Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n
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A29489
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A review of Doctor Bramble, late Bishop of Londenderry, his Faire warning against the Scotes disciplin by R.B.G.
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Baillie, Robert, 1599-1662.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing B466; ESTC R10694
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70,498
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112
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assistance of any two Presbyters who chaunce to be neare a Bishop the only Pastor of the whole dioces and yet not bound to feed any flock either by word or Sacrament or governement but having a free liberty to devolve all that service upon others and himself to wayte at court so many yeares as he shall think fit This is our English Bishop not only in practise but in law and so was hee defended by the great disputants for praelacy in England But now let the Warner speake out The portion of Episcopacy which yet is stuck to cannot be kept up upon any principle either of honour or conscience if any such treasure can more be defended or was ever knowne in scripture or seen in any Christian Church for 800. yeares and above after the death of Christ I take it indeed to be conscience that forces now at last the best of our Court-divines to devest their Bishop of all civill imployment in Parliament court or Kingdome in denying his solitarines in ordination in removing his officiall and Commissary courts in taking away all his arches Arch-Bishops Arch-Deacons deane and Chapter and all the c. in erecting Presbyteries for all ordinations and spirituall jurisdiction It is good that conscience moves our adversaries at last to come this farre towards us butwhy will they not yet come nearer to acknowledge that by these their to lately recanted errours they did to long trouble the world and that the little which yet they desire to keepe of a Bishop is nothing lesse then that English Bishop but a new creature of their own devising never known in England which his Majestie in no honnour is obliged to mantaine for any respect either to the lawes or customes of England and least of all for conscience While the Warner with such confidence avowes The smallest portion of the most moderat Episcopacy is contrary to scripture that no text of Scripture can be alleadged against Episcopacy which may not with more reason be applyed against the Presbytery behold I offer him here some few casting them in a couple of arguments which according to his great promises I wish he would answer at his leasure First I doe reason from Ephesians 4.11 all the officers that Christ has appointed in his Church for the Ministry of the word are either Apostles Evangelists Prophets Pastors or Doctors but Bishops are none of these fyve Ergo they are none of the officers appointed by Christ for the Ministry of the word The Major is not wonte to be questioned the minor thus I prove Bishops are not Apostles Evangelists nor prophets for it s confessed all these were extraordinary and temporary officers but Bishops say yow are ordinary and perpetuall our adversaries pitch upon the fourth alleadging the Episcopall office to be pastorall but I prove the Bishop no Pastor thus no Pastor is superior to other Pastors in any spirituall power but according to our adversary a Bishop is superior to all the Pastors of his dioces in the power of ordination and jurisdiction Ergo. The doubt heer is only of the Major which I prove Argumento à paribus no Apostle is superior to an Apostle nor an Evangelists to an Evangelist nor prophet to a prophet nor a Doctour to a Doctour in any spirituall power according to scripture Ergo no Pastor to a Pastor Againe I reason from 1. Tim. 4.14 Math 18.15 1. Cor. 5.4.12.13 What taks the power of ordination and jurisdiction from Bishops destroyes Bishops as the removall of the soule kills the man and the denyall of the forme takes away the subject so the power of ordination and jurisdiction the essentiall forme whereby the Bishop is constitute and distinguished from the Presbyter and every other Church officer being removed from him he must perish but the quoted places take away cleerly these powers from the Bishop for the first puts the power of ordination in the Presbytery and a Bishop is not a Presbytery the second puts the power of jurisdiction in the Church and the third in a company of men which meet together but the Bishop is not the Church nor a company of men met together for these be many and he is but one persone When the Doctors learning he satisfied us in these two he shall receave more scripturall arguments against Episcopacy The Praelats unable to answer their opposits But why doe wee expect answers from these men when after so long time for all their boasts of learning and their visible leasure none of their party hes hade the courage to offer one word of answer to the Scriptures and Fathers which in great plenty Mr. Parker and Mr. Didoclave of old and of late that mitacle of learning most noble Somais and that Magazin of antiquity Mr. Blondel have printed against them What in the end of the Chapter the Warner addes of our trouble at King James his fiftie and five questions 1596 and of our yeelding the bucklers without any opposition till the late unhappy troubles we answer that in this as every where else the Warner proclaines his great and certaine knowledge of our Ecclesiastick story the troubles of the Scots divines at that time were very small for the matter of these questions all which they did answer so roundly that ther was no more speach of them therafter by the propounders but the manner and time of these questions did indeed perplex good men to see Erastian and Prelaticall counsellors so farr to prevaile with our King as to make him by captious questions carpe at these parts of Church-discipline which by statuts of Parliament and acts of Assemblyes were fully established Our Church at that time was far from yeelding to Episcopacy Prelacy was ever grievous to Scotland great trouble indeed by some wicked States-men was then brought upon the persones of the most able and faithfull Ministers but our land was so far from receiving of Bishops at that time that the question was not so much as proposed to them for many yeares thereafter it was in Ann. 1606 that the English Praelats did move the King by great violence to cast many of the best and most learned Preachers of Scotland out of their charges and in Ann. 1610 that a kind of Episcopacy was set up in the corrupt assembly of Glasgow under which the Church of Scotland did heavily groane till the yeare 1637 when their burdens was so much increased by the English praelaticall Tax-masters that all was shaken of together and divine justice did so closly follow at the heeles that oppressing praelacy of England as to the great joy of the long oppressed Scotes that evill root and all its branches was cast out of Britaine where wee trust no shadow of it shall ever againe be seen CHAP. IX The Common-wealth is no monster when God is made Soveraigne and their commands of men are subordinated to the clear will of God HAving cleered the vanity of these calumnious challenges where with
the judicatories of the Church according to the generall rules which are clear also in the word for matters of that nature In this neither Papists nor the learndest of the Praelats find any fault with us yet our Warner must spend a whole Chapter upon it It is true as we observed before the elder Praelats of England in Edwards Elizabeths dayes as the Erastians now did mantaine that no particular Governement of the Church was jure divino and if this be the Warners mind it were ingenuity in him to speake it out loud and to endeavour to perswade his friends about the King of the truth of this tenet he was never imployed about a better and more seasonable service for if the discipline of the Church be but humano jure then Episcopacy is keeped up upon no conscience conscience being bottomed only upon a divine right so Episcopacy wanting that bottom may well be laid aside at this time by the King for any thing that concernes conscience since no command of God nor warrant from scripture tyes him to keep it up This truely seemes to be the maine ground whereupon the whole discourse of this Chapter is builded Is it tolerable that such truthes should be concealed by our Warners against their conscience when the speaking of them out might be so advantagious to the King and all his Kingdomes how ever wee with all the reformed Churches doe beleeve in our heart the divine right of Synods and Presbyteries and for no possible inconvenient can be forced to deny or passe from this part of truth yet the Warner heere joynes with the elder Praelats who till Warner Banckrofts advancement to the sea of Canterburry did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of divine right and by consequent affirmed it to be moveable and so lawfull to be laid aside by princes when so ever they found it expedient for their affaires to be quyte of it why does not the warner and his Brethren speake plainly their thoughts in his Majesties eares why do they longer dissemble their conscience only for the satisfaction of their ambition greed and revenge sundry of the Praelaticall divines come yet further to joyne fully with Erastus in denying not only Episcopacy and all other particular formes of Church government to be of divine institution but in avowing that no governement in the Church at all is to be imagined but such as is a part of the civill power of the Magistrat The Warner in the Chapter and in diverse other parts of his booke seemes to agree with this judgment and upon this ground if he had ingenuity he would offer his helping hand to untie the bonds of the Kings conscience if heere it were straytened by demonstrating from this his principle that very safely without any offence to God and nothing doubting for conscience sake his Majestie might lay aside Episcopacy and set up the Presbytery so fully as is required in all his dominions though not upon a divine right which the Presbyterians beleeve yet upon Erastus royall right which the Warner here and elsewhere avouches What the Warner puts heere again upon the Presbyterie The praelaticall party were lately bent for Popery the usurpation of the temporall sword in what indirect relation so ever its probation in the former chapter was found so weake and naughty that the repetition of it is for no use only wee marke that the Warner will have the Presbitery to be an absolute papacy for no other purpose but to vent his desire of revenge against the Presbyterians who gave in a challenge against the Praelats especially the late Canterburians among whom Doctor Bramble was one of some note to which none of them have returned to this howre an answer that their principles unavoidably did bring backe the pope For a Patriarch over all the westerne Churches and among all the Patriarches of the whole Catholick Church a primacy in the Roman flowes cleerly out of the fountaine of Episcopacy according to the avowed doctrine of the English praelats who yet are more liberall to the pope in granting him beside his spirituall super-inspection of the whole Catholick Church all his temporall jurisdictions also in the patrimony of St. Peter and all his other faire principalities within and without Italy There is no ceremony in Rome that these men stick upon for of all the superstitious and idolatrous ceremonies of Rome their images and altars and adorations before them are incomparably the worst yet the Warners friends without any recantation we have heard of avow them all even an adoration of and to the altar it selfe As for the doctrines of Rome what points are worse then these which that party have avowed in expresse tearmes a corporall presence of Christs body upon the Altar the Tridentine justification free-will finall apostacy of the Saints when no other thing can be answered to this our sore challenge it is good to put us off with a Squib that the Presbyterie is as absolute papacy as ever was in Rome The Presbyterian position which the Warner heere offers not to dispute but to laugh at that Christ as King of his Church according to his royall office and Scepter hes appointed the office bearers and lawes of the house is accorded to by the most and sharpest of our adversaries whether English or Romish as their owne tenet howbeit such foolish consequences that all acts of Synods must be Christs Lawes c. neither they nor wee doe acknowledge His declamations against the novelty of the Presbyterie in the ordinary stile of the Jesuites against Protestants The Praelats professe now a willingnes to abolish at least three parts of the former Episcopacy and of the pagan Philosophers against the Christians of old who will regarde our plea for the Praesbyterie is that it is scripturall if so it is auncient enough if not let it be abolished But it were good that heer also the Warner and his friends would be ingenuous to speake out their minds of Episcopacy Why have they all so long deceived the King in assuring him that English Episcopacy was wel warranted both by Scripture and antiquity Be it so which yet is very false that something of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter had any footing in Scripture yet can they be so impudent as to affirme that an English Bishop in his very flesh and blood in his substantiall limbs was ever knowne in the World till the pope was become Antichrist A Bishop by virtue of his office a Lord in Parliament voycing in all acts of State and exercising the place of a high Thesaurer of a Chancelor or what ever civill charge the favour of a Prince did put upon him a Bishop with sole power of ordination and jurisdiction with out any Presbytery a Bishop exercising no jurisdiction himselfe in any part of his dioces but devolving the exercise of that power wholly upon his officials Commissaries a Bishop ordaining Presbyters himselfe alone or with the fashionall