their Persons H. B. displeased that the Bishops doe challenge their Episcopall authoritie from our Saviour The challenge of Episcopall power from Christ and his Apostles neither new nor strange as H. B. pretednds Of the Episcopall succession in the Church of England Episcopall succession how esteemed and valued amongst the Antients The derivation of Episcopall discent from the Church of Rome no prejudice vnto the Hierarchy or Church as H. B. makes it The Bishops antiently called Reverend Fathers The scandalous and scornfull attributes given by H. B. to the Bishops in the generall and to some of the chiefe of them in particular A briefe replie to all his cavills against the chiefe of those particulars H. B. makes his addresse to all sorts of people to joyne together with the King to destroy the Bishops and is content to run an hazard of his own life so it may be done The ruine of the Bishops made by H. B. the only present meanes to remove the Plague A generall answere to these slanderous and Seditious passages LEt us now looke upon your dealing with my LL. the Bishops how you handle them their place their persons their proceedings who being the principall object of your malice must not expect more civill usage then the King their Master especially considering in cold blood how they have provoked you by calling you forth upon the stage However use them as you please you have one good shelter For if your stile seeme sharper then usuall wee are to blame if wee impute it not to your zeal and fidelity for God and the King being you are to encounter those who be adversaries to both Begin then zealous sir wee stand ready for you First then you quarrell with the calling and stomack it exceedingly that some of them should say in the High Commission being put unto it by your Brother Bastwick that they had their Episcopal authority from Christ and if they could not prove it they would cast away their Rochets And so say you they might their Capps too for any such proofe they can bring for it p. 68. What more It 's plaine that they usurpe professe and practise such a jurisdiction as is not annexed to the Imperiall Crowne of England but with the Pope and Prelates of Italy they claime from Christ Ibid. Well then what hurt of this Thus you see our Prelates have no other claime for their Hierarchy then the Popes of Rome have and doe make which all our Divines since the Reformation till yesterday have disclaimed and our Prelates cannot otherwise assume but by making themselves they very limbes of the Pope and so our Church a member of that Synagogue of Rome And this you say because it is affirmed by Dr. Pocklington that we are able lineally to set downe the succession of our Bishops from Saint Peter to Saint Gregory and from to our first Archbishop Saint Austin our English Apostle downwards to his Grace that now sits in the chaire c. p. 69. Thus also in the Newes from â—pswich you are much offended with the Prelates that they will needs be Lord Bishops jure divino by the holy Ghosts own institution and shame not to stile themselves the Godly Holy Fathers of our Church and Pillars of our faith when as their fruites and actions manifest them to be nought else but Step-fathers and Catter-pillers the very pests and plagues of both And not long after you bestow a gentle touch on Dr. Pocklington calling the Prelates as your use is the true-bred sonnes of the Roman Antichrist from whom D. Pocklington boasts they are lineally descended But whatsoever be the claime from Christ or his Apostles or the Church of Rome you have found out a fitter Author of the holy Hierarchie even the spirit that beares rule in the aire the devill Who doth not only haunt the Pallaces of Prelates perhaps he went sometimes upon your occasions but hath infused such a poison into the chaire of this Hierarchie as that man who sits in it had need to be strongly fortified with Preservatives and Antidotes of true Reall Grace not nominall and titular that is able to overcom the infection of it p. 106. This is the summe of what you say or repeat rather with a nil dictum quod and this is hardly worth the saying by so great a Rabbin the answere being made before the objection yet since you say it something must bee sayd about it and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Your first exception is that the Episcopall authoritie is claimed from Christ and that some of the Bishops said in the High Commission that if they could not prove it they would cast away their Rochets This is no more then what had formerly beene said in the conference at Hampton Court when on occasion of Saint Hieromes saying that a Bishop was not divinae ordinationis the Bishop of London Dr. Bancroft interposed that unlesse hee could prove his ordination lawfull out of the Scriptures he would not be a Bishop foure houres You see then this is no new saying devised but yesterday and contrary to what hath beene the judgement of all our Divines since the reformation as you please to tell us The learned workes of Bishop Bilson entituled The Perpetuall government of Christs Church and those of Dr. Adrian Saravia against your Patriarke Theodore Beza de diversis ministerii gradibus with many others of those times shew manifestly that you are an impudent Impostor and care not what you say so you make a noise And yet I cry you mercy I may mistake you not knowing exactly what you meane by your Our Divines For if by your Divines you meane the Genevian Doctors Calvin and Beza Viret and Farellus Bucan Vrsinus and those others of forreine Churches whom you esteeme the onely Orthodox professours you may affirme it very safely that the derivation of Episcopall authority from our Saviour Christ is utterly disclaimed by your Divines Calvin had never else invented the Presbytery nor with such violence obtruded it on all the reformed Churches neither had Beza divided Episcopatum into Divinum humanum and Satanicum as you know he doth But if by our Divines you meane those worthies of the Church who have stood up in maintenance of the holy Hierarchie against the clamours and contentions of the Puritan faction or such as are conformable unto the Articles and orders of the Church of England you do most shamelessely traduce them as your custome is and make them Patrons of that Tenet which they most opposed For tell me of a truth who is it which of our Divines that holds Episcopall authority to be derived from any other fountaine then that of Christ and his Apostles and that conceive their ordination is not de jure divino grounded and founded on the Scriptures and thence deduced by necessary evident and undeniable illation if any such there be hee is one of yours Travers and Cartwright and the rest of your Predecessours men never
THE PREFACE SHEWING THE OCCASION OF This following Answere with somewhat of the Storie of H. B. the principall Argument thereof AMONGST the severall commendations given unto Charitie by Saint Paul we find these particulars Charitie vaunteth not it selfe is not puffed up doth not behave it selfe unseemely seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evill Which if they be the certaine marks of Charitie as no doubt they are we may affirm it of too many in these later daies that whatsoever Faith they pretend unto they have little Charitie Such boasters are they of themselves so arrogant so unadvised in all their doings so greedie either after lucre or vaine applause so peevish and intemperate in their speech and writings and finally so jealous and distrustfull of all those who concurre not with them in opinion That though they had all Faith so that they could remove mountains which I thinke they have not or should they give their bodies to be burned as I thinke they will not it would profit nothing Of such as these it was that S. Peter tell 's us that they are Presumptuous selfe-willed and are not afraid to speake evill of dignities of whom S. Jude relates that they were murmurers complainers walkers after their owne lusts and that their mouth speaketh great swelling words Would you a further censure of them As naturall bruit beasts saith the Apostle made to be taken and destroyed they speake evill of the things they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption These are the mockers of whom the Apostles have foretold us that they should come in the last times and being come we must accordingly expect they should play their parts and doe the will of him that sent them And so they doe The Church continually traducea as if she were unsound in her intentions towards Christ as if there were a day at hand in which the Saints i. e. themselves must be tryed and sifted The Prelates generally condemned their cause un-heard as factors for the Mysticall strumpet in S. John's Apocalypse to make men drunken with the Cup of her abhominations And as for the inferiour Clergie which know no better sacrifice then obedience and willingly submitte themselves unto the just commands of their Superiors what are they but the common markes whereat each furious Malecontent doth shoot out his Arrowes even bitter words Nor hath the supreame Majesty the Lords annointed escaped so cleere but that they also have had part of those hard speeches which these ungodly sinners have spoken against them in Saint Judes language Antonij epistolae Brutique conciones falsa quidem in Augustum probra sed multa cum acerbitate habent as he in Tacitus No times more full of odious Pamphlets no Pamphlets more applauded nor more deerely bought then such as doe most deeply wound those powers and dignities to which the Lord hath made us subject Egregiam vero laudem et spolia ampla Not to goe higher then the Reigne of our now dread Soveraigne how have both Church and State beene exercised by those factious Spirits Layton and Prynne and Bastwick the Triumviri with H. Burton the Dictator what noise and clamours have they raised what odious scandalls have they fastned on their Reverend Mother what jealousies feares that I say no worse have they seditiously infused into peoples mindes And thereby turned those weapons on their Mothers Children which might have beene employed more fitly on the common Enemie But when those of the Triumvirate had received their judgement Layton and Prynne in the Starre-chamber Bastwick in the high Commission the greatest comfort of the cause did seeme to be intrusted to Dictator Burton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man in whom the Element of fire had the most predominancie which made that which is zeale in others to be in him a zealous furie The rather since he had deceived himselfe in his expectations and swallowed down those hopes he could not digest That which hath heretofore made so many Hereticks occasioned his first dislike of the holy Hierarchy When once Aerius lost his hopes of being made a Bishop as Saint Austin tells us he set on foot this peevish doctrine Presbyterum ab Episcopo nulla ratione debere discerni that by no meanes there was a difference to be made betweene Priests and Bishops And that once broached there followed next non celebranda esse jejunia statuta sed cum quisque voluerit jejunandum that no set fasts were to be kept but every man might fast when he would himselfe This was the very Case of our Grand Dictator He had beene a servant in the Closet to His Sacred Majestie then Prince of Wales and questionlesse being in the Ascendent he thought to Culminate But when he saw those hopes had failed him and that by reason of his violent and factious carriage he was commanded to depart the Court he thought it then high time to Court the people that he might get in the hundreds what he lost in the Countie This pincheth him it seemes to this very day and he is so ingenious which I wonder at as to let us know it For in the Epistle to His Majestie before his Sermon if at the least a rayling and seditious declamation may be called a Sermon he stiles himselfe His Majesties old and faithfull servant and in the other to His Majestie before the Apologie he bemoanes himselfe as an old out-cast Courtier worne out of all favour and friends there Hinc illae lachrymae Hence the opinion of these quarrells Here he declares most plainly where his griefe doth lye what made him first flie out and bend his thoughts to foster and foment a faction Such is the humour of most men whom the Court casts out that they doe labour what they can to out-cast the Court. Being thus entred and ingaged hee found it necessary to acquaint himselfe with such as were affected like himselfe and in their severall professions might best aide and helpe him this made him picke out Master Prynne an utter Barrister of Lincolns Inne for his learned Counsaile Layton and Bastwicke two that had the name of Doctors to be Physitians to his person His Doctors finding by some Symptomes which they had observed that he was very fretfull and full of Choller perswaded with him either by preaching or by writing to vent that humour which otherwise for want of vent would soone burne him up his learned Counsaile standing by and promising that whatsoever he should write or say hee would finde Law for it On this encouragement he beganne to cast abroad his wilde-fire endeavouring nothing more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to raise combustions in the state and like Erostratus of old seeing hee could grow famous by no other meanes to burn downe the Temple The Pulpit first erected onely for preaching of the word of God was by him made a Sanctuary or privileged place from whence to
conclude from hence that by the Doctrin of the Church the Pope is Antichrist the Devill assone For they are put there as distinct things the Pope the Devill and the kingdome of Antichrist and being put downe as distinct you have no reason to conclude that it is resolved by that Homilie that the Pope is Antichrist Nor doth the 6 Homilie of Rebellion say the Pope is Antichrist Though it saith somewhat of the Babylonicall beast of Rome The whole clause is this In King Johns time the Bishop of Rome understanding the bruite blindnesse ignorance of Gods word and superstition of Englishmen and how much they were inclined to worship the Babylonicall beast of Rome and to feare all his threatnings and causelesse curses hee abused them thus c. Where certainely the Babylonicall beast of Rome is not the same with the Bishop or Pope of Rome but rather the abused power of that then prevalent and predominant See Or were it that the Pope is meant yet not being spoken positively and dogmatically that the Pope is and is to be beleeved to be the Babylonicall beast of Rome it is no more to bee accounted for a doctrine of the Church of England then that it was plaine Simony in the Prelates then to pay unto the Bishop of Rome great summes of mony for their Bulls and conformations as is there affirmed I have yet one thing more to say unto you in this point Saint John hath given it for a rule that every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God but is that Spirit of Antichrist whereof you have heard c. So that unlesse you can make good as I thinke you cannot that the Pope of Rome confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh you have no reason to conclude that hee is that Antichrist Hitherto we have followed you to finde an innovation in point of doctrine and are yet to seeke and if wee finde it not in the next two instances both wee and you have lost our labour There you say somewhat doubtlesse and charge the Bishop with two dangerous innovations one in the doctrine of obedience to superiors the other in the doctrine of the Sabbath or Lords-day These wee have met withall alreadie and therefore shall say little here Onely I would faine learne for I know not yet where that conditionall obedience which you onely like of is delivered to us by the Church where there is any thing layed downe for a publick doctrine against that absolute obedience which you so dislike and reckon the inforcing of it amongst the Innovations made in point of doctrine your brethren in the Conference at Hampton Court put in a scruple how farre an ordinance of the Church was to binde them without impeaching of their Christian libertie where at the King being much moved answered that it smelled very ranckely of Anabaptisme adding I charge you never to speak more to that point how farre you are bound to obey when the Church hath ordained it What think you Sir Heere is an absolute obedience preached to the Churches Ordinances I hope you cannot tender lesse unto the Orders of the King As for that other Innovation which you tell us of about the doctrine of the Sabbath there is indeed a mighty alteration in it I could wish there were not but it was made by you and yours who litle more then 40. yeeres agone first broached these Sabbath-speculations in the Church of England which now you presse uppon her for her antient doctrine This hath beene shewne at large elsewhere and therefore I will say nothing now But where you say that for the maintenance of that change which you lay upon them their novell Doctors have strained the veines of their conscience no lesse then of their braines p. 126. I am bold to tell you that at the best you are a most uncharitable man to judge the hearts of those whose face you know not For my part I can speake for one and take almighty God to witnesse that in the part committed to mee I have dealt with all ingenuitie and sinceritie and make this protestation before God and man that if in all the scriptures Fathers Councells moderne writers or whatsoever monument of the Church I met within so long a search I had found any thing in favour of that doctrine which you so approve I would not have concealed it to the suppression of a truth for all the world How ever you accuse me yet my conscience doth not Delectat tamen conscientia quod estanimae pabulum incredibili jucunditate perfusum in Lactantius language Your Innovations in the points of Doctrin being blowne to nothing let us see next what is it that you have to say for the change of discipline the second Innovation which you charge upon my Lords the Bishops And here you say that where of old the censures of the Church were to be inflicted upon disordered and vicious persons as drunkards adulterers heretickes Apostata's false-teachers and the like now the sharpe edge thereof is turned mainely against Gods people and Ministers even for their vertue and pietie and because they will not conforme to their impious orders p. 127. That Bishops sometimes turne the edge of their authoritie on those who you entitle Gods ministers and people is as true as necessarie but that they turne it on them even for their pietie and vertue is both false and scandalous Iust so a Brother of yours whom I spare to name preached once at Oxford that good and honest men were purposely excluded from preferments there ob hoc ipsum quod pij quod boni onely because they were inclined to pietie and vertue But Sir those godly folke you speake of are Godly onely in your eye and in such as yours and if the edge of authoritie be turned upon them it is because they have too much of your spirit in them The censures of the Church proceed no otherwise now then of old they did Looke in the antient Canons and you shall see with what severitie the Church of old did punish Schismaticks and Separatists and tell mee if the Church now doth not deale more mercifully with you then of old it did And where you seeme to intimate that now the censures of the Church are not inflicted as of old upon disordered and vicious persons that 's but your wonted art to traduce the Bishops and make them odious to your followers For looke unto the Articles for the Metropolitan visitation of my Lord of Canterbury Anno 1635. and for the visitation of my Lord of Norwich Anno 1636. both which I am sure you have perused or any of the rest which you meete next with Looke on them well and tell mee truely if you can whether there bee not speciall order for the presenting of all those vicious and disordered persons of the kindes you mention you could not choose but knowe this having seene the Articles and therefore