Legions as men hee would meet them undismayed and say with holy David Though an host should encampe against mee my heart should not feare but with just confidence I gladly fly to the barre of this high and Honorable Court And yet by his leave hee thought it his best wisdome to fly from this barre and to dedicate his book to the Kings Majestie alone and not to the two houses And in another place hee saith the Apostles practise is so irrefragable for them that if wee doe but adde the unquestionable practise of their immediate successors hee knowes not what more light can bee desired for the manifestation of the truth of his opinion In his Epistle to the King hee saith That if hee doth not make it appeare that wee have abused our Reader with false shewes of misalleadged antiquities and meerely colourable pretences of proofes let the blemish of his reputation leade way to the sharpest censure upon his person Iust like the Authour of Episcopacie by Divine right who is so confident against Lay Elders That hee offers to forfeit his life to justice and his reputation to shame if any man living can shew that ever there was a Ruling Elder in the world till Farel and Viret first created them And yet hee could not but know that Arch-Bishop Whitgift as well seene in Antiquitie as himselfe confesseth that there were Ruling Elders in the Primitive Church Thus also doth Bishop King Saravia himselfe thinkes the governement of Ruling Elders to be good and profitable In his answer to our arguments sometimes hee tells us that wee prove nothing but our bold ignorance and absurd inconsequences Otherwhile hee saith Poore arguments scarce worthy of a passe These are trifling cavills not worth the answer Verball exceptions which will sinke like light froath Meere declamations worthie of no answer but contempt and scorne forbeare Reader if you can to smile at this curious subtilty What Cabalisme have wee here Our quaeries are made up of nothing but spight and slander His ordinarie answer toour Testimonies out of Antiquity is This Authour is misalledged That Father abused This Councell shuffled up with little fidelitie Away with your unproving illustrations and unregardable testimonies And this is all the answer hee gives Throughout the whole booke he endeavours to render us to the Reader as destitute of all learning as if our reading had never gone beyond a Polyanthea Hee calles us boldly ignorant And that wee would make the Reader beleeve that wee had seene a Father And that we would seeme to have seene the Canon Law And that it is enough wee can shew a little reading to no purpose But in all these and many more such like Sarcasmes and vaine Rhetorications hee doth but act the part of his Hierarchicall predecessors whose chiefe answers have beene scoffes and scornes and therefore what learned Rivetus saith of Bishop Mountague may with as much truth bee averred of this namelesse Author Montacutius vir certedoctus sed admodum praefidens tumidus aliorum contemptor suggillator And in another place Non potest vir ille sine convitijs quemquam a quo dissentit vel in levissimis nominare But what strength and weight there is in such kinde of arguments and answers let the wise Reader judge And yet not withstanding all this confidence Thrasonicall boasting we desire thee to observe Fourthly That if the whole booke were divided into foure parts there is one quarter of which he makes no mention but passeth it over either with scorne or silence And where our arguments are strongest there hee slides away without answering which cannot but make the judicious Reader beleeve that hee thought the yron to hot for him and therefore would not touch it least it should burne his owne fingers as himselfe saith pag. 21. And even in those things wherein hee undertakes to answere us we cannot but give notice that wee have confitentem reum and in effect the cause granted in those things which are most materiall For when wee prove from Scripture the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters both in name and office he tells us with a little varying of our words Wee idly loose our labour It neede bee no scruple to us It is in expresse termes granted when we prove that there are not three degrees of Ministery in the Scripture to wit Bishops Presbyters and Deacous hee answers it is granted you speake of the Apostles writings but I of their successors Hee granteth also that the Primitive Bishops were elected by the Clergie and people That Bishops ought not to have sole power in Ordination and Iurisdiction That they ought not to delegate their power to others That the ordinary managing of secular imployments is improper for them And hee doth almost grant that there were Lay-Elders in antiquity For whereas the Author of Episcopacy by Divine right affirmeth that the name of Elders of the Church in all antiquity comprehendeth none but Preachers and that therefore they onely may bee called Seniores Ecclesiae though some others may have the title of Seniores populi because of their civill authority This Author acknowledgeth that besides Pastors and besides the Magistrates and Elders of the City there are to bee found in antiquity Seniores Ecclesiastici Indeede hee saith that these were but as our Churchwardens or Vestry men But how true this is the Reader shall see in due place Lastly hee grants that all that wee say in the Postscripts about the Popish Prelates is true Celari non potuit negari non debuit And for what we say of the Protestant Bishops he denies not the truth of it only he chides for taxing all for the fault of some And in these things wherein hee doth diametrically oppose us hee doth frequently contradict himselfe and his best friends In his Epistle dedicatory hee professeth that he taxeth not our ability yet in the same Epistle hee calles us impotent assailants and afterwards Men of weake judgements and strong malice And Men that would seeme to have seene a Father And that all that we say is nothing but bold ignorance Pag. 94. he saith That to acknowledge an Ordinary Evangelist is a phancy and a dreame And yet elsewhere he makes every Preacher of the Gospell to be an Evangelist In his Remonstrant and in his defence he saith that Bishops had beene every where throughout all the Regions of the Christian world And that all Churches throughout the whole Christian world have uniformely and constantly maintained Episcopacy And yet elsewhere he denies that ever hee said That Bishops were every where and confesseth that there are lesse noble Churches that doe not conferre to Episcopall Governement Pag. 161. hee tells us that for 1600 yeares the name of Bishops hath bin appropriated in a plain contradistinction to the governors of the Church But in other places he often grants that the Name was confounded and ascribed to Presbyters are well as Bishops In his 36. pag. he saith That in
because he knowes not what to say against it If he did intend to anger us he is much mistaken for it pleaseth us well to heare him give so full a testimony that secular imployments are unsuitable to the Ministers of the Gospell Vnlesse in those two excepted cases of the extraordinary occasions and services of a Prince or State And the composing of unkind quarrels of dissenting neighbours We take what he grants us here so kindly that we pardon his unfit comparison betweene S. Pauls Tent-making to supply his owne necessities that he might not be burthensome to the Church the State imployment of our Bishops And should in this Section fully have joyned hands with him but that we must needs tell him at the parting that had our Bishops never ingaged themselves in secular affaires but ex officio generali Charitatis and had beene so free from ambition as he would make the world beleeve they are neither should wee have beene so large in this Section nor so aboundant in our processe nor would the Parliament have made that provision against the secular imployment of Clergy men as they have lately done SECT XIII THe best Charter pleaded for Episcopacy in former times was Ecclesiasticall constitution and the favour of Princes But our latter Bishops suspecting this would prove too weake and sandie a foundation to support a building of that transcending loftinesse that they have studied to advance the Babell of Episcopacy unto have indeavoured to under-pinne it with some texts of Scripture that they might plead a Ius divinum for it that the consciences of all might be tyed up from attempting to pull down their proud Fabricke but none of them is more confident in this plea then this Remonstrant who is content that Bishops should for ever be hooted out of the Church and be disclaimed as usurpers if they claime any other power then what the Scripture gives them especially bearing his cause upon Timothy and Titus and the Angels of the 7. Churches Now because one grain of Scripture is of more efficacy esteeme to faith then whole volumes of humane testimonies we indeavoured to shew the impertinency of his allegations especially in those two instances And concerning Timothy and Titus we undertooke two things First that they were not Bishops in his sence but Evangelists the companions of the Apostles in founding of Churches or sent by them from place to place but never setled in any fixed pastorall charge and this wee shewed out of the story of the Acts and the Epistles The other was that granting ex abundanti they had beene Bishops yet they never exercised any such jurisdiction as ours doe But because the great hinge of the controversie depends upon the instances of Timothy and Titus before we come to answer our Remonstrant we will promise these few propositions granted by most of the patrons of Episcopacy First Evangelists properly so called were men extraordinarily imployed in preaching the Gospell without a setled residence upon any one charge They were Comites Vicarii Apostolorum Vice-Apostles who had Curam Vicariam omnium Ecclesiarum as the Apostles had Curam principalem And did as Ambrose speakes Evangelizare sine Cathedra Secondly It is granted by our Remonstrant and his appendant Scultetus and many others That Timothy was properly an Evangelist while he travelled up and downe with the Apostles Thirdly It is expressely granted that Timothy and Titus were no Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome That is after the end of the Histories of the Acts of the Apostles Fourthly The first Epistle to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus from whence all their grounds for Episcopacy are fetcht were written by Paul before his first going to Rome And this is acknowledged by all interpreters and Chronologers that we have consulted with upon this point Baronius himselfe affirming it And the Remonstrants owne grounds will force him to acknowledge that the second Epistle to Timothy was also written at Pauls first being at Rome For that second Epistle orders him to bring Marke alone with him who by the Remonstrants account died five or six yeeres before Paul Which could not have beene if this Epistle were written at Pauls second comming to Rome Estius also following Baronius gives good reason that the second Epistle to Timothy was written at Pauls first being at Rome Fiftly If Timothy and Titus were not Bishops when these Epistles were written unto them then the maine grounds of Episcopacy by divine right sinke by their owne confession Bishop Hall in his Episcopacy by divine right part 2. sect 4. concludes thus peremptorily That that if the especiall power of ordination and power of ruling and censuring Presbyters be not cleare in the Apostles charge to these two Bishops the one of Creete the other of Ephesus I shall yeeld the cause and confesse to want my sences And it must needs be so for if Timothy were not then a Bishop the Bishops power of charging Presbyters of proving and examining Deacons of rebuking Elders and ruling over them and his imposition of hands to ordaine Presbyters c. doe all faile And Bishops in these can plead no succession to Timothy and Titus by these Scriptures more then other Presbyters may For if they were not Bishops then all these were done by them as extraordinary Officers to which there were no successors Sixtly By the confession of the patrons of Episcopacy It is not onely incongruous but sacrilegious for a Minister to descend from a superiour order to an inferiour according to the great Counsell of Chalcedon Seventhly In all that space of time from the end of the Acts of the Apostles untill the middle of Trajans raigne there is nothing certaine to be drawne out of Ecclesiasticall Authours about the affaires of the Church thus writeth Iosephus Scaliger Thus Tilenus when he was most Episcopall and Eusebius long before them both saith It cannot be easily shewed who were the true followers of the Apostles no further then it can be gathered out of the Epistles of Paul If the intelligent Reader weigh and consider these granted propositions he may with ease see how the life-blood of Episcopacy from Timothy and Titus is drayn'd out for if they were not Bishops till after Pauls first being at Rome then not when the Epistles were written to them according to the fourth proposition and then their cause failes if any shall say they were Bishops before Pauls first being at Rome contrary to the third proposition then they make them Bishops while by the story its apparent they were Evangelists and did Evangelizare sine cathedra and so clash against the second In a word the office of an Evangelist being a higher degree of Ministery then that of Bishops make them Bishops when you please you degrade them contrary to our sixt proposition whiles the Remonstrant tryes to reconcile these things we shall make further use of them
which they have made who have beene intoxicated with the Golden Chalice of the whore of Babylons abominations hath so alienated the affections of people from them as that what doome so ever they are sentenced unto it is no other then what they have brought upon themselves As for our part we are still of the same mind that honourable maintenance ought to be given to the Ministers of the Gospell not onely to live but to be hospitable Indeed we instanced in many that did abuse their large revenues But you are pleased to say That in this Ablative age the fault is rare and hardly instanceable We thinke the contrary is more hardly instanceable And as for your Ablative age if you meane it of poore Presbyters who have beene deprived of all their subsistance by the unmercifulnesse of Bishops whom they with teares have besought to pitty their wives and children we yeeld it to be too true Or if you meane in regard of the purity of the ordinances the frequency of preaching the freedome of conceived prayer We denie not but in this sence also it may be called the Ablative age But if you relate it to Episcopacy and their Cathedrals with whom it is now the Accusative age We hope that the yeere of recompense is come and that in due time for all their Ablations they may be made a gratefull ablation We have done with this section and feare not to appeale to the same judicious eyes the Remonstrant doth to judge to whose part that Vale of absurd inconsequences and bold ignorance which hee brands us withall doth most properly appertaine SECT XIV IN this Section hee comes to make good his anâ—wers formerly given to some objections by him propounded and by us further urged The first objection was from that prejudice which Episcopacy challenging a divine originall doth to Soveraignty which was wont to be acknowledged not onely as the conserving but as the creating cause of it in former times The Remonstrant thinks this objection is sufficiently removed by telling us there is a compatiblenesse in this case of Gods act and the Kings And what can wee say to this Sir you know what we have said already and not onely said but proved it and yet will confidently tell us you have made good by undeniable proofes that besides the ground which our Saviour layd of this imparity the blessed Apostles by inspiration from God made this difference c. Made good when where by what proofs Something you have told us about the Apostles but not a word in all the defence of any ground laid by our Saviour of this imparitie yet the man dreams of undeniable proofs of that whereof he never spake word Wee must therefore tell you againe take it as you please that if the Bishops disclaime the influence of Soveraignty into their creation and say that the King doth not make them Bishops they must have no being at all Nor can your questions stop our mouthes Where or when did the King ever create a Bishop Name the man and take the cause Wee grant you Sir that so much as there is of a Presbyter in a Bishop so much is Divine But that imparity and jurisdiction exercised out of his own demandated authority which are the very formalities of Episcopacie these had their first derivation from the Consent Customes Councell Constitution of the Church which did first demandate this Episcopall authority to one particular person afterwards the Pope having obtained a Monarchie over the Church did from himself demandate that authority that formerly the Church did and since the happy ejection of the Popes tyrannicall usurpations out of these Dominions our Princes being invested with all that Ecclesiasticall power which that Tyrant had usurped that same imparity and authority which was originally demandated from the Church successively from the Pope is now from the King Looke what influence the Church ever had into the creation of Bishops the same the Pope had after and looke what influence the Pope had heretofore the same our Laws have placed in the King which is so cleere that the Remonstrant dares not touch or answer There was a Statute made the first of Edward the sixth inabling the King to make Bishops by his Letters patents Onely Hence all the Bishops in King Edwards the sixt time were created Bishops by the Kings Letters patents ONELY in which all parts of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction are granted them in precise words praeter ultra jus divinum Besides and beyond divine right to be executed onely nomine vice Authoritate nostri Regis in the Kings royall stead name and Authority as the patents of severall Bishops in the Rolls declare But besides the Kings Letters the Bishop is solemnly ordained by the imposition of the hands of the Metropolitan and other of his brethren these as from God invest him in his holy calling As from God Good sir prove that prove that the Metropolitan and Bishops in such imposition of hands are the instruments of God not the instruments of the King prove they doe it by Commission received from God and not by command of the King onely Produce one warrant from Scripture one president of a Bishop so ordained by a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops and without more dispute take all Shortly resolve us but this one thing what is it that takes a man out of the ordinary ranke of Presbyters and advanceth him to an imparity and power of jurisdiction is it humane authority testified in the Letters of the King or is it divine authority testified by the significative action of imposition of hands by the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops if the former you grant the cause if the latter consider with what good warrant you can make a form of Ordination by the hands of a Metropolitan and fellow Bishops which is a meer humane invention to be not onely a signe but a mean of conveying a peculiar and superiour power from Divine Authority and of making a Presbyter a Bishop Iuredivino Finally Sir make as much as you can of your Ordination by a Metropolitan slight as much as you please your unworthy comparison between the King and our Patrons yet did the Kings Conge d'eslire give you no more humane right to Episcopacie then the hands of the Metropolitan and fellow Bishops give you of right Divine you would be Bishops by neither It is not your confident re-inforcing of your comparison that shal call carry it till you have first proved it from Scripture that God never instituted an order of Presbyters or Ministers in his Church as wee have proved God never instituted an order of Bishops Secondly that by the Laws of the land as much of the Ministeriall power over a particular Congregation is in the patron as there is of Episcopall power in the King Till then wee beseech you let it rest undetermined whether your self or we may best be sent to Simons Cell We say no more
Convictive where 's your argument from the long standing of Episcopacie The other things which hee refers to their more proper place we shall expect there Onely for his confident challenge he makes to us to name any man in this Nation that hath contradicted Episcopacie till this present age We must put him in remembrance that in his Remonstrance his words were unto this present day Which unlesse hee will have recourse to his Trope is more then this Age if by this age hee mean this last Century but let it be this age we can produce instances of some and that long before this Age in this Kingdome that have contradicted Episcopacie and our instances shall not be mean That blessed man Wickliffe ages ago did judge there ought onely to be two Orders of Ministers and who these be hee expresseth in the following words viz. Presbyters and Deacons if there be but two Orders of Ministers in the Church Presbyters and Deacons then where is your Sacred Order of Episcopacie And if Wickliffe deny the being of that Order doth hee not contradict it In the following page he saith Pauli c. That in the time of Paul two distinct Orders of Clergie men were sufficient Priests and Deacons Neither was there in the time of the Apostles any distinction of Popes Patriarchs Archbishops it was enough that there were Presbyters and Deacons So there is one in this Nation who before this age contradicts Episcopacie Of him also Walsingham saith That this was one of Wickliffs errours that every Priest rightly ordained hath sufficient power to administer all Sacraments and consequently Orders and Penance for they were then esteemed Sacraments Consonant to this of Wickliffe was the judgment of Iohn Lambert who in his answer to Articles objected against him saith thus As touching Priesthood in the Primitive Church when vertue bare as Ancient Doctors doe deem and Scripture in mine opinion recordeth the same most room there were no more officers in the Churches of God then Bishops and Deacons that it Ministers as witnesses besides Scripture Hierome full apertly in his Commentaries upon the Epistles of Paul Though these were but single men yet they were Martyrs therefore wee hope their words will beare some weight Wee could tell you further that Richardus de media Valla in 4. Sent. Dist. 24. quaest 2. Non ordo qui est Sacramentum sed potius quaedam ordinis dignitas Episcopatus dicendus est Episcopacie is not to be called order but a kind of a dignity of an order Guli Occam Anno 1330 Quod Sacerdotes omnes cujuscunque gradus existant sunt aequalis autoritatis potestatis jurisdictionis institutione Christi sed Caesaris institutione Papam esse Superiorem qui etiam potest hoc revocare That all Priests of whatsoever degree they be are of equall authority power and jurisdiction by the institution of Christ but by Caesars institution the Pope is the Superiour who may also recall this We could tell you further of one Gualter Mapes a man whom History records famous for Learning who flourisht in the yeere 1210 that wrote many books among the rest one called A Complaint against Bishops Another against the Pope and his Court. Another to the wicked Prelats In which he cals the Pope Plutonem Asinum Prelats Animalia bruta stercora Whether this man did contradict Episcopacie or no let themselves judge But we are sure if any man a few yeers agoe should have so written or spoken it had been a crime next Lâ—sae Majestatis we could tell them of many more but the Remonstrant desired but to name any one we hope we shall indifferently well satisfie his desire by that time we have mentioned one more Robert Longland a Scholer of Wickliffs who put forth a Book in English called the Ploughmans Dream which ends thus God save the King and speed the plough And send the Prelates care enough Enough enough enough enough If single instances will not serve the turn wee can give instance of a combination of learned and godly men in Oxford who being called in question before the King and the Bishops of the Kingdome were condemned to be stigmatized and banished the Kingdome the fatall punishment of the Adversaries of Episcopacie for saying that the Church of Rome was the Whore of Babylon the barren fig-tree that God had cursed and for saying non obediendum esse Papae Episcopis that neither Pope nor Bishops are to be obeyed If this be not enough wee can produce the combination of the whole Kingdome Anno 1537 somewhat above an age ago out of a Book called The institution of a Christian Man made by the whole Clergie in their Provinciall Synod set forth by the authoritie of the Kings Majesty and approved by the whole Parliament and commanded to be preach't to the whole Kingdome wherein speaking of the Sacrament of Orders it is said expresly that although the Fathers of the succeeding Church after the Apostles instituted certain inferiour degrees of Ministery yet the truth is that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any other degrees or distinction in Orders but onely of Deacons or Ministers and Presbyters or Bishops and throughout the whole discourse makes Presbyters Bishops the same from whence it is evident that in that age the whole Clergy knew not any difference made by the Scriptures between Presbyters and Bishops and by this time we hope you have more then one in this Kingdome who have contradicted your Episcopacie before this age And if we should expatiate beyond the bounds of this Kingdome wee might with ease produce not onely testimonies of Schoolmen but of others who acknowledge but two Orders in the Ministery but seeing you required onely home-born witnesses wee ll trouble you with no other and intreat you to make much of them Onely we shall intreat the Reader to view to his abundant satisfaction Doctor Reinolds his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowls who shews out of Chrysostome Hierom Ambrose Augustine Theod. Primasius Sedulius Theophilact that Bishops and Presbyters are all one in Scripture and that Aerius could be no more justly condemned for heresie for holding Bishops and Presbyters to be all one then all those Fathers with whom agree saith he Oecumenius and Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury and another Anselme and Gregory and Gratian and affirms that it was once enrolled in the Canon Law for sound and Catholike doctrine and thereupon taught by learned men he adds further that it is unlikely that Anselme should have beene Canonized for a Saint by the Pope of Rome and the other Anselme and Gregory so esteemed in the Popes Library that Gratians Works should be allowed so long time by so many Popes for the golden fountain of the Canon law if they had taught that for sound doctrine which by the whole Church in her most flourishing time was condemned for heresie and concludes that they
who have laboured about the Reformation of the Church these five hundred yeeres of whom he names abundance have taught that all Pastors be they intitulated Bishops or Priests have equall authority and power by the Word of God and by this the Reader may know Doctor Reinolds his judgment concerning Episcopacie There is one thing more belongs to this Section as to the proper seat and that is the establishment which he seeks to Episcopacie froÌ„ the laws of the Kingdom to which we having answered that Laws are repealable the Parliament having a Nomotheticall power He answers though laws are repealable yet fundamentall laws are not subject to alteration upon personall abuses Secondly that he speaks not against an impossibility but an easinesse of change which our guiltinesse would willingly overlook But consider we beseech you how fitly is Episcopal Government made a piece of the fundamentall Laws of the Kingdome How did the Kingdome then once stand without Bishops as in the very page you had now to answer you might have seen once it did For doth not the Marginall tell you from Sir Edward Coke or rather from an Act reported by him in the 23 yeere of Edward the first that the holy Church was founded in the state of Prelacie within the Realme of England by the King and his progenitors which your guiltinesse will needs overlooke for feare you should see that there was a King of this Realme of England before there was a Prelacie And how then is Episcopacie one of the fundamentals of the Kingdome And whereas you say you spake onely against an easinesse of change read your words in the eighteenth page of your Remonstrance A man would thinke it were plea enough to challenge a reverend respect and an immunitie from all thoughts of alteration is this to speake against an easinesse or rather against a possibility of change For your conclusion that things indifferent or good having by continuance and generall approbation beene well rooted in Church and State may not upon light grounds be pulled up Good Sir never trouble your selfe about such an indifferent thing as Episcopacie is Never feare but if Episcopacie be rooted up it will be done by such hands as will not doe it upon light grounds SECT V. THey that would defend the Divine right of Episcopacie derive the pedigree of it from no lesse then Apostolicall and in that right divine institution so did this Remonstrant This we laboured in this Section to disprove and shew that it might be said of our Bishops as of those men Ezra 62. These men sought their Register among those that were reckoned by Genealogie but they were not found therefore were they as polluted put from the Priesthoâ—d For the Bishops whose pedigree is derived from the Apostles were no others then Presbyters this we evinced by foure mediums out of Scripture but insisted onely upon two the identitie of their name and office Before wee come to the Remonstrants answer wee will minde the Reader of what the Remonstrant saith That we have a better faculty at gathering then at strewing which if we have we shall here make good use of our faculty in gathering the choice flowers which himself hath scattered yielding unto us the mayn Scripture grounds whereby the Patrons of Episcopacie have endevoured to uphold their cause For himselfe confesseth the Bishops cause to be bad if it stand not by divine Right and compares the leaving of divine right and supporting themselves by the indulgence and munificence of religious Princes unto the evill condition of such men who when God hath withdrawn himselfe make flesh their arme And whether himselfe hath not surrendred up this divine right judge by that which followeth Our main argument was That Bishops and Presbyters in the originall authority of Scripture were the same Hee answers in the name of himselfe and his Party This is in expresse terms granted by us We argue it further That we never find in Scripture any other orders of Ministery but Bishops and Deacons He answers Brethren you might have spared to tell mee that which I have told you before And adds That when wee alleage the Apostles writings for the identity of Bishops and Presbytâ—rs we oppose not his assertion because he speaks of the monuments of immediate succession to the Apostolike times but we of the writing of the Apostles And for the two other arguments drawn from the identitie of the qualifications of Bishops and Presbyters for their Office and Ordination to their office hee answers Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem And yet notwithstanding that the Reader may not perceive how the Remonstrant betrayes his own cause he deals like the fish Sepia and casteth out a great deal of black inke before the eyes of the Reader that so hee may escape without observation But wee will trace him and finde him out where hee thinks himselfe most secure For first he falsly quotes our answer Whereas wee say That in originall authority Bishops Presbyters are the same he tels us we say That Bishops and Presbyters went originally for the same That is saith he There was at first a plain indentity in their denomination Which two answers differ Immane quantum And yet howsoever this very identity of denomination in Scripture is of no small consequence what ever the Remonstrant makes of it For the proper ends of Names being to distinguish things according to the difference of their natures and the supream wisdome of God being the imposer of these names who could neither be ignorant of the nature of these offices nor mistake the proper end of the imposition of names nor want variety to expresse himselfe the argument taken from the constant identity of denomination is not so contemptible as the Remonstrant pretends Especially considering that all the texts brought to prove the identity of names prove as intrinsecally the identity of Offices which we did cleerly manifest by that text Titus 1. 5 6 7. Where the Apostle requiring Presbyters to be thus and thus qualified renders the reason because Bishops must be so Which argument would no ways evince what the Apostle intended if there were onely an idenditie of names and not also of offices and qualifications When the names are the same and the Offices distinct who but one that cares not what hee affirmes would infer the same offices as a consequent from the identity of their names Who would say that the properties of the Constellation called Canis ought to be the same with the bruit creature so called because they have both one name And this we desire the Reader to take the more notice of because the Remonstrant passeth it over in silence Secondly the Remonstrant seemes to recant that which he had before granted tels us that though in the Apostolike Epistles there be no nominal distinction of the titles yet here is a reall distinction and specification of the duties as we shall see in due place
meant and if we ever did use the word Communicated it was onely to note a Community in that power not a derivation of it as for his authors which he alleages for sole Ordination let the Reader please to view our answer pag. 37. 38. wherein hee may receive full satisfaction and the rather because the Remonstrant passeth over it The third part of that office which the Bishops call theirs is ruling To prove this to belong to Presbyters as well as Bishops we cite Heb. 13. 17. Here the Remonstrant cryes out Oh injurious imputation do wee not give you the title of Rectores Ecclesiarum And doe we not commit to you regimen Animarum So then you grant this place is rightly both interpreted and applied but you give us say you the title of rectores Animarum regimen Animarum You give us No it is the Scripture gives it us yet you would assume it to your selves and perswad that as the Pope communicates to his Bishops partem solicitudinis so you to us Presbyters but if the Scriptures gave us no more then you do it would prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You make your selves the sole Pastors us but the Curates your selves Chancellours Officials the sole Iudges us but the executioners of your and their sentences whether just or unjust The other Text 1 Thes. 5. 12. and those four things observed from thence for the confirming of this assertion the Remonstrant passeth over so hee doth our argument which was this They which have the same name the same Ordination to their office the same qualification for their office the same work to feed the flock of God to ordain Pastors and Elders to rule and governe they are one and the same But such are Bishops and Presbyters ergo And thus deals hee also with the two quotations the one of the Councell of Aquisgra the other out of the writing of Smalcald all which being to hard for the Remonstrant to evade hee leaps over to a conclusion of such strange things as hee never went about to prove in his Section SECT VI. HAving from Scripture manifested the Identity of Bishops and Presbyters in their originall institution we applied our selves in this section to finde out the authors and occasion of this imparity which now appeares between them To expedite our selves from needlesse controversies we laid downe three particulars as consented to by both sides First that the first and best antiquity used the names of Bishops and Presbyters promiscuously this the Remonstrant subscribes to Secondly that in processe of time some one was honoured with the name of Bishop the rest were called Presbyters this the Remonstrant quarrels and desires to know what was this processe of time chargeth us either with error or fraud confidently defends this time had no processe at all but was in the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living Apostles and undertakes to make this good in the sequell And how he doth that you shall find in this very section page 59. where to that of Hierom The Presbyters governed the Church by their common Councel he answers So they did doubtlesse altogether till Episcopacy was setled who dare deny it Here the Remonstrant grants a processe of time betweene the planting of the Church by the Apostles and the setling of Episcopacy in the Churches Shall we say now this is the Remonstrants either errour or fraud not to set downe how long it was before Episcopacy was setled in the Church let him take heed another time how he charge men with error or fraud for affirming that which himselfe cannot but give his Suffrage to The third thing agreed upon was that this was not nomen inane an idle title but attended upon with some kind of imparity the question was digested into these tearmes Whether the impropriation of the name and the imparity of the place and power of a Bishop be of divine right The Remonstrant for feare of mistaking desires to explicate the tearmes of the question and therefore tels how fetching the pedegree of Episcopacy from Apostolicall and therefore in that right divine institution he interprets himselfe to understand by divine right not any expresse Law of God requiring it as of absolute necessity to the being of a Church but an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost warranting it where it is and requiring it where it may be had but Nihil infelicius Retorico definiente the Remonstrant if he would avoyd mistaking or at least would not say that he was mistaken should have dealt a little more clearely and punctually in the stateing of the Question For first he tels us that it is an institution of the Apostles inspired by the Holy ghost if the Remonstrant be not here mistaken why doth he page 47. in expresse terms grant us that in originall authority of Scripture Bishops and Presbyters were originally the same For so were our words not as the Remonstrant reports them went for the same and why againe when we tell him we never finde in Scripture these three orders Bishops Presbyters Deacons we say not the names but orders why doth he grant that in the same page and flie from the writings of the Apostles to the monuments of their immediate successers can we imagine that the Apostles did by inspiration from the holy Ghost ordaine any thing in the Church of God as of perpetuall use the record where of is not found in sacred Scripture which was given by the same inspiration to the same men if we may imagine it sure we cannot beleeve it And if it be an institution of the Apostles inspired by the holy Ghost why must it be distinguished from the expresse law of God doth he make it but an evangelicall counsell not requiring it as necessary to the being of a Church sure this is some opinion of a newer cut for the last defendant of Episcopacy before this Remonstrant saies thus The power of Ordination hath beene ever held so intrinsecall to Episcopacy that I would faine see where it can be shewed that any extremity of necessity was ever acknowledged a warrant sufficient for others to ordaine So that in his judgement where there is no Bishop there can be no lawfull ordination let it be in the case of extreamest necessity and where no ordination no ministery and so consequently no Word and Sacraments and no Church and how then in the judgement of these men is Episcopacy not required to the being of a Church And if not requiring it to the being of a Church how then requiring it onely where it may be had what a strange limitation is this where is it that Episcopacy may not must not be had if it be an ordinance of Christ where is it that the Churches of Christ may not have Word Sacraments Pastors and Bishops too if they be his ordinance It is true indeed some there are that cannot have Lord Bishops pompous Bishops and once
a Canon provides that they should not be in little Villages Ne vilesceret honos Episcopatus but these himselfe acknowledgeth are but the accessaries of Episcopacy by the donations of Magnificent Princes But what is the meaning of this where it may be had what doth he meane where it may be had with the favour of the Prince then the Primitive Church had never had any Or where it may be had with the willing subjection of the people then Episcopacy shall be an ordinance if the people will have it so Where it may be had what with quiet and conveniency then you make that which you call an ordinance of God subject to mans convenience Or what with possibility requiring that where Episcopacy may be had possibly it should what 's this lesse than a command yet saith the Remonstrant here is no expresse law of God requiring it Now we pray you review your worke and see how well you have stated the question To prove that Episcopacy was not a divine but a humane institution we produced out of antiquity some places that mention the occasion and authors of Episcopall imparity which are not as the Remonstrant absurdly the onely countenance of our cause Our first was that knowne text of Hiereme in the 1. Titus out of which we collected five things which the Remonstrant summes up thus First that a Bishop and a Presbyter are originally one Secondly that the imparity was grounded upon Ecclesiasticall custome That before this priority the Church was governed by the common Councell of Presbyters and that Bishops ought still so to governe And lastly that the occasion of this imparity was the division which through the divels instinct fell among Christians this the Remonstrant cals the summe of our collection But if his Arithmeticke be no honester then thus he shall summe no summes for us for he leaves out one Collection which is indeed principally considerable That this was not Hieromes owne opinion but the opinion of the scriptures This would have stopt the mouth of his satis imperitè Wel what saies the Remonstrant You look now that I should tell you the booke is of uncertaine credit No indeed sir we looked for no such matter because we know that booke is approved by men both of as great learning and of as little affection to Hieromes opinion as the Remonstrant is though his lesser commentaries on the epistles be questioned Or else you look that I should tell you Hierome was a Presbyter and not without some touch of envy to that higher dignity which he missed Truely sir this we looked for and the rather because Doct. Hall in his Episcopacy by Divine right part 2. page 122. saith that as he was naturally a waspish a hot good man so being now vexed with some crosse proceedings as he thought with Iohn of Ierusalem he flew out c. but what a slender answer is this Hierome was a Presbyter what then Hierome saith nothing here but what he saith from Scripture and is Scripture the lesse Scripture because produced by a Presbyter Hierome was a Presbyter and pleads for his owne order doth that make his argument the lesse creditable the author of Episcopacy by Divine right was a Bishop is it sufficient confutation of that booke to say hee was a Bishop that made it he must plead for his own honour and order Or you looke say you that I should tell you that wiser men then your selves have censured him in this point of Arrianisme No indeed for feare you should thereby comfort us against the same censure past so often upon our selves If Hierome suffer under the name of Aerian no wonder we doe but if wisermen than we have condemned him for Aerianisme wiser men then the Remonstant have quitted him of that crime But the Remonstrant thinkes to decline these common waies and set Hierome to answer Hierome which yet is no more then Bellarmine did before him and and puts us in mind that the same father passes a satis imperitè upon the same opinion in the Bishop of Hierusalem but a satis imperitè doth not condemne the opinion but the man for it may be truth which a man speakes though he speakes it imperitè yet to make sure worke the Remonstrant will set Hierome to answer himselfe what saith Hierome at first saith he Bishops and Presbyters had but one title No Hierome said not so nor did we Idem est ergo Presbyter qui Episcopus How doth the Remonstrant construe this Is this in English a Bishop and a Presbyter is the same or is it at first Bishops and Presbyters had but one title with what face can the Remonstrant charge us with infidelity in quotation and mis-englishing who useth no more fidelity himselfe that which Hierome speakes of the office he would restraine to the title that which Hierome speakes in the present tense as true in all the moments and fluxes of time he would remit to the time past They had but one title This the Remonstrant passeth from and slips from their Identity to their imparity inquiring the time and occasion of that and will needs force Hierome here to confesse Bishops in the Apostles daies because then they began to say I am of Paul c. but will take no notice at all of what our answer spake for the removing of this inference unlesse it be to slight it as a poore shift nor will take notice of that which Hierome himselfe speakes Haec propterea ut oftenderemus apud veteres eosdem fuisse Presbyteros quos Episcopos paulatim verò ut dissentionum plantaria evellerentur ad unum omnem solicitudinem esse delatam intimating that Episcopacy was not presently invented as a cure of schisme but paulatim so that should it be granted that the schismes spoken of here were those in the Apostles daies yet it doth not follow that Episcopacy should be coaetaneous to these schismes because Hierome saith Paulatim ad unum omnem solicitudinem esse delatam Let the Remonstrant now aske Hierome not us why the remedy should be so late after the disease and here we desire the reader to observe that the Remonstrant doth meerely abuse him in telling him that Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians taxeth the continuance of the distractions raised in the Apostles daies when it is apparent that Clement speakes of a new schisme different from that Paul speakes of raised against ther Presbyters and the former schisme mentioned in the Scripture was onely among the people As for those Bishops whom Hierome names as made by the Apostles at present we say no more but this Hierome as a Divine saith Bishops and Presbyters are the same and to prove this produceth Scripture but Hierome speaking as an Historian mentions Bishops made by the Apostles and brings no Scripture for the proofe of that but onely the testimony of Eusebius his history who alone had writ before him of that subject Now let the
Christian Reader judge whether more credit be to be given to Hierome as an Historian quoting humane History or to Hierome as a Divine quoting Scriptures And yet what can be brought to prove that those Bishops were not the same with Presbyters For the diabolicall occasion of bringing in Episcopacy into the Church if there be any fault in the phrase it is Hieromes not ours therefore the weaknes and absurdity is slung in the face of that waspish hot good man Hierome not in ours The institution of Episcopacy Hierome saith was rather by the custome of the Church then by the truth of the Lords disposition to avoyd the stroke of which the Remonstrant would faine perswade Hierome to owne that which in the judgement of Belarm Spalato and almost as many as have writ before the Remonstrant never entered into his thoughts nor can be the proper meaning of his words That by the custome of the Church the father meanes the Church Apostolique and by the Lords disposition Christs immediate institution This were to make Hierome of their mind How well this may be done let their sworne friend Spalato give his verdict Sunt qui Hieronymum in rect am sententiam vel invitum velint trahere one of these must this Remonstrant be As for that passage of Hierome ad Euagrium where he saies this superiority of Bishops above Presbyters is by Apostolicall tradition Hierome in that Epistle sharpens his reproofe against some Deacons that would equallize themselves to Presbyters an opinion which the Remonstrant thinks more reasonable then that Presbyters should be equall to Bishops to make this reproofe the stronger he saith Presbyteris ad est Episcopisâ— and a little after he doth out of the Scripture most manifestly prove eundem esse Presbyterum at que Episcopum and carries this proofe by Paul by Peter and by Iohn the longest surviver of the Apostles then adde quod autem postea unus electus qui caeteris praeponeretur in schismatis remedium factum The reason why afterwards one was elected and set over the rest was the cure of schisme It is hard to conceive how this imparity can be properly called an Apostolicall tradition when Hierome having mentioned Iohn the last of the Apostles saith it was postea afterwards that one was set over the rest yet should we grant it an Apostolicall tradition in Hieromes sense it would be no prejudice to our cause seeing with him Apostolicall tradition and Ecclesiasticall custome are the same witnesse that instance of the observation of Lent which he writing ad Marcellum saith is Apostolica traditio yet writing adversus Luciferianos faith it is Ecclesiae consuetudo whereby it fully appeares that Hierome by Apostolicall tradition meant not an Apostlicall institution but an ecclesiasticall custome and so much we granted Episcopacie to have Hierome saith toto orbe decretum est and it was decreed all the world over say you in the time of the first divisions Hierome said not so say we but after these divisions not in the time of these first divisions Is this faithfull translating By what power say you besides Apostolicall could it be decreed so soone and so universally But how if it were decreed neither soone nor universally If we may believe Hierome it was neither soone nor at once but paulatim by little and little not by Apostolicall decree but by the custome of the Church Hierome saith the Presbyters governed the Church by their Canon Councell So they did saith the Remonstrant altogether till Episcopacy was setled who dare deny it sure hee dares deny it who in the 55. page of his defence chargeth us with errour and fraud for saying that though at first the name and office of a Bishop and Presbyter was the same yet in processe of time some one was honoured with the name of Bishop and confidently defends that this time had no processe but was the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the living Apostles but how his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there without any processe of time can stand with his donec hereâ— and with Hieromes paulatim postquam postea let him see to that Hierome saith they ought so to governe still so saith the Remonstrant say we also and so in some cases they do Good sir and why not in all cases Church government you say is Aristocraticall True when it is in the hands of the best men then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But when the men in whose hands the government of the Church is are bad then it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Kakistocraticall But our present Church government is not Aristocraticall but Monarchicall because not onely one Bishop Lords it over his Diocesse but also one Primate appoints to all other Bishops Besides if it were Aristocraticall then ought every Minister to be a member of that Aristocracy for certainely no man will account the Minister de plebe in the judgement not onely of the ancient Fathers but of reason it selfe none can be accounted plebs but the Laicks seing every Minister is elected optimatim and is as one of a thousand Next you tell us there is no Bishop so absolute as not to be subject to the judgement of a Synod It is much he should not when all the fixed members of our Synod are the Bishops meere dependants such packing used in the choice of the rest as perhaps worse was not at the Councell of Trent Thus all the art the Remonstrant hath cannot perswade Hierome to befriend our Bishops in his judgement and is it not strange boldnesse to perswade the Reader that Hierome should against his judgement befriend them in his history After the allegation we produced some reasons to shew that though it should be granted these were in the times of the Apostles yet the Invention of Bishops for the taking away of thâ—se schismes is not Apostolicall our arguments the Remonstrant according to his greatnesse cals poore negative arguments which yet we entreat the Reader to view for his further satisfaction and remember that in Sacrâ Spripturâ locus tenet ab authoriâ—ate negativè And good sir how doe we in them gâ—e about to Confute our owne Authors what doe these reasons conclude more but that Bishops were neither of Divine nor Apostolicall institution and what doth Hierome say lesse Tell not us of striking our own friend let him suffer as an Hieronymomastix that when Hierome crosses his opinion cals him a waspish hot good man In the next place you look'd for Ambrose yet you might have taken notice that we spake but of the CoÌ„mentaries that goe under the name of Ambrose which if you call a foyst all your owne side are as guilty as our selves that cite him as well as we and some for Ambrose how ever this is much lesse then your selfe did in point of Liturgie Where we desiring to see some Liturgies not Spurious you produced the Liturgy of Iames c.
it out of Hierome and Chrysostome Yet let the reader consult the 37. page of our answer which the Remonstrant leaves unanswered and judge betweene us how farre we are from such confession his onely shift now is to say our Bishops neither challenge nor exercise any such power We have evidently proved they doe both manet ergo inconcussum our Bishops and the Bishops of former times are two SECT IX HEre saith the Remonstrant we beat the aire And yet not the aire but the Remonstrant too into the confession of that which would not be confest heretofore by such of theÌ„ especially as have contended for such a Bishop as exercised spirituall jurisdiction out of his owne peculiarly demandated authority If iurisdiction exercised from an authority peculiarly demandated how not solely Well now it is granted that this sole is cryed downe by store of antiquity So then here we doe not falsifie and it is granted that Presbyters have and ought to have and exercise a jurisdiction within their owne charge But here the Remonstrant will distinguish againe it is in foro conscientiae But consider Reader whether this be the jurisdiction here under dispute Whether that store of antiquity which he confesseth to cry downe sole jurisdiction speake of a jurisdiction in foro conscientiae as his false Margent saith Clem Alexan. whom we cited doth But indeed this distinction of the Remonstrant of a jurisdiction in foro interno and in foro externo is like that distinction of Reflexivè and Archipodialiter For all humane jurisdiction is in foro externo If preaching the word which is especially aim'd at by the Remonstrant be an exercise of jurisdiction Then he that hath the Bishops licence to preach in the Diocesse hath power to exercise jurisdiction through the Diocesse and an University preacher throughout the whole Kingdome Away with these toyes He grants againe that Presbyters ought to be consulted with in the great affaires of the Church but doe our quotations prove no more Bishops had their Ecclesiasticall Councell of Presbyters with whom they did consult in the greatest matters and was it onely in the greatest matters Is this all that Cyprian saith All that the Councell of Carthage saith when it determines ut Episcopus nullius causam audiat absque praesentia Clericorum alioquin irrita erit sententia Episcopi nisi Clericorum praesentia confirmetur Doth this speak onely of great matters when it saith Nullius causam audiat Is this onely of a jurisdiction the Presbyters had in foro conscientiae Were Bishops with their Consistory wont to sit to heare and judge causes in foro conscientiae good Reader judge of this mans truth and ingenuity who not being able to divert the stroke of that Antiquity we brought to manifest a difference betweene ours and the former Bishops in the exercise of their jurisdiction would cast a mist before his Readers eyes and perswade him he grants the whole section when indeed hee grants nothing onely seekes to slide away in the darke But our Bishops have their Deanes and Chapters say you and the lawes of our Church frequently make that use of them Yes you have Deanes and Chapters but who knowes not that they have a jurisdiction distinct from the Bishops in which the Bishop hath nothing to doe with theirs nor they with his And the Bishops also derive the exercise of jurisdiction to others we know it too well to Chancellours Commissaries Officials and other of their underlings even to the commanding of Christs Ministers to denounce their censures without any discerning what equity is in the cause And what advise or assistance of Ministers is required appeares by the very stile of your excommunications G. R. Doctor of Law Commissary c. to all Rectors c. For as much as we proceeding rightly c. have adjudged all and every one whose names are under-written to be excommunicated We doe therefore commit to you c. to denounce openly under paine and perill c. Given under our Seale such a day c. Let any footsteps of such a power be shewed in antiquity Presbyters he grants had their votes in Provinciall synods we from good authority say more they had their votes in all ordinary Iudicatures But after all these grants which are as good as nothing now he comes to plead his owne We justly say that the superiority of jurisdiction is so in the Bishop as that Presbyters neither may nor did exercise it without him to what purpose is this if the Remonstrant speake of Scripture times We have proved there was no superiority in them if of latter times it is not to the question wee are proving Bishops never exercised jurisdiction without their Presbyters as ours doe He puts us to prove Presbyters exercised jurisdiction without Bishops quam iniquè But the exercise of externall jurisdiction is derived from by and under the Bishop No neither from by nor under the Bishop but from God who hath made them overseers and rulers and by the same Ecclesiasticall authority that hath made you Bishops and under Bishops not in respect of divine power but if at all in respect of Ecclesiasticall Canons onely Your Timothy and Titus we shall meet in due place Your Ignatius and the rest of your testimonies you could produce would as you say truely but surfeit the readers eyes unlesse you could bring them to prove that Bishops did and might exercise sole jurisdiction Onely because you so triumph in our supposed scapes let us intreat you or the reader for you to looke upon your cited Councell of Antioch 24 25 Canon where you say the Bishop hath power of those things that belong to the Church and see whether that speakes one word of jurisdiction or be not wholy to be understood of the distribution of the goods of the Church as both the instance given in the Canon and Zonaras on that place manifest One shift yet the Remonstrant hath more and that is to tell us that this joynt government was but occasionall and temporary in times of persecution But when a generall peace had blessed them and they had a concurrence of soveraigne and subordinate authority with them they began so much to â—emit this care of conjoyning their forces as they supposed to finde lesse need of it Doctor Downham to whom hee referres in the page before assignes other reasons Namely Presbyters desiring their ease and Scholasticall quietnesse which he saith and proves not and also the Bishops desiring to rule alone which we finde to be the true cause by experience For if the Bishops be of the Remonstrants mind perswaded that the more frequent communicating of all the important businesse of the Church whether censures or determinations with those grave assistants which in the eye of the Law are designed to this purpose were a thing not onely unprejudiciall to the honour of Episcopacy but behovefull to the Church Why should not the Bishops doe
the substance of those cares and offices which belong to Apostles and Evangelists is transmitted to the ordinary Church-governours as farre as is necessary for the edification of the Church else the Lord had not sufficiently provided for his Church all the question is whether these Church-governours are by way of Aristocracy the common Councell of Presbyters or by way of Monarchy Diocesan Bishops Now unlesse you prove that Timothy and Titus were ordinary officers or as Doctor Hall cals them Diocesan Bishops to whom as to individuall persons such care and offices were individually intrusted you will never out of Timothy and Titus defend Diocesan Bishops Thirdly though the substance of these cares and offices were to be transmitted to ordinary Church-governours yet they are not transmitted in that eminency or personall height in which they were in the Apostles and Evangelists an Apostle where ever he lived might governe and command all Evangelists all Presbyters c. an Evangelist might governe all Presbyters c. but no Presbyter or Bishop might command others onely the common Councel of Presbyters may charge any or many Presbyters as occasion shall require In a word these ordinary Church-governours succeed the extraordinary officers not in the same line and degree as one brother dying another succeeds him in the inheritance but as men of an other order and in a different line Let the Remonstrant therefore take Timothy and Titus as he findes them that is Evangelists men of extraordinary dignity and authority in the Church of Christ Let him with his first confidence maintaine that our Bishops challenge no other spirituall power then was delegated to them We shall upon better grounds maintaine with better confidence that if they chalenge the same they ought to be disclaimed for usurpers But much more challenging such a power as was never exercised by Timothy and Titus as we demonstrated in our former answer in severall instances which are so commonly knowne as our Remonstrant is ashamed to deny them onely plaies them off partly with his old shift the abuse of the person not of the Calling But we beseech you sir tell us whether these persons doe not perpetrate these abuses though by their owne vice yet by vertue of their place and Callings Partly by retorting questions upon us when or where did our Bishops challenge to ordaine alone or to governe alone we have shewed you when and where already when or where did our Bishops challenge power to passe a rough and unbeseeming rebuke upon an Elder Sure your owne conscience can tell that hath taught you to apply that to an Elder in office which we onely spake in Scripture phrase of an Elder in generall It was your guilt not our ignorance that turned it to an Elder in office Where did say you our Bishops give Commission to Chancellors Commissaries c. to rayle upon Presbyters to accuse them without just ground c. where have not Chancellors done so and what power have they but by Bishops Commission to meddle with any thing in Church affaires And where is the Bishop that hath forbid it them Qui non prohibet facit Onely there is one practice of our Bishops he is something more laborious to justifie That is their casting out unconforming brethren commonly knowne in their Court language by the name of schismatickes and heretickes which Timothy and Titus never did nor had any such power delegated to them heretickes indeed the Apostles gave them power to reject but wee had hoped the refusall of the use of a ceremony should never have beene equalized in the punishment either to heresie or schisme But the Remonstrant hath found Scripture for it Loth not the Apostle wish that they were cut off that trouble you but sure it is one thing to wish men cut off by God and another thing to cut them off by the censure of the Church Besides this was written to the Galatians and they that troubled them were such as maintained doctrines against the foundation i. Justification by workes of the Law c. which we thinke are very neere of kinne to heretickes I am sure farre above the crime of the Remonstrants unconforming brethren who are unsetled in points of a meane difference which their usuall language knowes by no better termes then of schismatickes and factious yet even such have fallen under the heaviest censures of suspension excommunication deprivation c. which the Remonstrant unable to deny would justifie which when he shall be able to doe he may do something towards the patronizing of Bishops But in the meane time let him not say they are our owne ill raised suggestions but their owne ill assumed and worse mannaged authority that makes them feare to be disclaimed as usurpers The second Scripture ground which the Remonstrant is ambitious to draw in for the support of his Episcopall cause is the instance of the Angels of the seven Churches which because it is locus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and cried up as argumentum verè Achilleum we did on purpose inlarge our selves about it And for our paines the Remonstrant as if all learning and acutenesse were lockt up in his breast Narcissus like in love with his owne shadow professeth that this peece of the taske fell unhappily upon some dull and tedious hand c. Which if it be so it will redound the more to the Remonstrants discredit when it shall appeare that he is so shamefully foiled and wounded by so dull an adversary He objects Colemorts oft sod when he cannot but know that the whole substance of his owne booke is borrowed from Bishop Bilson and Doctor Downham And that there is nothing in this discourse about the Angels but either it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But before we come to answer our Remonstrants particulars we will premise something in generall about these Asian Angels It may seeme strange that the defenders of Episcopacy lay so much weight of argument upon the word or appellation of Angell which themselves know to be a title not impropriated to the chiefe Ministers of the Church but common to all that bring the glad tidings of the Gospell yea to all the messengers of the Lord of Hosts We conceive there are 2. maine reasons that induce them to insist so much on this First they finde it the most easie way of avoyding the dint of all the Arguments brought against them out of the History of the Acts and Epistles by placing one above the rest of the Presbyters in the period of the Apostles times And so finding in the Revelation which was written the last of all the parts of the Scripture except peradventure the Gospell written by the same penne an expression which may seeme to favour their cause they improve it to the utmost Partly because hereby they evade all our arguments which we bring out of the Scripture Doe we prove out of the
20. of Acts Presbyters and Bishops to be all one Doe we prove the Bishops described in Timothy and Titus to be one and the same in name and office with a Presbyter Doe we prove that their Churches were all governed Communi Consilio Presbyterorum All shall be granted us and yet the Divine right of Episcopacy be still held up by this sleight by telling us that before the Apostles left the earth they made over their authority to some prime men Demand where this is extant The Angels of the seven Churches are pleaded presently And partly because we have no other Scripture of latter inspiration and edition whereby to prove the contrary Another inducement is because the writers neere the Apostles times make frequent mention of a Bishop and as they would have us beleeve some waies distinguished from a Presbyter Some of them mentioning the very men that were the Angels of these Churches as Polycarpus of Smyrna Ignatius who is said to have beene martyred within twelve yeeres after the Revelation was written wrote letters to the severall Churches wherein he mentioneth their Bishops distinct from their Presbyters Now saith the author of Episcopacy by divine right the Apostles immediate successors could best tell what they next before them did Who can better tell a mans pace then he that followes him close at heeles And this hath so plausibâ—e a shew that all are condemned as blind or wilfull who will either doubt that Episcopacy was of Apostolicall institution or thinke that the Church of Christ should in so short a time deviate from the institution of the Apostles But now how insufficient a ground this is for the raising up of so mighty a Fabricke as Episcopacy by Divine right or Apostolicall institution wee desire the Reader to judge by that that followes First the thing they lay as their foundation is a meere metaphoricall word and such as is ordinarily applied to Presbyters in common Secondly the Penman of those seven Epistles did never in them nor in any of his other writings so much as use the name of Bishop he names Presbyters frequently especially in this booke yea where he would set out the office of those that are neerest to the throne of Christ in his Church Revel 4. And whereas in Saint Iohns daies some new expressions were used in the Christian Church which were not in Scripture As the Christian Sabbath began to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Christ himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now both these are found in the writings of S. Iohn and it is strange to us that the Apostle should mention a new phrase and not mention a new office erected in the Church as you would make us beleeve Neither thirdly in any of his writings the least intimation of superiority of one Presbyter over another save onely where he names Diotrephes as one ambitiously affecting such a Primacy Nor is there any one word in these Epistles whence an Episcopall authority may be collected So that did not the testimonies that lived soone after make the argument plausible it would appeare ridiculous But alas the suffrage of all the writers in the world is infinitely unable to command an Act of Divine faith without which divine right cannot be apprehended Suppose we were as verily perswaded that Ignatius wrote the Epistles which goe under his name which yet we have just cause to doubt of as knowing that many learned men reject a great part of them and some all as we can be perswaded that Tully wrote his All this can perswade no further that the Apostles ordained and appointed Bishops as their successors but onely by a humane faith but neither is that so The most immediate and unquestionable successors of the Apostles give cleare evidence to the contrary It is granted on all sides that there is no peece of antiquity that deserves more esteeme then the Epistle of Clement lately brought to light by the industry and labour of that learned Gentleman Master Patricke Young And in that Epistle Bishops and Presbyters are all one as appeares by what followes The occasion of that Epistle seemes to be a new sedition raysed by the Corinthians against their Presbyters page 57. 58. not as Bishop Hall saies the continuation of the schismes amongst them in the Apostles daies Clemens to remove their present sedition tels them how God hath alwaies appointed severall orders in his Church which must not be confounded first telling them how it was in the Jewish Church then for the times of the Gospell tels them that Christ sent his Apostles through Countries and Cities in which they constituted the first fruits or the chiefe of them unto Bishops and Deacons for them who should beleeve afterward p. 54. 55. Those whom hee calls there Bishops afterwards throughout the Epistle he cals Presbyters pa. 58 62 69. All which places doe evidently convince that in Clement his judgement the Apostle appointed but two officers that is Bishops and Deacons to bring men to beleeve Because when he had reckoned up three orders appointed by God among the Jewes High-priests Priests and Levites comming to recite orders appointed by the Apostles under the Gospell hee doth mention onely Bishops and Deacons and those Bishops which at first he opposeth to Deacons ever after he cals Presbyters And here we cannot but wonder at the strange boldnesse of the author of Epis. by divine right who hath endevoured to wire-draw this Author so much magnified by him to maintaine his Prelaticall Episcopacy and that both by foysting in the word withall into this translation which is not in the Text that the Reader might be seduced to beleeve that the offices of Episcopacy and Presbytery were two different offices And also by willingly misunderstanding Clement his phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he would have us understand Episcopacy as distinct from Presbyterie whereas the whole series of the Epistle evidently proves that the word Episcopus Presbyter are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so also by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee would have us to understand that the contention then in Corinth was only about the name whereas it appeares by the Epistle it selfe that the controversie was not about the name but dignity of Episcopacy for it was about the deposition of their godly Presbyters p. 57 58. And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is thus interpreted by Beza Eph. 1. 21. Phil. 2. 9. Heb. 1. 4. and Mead in Apoc. 11. p. 156. In which places 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is put for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By all this we see that the most genuine and neerest successor of the Apostles knew no such difference Lastly it is worth our observation that the same writers who as they say testifie that these 7. Angels were in a superiour degree to Presbyters do likewise affirm
government When as you know all your deare sisters of whom you professe a tender care doe disclaime it Of a Bull and solâ—cisme in saying That all Christian Churches doe constantly and uniformely observe it And yet confessing that there are lesse noble Churches that conforme not unto it 15. In your next Quere you contradict your selfe and the truth as a selfe confounded man For here you say That the name of Bishop hath bin for this 1600 yeares appropriated in a plaine contradistinction to the governours of the Church But page 48 where we bring Irenâ—us calling Anicetus Pius Hyginus c. Bishops of Rome Presbyters And others also using the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You cry out with a loud voyce Is this al that your trifling may appeare to all the World Name but any one of our writers who have hitherto stood up in the cause of Episcopacy that have not granted and proclaimed this which you contend for In the latter end of this quere you thinke to stop our mouthes with Balaams wages and demand Whether if we will allow you to be Bishops all will not be well Wee are scripture Bishops without your allowance As for to be Hierarchicall Bishops since God will not allow it we care not for your allowance But what Patent or Monopoly have you among all the multitude of late Projectors obtained that without your allowance a Presbyter may not be admitted into a Bishoprick 16. To your last Quere we answer That if God had set your episcopall government in his Church wee know it could not bee lawfull for us to deny subjection unto it But we have proved the contrary in this discourse Neither have the Lawes of this land so firmely established it but that it may be repealed by the same Lawes and suffer a just period for its matchlesse pride and insufferable oppressions Which for the present we perceive is out of feare a little abaâ—ed and that makes you aske Whether it were not most lawfull and just to punish our presumption and disobedience c. Time was when the High commission and other Episcopall Courts would have made both our eares more then tingle for such a question without enquiring either the lawfulnesse and justice of it Thus we have answered his 16. Queries but before we end our booke we cannot but take notice of what the Remonstrant addes in the concluâ—ion For there he tells us That he hopes he hath given a sufficient answer to our bold and unjust demands And yet notwithstanding he doth not vouchsafe to give any answer at all but only propounds new questions insteed of answers which if the Reader will conceive a sufficient way of answering we doubt not but we shall quickly give satisfaction to all that ever hath bin written for Episcopall government either by Bishop Bilson Bishop Downham Bishop Hall or any other whatsoever To all the Postscripts Wee will not create trouble to the Reader by a reiterated justification of our sincerity though it be againe prodigiously wounded Here is much cry and little wooll Hee cannot deny what in our Postscript we have proved to be the practises of Prelates ever since Austins erection of the See of Canterbury onely first hee salsely tells us that wee have borrowed a great part of it out of Sions plea. But if that Author hath collected any of the same Stories which yet wee know not out of the Chronicles why should we be thought to have borrowed them from him whom wee durst not for feare of the Prelates keepe in our studies rather then from the Chronicles themselves Secondly he answers That they were popish Bishops limmes of that body whose head we abjure c. But Sr you know that in Henry the eights time when this head abjured the Body of popery still remained This Body of popery comprehended in six Articles was called a whâ—p of six strings And you with all your Rhetoricke will hardly perswade the people but that they have bin lashed for these many yeares with a whip of six and twenty strings Have not most of these denied this Head to be Antichrist And that if wise men had the handling of it we might be reconciled unto it Hath not one of their abettors written that the Religion of the Church of Rome is not onely a possible but a safe way to Heaven What then will it availe to say that our Bishops and they have different heads Thirdly he answers That a charitable man might have made a longer Catalogue of the good fruites of our Episcopacy and reckons up a multitude of their good deeds many whereof â—hould â—ee wipe our eyes never so much wee feare wee should not see and the rest which are in any kind visible will not if weighed in a just ballancâ— beare any proportion to all those unnaturall fruits mentioned in our Postscrips In his close he tells us That the Bishops foote hath bin in our booke which is quite spoiled by his just confutation We confesse truly the Bishops â—o 〈◊〉 hath left much dirt behinde it but could many hundredâ— of godly Ministers have as easily got the Greene Wax and Red Wax of the Bishops out of their mouthes with which they have bin a long time stopped As we have wiped away the dirt that hath bin throwne upon our booke The Church of England had never made so many sad complaints and presented so many dolefull petitions unto the high and supreme Court of Justice 2. His second Postscript is an advertisement to the Reader for the vindication of the credit of the person of Doctor Hall and his Episcopacy by divine right from the censure which Doctor Voetius is reported to have passed upon them both True it is there was tendred to us a justification of what that angry Pamphlet as he calls it had published to the world But because wee found that it would deeply reflect upon the credit of Doctor Hall and that in a language more disgracefull then that was before said wee refused to insert it Our businesse is with a namelesse Remonstrant not with the undervaluation of any mans person in particular If hee please to call for it he may have it His third Postscript brings in the judgement of Scultetus to â—make the World believe that his new opinion of Episcopacy by divine right is not destitute of Patrons in the reformed Churches But what is one Scultetus to the many hundred learned men amongst them of a contrary judgement We might here retort upon our Remonstrant that he saith concerning the moderator of Geneva page 138. You tell me of the moderator of Geneva as if all the Church of God were included in those strait walls We could have translated Voetius his Theses for the justification of lay Elders both out of Scripture and antiquity But for brevity sake wee will content our selves with what that learned Rivet spake when these two Treatises of Scultetus were shewed to him by a great Prelate amongst us and his judgement
the assertion of Episcopall men else what is the meaning of Doctor Halls semper and ubique and what is the meaning of that irrefragable proposition no man living no History can shew any well allowed and setled Nationall Church in the whole Christian World that hath been governed otherwise then by Bishops in a meet and moderate imparity ever since the times of Christ and his Apostles unto this present age And what means that other expression Turne over all Histories seeke the records of all times and places if ever it can be shown that any Orthodox Church in the whole Christian World since the time of Christ and his Apostles was governed otherwise then by a Bishop Superiour to his Clergie unlesse perhaps during the time of some persecution or short interregnum Let me forfeit my part of the cause The instances brought to prove the falsnesse of that Assertion that Episcopacie had never met with contradiction in any Christian Congregation The one hee turns off with the evasion of a personall quarrell whereas the Histories tell us it was an ancient custome and adds an odious Marginall ill becomming his so deeply protested loyalty to his Sovereigne as if it were no lesse crime to offer an affront to a Prelate then to the King The other instances of the Reformed Churches he puts off with this shift that if wee did not wilfully shut our eyes we might see he limited his time unto this present age Good Sir bethink you take up your Remonstrance read your own words Mark the Parenthesis Episcopall Government derives it self from the times of the Apostles without any interruption without the contradiction of any one Congregation in the Christian World to this present age The limitation of time here hath reference to the continuance of Episcopacie not the contradiction of Episcopacie that 's hedged in with your parenthesis which excludes your limitation Just such another is your next having said Episcopall Government continued in this Iland ever since the plantation of the Gospel without contradiction and being here taken in the manner to salve your credit you would here alter your words and sence and make it that it cannot be contradicted that the forme of this Government hath continued in the Island ever since the first plantation of the Gospel pray review your words and see how well they admit this sense Were this Ordinance meerly humane and Ecclesiasticall if there could no more be said for it but that it is exceeding ancient of more then fifteen hundred yeares standing and that it hath continued in this Island since the first Plantation of the Gospel to this present day without contradiction You would make the sense to goe thus this proposition is true without contradiction that Episcopall Government hath continued in this Island we say the sense must be thus that this Government hath continued without contradiction or hath received no contradiction during all the time it hath continued untill this present day If any impartiall Reader would not take the words in that sence we did rather then in the sence you have drawn them to let us be counted slanderers But in excusing the last mistake he would be a little more serious The Remonstrant had said Except all Histories all Authors faile us nothing can be more certain then this truth Wee cry out here of such a shamelesnesse as dares equall this opinion of his of Episcopall Government to an Article of our Creed This he doth seriously deny professing he spake it only as an ordinary phrase in hourly discourse and did Hee so too that in Episcopacie by divine Righ Part. 2. pag. 47. faith That for his part hee is so confident of the divine institution of the Majoritie of Bishops above Presbyters that hee dare boldly say there are weighty points of Faith which have not so strong evidence in Scripture And the same Author in the same place professeth that men may with much better colour cavill at those blessed Ordinances of God viz. consecration and distribution of the holy Eucharist and baptizing of Infants then quarrell at the divine institution of Bishops God give the man lesse confidence or more truth is not this to equalize this fancie to an Article of the Creed Wee would not have cast away so much time and paper upon this worthlesse businesse but onely to cleer our selves from that uncharitablenesse falshood lying and slandring wherewith the Remonstrant here bespatters us It is in his power to save himselfe and us this ungratefull labour if hee will give lesse scope to his luxuriant pen speak more cautiously let his words be more in weight and lesse in number SECT IV. IN the next Section the Remonstrant according to his Rhetorick saith Now I hope they wil strike it is a Trope sperare pro timere He had pleaded for the establishment of Episcopacie the long continuance of it in the world and in this Island this we called Argumentum galeatum quoting Hierom for that Epithite for which his great learning scoffs us Well wee must put it up an argument or if you will an Almanack for it is growing out of date apace and calculated for the Meridian of Episcopacie c. meaning the argument though applyed to Episcopacie might serve for any other Right Custome Order Religion that might plead antiquity which hee denies not but plainly grants saying it is calculated for whatsoever Government if so long time have given it peaceable possession in so much that could the Presbytery plead so long continuance hee should never yield his vote to alter it No should not to bring in that Episcopall Government which saith the Remonstrant hath such a divine institution as not only warrants it where it is but requires it where it may be had How can these things consist Surely if your grounds for the Divine Right of Episcopacie be Convictive and Irrefragable you must renounce that Government which is meerly humane and Ecclesiasticall be the Antiquity of it never so venerable if it stand in Competition with that which may plead a jus divinnm To divert that which he saw would overthrow this plea intitling the Pope to as much strength in this argument as the Bishops he will needs add this That long continuance may challenge an immunity from thoughts of alteration uulesse where the ground of the change is fully Convictive and Irrefragable But first Sir you must not make a limitation in your conclusion above what was in your premises but since you are at a dead lift wee will take it in and yet tell you that this helps you no more then the Pope still if he may judge hee will say there is no reason for his abolition may others judge the ground is fully Convictive and Irrefragable The Bishops being Judges and the Remonstrant they determine no reason in the world for the change of Episcopacie but what if others that must be Judges in this controversie see grounds Irrefragable and
But this place is in Vtopia and wee shall finde it paulò post finem for wee finde it no where in this book but we hope in due place faithfully to performe the contrary to what hee hath deludingly promised and also to shew how these words of his doe contradict what himselfe saith in other places of his book The testimonies brought out of antiquities to shew that the names of Bishops and Presbyters were used 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee calls trifling and challengeth us to name any one of his Writers that hath stood up in the cause of Episcopacy that hath not granted and proclaimed this which we contend for Wee answer first the better is our cause when our adversaries are forced to grant us thus much Secondly the Authours we alleage doe as well hold the offices of Bishops and Presbyters to be used in Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as the names Thirdly though we cannot name the man yet hee who names himselfe the humble Remonstrant in the 96 page of his Defence doth impropriate the name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 20. to Bishops in an imparity distinct from meere Presbyters saying If they were indeed Bishops and not mere Presbyters as the word it selfe imports c. And wee thinke you should know the name of this man We mentioned Anicetus Pius Higinus Telesphorus under the denomination of Presbyters You Answer we could not have brought a stronger argument against our selves Why They are called Presbyters as well as Bishops Ergo the names are used indifferently Doth it not fully prove as much as we intended But they are famously known say you to have been in a height of elevation above Presbyters It is yet to be proved they were so yet how ever no such elevation as did advance them into an order above Presbyterie For Irenaeus speaking of the Successors to the Apostles saith Cum Prebyterio ordine sermonem sanum conversationem sine offensâ praestant ad informationem correctionem reliquorum And our Remonstrant granting an identitie of names and yet thinking to maintain a distinction of offices out of Irenaeus comes neerer to the sence of the Popish Commentator Feuardentius then of the orthodox Father Irenaeus To Cyprian whom the Presbyters called frater Hee replyes that though the Presbyters were so familiar with him as to call him brother yet he did never so condiscend to them as to call them Bishops but stifly maintains the eminencie of his superiority and is sometimes honour â—dutth the stâ—le of Beatissimus Papa To all which wee answer first that as the Presbyters call Cyprian brother so he cals them Brethren Colleagues Fellow-Presbyters c. And Augustine a Bishop writing to Hierom a Presbyter disdains not to write in this style Domino dilectissimo in Christi vesceribus honorando sancto fratri Compresbytero Hieronymo So to Praesidius Domino beatissimo merito venerando fratri Consacerdoti Praesidio Yet was Praesidius but a Deacon as Hierome saith For Cyprians maintaining his Superiority stifly wee are sure he never maintained it so stifly as this Remonstrant and our Bishops doe for he as we fully shewed in our Answer never maintained any sole superiour power but disclaimed it wholly yet this is the thing our Bishops contend for as you may read Episcopacie by Divine Right part 2 pag. 16. As for the glorious Title of Beatissimus Papa Cyprianus we tell you in that age it was a title common to Presbyters as well as Bishops as appeares ex Bibliotheca Patrum Primum singulos habent Papas sic enim vocant Presbyteros vel Curiones in singulis Parochiis cum uno Diacono It is therefore but a meere false supposition of the Remonstrant that the title Papa was never given to a meer Presbyter And we hope the name Papa is as great and Rome will say as incommunicable as the Remonstrant would make the name Episcopus out of Cyprian In the next Paragraph the Remonstrant leaving the indentity of names addresseth himself to the great question about the distinction of the Offices of Bishops and Presbyters And here we demanded and now demand againe What these men that maintaine the office of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter make the Bishops proper office Is it to edifie the Church by Word and Sacraments c. Here saith the Remonstrant They fall somewhat unhappily upon the very words of the branded Heretike Aerius Good Reader compare the expressions and see whether they be the very words but had we faln upon the very words how can that man that hath said so often the Liturgie is never the worse because the words of it are taken out of the Roman Portuise trâ—duce either our persons or cause for falling unhappily upon the words of Aerius But it seems he is very willing to take all advantages to involve us in the crime of Heresie For in this and severall other passages hee chargeth us with being the Disciples of that frantick Heretike Aerius which makes us almost suspect that great deserving Champion of Episcopacy Franciscus à Sancta Clara had a hand in this Remonstrance who hath driven the Divine right of Episcopacie so high as to charge all with heresie that deny it But how ever the Remonstrant should have done well to have given better satisfaction to our tenth Quere concerning Aerius and taken away what wee spake before hee cry out against him as a stigmatized Heretike But if hee scorn to answer us we would intreat him to lend Bellarmine a lift in answering the famous Doctor Whitakers Who sayes I answer Aerius was not accounted by all for an heretike Epiphanius indeed and Augustine following him reckon him among the heretikes but if he held nothing besides those things he was not an heretike for the Scriptures and Fathers themselves confirme all these and Theodoret in his booke of the Fables of the Jews doth not ranke him among heretikes nor the Ecclesiastical history but rather Eustathius that did oppose him c. If your greatnesse will not stoop to answer a single Doctor we will subjoyn a second Learned Doctour Willet Contr. Gen. 5. Quaest. 3. and a third Chemnitius in Exam. Concil Trid. parte 4. de Orig. Iejunii and a fourth Springlius de hodiernis haeresibus part 1. l. 3. c. 2. which have spoken as fully in the justification of Aerius his opinion as ever your answerers did But what saith the Remonstrant to this Aerian question Brethren God speed you with your question Sir if you speak this cordially and seriously wee are glad of your ingenuity that though you have called us Heretikes yet our heresie is not so damnable but you dare bestow an Ave upon us But if you speak this scoffingly as we are verify affraid you do then we beseech you in the feare of God consider how you will answer this taking of Gods Name in vain before that great
have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church And why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then Ours We answer First That to our knowledge some have beene urged to subscribe to other ceremonies then have beene established by the Lawes of this Realme and Church and to promise obedience editis â—dendis Secondly that this very urging of us to subscribe to the ceremonies established is more then the Lawes require For the Lawes require to subscription onely to the thirty nine Articles Thirdly We cannot but justly dislike your distinction of The Lawes of this Realme and Church For we know no Lawes of the Church obligatory but such as are established by the Lawes of the Realme as both Houses of Parliament have lately determined And whereas you aske Why these Ceremonies are the Bishops more then ours We answer First because it is ordinarily said No Ceremony no Bishop But it was never said No Ceremony no Presbyter Secondly because in the Convocation which you here terme the Church the Bishops or rather the Archbishop swayes all And there are five or six which are there Ex mâ—ero Officio and for the most part are the Bishops creatures and hang their suffrages upon his lippes and but two Clerkes for the Presbyters which also for the most part are forced upon them by the Bishop and his Officers Thirdly because they are ours if ours as a burden But theirs as their crowne and glory for which they fight as for a second Purgatory to uphold their Courts and Kitchins In the next place we propounded an objection framed by Bishop Andrewes and divers others from the inequality in the Ministery appointed by Christ himselfe betweene the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples To which wee answered First that it cannot be proved that the Apostles had any superiority over the seventy either of ordination or jurisdiction Sâ—condly suppose it could yet That superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of different kindes will not prove that there should be a superiority and inferiority betweene Officers of the same kinde To which you reply first That the Apostles ordained the Deacons that Paul laid hands on Timothy But this is no solution of the objection unlesse you can prove the Deacons and Timothy to have beene amongst the number of the seventy Disciples or Paul to have beene one of the twelve Apostles Secondly you answer That Bishops and Presbyters differ toto genere and are Offieers of different kind as much as the Apostles and the seventy Disciples Which is an assertion not onely contrary to the Fathers who accounted the Bishop to be but Primus Presbyter and as Hierome saith Vnum ex se electum celsiori gradu collocatum But also more unsound then most of the Papists who freely acknowledge that Presbyteratus is the highest order in the ministry and that Episcopacy is but a different degree of the same order and not a superior order from Presbyters An order may be reputed higher either because it hath intrinsecally an higher vertue or because it hath an higher degree of honour and dignity Now we deny not but the latter antiquity did by their Canons make Episcopacy an higher Order in regard of dignity and honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a Councell speakes but did never account it an higher power by divine right This last branch the Remonstrant would faine prove if he could by an argument drawne from succession because saith he the Bishops succeed the Apostles and the Presbyters the seventy Disciples And we are challenged page 158. to shew whether ever any Father or Doctor of the Church till this present age held that Presbyters were the successors to the Apostles and not to the seventy Disciples rather But here is nothing in which the Remonstrant shewes more wilfull ignorance then in this For the ancient Fathers doe make the Presbyters successors of the Apostles as well as Bishops Thus Irenaeus liber 4. cap. 43 44. Quapropter eis qui in Ecclesiâ sunt Presbyteris obedire oportet his qui successionem habent ab Apostolis sicut ostendimus qui eum Episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum patris acceperunt So also cap 44. and lib. 3. cap. 2. Thus also our Ierome as you call him in his Epistle ad Heliodorum Clerici dicuntur Apostolico gradâ—i successisse So Origen in Matth. 16. saith all Presbyters succeeded the Apostles in the power of the keyes And Ignatius ad Smyâ—nonses saith the same Yet still like as you say you have heard page 125. some beaten cocke you dare erow and tell your Reader that all antiquity hath acknowledged 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 three severall rankes in the Church Hierarchie But where will you begin your antiquity We say with the Father iâ— verum quod antiquissimum Shew us your three degrees in Scripture You confesse page 47. that these three orders are not there to be found We read in Scripture the Deacon to be a step to a Presbyter but not a Presbyter to a Bishop And wee deny that ever it was accounted in antiquity that a Bishop did ever differ from a Presbyter as a Presbyter from a Deacon For these differ Genere proximo No â—erint Diaconi se ad ministerium non ad sacerdotium vocari But a Bishop differs from a Presbyter as from one who hath that power of Priesthood no lesse than himselfe and therefore the difference betweene these Priests be circumstantiall and not so essentiall as betwixt the other Thus Bishops and Archbishops are divers orders of Bishops according to some Canons of the Church not that one excelled the other as a power of higher vertue but of higher dignity then the other Indeed of late yeeres Episcopacy hath beene a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to preferment and a ladder for all pious and conscientious men to be suspended upon as Mordecai upon Hamans gallowes but now is in danger to become like Hamans ladder their owne ruine and downe-fall Iam sumus ergo pares In your transition to your next Paragraph that you might disparage the opposets of the Hierarchicall Episcopacy by divine right you endeavour to make them the Disciples of none but Ierome But here in you cannot but know how injuriously you deale with them considering the numberlesse number of Authors both ancient and moderne that assert that which you would fasten upon him alone In the Paragraph it selfe you confesse what we undertooke to prove That the ancient Bishops and others differ in regard of their Accessories dignities titles and maintenance But onely whereas among other instances we told you of golden Chalices and wooden Priests You tell us That if in time we should see wooden Chalicer and wooden Priests we may thanke our selves Truely sir we may thanke you and not our selves for the Lordlinesse and in solent carriages of some Bishops under the great revenues and the multitude of wooden Priests
might be setled in the same These dissentions were not about seats or rates but a contention betweene Silvanus the Bishop and Nundinarius the Deacon in a matter of a high nature too high for our Church Wardens or Vestrymen to meddle in The Bishop being accused that hee was Traditor fur rerum pauperum Did ever Church-wardens or Vestry men among us heare inquire judge compose such differences as these are What should John a Nokes and John a Stiles and Smug the Smith meddle with a businesse of Bishops saith Episcopacie by Divine Right part 3. pag. 32. But how doth hee prove they were but as our Churchwardens or Vestrymen First because Deacons are named before these Seniors where ever they are mentioned Secondly because Optatus reckoning up quatuor genera capitum mentions not Elders For the first though the order of reckoning them be not so much to be insisted upon yet wee can tell you if here your confidence had not beene greater then your consideration that you might have observed that in some places they are mentioned not onely before Deacons but the whole cleargie For so Gregories letter cited by us Tabellarium cum consensu Seniorum Cleri memineris ordinandum Are not Seniors here mentioned before the cleargie His second proofe that these Elders were no better then meere Churchmardens and Vestry men was because Optatus mentioning foure sorts of men in the Church mentions not these Elders But is this the man that hath with such height of scorne vilified poore negative arguments though drawn from sacred Scripture And will he now lay such weight upon a negative argument Surely if all the truth and practice of the primitive times were bound up in one Optatus as all Divine truth is lodged in the sacred Volume of the Scriptures the Remonstrant might have made much of his negative argument yet hee scornes to heare us reasoning that because we do not read that the holy Ghost did by the Apostles appoint Bishops in remedium Schismatis therefore we cannot believe Bishops are of Divine or Apostolicall institution but of humane Away saith he with this poore negative argument And because the Apostle Ephesians the fourth reckoning the Officers whom Christ hath given and gifted for the edification of his Church reckons up onely Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors Teachers if wee should conclude Ergo there were no Bishops The Remonstrant would cry out again Away with these negative arguments yet such an argument froÌ„ Scripture may be valid though from no other authority As for Optatus First though in these places he mentions not Elders yet that other place which wee brought out of the same Author doth which the learned Antiquary Albaspinaeus though a Papist with us acknowledgeth Secondly these places produced by the Remonstrant crosse one another as much as they crosse us for Ministri are left out in one as well as Seniores in both Thirdly these Seniores are included in turba fidelium as the Apostle Rom. 10. 14. comprehends all the Church under these two hearers and teachers and so again Heb. 13. 24. Rulers and Saints Yet the Remonstrant is resolved to hold the conclusion Elders in a ranke above Deacons in a setled power of government with the Pastors shall be damned by him for a new and unjustifiable opinion Yet this is the man that would by no meanes be thought to condemne the Reformed Churches Though hee fall as unhappily neere the very words of their profest enemies the Netherland Remonstants as ever we did the words of Aerius Quod attinet Praxin antiquitatis ex â—â videlicet id demonstrari posse idoneis argumentis ut Censor asserit audaciae temeritatis est and again Tota antiquitatis Praxis ei repugnat but oh that our Remonstrant would once learn to take the counsell he gives And he that adviseth us to give glory to God in yielding to undoubted and cleere truth would do so himselfe For if it be not more cleere that there were elders anciently in the Church then that there were none and that these elders were not civill Aldermen but ecclesiasticall Officers Not meere Churchwardens and Vestry men busied about inferiour things of seats and rates but employed in matters of higher nature let the Remonstrant never renounce episcopacy But if it be let him take heed he do not renounce his word which he utters pag. 147. I doe here solemnely professe that if any one such instance can be brought I will renounce episcopacy for ever SECT XVI XVII XVIII THe rest of our Answer you say is but a meere declamation And good Sir what was your whole Remonstrance but a declamation And what is your Defence but a Satyre But ours is worthy of no other answer then contempt and silence You are very dextrous and happy in those kind of Answers your whole Defence is full of them It is true you say The religious Bishops of all times have strongly upheld the truth of God against Satan and against his Antichrist And it is as true that we told you that others have upheld the truth as strongly as Bishops ever did Yea at sometimes when there was never a Bishop in the world to appeare for the truth And therefore never impropriate all the glory to Episcopacie It is also true that wee told you that some irreligious Bishops have upheld Satan and his Antichrist against the truth of God and what can you say to this What is this to their calling Sir their upholding Antichrist makes as much against their calling as their upholding the truth makes for their calling If you fetch an argument from the one for their calling we may as Logically fetch an argument from the other against their calling with as much concluding strength but you can tell us of Presbyters wicked and irreligious shall the function it self therefore suffer Like enough And we could tell you that they find more coâ—ntenance from Bishops then the painfullest Ministers But if Presbyters should be as generally corrupted as Bishops now are have as much strength to suppresse the Gospell and promote Popery as the Bishops by their supreame power have if they can bring no more evidence of Divine institution then Bishops can and are of no more necessity to the Church then Bishops are let the Function suffer We told you what an unpreaching Bishop said of a preaching Bishop this say you is our slander not their just Epithite and challenge us to shew any unpreaching Bishop in the Church of England this day Sir pardon us if we tell you that you put us in minde of a poore Sir Iohn that because he had made one Sermon in 40. yeeres would needs be counted a preaching minister if you speake of preaching after that rate then indeed you may call all the Bishops in England preaching Bishops But the people of England can so well tell who deserves the name of a preaching Bishop that it is not the preaching of a
which the Remonstrant directly doth not deny onely bids us lay our hands upon our hearts and consider whether our fomenting of so unjust and deep dislikes of lawfull government have not been too much guilty of those wofull breaches Sir wee have considered it and can before the great heart-searching God plead not guilty The dislike of present Church government which its own exorbitancy hath caused we have not fomented but have smothered our thoughts and griefs even untill this present wherein the gracious hand of God hath inclined the heart of our gracious Soveraigne to call a Parliament that hee and they might together consult of the pressures and grievances of his people and conclude their removall And now we cannot wee dare not hold our peace but declare our judgments that if it shall seem good to our dread Sovereigne and this Honourable Parliament upon the many complaints brought in against Bishops and their Hierarchicall government to remove the Hierarchie This Act of State may appeare to all to be farre from sinne this not being a government appointed by Christ nor stamped with a Ius Divinum though some will make that their protection As One that loves the peace of the Church which wee you say are willing to trouble You aske after the Bounders c. Are you one that loves the peace of the Church Wee pray of what Church Sure that Church that is called Prelaticall and no other Where of we give you the boundaries and characters which it seems please you not The bounders we shewed from your late Canons which say you are too narrow let them see to that that first made them It is apparent that the Canons made by Archbishops Bishops Deanes and Archdeacons in their Convocation were never consented to much lesse confirmed by Parliament and yet those are called the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England And therfore sure though wee doe not exclude Bishops Deanes c. from being members of the Church yet They have excluded all the rest of the Nation For distinction wee brought bowing to the East to Altars c. Now these say you are not fit distinctions whereon to ground different Churches Yes Sir if it be true that some have held that the outward Formes of worship and ceremonies attending it are the characters whereby one Church is differenced from another but especially when such as will not practise these shall be disclaimed by such as doe them as none of the sonnes of the Church When men shall be forced to subscribe to the practice of these things or else they shall not bee admitted either into Livings or Cures as in the instanced particulars wee have knowne it then they make a difference of Churches And who are the authours of such differences but such as thus urge them Next wee brought their Creed and instanced in Episcopacie by divine right Hee replies Did ever man make this an Article of Faith Judge you by what Bishop Hall saith in his Episcopacie by Divine right part 2. pag. 47. I am so confident of the Divine institution of the Majority of Bishops above Presbyters that I dare boldly say there are weighty points of faith that have not so strong ground in Scripture Is this to make it an article of Faith or no And if not an Article of Faith yet we are sure it is made an Article of the Church For whereas by the orders of the Church of England a man upon the admission to his ministry is to be examined upon no other Articles then the Articles of Religion established in the Church of ENGLAND we have knowne more then one whose first question hath been what doe you thinke of Episcopaice We added absolute blind obedience to all commands of the Bishop Ordinaries you bid us blush But alas Sir we are not such strangers in England nor your selfe neither we believe as not to know but that this hath been the common doctrine and almost the sole Doctrine preached by prelaticall men these many yeeres together And the blinder the better This we have heard nor is it your limitation of the Oath of canonicall obedience in Omnibus licitis honestis will help you when some in stead of that have put in In omnibus editis edendis We added Election upon faith foreseen The Remonstrant cries What nothing but grosse untruthes Is this the Doctrine of the Bishops of England have they not strongly confuted it Yes sure some few have we know it And doth not the Remonstrant know that these few have been had in suspicion as no true friends of the Church much lesse sonnes of the Church more puritanicall then prelaticall And we would none of them had said They have beene labouring these twelve yeeres to get off the name of Puritan and yet tt will not doe and because of this have beene printed Tantum non in Episcopatu Puritani And the same Authour in an other booke after that Dico iterum iterumque dicam Tantam non in Episcopatu Puritani As for the Scriptures of Prelaticall men we mentioned Apocripha and unwritten traditions meaning that that generation lay as much weight almost upon traditions and Apocrypha as upon a genuine text and are more observant many of them of a custome and tradition then of the command of God For Sacraments we instanced a Baptisme of absolute necessity an Eucharist that must be administred upon an Altar What are these say you to the Church of England Nothing but to the Prelaticall Church they are Call them if you will Popish fooles and addleheads that maintaine these opinions yet we know the number of them is not small that have declined into these popish waies we acknowledge also that these are men if not that chiesly support the Prelacy yet such as have beene chiefely suppoted and countenanced by it We acknowledge there are many men learned and orthodox that have in their judgments approved of Episcopall government but what little incouragement these have had from the Prelates especially if laborious in their ministery or any way opposing the Prelaticall innovation in respect of the incouragements of those popish fooles and addle-heads as the Remonstrant cals them a man may see with halfe an eye You demanded what Christ the Prelaticall Church had Our answer is a Christ that hath given the same power of obsolution to a Priest that himsefe hath which answer you say is neere to blasphemy truely an opinion so neere to blasphemy can hardly be delivered in a language much distant from it but this you say is a slanderous fiction no Christian Divine ever held Priests power of absolution was any other then ministeriall If we know the man bring him forth that hee may be stoned Truely sir we knew the man that said the Priests power in absolution was more then Ministeriall it was judiciary but he is past stoning hee is dead and we know another said as much but he sung Agags song
long agoe surely the bitternesse of death is past For when he was brought forth to be stoned hee was rescued by Prelaticall power and his Sermon for which he was questioned printed with licence and in print presented to the Consistory We know a third that in a Commencement did openly affirme Absolution by a Priest to be absolutely necessary to salvation Their Heaven we said was a receptacle of drunkards swearers adulterers and surely justly wee might say so for when did your Consistories that pretend to have the keyes that open and shut Heaven so shut the gates of Heaven against such sinners as that a silver key could not open them againe and though your charity keepe them in Heaven while they live such yet our charity shuts them not out of Heaven if they did not die such But it may be you thinke confession to a Priest when they lie a dying shall infallibly save them what ever their lives have beene and that 's the reason you slide by that prelaticall opinion and doe not question us who hold it We professe still wee had rather goe on in our owne waies then theirs and thinke it our duty to separate from these waies and opinions rather then embrace them yet farre we are from any thoughts of separating from the Church of England nor did we ever intend to affixe those exoticall positions of unsound teachers as you call them upon her but on the faction who hath held promoted countenanced them and sheltred themselves all the while under the name of the Church But if the Remonstrant hate these opinions as much as our selves we are glad if he know others doe because he speakes in the plurall it is well But wee would be glad to know in what Pallace that Prelate lives that hath drawne out his assumed sword of discipline against these unsound teachers Or if he hath drawne hath strucke or if strucke hath not strucke with the backe while the poore Non conformists hath beene slaine with the edge or where hee lives that hath opposed these exoticke positions so farre as to hazzard the Archprelates froune in the opposition Having given sufficient answer to the Remonstrant wee thought it not unfit to subjoyne some Quaeres about Episcopacy for the Remonstrant if he pleased to answer Which though he saith are made up of nothing but spite and slaunder yet surely his owne conscience tels him there is much truth and strength in them else why doth he conclude we put so much trust in them when we never told him so And why doth he not else apply himselfe to answer but like a Socraticall disputant put off the question with question knowing it is safer and easier to propound new questions then to answer ours 1. Your first Quere is who ever held the Lordships of Bishops to be jure Divivo if no body whether this be not to falsifie and slander you might have considered that we spake not of the Lordships of Bishops in abstracto but of Lordbishops in concreto And who holds them to be jure Divino is sufficiently knowne But you aske why it is a greater fault in one of our Doctours to hold the Lords day to stand by humane right and is there but one of our Doctors of that opinion then it is for Master Calvine whom for honours sake no doubt you name here as else where seldome through your whole defence mentioning that worthy but in some disgracefull passage But did Master Calvin ever hold Bishops to be jure Divino or did Master Calvine ever as one of our Lord-bishops who having received a letter from a Gentleman of his City against the publication of the Booke of sports returned no other answer then a sharpe censure of his zeale as giddy and indiscreet Or did Master Calvin ever cry up Altars instead of Communion Tables or Priests instead of Ministers yet in these termes our Quere was propounded and what ever Master Calvin doth in his institution yet in his Comment upon Deuteronomy hee stands for the strict observation of the Lords day 2. Whether it were any other than King Iames himselfe of blessed memory that said No Bishop no King c. King Iames of blessed memory never spake this of Bishops by divine right which are the Bishops now contended for And if King Iames of blessed memory said no Bishop no King it was not hee but others that added no Ceremony no Bishop nay some have risen higher and said if neither Bishop nor a King how a God 3. Whether since it is proved that Bishops are of more then meere humane ordinance and have so long continued in the Christian Church to the great good of Church and State it be not fit to establish them for ever and to avoyd a dangerous motion of innovation sure if the Remonstrants words may goe for proofe it is proved else not that Bishops are of more then humane ordinance and so long continuance and how advantagious to the good of Church and State Acta probant and though motions of innovation may be dangerous yet motions of Renovation are not Non est pudor ad meliora transire it s no shame to amend 4. Whether these Answerers have the wit or grace to understand the true meaning of the Divine right of Episcopacy We will not impute it to want of wit or grace in the Remonstrant but sure himselfe doth not clearely understand it hee is so unconstant to his opinions but whether the Remonstrant or his answerers understand the right of Episcopacy better let the Readers to whose censure both in this controversie must stand or fall determine for our parts wee hope wee understand what jus divinum meanes but doe ingenuously confesse we have neither wit nor grace to understand the jus divinum of Episcopacy 5. Whether there be any question at all in the fifth question yes certainely if the Remonstrant would not have baulked that which he knew not how to take away the distinction of Apostolicall right which say we is either such as is founded upon the Acts or Epistles of the Apostles and is we grant divine or such as is not recorded in their writings and is onely of things reported to be introduced into the Church the Apostles yet living Now if the Remonstrant hold Episcopacy to be of Apostolicall right in the first sence why doth he then grant us in expresse tearmes that in originall authority of Scripture Bishops and Presbyters are originally the samâ— and why doth he in the same page make his retreat from the writings of the Apostles to the monuments of succeeding times If he hold it in the latter sence these two things yet remaine to be done First he is to prove that Bishops in a superiority of power over Presbyters were introduced into the Church the Apostles yet living and answer his friend Cassander and our other testimonies produced to the contrary Secondly to prove that such things may be of Divine right whereof
no record is found in Divine writings 6. Whether Master Beza have not heard soundly of his distinction of the three kinds of Episcopacy in the full and learned answer of Soravia Yes and Soravia and others that have borrowed from him have heard as foundly of their defences of Episcopacy both by domesticke and forreine Divines who have sufficiently declared how well our story of the Painter suits with your Discipline but iâ— that please you not we can â—it you with an other of the Painter mentioned in Plutarch who having drawne a cocke very unskilfully and rudely could not indure any cocke to stand within view for feare of discovering the deformity of his picture So our Bishops having drawne a forme and line of government which they propose to the world as divine will not indure the true divine government to come in view for feare of discovering the irregularity of theirs 7. Whether it were not fit that we also should speake as the ancient Fathers did Sir by your leave it is safe to speake in the language the Scripture speakes but you should have done well to have spoken to the reason upon which our Quere was grounded and what further reasons we then had and still have to make this Quere may appeare by what wee have sayd before in vindicating Timothy and Titus from such like objections 8. Whether Presbyters can without sinne arrogate unto themselves the exercise of the power of publike Church-government c. to say nothing what honour here you give to your deare Sister-Churches Our answer is Yes they may take the exercise of that power without sinne though not without danger if your High-Commission were standing For our Saviour Christ when he gave to Peter the promise of the keyes made in one undistinguishable act a donation of the power both of preaching and governing and therefore if Presbyters may without sin publickly exercise the one by vertue of that donation they may by the same charter as warrantably exercise the other The last branch of your quere Whether any Father or Doctor till this age held that Presbyters were successors to the Apostles c. We wonder that any man who hath but the repute of learning shouldâ— make such a quere And for the answer we refer you to what we have said before in this booke 9. Whether ever any Bishops assumed to themselves power temporall to be Barons c. Our answer is You shew better writts for your temporalties then you have done yet for your spiritualties And our quaere was directed to shew the spirituall power of Bishops to be of more dangerous consequence then their temporall to which purpose we produced five reasons which wee perswade our selves you scarcely read over for in the third there is a fault in the printing which had you seene your charity would scarce have let passe without an observation which remaining unanswered wee conclude as before it concernes all those that have spirituall eyes to endeavour to abrogate their spirituall usurpationsâ— as well as their temporall As for the latter part of this Quere it is a begging of the whole dispute Et eadem facilitate rejicitur quâ affirmatur 10. Whether the answerers have not just cause to be ashamed of patronizing a noted hereticke Aerius c. To this we answer That if Aerius was accounted an heretique for denying Bishops to be all one with Presbyters by divine right we are not ashamed to patronize him till you have answered our allegations for his defence which are brought in this quere and in divers places in this Booke But you could not be so ignorant but to know how Bellarmine and divers others doe say That Aerius was accounted an hereticke not for denying the inequality of Bishops and Presbyters by Scripture but by the Canons of the Church But wee wonder how we escaped the brand of the heresie of the Audiani who by the same Epiphanius are called heretiques though men of a blamelesse conversation because they did not without just cause freely and boldly reprove the vices of the Bishops of their daies 11. Whether the great apostacy of the Church of Rome doe or did consist in the maintaining the order of government set by the Apostles themselves c. Sure no wee never sayd nor thought it But that a great part of the Apostacy of the Church of Rome consisted in swarving from the discipline of Christ and hiâ— Apostles as well as from the doctrine and setting up and maintaining a new Hierarchicall forme which cannot enter into our hearts to thinke the Apostles did ever set up and which the most part of the Churches in the Christian World that are professedly opposite unto the Church of Rome doe oppose as much as they doe Rome it selfe though you beare the Reader in hand they all maintaine it no lesse constantly then Rome it selfe doth which no man but he that hath captivated reason modesty to his cause and will would have so confidently and untruly spoken Once againe let us aske you whether by this bould speech all the reformed Churches of Christ be not now shut out of the number of Churches 12. Whether if Episcopacy be through the mâ—nificence of good Princes honoured with a title of dignity c. it to be ever the more declined Since the time that Episcopacy has bin honored with dignity and revenues the office hath not bin declined but the Bishops themselves haue bin declining Yet our Quere was not whether this were a ground of declining the place but rather of desiring the place As for our crying up the Presbytery because wee hope to carry some sway in it We acknowledge our selves unworthy to beare any part in it but we heartily desire that Christ may rule and wee shall most willingly subject our selves to his government 13. Whether there bee no other apparent causes to be given for the encrease of popery and superstition in the Kingdome besides Episcopacy which hath strongly laboured to oppose it c. We deny not but there may have bin other causes but none so apparant as Episcopacy But whereas in a parenthesis which you might well have left out without any detriment either to your sense or the truth you say that Episcopacy hath strongly laboured to oppose popery we answer Quid verba audimus cum facta videmus you aske againe whether the multitude of Sects you should have added which the tyranny of Bishops hath made And professed â—lovenlinesse in Gods service have not bin guilty of the encrease of prophanenesse We answer againe not so much as the forbidding of preaching and Catechising as the countenancing of sports on the Lords day as the scandalous lives of too too many episcopall men and the libertinisme of the Bishops houses and Courts 14. Your 14. Quere consists of a Paradox and a Solâ—cisme A Paradox in saying That all Churches throughout the whole Christian world have ever observed and doe constantly and uniformely obserue and maintaine Episcopall