for what you say nor to answere any of the proofes whereby the Author confirmed his assertion Then you deny the ground whereupon the argument is builded The Principle which before in the proper place you durst not deny but rather did insinuate your granting of it however the Authours Probation of that Principle stands as yet untouched While you tell us here that Tradition is a sufficient ground for Episcopacie though Scripture were lacking you but joine with your Brethren the Canterburians who upon this ground presse upon us already their Altars Crosses Images the primacie of the Pope and much more and shew their minde by this doore to let in upon us the whole flood of Antichristian abominations when they find their season especially as your self here does professe any matter of practice of discipline of government This your popish errour of tradition is a very generall and catholike one which shakes not one or two but all the ground-stones of Protestant reformations The Authours second Argument is The second you answere by a nonsense and childish toy That no inferiour officer in the new testament carries the name of any superiour but so it is that a Presbyter every where carries the name of a Bishop Therefore a Presbyter is not an inferiour officer to a Bishop What here you bring is so far from the shew of any answere that it is like you have not conceived the drift of the Argument only the non sense of your reply is compensed with your extraordinary quicknesse to take your adversarie twice in his own argument in his owne net first you will put him to a non plus by an Interrogatory where then are ruling Elders by their names distinguished you have read I believe the 1. Timothy 5.17 there you may see ruling Elders by their name and surname cleerly distinguished from Preachers of the word you know also that there are a number of passages of the Fathers for these ruling Elders in the booke of Gersombucerus which the boldest of your party for all their big words and exclamations in the eares of silly people durst never yet after twenty two yeeres advisement so much as offer to answere Thereafter you triumph as if you had drawn from your Adversaries own pen by an ocular demōstration the ful proof of your whol cōclusion The superiority of a Bishop to a Presbyter by divine right because forsooth the author says That Bishop and Pastor which are all one are made by the Apostle superiour to a Presbyter Wee did not believe that any man of the least acquaintance with these controversies had beene ignorant of that common and triviall homonomie of the word Presbyter and Elder sometimes taken for a preaching Elder sometimes for a ruling Elder and sometimes for both The Author with the Scriptures makes a Pastor a Bishop a preaching elder to be altogether one and in nothing to differ but as three synonimous names of one and the same officer which by divine right is indeed superiour to a ruling Elder or Presbyter this no man ever did question but no way superiour to a preaching Elder of whom alone is all the present question The Authors third and fourth Argument confirmed strongly by a number of pregnant Scriptures are all utterly mispent To the third and fourth argument no syllable of answere appears and not one word of answere made to either of them His fifth Argument The fifth is in shew granted That by Christs institution the constant practice of the Apostles the power of ordination and jurisdiction is never committed to one Bishop but ever to a number of Preachers and others as is cleared by a multitude of manifest Scriptures This you cannot deny yet your heart will not permit you freely to grant it You are content that in ordination and jurisdiction Bishops should be assisted by Presbyters but the argument infers much more to wit that your Bishops in usurping to thēselvs the power of jurisdiction transferring of it to their carnal courts that their assuming by vertue of their office the power of ordinatiō though for the form they admit some Presbyters to be their assistāts in giving of orders that both these faculties which make not the abuse but the two main limbs and integrall parts of the office it selfe are wicked practices against Christs ordinance not to be reformed but presently abolished with a great remorse that with a high hand for so long a time these tyrannous usurpations have bin maintained The sixt Argument was from the 22. The sixt is absurdly answered Luke 25. where Christ forbids all Pastors to accept any Majority or preheminence over their brethren This the Author proves from Scripture Reason and Antiquitie to evert the office of Bishops All that you answere is that this place does not forbid the Apostles to accept any degree of Honour above their brethren wherein they may govern them for their profit It follows then that by this place Bishops are not hindered to assume as great authority over the Church as the greatest Emperours ever had over the bodies or Christ himselfe as you confesse here over the soules of men Having evinced the unlawfulnesse of Episcopacie it selfe by the former Arguments The Authors first reason against all limitation of Episcopacie is but slighted nothing enervate by all your Opposition in the rest of the treatise the Author reasons against the lawfulnesse of the least degrees and best limitations of that evill his first argument is well confirmed with Scripture and reason you answere but to one piece casting by the first and strongest parts of it to wit all parts all degrees all meanes all appearances of the discharged evill you had good reason to cut off all these portions from the Argument for you saw that your distinction was not applicable to these for you will be loath to deny that Episcopacie howsoever limitate is some degree some part some mean some appearance not by accident but of its own nature of that Episcopacie which now stands in England The part of the Argument which you take in hand is not sufficiently answered for you clear your distinction with no more then your own simple assertion That limited Episcopacie is not in it selfe but alone by Satans malice either a cause or a beginning or a provocation to Episcopacie as now it stands Surely that effect which has followed limited Episcopacie in all places where ever it has dwelt may not well be denyed to be naturall unto it however you dare not apply your distinction for it will sound harshlie in the eares of your Neighbours that limited Episcopacie should be a beginning a provocation by the malice and craft of the Devill of that Episcopacie which now in Rome and England has place The Author in the next place by cleer Scriptures does prove The second is unwittingly granted That the reformation of Episcopacie must be taken not from the times of the posteriour Fathers but from
possible a number of cleere and strong probations for to convince the mind of all attentive Readers Againe you tell us that the Principle may be granted Why do you mutter betwixt your teeth speak out cleerly and plainly for if you grant it your cause is lost if you deny it your next will be to answer the numerous arguments wherewith it is compassed not any one whereof you are bold to try In the third place that you may leave a posterne for escaping the Authors cleere and plaine principle That no office is lawful in Gods house which Christ has not appointed you transforme in an other mold to wit That none may administer the Word or Sacraments impose hands or use the keyes but such as Christ has appointed When thus you have taken leave to corrupt not the words only but the matter of your adversaries very principle Episcopall Courts acknowledged to be unlawfull Notwithstanding you see the Conclusion that flows from your owne proposition to wit that your high Commissioners your Chancellours and all the Rabble of your Officiall Courtiours doe meddle with Church censures contrary to Christs appointment This you do not deny but beare us in hand that these corruptions may be amended without noise or scandall It were good that your friends in the Convocation would preveen the honourable House of Commons that at last they would offer of free accord to passe from these long defended oppressing Courts before with greater noise and shame they be compelled to render to the Presbyterie these Rites whereof too long it has been dispossed by your Bishops fraud and force When you have broken in unseasonably upon the Hypothese of Episcopacie how marvellously doe you shift and extenuate the question The authors principle did speak expresly and soly of a distinct office in the Church of God you dare not say whether Episcopacie be any such thing or not All the distinction betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter that you speak of is a higher and lower degree as it were of the same office Your Brethren will give you small thanks for this extenuation for you know they maintaine Episcopacie to be a true and distinct office from the Priesthood unto the which beside a Superioritie of degree the distinct faculty or power of Ordination and Jurisdiction essentially doth belong wherewith simple priests qua tales have nought at all to doe Beside the Authors principle and the probations thereof conclude all that you here doe require for they inferre the unlawfulnesse of any majoritie of one Church Officer over another without Christs appointment from so cleere texts of Scripture and so sound grounds of uncontroverted Divinity as you find not your selfe disposed to answer any one of them While as you require proof in that place for all the other parts of our Discipline you are unreasonable When you have given satisfactorie answers to all that is brought in the head of Episcopacy it will be then time and no sooner to proceed unto other Articles which so long as Episcopacy stands were needlesse to be spoken of In your contrary argumentations you undertake to prove a very strange conclusion Your great words extolling Episcopacie are full of vanitie That the order of Bishops is no lesse Apostolicall then the very Creed and to be received with no lesse faith then the very Scriptures yea with much more as it seems you import for you equal the Scriptures and Bishops in this that both are alike universall and unquestioned traditions but in this you seeme to give Bishops a surer ground then you grant to Scriptures for the ground whereupon you here and many of your fellowes elswhere embrace the Scriptures is sole Tradition but the grounds whereupon you receive the order of Bishops is not sole tradition but sundry passages of Scripture also as you alleage This your mighty Conclusion you prove not by any argument but onely by a number of big words borrowed from the Papists in this same and many more subjects You tell us that many Scriptures are alleaged for Episcopacy and that these Scriptures are exponed in your sense by all the Fathers yea by all Writers for fifteene hundred yeeres I hope that your selfe will finde it reason that wee be permitted to take your great words for nought but vaine ecchoes in the Aire while you be pleased to produce at least some one Scripture some one Father some one Writer which here you have not done Also while you would have us taking it on your naked word that all times all places all persons are for Bishops and that for such Bishops as you here expreslie describe to whom alone it belongs to rule as it is proper for the inferiour Presbyters to be ruled suffer us to say that you are greatly mistaken till wee have heard some one of your proofs Your patience will here I hope be the greater when you read in the subsequent writt for this our contradiction more Scriptures and Fathers then you in haste are like satisfactorily to answere The question of Episcopacie discust In that same short writ you will see all the Scriptures and the most pregnant passages of antiquity which the best learned on your side are accustomed to produce answered by the ancients themselves so cleerely that while you give some evidence to the contrarie Indifferent men will pronounce that wee have but too good reason to avow Episcopacie as your selfe in the same place describes it to be a plant which God never set in his garden to bee a meere stranger to the ancient Church for some hundred yeeres and ever while the Pope had usurped mainly by the help of his Episcopall jurisdiction many Antichristian priviledges Your consequences besides the palpable errour of your Antecedent are weake vitious and inconsequent though your Episcopacie be an Antichristian errour yet it will not follow that all people who are subject to it must be condemned as Antichristian and false worshipers of God for you know that one fault and one quality is not sufficient to put on the subject an absolute denomination What you adde of the fountaine and originall of Presbyteries it shews if not your ignorance yet your great forgetfulnesse not onely what Cyprian and other of the ancients have written of the Presbyteries in their times but also what your selfe within a few pages does write of Presbyteries which you could admit though with an Episcopall Moderator This is the matter of your first six pages To the Authors first argument the answer is Popish and nought upon the Authours Principle when you come to his Arguments your Answeres are shorter but nothing better The first Argument That these places of Scripture which of purpose and most punctually set downe the offices of Gods house especiallie the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles to Timothy and Titus speak not at all of your Bishops You first deny the Argument albeit in your deniall you are so rationall as neither to give any reason
government which was universall in the ancient Church was seated in the body of Presbyteries the very name whereof till the sitting down of this Parlament all of you did abhorre cane pejus et angue If there remain any drop of ingenuous blood you would proclaim openly and no more mutter within your teeth that your late injurious errour and without further delay your selfe be the first and most earnest Solicitor of the Parlament for the re-erection in all the Kingdome of these Presbyteries which now at last you confesse were universally in use in all the purer times of antiquity As for that which you desire to bee the State of the question English Episcopacie is a late corruption a meere stranger to the ancient Church whether ever there was a Presbytery without a Bishop over it you will I hope bee content after the fashion of reasonable men to speake of things not of names you will make no question with us about the name of Bishops which wee never deny to be frequent both in Scripture and antiquity But the thing signified by this name An officer as all your partie describes him who in his Diocesse hath the power of Ordination and Jurisdiction by vertue of his office This is the subject of all our question You affirme that in the ancient times Bishops in this Sense were set over Presbyteries Wee do deny We should be glad to see your Affirmation proved that ever there was in the Church of God any such Bishops before the Pope had brought his Bishoprick to the Cope-stone of Antichristianisme Our negative wee have laboured to prove in the following treatise by more passages of antiquity then you will have leasure in haste to answere As for the Bishops of the ancient Church which agree with yours onely in the naked name but in the essentiall parts of the office doe differ as much as the Duke of Venice this day from the Duke of Muscovie as the Emperours of Rome in the dayes of Seneca from the old Imperatores in the time of the Common-wealth The question about them will bee whether their right in these anciēt times was divine or human whether they stood by Apostolick tradition or alone by Ecclesiasticall constitution established at the Churches pleasure and so by her free will removeable You will be a better disputer then any of your side who yet have appeared if you can make good the first yea that you can prove the second to have been universal we do not believe If every Church would search their originall rights as they of Scotland have done their own readily as these have found their Church in the most ancient times governed by Presbyters without any bishops at all so much as in name for some hundred yeers so many other nationall Churches might finde the same upon the like diligence of tryall however when it comes to the exactest search it will appeare that Episcopacie was at most but an humane Ecclesiastick constitution neither more ancient more universall nor received upon any better grounds then the Primacie of the Patriarch of Rome then the manifold fraternities of the Monkes Fryers and Nunnes These though according to your friends assertion so anciently so universally so piously established that all the reformed and England among the rest are much to be blamed both for their first rashnesse to reject and there too long lingring since to restore them yet as England did never repent the casting out of the former according to the example of her sisters abroad so now wee believe if shee may be pleased to follow the same example in casting out the other shee shall have as little cause of sorrow The Author did shew at length the vanity of their expectation who deceive themselves with hopes to get Bishops kept in order by the bonds of any imaginable limitations No caveats are able to keepe Bishops long in order for the demonstration hereof he sets downe the caveats whereby the Scottish Kirke and Kingdome did bind their Bishops then which England can not invent harder this day for theirs The knot cannot be faster tied The Scots had their Bishops consent subscription and solemn oath The King in person in the generall Assembly did ratifie the bargaine numbers of Parliaments did establish the liberties of Presbyteries Sundry reasons the Authour brings to cleer that England is not able at this time to employ such meanes to keepe their Bishops low as Scotland then did use your answere to all is compendious you say that all your adversaries arguments are weake but how your saying may be proved you take not time to tell us The Author in the end of his writ makes answere to a number of the common jargous of Prelaticall men Presbyteriall government a heavier hammer to schisme then Episcopall especially that of Schisme in the Church and danger to the State which by the removall of Episcopacie they take upon them to prophesie will certainly fall out To both these Objections hee gives a number of very satisfactory and grave replies In your answer you misken well neere them all These few you picke out are cast in a strange confusion here and there in your Papers Against his replies to the first objection of Schisme you rejoinder that the divisions of New England are witnesses of these Schismes which proceed from the want of Episcopacie you do well to speake to us of men in an other World with whose estate we are not acquainted but can you say that there are half so many Schismes in New England where Bishops are not as we see in Old England where Bishops are in their full Strength Speak of the things we know Behold the Churches of Europe from whence Bishops are banished Scotland France Holland Swize Geneva c. Did you ever heare of any either Schisme or Heresie in these places except when Presbyteriall government was suppressed did that discipline any sooner get leave to employ its native strength but in a short time it made the Countries where it dwelt free of all these evills It is made evident in the next place If Bishops stand schisme in England must increase that the keeping of Episcopacie on foot any longer in all probability will fill the Church of England with many pitifull divisions both amongst themselves at home and from all their Neighbours abroad concerning the reformed Churches over sea you answer that in time bigon you have kept good correspondence with them notwithstanding of all the difference in discipline but truly the correspondence you speake of is to be ascribed much rather to the patience and long suffering of your good Neighbours then to any well deserving of your Bishops for their doctrine in the point of Episcopacie is cleerly Schismaticall as you may see in the Pedagogick and Master Likes Letter of Andrews to Muleine and in other of your Prelaticall writs where your men with the Papists by all the arguments they can invent do presse the Reformed Churches