefore is no argument of any Episcopall Jurisdiction the rather because this rebuke was to be publikely in the Church before all not in a private Chamber or Consistory Court as all Expositors accord in which our Bishops pronounce their Censures Obj. 5. The fift argument to proove Timothy a Bishop is the 1 Tim. 5 19. Against an Elder receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses Hee had power to receive an accusation against Ministers that so hee might correct them therefore hee was a Bishop Answ 1. I answer first that this is a meere Non sequitur For 1. Hee might have this power to receive such accusations as an Euangelist and Paules Coadjutor Secondly As Paules Delegate or Officiall as our Bishops Officialls Vicars and Chauncellors now exercise Episcopall Iurisdiction under them as their substitutes onely not by any inherent Episcopall dignity or authority in themselves Thirdly Hee might doe it by the appointement and mutuall consent of the people who had power in all cases of difference to constitute any man a Iudge though no Bishop 1. Cor. 6 1 to 7. Fourthly Hee might doe it onely as an Elder Elders having power to rule well 1. Tim. 5. 17. and so by consequence to receive accusations and to correct delinquents by reproofes or Ecclesiasticall Censures with the consequent of the Congregation 1 Cor. 5 4 5. 11 12 c. 6 1 to 7. Gal. 6 1. 2. Thessal 3. 14 15. Fifthly I had almost added that hee might have done it as an Ecclesiasticall Commissioner but that I considered that hee was not so much as to receive an accusation against an Elder but under two or three witnesses at least first examined and our Ecclesiasticall Commissioners and Bishops are so farre from this divine Apostolicall precept by which they would proove Timothy and themselves to be Bishops Iure divino that they will pursevante silence suspend imprison Ministers and Elders and put them to selfe accusing one ex officio oathes and upon every jealosie suspition and private accusation of any drunkard rascall or without two or three witnesses or accusers first examined against them and brought face to face A direct proofe that neither they nor their proceedings are Iure divino Answ 2. Secondly I answer that by Elder in this text as many conceive is not meant a Presbyter or Minister but an ancient man as it is taken in the first verse of the chapter so as it prooves not that Timothy had any Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction over the Elders that were Ministers of Ephesus who ruled that Church v. 17. and â—w 〈…〉 Bishops of it Acts. 20 28. Where Paul enjoynes them to take heed to themselves as having no Superintendent paramount them not giving Timothy any charge to take heed to them Thirdly Admit these Elders were Ministers yet Timothy had no judiciary pâ—wer over them to suspend or correct them since v. 〈◊〉 hee is expresly enjoyned not to rebuke an Elder but intreat him as a Father which is farre from giving him any such Episcopall Iurisdiction over them as our Bishops now exercise and usurpe using godly Ministers and raâ—ing them rather like dogs and scullions then Elders Fourthly The words are not that hee should not excommunicate suspend convent or censure an Elder but that hee should not receive an accusation against him but before two or three witnesses Now to condemne or censure is one thing to receive an accusation another The first not but a Iudge or cheife officer can doe the second every register clerke informer or under officer Yea every private Christian is capable to receive an accusation and every ordinary Minister too against another superior to him in age estate or place either privately to admonish him that is accused of his fault or to reproove him for it or to counsell him how to repent and redresse it or to comfort him if hee be dejected with it or to informe against him to the Magistrate or whole Congregation or to pray to God for his amendement Math. 18. 15. 16. 17. Levit. 19. 7. Gal. 6. 1. 2. Thess 3. 14. 15. 1. Tim. 5. 20. 24. Tit. 1. 10. to 14. 2. Iohan. 10. 11. Iud. 22. 23. which well expound this text Fifthly The true meaninge of this text is this that Timothy and other Christians of what quality soever especially Ministers should not lightly receive or beleeve any ill report cheifly of an Elder or Minister without sufficient testimony of the truth thereof by two of three able witnesses as will plainely appeare by paralelling it with Psal 15. 3. Numb 35. 30. Deut. 17. 6. c. 19. 15. Hebr. 10. 28. and with Math. 18. 15. 16. 17. where our Saviour saith thus Moreover if thy brother shall trespas against thee goe and tell him his fault betweene him and thee alone if hee shall heare thee thou hast gained thy brother But if hee will not heare thee then take with thee two or three more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established and if hee shall neglect to heare them tell it to the Church and if hee neglect to heare the Church let him be unto thee as an beathen man and publican A perfect Commentary on this text of Paul and a direct censure of our Bishops ex officio oathes and proceedings by the parties owne selfe-accusing oath and answere without or before witnesses produced 6. This text admitt it gives power to Timothy to take accusations against an Elder before two or three witnesses yet it excludes not the other Elders of Ephesus from having like power with him it gives him not any sole power to heare and determine complaints without the other Elders assistance or consent but together with them Math. 18 19. 1 Tim. 5 17. Acts. 20 28. Hence the fourth Councell of Carthage Can. 23. and after it Gratian. Caus 15. Quaest 7. Cap. Nullus Decree That a Bishop should heare no mans cause without the presence of his Clerkes and that the sentence of the Bishop should be void unlesse it were confirmed with the presence of the Clergy yea Gratian in that place prooves out of the Councels of Hispalis Agatha the first Carthage the second and fourth Gregory whose words and Canons hee recites at large that a Minister Presbyter or Deacon cannot be punished or deprived by the Bishop alone but by a Synode or Councell and that the Bishop cannot heare or determine the causes of Cleargymen alone without associating the Elders of the Church or other adjoyning Bishops with him for which cause many ancient Councels denied that there should be two Councels kept in each Province every yeare to heare and determine all Ecclesiasticall causes and controversies This text therefore prooves nothing for Timothies Ecclesiasticall or Episcopall Jurisdiction being written rather for the Churches and Ministers future
then Timothies present instruction as Gersonius Bucerus rightly observes Finally learned Doctor Whitaker hath long since assoyled this objection in these words That Timothy is commaunded not rashly to admit an accusation against an Elder this prooves not that Timothy had power or dominion over Elders For according to the Apostles minde to receive an accusation is to bring a crime to the Church to bring the guilty person into Iudgement openly to reproove which not onely Superiors may doe but also aequals and inferiors In the Roman Republike Knights did judge not onely the people but also the Senators and Patricij And certainly it seemes not that Timothy had such a Consistory or Court as was afterwards appointed to Bishops in the Church What this authority was may be understood by that which followes Those that sinne rebuke before all which aequals also may doe Thus Bishops heretofore if any Elder or Bishop had an ill report referred it to the Ecclesiasticall Senate or Synod and condemned him if hee seemed worthy by a publike judgement that is they did either suspend excommunicate or remoove him The Bishop condemned nocent Elders and Deacons not with his owne authority alone but with the judgement of the Church and Clergy Those who where thus condemned might lawfully appeale to the Metropolitan but hee could not presently alone determine what seemed good to him but permitted the Synod to give sentence and what the Synod decreed was ratified The same answer Martyn Bucer De vi usu S. Ministerij Doctor Andrew Willet Synopsis Papismi Cont. 5. Gen. Quest 3. part 3. in the Appendix and Gersonius Bucerus De Gubernat Ecclesiae pag. 300. to 398. where this objection is most fully cleared by Councels Fathers and other authors testimonies give unto this place so that it makes no proofe at all that Timothy was a Bishop So as from all these premises I may safely conclude that Timothy was neither a Bishop nor Bishop of Ephesus nor first nor sole Bishop of that See as many overconfidently and erroniously affirme Obj. 6. If any in the sixt place object that diverse of the ancient Fathers as Dionysius Areopagita Hierome Ambrose Dorothew Theodoret Chrysostome Epiphanius Eusebius Gregorie the great Policrates Occumenius Primasius Isidor Hispalensis Beda Anselme Rabanus Maurus with many moderne writers affirme Timothy to be Bishop and first Bishop of the Ephesians therefore hee was so Answ 1. I answer first that as some of these Fathers are spurious and not to be credited so many of their testimonies are ambiguous if not contradictory p Eusebius writes that Timothy IS REPORTED to be the first Bishop of Ephesus and Titus of the Churches of Creta which is rather a deniall then an affirmation that hee was Bishop there in truth Theodoret and Beda affirme him to be Bishop of all Asia not of Ephesus onely and so an Archbishop rather then a Bishop Their Testimonies therefore being so discrepant and dubious are of no validity Secondly Many of the Fathers affirme Peter to have beene Bishop of Rome and to have continued Bishop there for divers yeares yet Marsilius Patavinus Carolus Molinaeus with sundry other late Protestant writers both forraigne and domestique affirme and substantially proove by Scripture and reasons that Peter was never at Rome nor yet Bishop thereof As therefore their bare authorities are no sufficient argument to proove Peter Bishop of Rome so neither are they sufficient to evince Timothy Bishop of Ephesus Thirdly These Fathers affirme not Timothy to be sole Bishop of Ephesus or to be Diocaesan Bishop or such a Bishop as is superior to a Presbyter in Jurisdiction or degree the thing which ought to be prooved and if they affirmed any such thing yet seeing the fore-alleadged Scriptures contradict it in a most apparant maner they are not to be credited against the Scriptures testimony Fourthly The Fathers terme him Bishop of Ephesus not because hee was any sole Diocaesan domineering Bishopthere as the objections pretend but because hee was left by Paul to teach and instruct them for a space till hee returned from Macedonia and to order that Church together with the other Bishops and Elders thereof and being one of the eminentest Pastors of that Church next after Paul who planted it the Fathers terme him the Bishop of Ephesus in that sence onely as they stiled Peter Bishop of Rome and Antioch Iames Bishop of Ierusalem Marke Bishop of Alexandria and the like not that they were Bishops properly so called or such as ours are now but onely in a large and generall appellation because they first preached the Gospell to such Churches to no other purpose but to proove a perpetuall succession of Presbyters and doctrine in those particular Churches from the Apostles time till theirs naming the eminentest Minister for parts and gifts in each Church the Bishop of that Church all which appeares by Irenaeus Tertullian and others who call them Bishops onely for this purpose to derive a Succession of Ministers and doctrine from the Apostles Hee that would receive a larger answer to this objection let him read Gersonius Bucerus de Gubernatione Ecclesiae p. 518. to 524. 436. to 441. 498. usque 500. 538. 539. which will give him ample satisfaction Obj. 7. If any finally object that Paul desired Timothy to abide still at Ephesus when hee went into Macedonia 1 Tim. 1. 3. and that the Greeke verbe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a constant residence or abiding in one place Therefore Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus which if it be a solid Argument prooves many of our Court Nonresident Prelates and Ministers to be no Bishops because they reside and abide not muchlesse preach and keepe hospitality on their Bishoprickes rather then Timothy to be Diocaesan Bishop of Ephesus Answ 1. To this I answer first that the argument is a grosse inconsequent For Timothy might abide thus at Ephesus as an Euangelist as an Elder as Paules assistant or substitute onely as an ordinary Minister not as a Bishop his abiding therefore at Ephesus is insufficient to constitute him a Diocaesan Bishop of that Sec. Secondly Paul and Titus ordained Elders in every Church to abide and continue with their flockes Acts. 14 23. Tit. 1 5 7. yet the Opposites deny these Elders to be Diocaesan Bishops Thirdly Every ordinary Minister is to reside and abide upon his Cure Rom. 12 7 8. 1 Cor. 7 20. Ier. 23 1 5. If this argument therefore where solid every Minister should be a Diocaesan Bishop Fourthly Paul left Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus to abide there Will it therefore follow that they where Diocaesan Bishops of the Ephesians If not then the argument is invalid Answ 2. Secondly I answer That Timothy was to abide at Ephesus onely for a season till Paules returne out of Macedonia and no longer 1 Tim. 3. 14 15 c. 4 13 14. after which hee went with Paul from Macedonia into Asia