cavilling declaring of their own folly That g See his fair warning p. 2. this discipline which the Croftonians so much adore is the very quintessence of refined Popery or a greater tyranny then ever Rome brought forth inconsistent with all forms of civil Government destructive to all sorts of Policy a rack to the conscience the heaviest pressure that can fall upon a people and so much more dangerous because by the specious pretence of Divine institution it takes away the sight but not the burthen of slavery Reader peruse that small book and I 'le undertake it shal give thee full satisfaction what this Cockatrice egge the Scottish discipline is and what a precious jewel it is to be preserved But how will they preserve this Pandora's box why according to the word of God the example of the best reformed Churches that 's brave indeed to swear to preserve that according to the word of God which knows nothing of it as it is singular by it self Suppose I should swear to preserve a thief in his pilfering courses according to the word of God would that make the thieves actions good because it is expressed according to the word of God or would it not rather aggravate and heighten the bloody nature of my sins to swear with such a strange self-contradiction Just as if I should say I would do a thing according to the will and desire of another who hath openly made his protestation against it I am sure the thieves actions cannot be more opposite to the Sacred Canon of Scripture then some part of the Scottish Discipline is which the Reverend Primate hath well informed us of to which I refer the doubtful for satisfaction and therefore notwithstanding that expression the Oath for preservation of such an Anti-Monarchical Discipline cannot but be very wicked and therefore unlawful to be sworn or kept And as for the best Reformed Churches the Church of England by all impartial unbyassed sober Protestants was wont to be accounted the best Reformed Church in the world and h See the fair warning p. 2. before these unhappy troubles in England all Protestants both Lutherans and Calvinists did give unto the English Church the right hand of fellowship which made the most Reverend Doctor Hammond of renowned memory to affirm That i See his View of the new Directory and vindication of the ancient Liturgy P. 7. the Church of England as it stands established by law is avowable against all the Calumniators in the world to be the best and most exemplary Reformed so far saith he that if I did not guess of the sense of the Covenant more by the temper then words of the Covenanters I should think all men that have Covenanted to Reform after the example of the best Reformed Churches indispensably obliged to conform to the King-Edward or Queen-Elizabeth English Reformation the most regular perfect pattern that Europe yieldeth Thus that indefatigable Defender and Propagator of Catholick truths against the novel inchroachments of the then Julianizing times whose memory will be precious and his name smell as sweet odour in the nostrils of all true hearted Christian Protestants when the name of an Assembler will hardly be thought on without immediate branding him for Treason and disloyalty And so now having briefly dispatched the first I shall proceed on to the second and there they speak out what their Covenant for Reformation is for they tell us there too in their Rebellious language § 4. That they shall in like maner without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Arch-Bishops Bishops their Chancellors Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hyerarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Profaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues In good time Excellent Deformers They that were the grand Promoters and carriers on at first of the Regular English-Reformation though indeed not by Sedition and Rebellion against their Soveraign nor by making use of cursing Merozian Texts to stir up the people to assist them in such filthy courses but by obedience and subjection to the unjust punishment of Majesty and freely offering their bodies to the fire must now be extirpated by our Deformers of Truth and Christianity under a sly pretence of a detestable Reformation A good requital to them for their incomparable defences of the true Protestant Religion against the Jesuits and others of the Babylonian Romish rout to be now cast out as unprofitable branches by a pack of holy Leaguers not worthy to be named with them but what said our own late most noble Sovereign k See Eikon Basilike upon the Covenant Many Engines of religious and fair pretensions are brought chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy This saith he they make the grand evil Spirit which with some other imps purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the vulgar must by so solemn a charm and exorcism be cast out of this Church after more then a thousand years possession from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island and an universal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches since the Apostles times till this last Century But no antiquity must plead for it Presbytery like a young heir thinks the father hath lived long enough and impatient not to be in the Bishops chair and authority all art is used to sink Episcopacy and lanch Presbytery in England which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant And therefore for that Apostolical-Primitive Universal Church-Government of Episcopacy so Universal That l See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 103. as the Martyr saith since the first Age for one thousand five hundred years not one example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishop above them under whose Jurisdiction and Government they were and so by consequence unavoidable the damnable infamous nature of the Covenant for extirpation thereof There hath been so much said by our Reverend Episcoplains and by our late Josiah of most blessed and glorious memory that I shall forbear to say any thing more of it but refer them that desire satisfaction to their respective writings and I wonder when the Presbyterian will answer them I do not mean by cavillings and railings for there have been too much of that already but by true good solid sound arguments and reasons such as may carry truth in their fore-head which people shall easily perceive when they can once have the happiness to see the Swans turn black § 5. But is this all that these Leaguers swear to extirpate in this Article No they joyn with the former just as if a man should joyn a Scottish Presbytery with a Monarchy which
own naturally deformed one appear the neater and beautifuller But I consider otherwise he could not hide his folly from being palpable and open to every person that is not possessed of a Bedlamers understanding nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by ingenuous persons rather then they would vex themselves so much as to read his lies and juglings his cavillings and sedititon his false quotations and confident language both of the judicious Assertions and person of that Learned Reverend Prelate whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off medling with such notorious Salamanders who loves to live in peace and quietness and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church and delights not to live in contention with them to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition both in Church and State But we will see however what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle to say for himself and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them and that I finde upon search to be this learned one that follows with a m P. 25. of his Book But Sir have you not stretch'd too far and stept into a Premunire Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Statutes declare to be their own creature and constitution changeable at their pleasure even from the Statutes of Carlisle and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation Power and Authority and so by the same way changeable Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative why not Supremacy Would not that word have choak'd you over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical What is become of your oath of Supremacy Can you make this peremptory determination as your self calls it consist with it any more with your Covenant Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone him and his Parliament too And then tells his Readers a story How it hath been observed to be the fatall chance of the Bishops of England to run themselves into a Premunire The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Seditious persons and in particular his Reverend Antagonist and therefore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishops words That Kings Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical So far worse and unsuitable to England every way and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Majesties legal Supremacy and therefore first that they have no prudential authority to change Episcopal Government much less swear to extirpate them root and branch is evident not onely by the desperate excommunicating antimonarchical brasen tricks and practises of the Godly partie forsooth in Scotland against the excellent King James in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him because he did not submit himself to their traiterous imperious humours and making him for his own safety to flie out of his own capital City of Edinburgh but also by that Kings famous Motto No Bishop no King and by the sad woful experience of the truth thereof by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642 and the Regicidian genuine issues and effects of it knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange which he put forth to the view of the world That m See his Interest mistaken or The holy Cheat pag. 88. by those very Troops that cryed down Bishops was the King murthered Knowest thou not Sir John what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds's desire at the conference at Hampton Court for the rearing up a domineering Tyrannical Presbytery within this Kingdom if not then I shall for once declare it unto your Honor the Royal Answer ran thus n See the Conference at Hampton Court p. 81. Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me and if then you finde me pursey and fat and my wind-pipes stuffed I will perhaps harken to you for let that government be once up I am sure I shall be kept in breath then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full but Dr. Reynolds till you finde that I grow lazie let that alone If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet and to be alwaies in a combustion I know no better advice can be given them then for to set and rear up this Presbytery but if they desire to keep themselves in rest peace and unity they 'l find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room but will abandon the Covenant that o See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken p. 35. popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience as the very poison of hell and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy but then § 25. Again secondly that they have no religious authority for as for moral authority that is an authority secundum morem according to former custom their authority is so altogether in the negative there that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer but I say that they have no religious authority to change Episcopal government is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived in commanding obedience and controuling the subordinate governors and their disorders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted and enjoyning the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephesus and Creet and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdiction Certainly he that tells me that p 1 Tim. 3. 1. he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us instead of that That the Apostle said the one and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it which makes me proceed to the next thing and that is § 26. That they have no lawful
authority to change it which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops where he explaines his meaning by judiciously asserting That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and rules os Christian piety and polity too of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter and so his position in short is this That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God and rules of Christian piety and polity to change Episcopal Government which is a cleer evident truth to me for I consider with my self that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism ataxy confusion or division in the Church which are contrary to true Christianity for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians they were so often taxed of their too much carnality and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis for the preventing of schismes and divisions and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishops times as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism was the ground of a day of fasting and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter What shall we say to those things that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times the true proper effects of their arrogant ways of Rebellion in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by it self without Episcopacy in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church as well as to the King and his Laws which is and hath bin the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product And yet forsooth must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion Vpon the consideration of the whole I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie Error Superstition Schisme Faction or Confusion so neither have the King Lords and Commons any prudent moral religious or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change the Ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical so far worse and unsuitable to England every way If one part of the sentence be true which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal rightful Supremacy of the King That which speakes against Schisme and faction confusion and disorder will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops the main preventers of it by being the constant promoters of love and unity § 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons Discourse without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them which he most unworthily and basely had left out that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths but rather then he would depart from his cavilling art and shiftings he 'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image That he p See the Image unbroken p. 153. broke sentences and truths lest he should breake for want of matter And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself and so very craftily left it out and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead to the convincing of any opposer which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once and turn Quaerist too Where 's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now Is speaking of a known Truth confronting of King and Parliaments Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days and had said That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity either to change the King Edward-Reformation or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen in confronting her and her Parliaments by saying black is black and white is white by asserting a known truth Blessed be God we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings either against God or his Truth or the Defenders of true Christianity that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes then those for which it was first established To make Clergy-men as well as Lay know that he is their onely Supream Governor and in case of offence that His Power will reach to the punishment of both that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice either by the wicked pretence of a foreign Papal superior Jurisdiction or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traiterous seditious Consistorians if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God or this Land Where 's the Bishops sedition I wonder Where 's his treason that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for as this Leaguer cants it Why he saith in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent moral religious and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse and far unsuitable to England every way for that is it which the Bishop saith which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling Ay but saith Crofton The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation power and authority and so by the same way changeable Ergo What That they have any prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change it to a worse After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue Can they that swear to govern a people well and according to the Laws of the Land have any of that quaternary Power to change one Government for a worse Will the people in such a case think or can