this argument was forced to alledg That all the Presbyters mentioned in the Scripture were Bishops and not Ministers for he saw that he behoved either to lose the Bishop or the Presbyter in the Bible for not only are Presbyters called Bishops but they are made Bishops by the Holy Ghost now to say that the Holy Ghost made them nominally Bishops but not really Bishops is very injurious to the work of the Spirit as if it were productive only of an empty name And it takes away the force of the argument Feed the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers or Bishops If they had only the name of Bishops and not the Office the argument would not be cogent for a meer empty name and title doth not oblige a man who gets it to any work And as Paul says That the Holy Ghost made the Elders of the Church of Ephesus Bishops So the Apostle Peter exhorts Elders to take inspection to do the work of Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither doth the name of Bishop import any primacy of one Minister over others for the Apostle John taketh the love of pre-eminence or primacy in Diotrephes but Paul commends the desire of the Office of a Bishop which shews that the Office of a Bishop doth not import a primacy But though Bishop and Presbyter be one in the Scripture yet it cannot be denied that afterward the name of Bishop began to be appropriate to some Ministers in eminent Cities and afterward Ordination and then Jurisdiction was by degrees taken from the Presbyters It 's true Presbyterians when they are urged with these humane stories and with the holiness of the Ancients who were Bishops they do not deny but praise the holiness and zeal of these Ancients who were Bishops but neither the holiness of the men nor the Ecclesiastick custom will prove the Divine right of the Episcopacy pleaded for If any would plead for Polygamy from the holiness of Abraham the Father of the Faithful and of Jacob who as a Prince did prevail with God in weeping and making supplication Or from the long continuance of that Polygamy the answer were easie From the beginning it was not so God made male and female So when they plead that Bishop and Presbyter were distinguished in after-times it 's answered From the beginning it was not so God made Bishop and Presbyter one man should not have made them two nor made the one less to make the other greater than he was by Divine constitution Yet it cannot be denied that this is a very plausible pretext for setting up Bishops above Presbyters But their new Prelates have no pretext nor colour imaginable for their Jurisdiction over Presbyters for they pretend to no other name but Ministers and yet they will Lord it over their fellow Ministers and thus their Soveraignty is more intollerable because it hath no kind of colour or pretext for it The last clause in the Doctors Definition against Presbyters is pretty ingenious for Prelates engross the power that Presbyters should have Prelacy rises upon the ruines of Presbyters yet I suppose the generality of those who are for Episcopacy will give the Doctor no thanks for that clause of the Definition but it agrees very well with their new Prelates for at their first appearance in the world they stand in a posture of opposition against the Presbyters of the Church of Scotland they libel them they effectually depose them if not excommunicate them nor can they expect to be absolved till they make these their Accusers their Judges and stand in Judgment to be judged by them and if we may guess by the Libel which the Judges themselves formed the sentence would not be very comfortable There is yet another thing which would make them a very dangerous sort of Prelates and that is That they not only engross this Sovereign and Peerless power over Presbyters but also which other Prelates use not to do they engross a singularity in Holiness as if they and they alone had followed God and were free of Defections which other Ministers are involved in and it 's like this is one of the Foundations of their new Sovereignty that they think themselves though the lesser yet the sounder part of the ministry It puts me in mind of a Countryman who understood not Latine who heard some talking great things that the senior pars Ecclesiae could do he enquired what is he that Sanior he sems to be some great man but except they be Judges themselves they will not be accounted by men of sound minds to be the sounder part of the Church Nay Orestes himself would say it and swear it That the contrivance of this Bond was not the work of a man sound in his mind Non sani esse homines non sanus juret Orestes Any may see with half an eye that this is not a Presbyterial form of Government for in Presbytery the Plurality carries matters and the part is ruled by the whole but here the part and a very little considerable part and a part not in conjunction with the whole but that hath disjoyned it self from the whole takes upon it to govern the whole even as if a little Toe should disjoyn it self from the Body and then take upon it to judge the whole Body and dispose of it at its pleasure It is a wonder that so few men so inconsiderable for number and parts were not ashamed to think of their sitting and judging so many Ministers let be to publish it to the world As their high Court of Justice would have made strange havock of Magistrates and readily dispatched some Presbyterian Minister for Loyalty as Mr. Love was dispatched in England to be a terrour to others so this Ecclesiastick Judicatory in all appearance if Ministers had been such fools as to have owned them would have made great havock of Ministers for a few weak men not sound in their Principles and transported with Passion and Impatience and possest with a Conceit of their singular Purity and Zeal and usurping a pre-eminency over the generality of Ministers and taking on them to be their Judges and talking of no less than deposition before they were in any capacity to depose would have made a very Kittle-Court It 's a sad spectacle to behold many through ignorance and blinding humours running into the same evils which they in words disclaim They in words disclaim Independency and yet really make the people and not Church-Officers to be Rulers and guides to direct Ministers what to preach and do and to depose them if they obey not these directions They who called themselves the Council of the Army which was broken at Bothwel-Bridge were highly displeased with the indulged Ministers because the secret Council had sent instructions to them though the indulged Ministers did not accept of them and yet these same persons took upon them to prescribe to those Ministers and Preachers that were with them
them and they must stand and fall as they are pleased to determine Their Soveraignty is the more absolute that their Dignity proceeds of themselves and men use not to limit their own power when they have it at their own making or taking the old Prelates depend upon the King and they are sent from Court It 's true Athanasius * Epist ad Solitariam vitam Agentes finds fault with that ubi ille Canon ut è palatio mittaturis qui futurus est Episcopus Yet any thing that is in its nature excessive and inclined to pass bounds is less dangerous when it is limited by some other thing on which it depends than when it is left to its own indefinite appetite or inclination Their new Prelates depend neither upon King nor Kesar but are independent their Prelacy proceeds of themselves this makes it very dreadful like the Dominion of the Chaldeans Hab. 1.7 They are terrible and dreadful their judgment and dignity shall proceed of themselves They were terrible because as Mr. Hutcheson upon the place saith They would be their own carvers in all matters of advantage and honour standing to no law either of Nature or Nations in dealing with a terrified and subdued people but meerly following their own will armed with power If ye say they are not designed Lords nor a Soveraign power ascribed to them in the Bond but they are designed Ministers that is Servants I answer if folk will be beguiled with names the Pope will call himself Servus servorum a Servant of Servants but there is a real Soveraignty given to them when a Jurisdiction over all Presbyterian Ministers to suspend depose and dispose of their Ministry as they please is ascribed to them And the other Prelates deal more candidly in taking the name of Soveraignty and Lordship seeing they have the thing Is it not a strange arrogance that a Presbyter or two or three Presbyters shall claim a stated Jurisdiction over a great multitude of Presbyters who have the same office with themselves they either have that power over their Brethren by vertue of their Ministerial Office as they are Presbyters or by vertue of some other Office not by vertue of the Office of a Presbyter or Minister for then one and the same Office should make one Presbyter a Soveraign and Lord and another Presbyter his subject a Presbyter as a Presbyter cannot have dominion over a Presbyter for one and the same Office cannot make a man Soveraign over another who hath the same Office that he hath If they have this Soveraign power over their Brethren by vertue of some other Office than the Office of a Minister or Presbyter then let them tell us what Office this is if it be not the Office of a Prelate 2. It hath not yet been proven that the Lord gave a Soveraign power and Spiritual jurisdiction to any one of his Ministers no not to the Apostles over the rest Paul Bains in his Diocesan Trial Pag. 73 77. shews that a majority of directive and corrective power such a power as Bishops claim is more than Ministerial And Mr. Rutherford in his Divine Right of Church-Government saith Nor do we find that the Apostles had jurisdiction over Pastors in the Scripture nor in any Ecclesiastick Records but where Papacy was working See Pag. 21. There is but one Lord in the Church Ephes 4. and Christ hath forbidden Lordship and enjoined ministry and serving Luk. 22.24 1 Pet. 5.3 Non requiritur in dominatione humilitas sed ipsa Dominatio prohibetur saith Whitaker Christus de re dominantur non autem de modo dominandi hoc vel illo modo dominantur saith Junius The work of all Church-Officers is a Ministerial work not only Doctors and Pastors but Apostles Prophets and Evangelists were appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the work of the Ministry Ephes 4.12 2 Cor. 4.5 Paul calls himself a fellow-servant with Epaphras Col. 1.7 with Tychicus Col. 4.7 Paul's dignity consisted not in Lording over other Ministers but in labouring more abundantly than others the Apostles claimed no Mastery or stated jurisdiction over other Ministers but they did draw with them as yoke-fellows and fought with them in their Spiritual warfare as fellow Soldiers and wrought with them as fellow-labourers Phil. 4.3 Phil. 2.25 Phil. 2. Rom. 16.3 they engrossed not the power of Jurisdiction in the Synod of Jerusalem to themselves for the Presbyters judged with them the Decrees of the Council Act. 16.4 were Ordained by the Apostles and Elders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Church at Antioch sends Paul to Jerusalem Act. 15. the Officers of the Church at Antioch lay hands on Paul and Barnabas Act. 13.1 2 3. Paul and Barnabas are sent with a Collection Act. 11.29 30. the Apostles claimed no negative in Presbyteries or Synods in Ordination Excommunication c. The Apostles were extraordinary Ambassadors had infallible instructions by their Doctrine and practice did shew the Platform of the Church were not limited to any fixed charge and so might exercise their Ministerial authority in all places where they came they were to lay the foundations of Churches But that they had any such stated Jurisdiction over other Ministers as Prelates claim over Presbyters is yet to be proven for any thing I know their instructing Ministers and Churches in their duty and reproving their sins will not prove it for the Prophets did so and yet they had no stated Jurisdiction over the Priests Paul reproved Peter but had not jurisdiction over him That Timothy or Titus had such a stated Jurisdiction over the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet is yet to be proven that they had the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction and that the Ministers of Ephesus and Creet had no power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is not yet proven The Apostle directs them to Ordain but that they are directed to do it alone and not in conjunction with other Ministers is yet to be proven Lay hands suddenly on no man is a Direction applicable to every Minister there are multitudes of Directions given them that cannot be denied to be given to all Ministers and that some Directions are given to them as Prelates and some as Presbyters is as easily denied as affirmed But though it were granted that those extraordinary Officers in founding Churches at first might do some things which ordinary Ministers might not do this would be no warrant for these two or three who were but very ordinary persons to claim a Jurisdicton over the rest Whence have they their power No man can receive any thing of this nature except it be given him from Heaven Joh. 3.27 Let us see their Patent that we may know if it be leill come They must first shew a Warrant from the word for such a Prelatical Sovereignty and then let ut see how they came by it no man should take any Honour in the Church to himself at his own hand he must be called of God
deserve Excommunication but also whether they have authority over the person or persons who are scandalous and withal as Mr. Durham upon the Commands saith they would consider when censures by reason of some circumstances prove not edifying but hurtful to the Church and persons concerned For saith he that which warranteth debarring and censures of all sorts is edification and when that end cannot be gained to a people or person such censures may be omitted Or upon the censure would probably miss its end which is edification and would weaken the authority of the Ordinance of Discipline if not hazard the liberty of the Gospel in that case he thinks that exclusion from the Sacrament by a sentence may be forborn But as for this late Excommunication judicious sober persons are grieved and much ashamed to hear of it and it 's matter of sport and derision to others and it 's more than probable that Jesuits take advantage of the distempers of weak persons to drive them under pretext of zeal to such Pope-like pranks to make the Popes Excommunications of Princes less odious and to render Presbyterians odious to Rulers but any who will not shut their eyes may see that such extravagancies are inconsistent with Presbyterian principles and practices Dr. Gauden adds That this Soveraign Jurisdiction is without above against Presbyters and people In all these their new Prelates have the pre-eminency For the first it is indeed true that Prelates need not if they please desire the presence or advice of Presbyters for they claim the sole authority of Ordination and Jurisdiction and the Presbyters have no concurrence in authoritative acts The Author of the seasonable case speaking of the Bishops nomination of the Moderators of the Meetings of Exercise has written that the Bishop did it with the Synod this seemed to give the Synod a concurrence in the nomination of the Moderators and therefore all the Printed Copies which I saw were mended with a Pen and the with was turned to in which turned the Synods concurrence into a meer presence A Diocesan Synod saith Mr. William Scot is only an Episcopal Visitation and not a Council properly so called and cites Bellar. de Concil lib. 1. cap. 4. Diocesana concilia sunt in quibus conveniunt tantum Presbyteri unius Episcopâ—â—us tis Episcopus praeest cujus geâ—eris paricissima exstant nec immerito nam vix dici possunt concilia cum in iis nullus sit qui jurisdictionem habet praeter unum Episcopum qui praeest A Council is wherein those who are assembled have every one of them a part of the joint-power and jurisdiction belonging to that Council as every Senator hath in the Senate The comparing of the Act of Glasgow June 3. 1610 anent Visitations with the Act of Parliament relating to it sheweth that Diocesan Synods are Episcopal Visitations the Bishop summons to them in his own name makes the Clerk appoint a Substitute or Vicegerent when he pleases he only sententiates deposes suspends if he at any time number votes and conclude according to the plurality that is not done by vertue of the Act of Glasgow but by tolerance of the Bishop who does it to settle himself in possession But when they please they will not so much as suffer a matter to come to voicing and therefore they who cannot come to a Bishops particular Visitation when he or his Substitute visits the Kirks of his Diocess severally which was wont to be called Visitatio plena he cannot go to the Diocesan Synod which is nothing but a superficial shuffled Visitation devised to hold in the Bishops travel in going through the Diocess to make a full Visitation But suppose they were Councils yet they are not fre for the Bishop by his negative whether in the Synod or out of the Synod even in a Court inferiour to the Synod may dash all done in the Synod yea he may do it by his Affirmatives in the very Synod so that the Presbyters are only in the nature of Counsellors Thus far he From which we see the Bishop claims the sole authority and he might act without Presbyters if he pleased yet they use not to act without their Presbyters and use to seek their advice and counsel but their new Prelates do not desire the advice or presence of Presbyters the old Prelates are so discreet that they suffer the Presbyters to sit beside them as Counsellors but these new ones do neither admit them to sit or stand as Counsellors but require them to stand as guilty to be judged And so Dr. Gauden's definition is more verified in them than in the former Bishops As for the next Clause in the Doctors description viz. above Presbyters it agrees also to their new Prelates and their superiority over Presbyters is the more intollerable that there is no kind of pretext for it for they are designed only Ministers now a Minister as a Minister to be above Ministers is an usurpation the more intollerable that it is not colourable with any pretext either Divine or humane The old Prelates plead a superiority Jure Regio which King James they say thought their surest title and that they had best to hold them by Jure Jacobi Some plead from Analogy that as the high Priest was over the Priests so the Bishop may be over the Presbyters But to let pass the answer of the Typicalness of the Office of the high Priest I have not yet seen any argument to prove that the high Priest had a Soveraign Jurisdiction over the rest of the Priests he might do several things which the rest of the Priests might not do as some servants have more eminent service in a family and yet no masterly or Soveraign power over other servants who have not so eminent service allotted to them They have a pretext also from the Asian Angels because there one Angel in the singular number is written to it 's true that reason taken from the singular number to prove that it must needs be a single person is no solid argument especially in a mystical Book such as the Revelation is in which sometimes one is spoken of in the Plural number as in the first Chapter the one Spirit of God is called seven Spirits The four Beasts the four and twenty Elders are not four individual persons or four and twenty single Elders The seven Angels Rev. 8.2 6. 15.1 are not to be restricted to seven individual Angels The Woman clothed with the Sun the Whore the Beast the Dragon are names of the singular number and yet signifie a collection of many Individuals When the Angel of the Lord is said to incamp about them who fear the Lord it 's expounded of Angels because one Angel cannot be properly said to incamp Again they have a pretext of Superiority as Bishops over Presbyters It 's true Presbyterians make it evident from Scipture that Bishop and Presbyter are one there And Dr. Hammond to evite the dint of
Minister so ill informed while he is inveighing against the supremacy should act as if he had a Papal Supremacy in stigmatizing deposing excommunicating his fellow-servant But I perceive the truth of that saying That man will much sooner see a Pope in another mans belly than when he is in his own That saithful Minister was seeing light in light when the Author of the Cup of cold Water did judge him no seer he was admitted to the fellowship of the Saints in Heaven before this Sentence of Excommunication was past on earth He was drinking of the pure river of the water of life when this foul and not cold but scalding hot water was cast at him out of this Cup of cold Water The Author hath verified what the Poet thought impossible Unda dabit flammas I wish the other part of the verse dabit ignis aquas may also be verified that such flashes of fire proceeding from the wrath of man might be turned into these waters that the Prophet Jeremiah wishes for and be resolved in tears of godly sorrow Having discovered the wrong which the Author of the Cup of cold Water and the Author of this History have done to that one indulged Minister I answer Secondly That which the Author of the History of the Indulgence subsumes That the indulged Ministers accepted of that which purely flowed from that Supremacy which they count an usurpation is false and a begging of the question as he refers to the 3d. head I refer to the answer to it before given His third That the entry is founded upon any sinful Supremacy is also false To his 4th concerning the Patrons we spoke before For his 5th after he hath repeated that the indulged Ministers did receive the Instructions which is a false alledgance as we have cleared from Mr. H's Speech and what was spoken by the indulged Ministers who were called before the Council for not keeping the 29th of May and from the Authors own confession who grants that they did not obey these injunctions and acknowledges that they gave an honest Testimony against them he draws a parallel whereby he thinks it may distinctly appear that their refusal of the benefit offered by the accommodation did condemn their accepting of the benefit offered by the Indulgence but he is here as far out in his Mathematicks as we have found him before out in his Morals and Logicks The acceptance of the relaxation of the civil restraint which impeded the peaceable exercise of their Ministry hath no proportion with or equality unto the acceptance of the Proposals made by Bishop Lighton for accommodation for the acceptance of these proposals had been the accepting of a wrong form and model of Church-government In that Model of Government offered in these Proposals there is an Officer set up a Diocesan Bishop who is not in the Rolls of Church-Officers recorded in the Scripture a President imposed upon not freely elected by the Synod not countable to nor censurable by the Synod claiming power to restrain not only single Presbyters but Presbyteries from the exercise of that Authority which they have received from Christ for the Edification of the Church Who can restrain a Presbytery from ordaining a Minister though the Church who hath elected him be most earnest to have him ordained the person elected be most fit for the charge and the Presbytery most desirous to ordain The Synod is mangled in its members wanting ruling Elders manacled is its power not being free to chuse its own Moderator nor to censure the imposed President though he were most culpable and unworthy of his place The proposals overturns the identity of Bishop and Presbyter for in them not only is Distinction made betwixt the Bishop and Presbyter but the Bishop is made Superior to the Presbytery they destroy the parity of Ministers and the subjection of the part to the whole what the Provincial Synod would have been who could tell but it 's like it would be less than the Dioceson and yet this behoved to be subject to that The accepting of these Proposals and entering into and concurring with Meetings thus corruptly constituted had been a real consenting to owning setling establishing promoving this corrupt constitution of Government and no verbal declaration of their dissatisfaction with the corruptions in the constitution could have salved the matter for their voluntary constituting themselves members of a Court so corruptly constitute and concurring with the Bishop while he was exercising his Prelatical Power for if he exercise it any where it is in the Diocesan Synods had been contrary to their verbal Declaration and whatever they said contrary to the Bishops usurpation or the corrupt constitution of the Court their deed would have effectively and most effectually established that corrupt form of Church-government and rendered their words ineffectual and ridiculous The most effectual way of establishing an Usurper is to concur with him in his Courts and act in a forinsick subordination to him Now the indulged Ministers in accepting the relaxation so often spoken of did neither verbally nor really acknowledge own or establish any usurpation of the Council The Author says That their deed was a manifest complyance with Erastianism but this is false as hath been before cleared and thus he goeth about to make their acceptance of the relaxation of the Civil restraint which is in it self a straight line crooked that it might run parallel to the crooked line of compliance with Prelacy but this was a fault in morality whatever it was in the Mathematicks His first six parallels and his second six parallels are nothing to his purpose except ye let him have his conclusion by begging in granting that the practice of the indulged Ministers was an establishment of or a compliance with Erastianism Mathematicians uses to demonstrate and not to beg the question The Author wanted not will to have made a Demonstration but the matter would not work for him He hath another parallel in the sixth where he compares the acceptance of the Indulgence with the taking of the Collation and first he tells us what the taker of Collation and the taker of the Indulgence may think and then he tells us what both of them really does The taker of the Collation acknowledgeth and preferreth the Prelate as a Minister of Christ So says he he who submitteth to the Indulgence acknowledgeth the Magistrate or the Council to be the proper subject of formal Church-power he should have proven that the acceptance of the relaxation c. imports any such acknowledgment but it was easier to take it for granted than to prove it In his third he tells us there is in the Indulgence a formal acceptance but he tells us not of what and says he a plain submission but he tells us not to what and a Recognizance but he tells not of what and a significant transaction but he tells not about what It appears by the Parenthesis that follows viz. if the