none of these things come upon me All these took the paines both to confess and to repent in thir own words and many of them in thir own tears not in Davids But transported with the vain ostentation of imitating Davids language not his life observe how he brings a curse upon himself and his Fathers house God so disposing it by his usurp'd and ill imitated prayer Let thy anger I beseech thee le against me and my Fathers house as for these Sheep what have they don For if David indeed sind in numbring the people of which fault he in earnest made that confession acquitted the whole people from the guilt of that sin then doth this King using the same words bear witness against himself to be the guilty person and either in his soule and conscience heer acquitts the Parlament and the people or els abuses the words of David and dissembles grossly to the very face of God which is apparent in the next line wherein he accuses eev'n the Church it self to God as if she were the Churches enemie for having overcom his Tyranny by the powerfull and miraculous might of Gods manifest arme For to other strength in the midst of our divisions and disorders who can attribute our Victories Thus had this miserable Man no worse enemies to sollicit and mature his own destruction from the hast'nd sentence of Divine Justice then the obdurat curses which proceeded against himself out of his own mouth Hitherto his Meditations now his Vowes which as the Vowes of hypocrits use to be are most commonly absurd and som wicked Jacob Vow'd that God should be his God if he granted him but what was necessary to perform that Vow life and subsistence but the obedience profferd heer is nothing so cheap He who took so hainously to be offer'd nineteen Propositions from the Parlament capitulates heer with God almost in as many Articles If he will continue that light or rather that darkness of the Gospel which is among his Prelats settle thir luxuries and make them gorgeous Bishops If he will restore the greevances and mische ifs of those obsolete and Popish Laws which the Parlament without his consent hath abrogated and will suffer Justice to be executed according to his sense If he will suppress the many Scisms in Church to contradict himself in that which he hath foretold must and shall come to pass and will remove Reformation as the greatest Scism of all and Factions in State by which he meanes in every leafe the Parlament If he will restore him to his negative voice and the Militia as much to say as arbitrary power which he wrongfully averrs to be the right of his Predecessors If he will turne the hearts of his people to thir old Cathedral and Parochial service in the Liturgie and thir passive obedience to the King If he will quench the Army and withdraw our Forces from withstanding the Piracy of Rupert and the plotted Irish invasion If he will bless him with the freedom of Bishops again in the House of Peers and of fugitive Delinquents in the House of Commons and deliver the honour of Parlament into his hands from the most natural and due protection of the people that entrusted them with the dangerous enterprize of being faithfull to thir Country against the rage and malice of his tyran nous opposition If he will keep him from that great offence of following the counsel of his Parlament and enacting what they advise him to which in all reason and by the known Law and Oath of his Coronation he ought to doe and not to call that Sacrilege which necessity through the continuance of his own civil Warr hath compelld them to necessity which made David eat the Shew-bread made Ezechiah take all the Silver which was found in Gods House and cut off the Gold which overlayd those dores and Pillars and give it to Sennacherib necessity which oft times made the Primitive Church to sell her sacred utensils eev'n to the Communion Chalice If he will restore him to a capacity of glorifying him by doing that both in Church and State which must needs dishonour and pollute his name If he will bring him again with peace honour and safety to his cheife Citty without repenting without satisfying for the blood spilt onely for a few politic concessions which are as good as nothing If he will put again the Sword into his hand to punish those that have deliverd us and to protect Delinquents against the Justice of Parlament Then if it be possible to reconcile contradictions he will praise him by displeasing him and serve him by disserving him His glory in the gaudy Copes and painted Windows Miters Rochets Altars and the chanted Service-Book shall be dearer to him then the establishing his Crowne in righteousness and the spiritual power of Religion He will pardon those that have offended him in particular but there shall want no suttle wayes to be eev'n with them upon another score of thir suppos'd offences against the Common-wealth wherby he may at once affect the glory of a seeming justice and destroy them pleasantly while he faines to forgive them as to his own particular and outwardly bewailes them These are the conditions of his treating with God to whom he bates nothing of what he stood upon with the Parlament as if Commissions of Array could deale with him also But of all these conditions as it is now evident in our eyes God accepted none but that final Petition which he so oft no doubt but by the secret judgement of God importunes against his own head praying God That his mercies might be so toward him as his resolutions of Truth and Peace were toward his People It follows then God having cutt him off without granting any of these mercies that his resolutions were as fained as his Vows were frustrat XXVI Vpon the Armies surprisall of the King at Holmeby TO give account to Royalists what was don with thir vanquisht King yeilded up into our hands is not to be expected from them whom God hath made his Conquerors And for brethren to debate rippe up thir falling out in the eare of a common enemy thereby making him the judge or at least the wel pleas'd auditor of thir disagreement is neither wise nor comely To the King therfore were he living or to his Party yet remaining as to this action there belongs no answer Aemulations all men know are incident among Military men and are if they exceed not pardonable But som of the former Army eminent anough for thir own martial deeds and prevalent in the House of Commons touch'd with envy to be so farr outdon by a new modell which they contemn'd took advantage of Presbyterian and Independent names and the virulence of som Ministers to raise disturbance And the Warr being then ended thought slightly to have discarded them who had faithfully don the work without thir due pay and the reward of thir invincible valour But
Bishops should have the confidence heer to profess himself so much an Enemie of those that force the conscience For was it not he who upon the English obtruded new Ceremonies upon the Scots a new Liturgie with his Sword went about to score a bloody Rubric on thir backs Did he not forbidd and hinder all effectual search of Truth nay like a beseiging Enemy stopd all her passages both by Word and Writing Yet heer can talk of faire and equall disputations Where notwithstanding if all submit not to his judgement as not being rationally convicted they must submitt and he conceales it not to his penaltie as counted obstinate But what if he himself and those his learned Churchmen were the convicted or the ostinate part long agoe should Reformation suffer them to sit Lording over the Church in thir fatt Bishoprics and Pluralities like the great Whore that sitteth upon many Waters till they would voutsafe to be disputed out Or should we sit disputitg while they sate plotting and persecuting Those Clergimen were not to be driv'n into the fold like Sheep as his Simily runs but to be driv'n out of the Fold like Wolves or Theeves where they sat Fleecing those Flocks which they never fed He beleeves that Presbytery though prov'd to be the onely Institution of Iesus Christ were not by the Sword to be set up without his consent which is contrary both to the Doctrin and the known practice of all Protestant Churches if his Sword threat'n those who of thir own accord imbrace it And although Christ and his Apostles being to civil affairs but privat men contended not with Magistrats yet when Magistrats themselves and especially Parlaments who have greatest right to dispose of the civil Sword come to know Religion they ought in conscience to defend all those who receave it willingly against the violence of any King or Tyrant whatsoever Neither is it therefore true That Christianity is planted or watred with Christian blood for there is a large difference between forcing men by the Sword to turne Presbyterians and defending those who willingly are so from a r fiousfu inroad o bloody Bishops arm'd with the Militia of a King thir Pupill And if covetousness and ambition be an argument that Presbytery hath not much of Christ it argues more strongly against Episcopacy which from the time of her first mounting to an order above the Presbyters had no other Parents then Covetousness Ambition And those Sects Scisms and Heresies which he speaks of if they get but strength and numbers need no other pattern then Episcopacie and himself to set up their ways by the like method of violence Nor is ther any thing that hath more marks of Scism and Sectarism then English Episcopacy whether we look at Apostolic times or at reformed Churches for the universall way of Church goverment before may as soon lead us into gross error as thir universally corrupted Doctrin And Goverment by reason of ambition was likeliest to be corrupted much the sooner of the two However nothing can be to us Catholic or universal in Religion but what the Scripture teaches whatsoever without Scripture pleads to be universal in the Church in being universal is but the more Scismatical Much less can particular Laws and Constitutions impart to the Church of England any power of consistory or tribunal above other Churches to be the sole Judge of what is Sect or Scism as with much rigor and without Scripture they took upon them Yet these the King resolves heer to defend and maintain to his last pretending after all those conferences offer'd or had with him not to see more rationall and religious motives then Soldiers carry in thir Knapsacks with one thus resolv'd it was but folly to stand disputing He imagins his own judicious zeal to be most concernd in his tuition of the Church So thought Saul when he presum'd to offer Sacrifice for which he lost his Kingdom So thought Uzziah when he went into the Temple but was thrust out with a Leprosie for his opinion'd zeal which he thought judicious It is not the part of a King because he ought to defend the Church therfore to set himself supreme Head over the Church or to meddle with Ecclesial Goverment or to defend the Church otherwise then the Church would be defended for such defence is bondage nor to defend abuses and stop all Reformation under the name of New moulds fanct'd and fashion'd to privat designes The holy things of Church are in the power of other keys then were deliverd to his keeping Christian libertie purchas'd with the death of our Redeemer and establish'd by the sending of his free Spirit to inhabit in us is not now to depend upon the doubtful consent of any earthly Monarch nor to be again fetter'd with a presumptuous negative voice tyrannical to the Parlament but much more tyrannical to the Church of God which was compell'd to implore the aid of Parlament to remove his force and heavy hands frō off our consciēces who therfore complains now of that most just defensive force because onely it remov'd his violence and persecution If this be a violation to his conscience that it was hinderd by the Parlament from violating the more tender consciences of so many thousand good Christians let the usurping conscience of all Tyrants be ever so violated He wonders Fox wonder how we could so much distrust Gods assistance as to call in the Protestant aid of our Brethren in Scotland why then did he if his trust were in God and the justice of his Cause not scruple to sollicit and invite earnestly the assistance both of Papists and of Irish Rebels If the Scots were by us at length sent home they were not call'd to stay heer always neither was it for the peoples ease to feed so many Legions longer then thir help was needfull The Goverment of thir Kirk we despis'd not but thir imposing of that Goverment upon us not Presbytery but Arch-Presbytery Classical Provincial and Diocesan Prebytery claiming to it self a Lordly power and Superintendency both over Flocks and Pastors over Persons and Congregations no way thir own But these debates in his judgement would have bin ended better by the best Divines in Christ'ndom in a full and free Synod A most improbable way and such as never yet was us'd at least with good success by any Protestant Kingdom or State since the Reformation Every true Church having wherewithall from Heav'n and the assisting Spirit of Christ implor'd to be complete and perfet within it self And the whole Nation is not easily to be thought so raw and so perpetually a novice after all this light as to need the help and direction of other Nations more then what they write in public of thir opinion in a matter so familiar as Church Goverment In fine he accuses Piety with the want of Loyalty and Religion with the breach of Allegeance as if God and he were one Maister whose commands were
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person
prayers and praises By this reason we ought as freely to pay all things to all men for of all that we receive from God what doe we pay for more then prayers and praises we look'd for the discharge of his Office the payment of his dutie to the Kingdom and are payd Court payment with empty sentences that have the sound of gravity but the significance of nothing pertinent Yet again after his mercy past and granted he returnes back to give sentence upon Hotham and whom he tells us he would so fain have sav'd alive him he never leaves killing with a repeated condemnation though dead long since It was ill that sombody stood not neer to whisper him that a reiterating Judge is worse then a tormentor He pitties him he rejoyces not he pitties him again but still is sure to brand him at the taile of his pitty with som ignominious mark either of ambition or disloyaltie And with a kind of censorious pitty aggravats rather then less'ns or conceals the fault To pitty thus is to triumph He assumes to foreknow that after times will dspute whether Hotham were more infamous at Hull or at Tower-hill What knew he of after times who while he sits judging and censuring with out end the fate of that unhappy Father and his son at Towerhill knew not that the like fate attended him before his own Palace Gate and as little knew whether after times reserve not a greater infamy to the story of his own life and raigne He saies but over again in his prayer what his Sermon hath Preacht How acceptably to those in heav'n we leave to be decided by that precept which forbidds Vaine Repetitions Sure anough it lies as heavie as he can lay it upon the head of poore Hotham Needs he will fast'n upon God a peece of revenge as done for his sake and takes it for a favor before he know it was intended him which in his closet had bin excusable but in a Writt'n and publish'd prayer too presumptuous Ecclesiastes hath a right name for such kind of Sacrifices Going on he prayes thus Let not thy Justice prevent the objects and opportunities of my mercy To folly or to blasphemy or to both shall we impute this Shall the Justice of God give place and serv to glorifie the mercies of a man All other men who know what they ask desire of God that thir doings may tend to his glory but in this prayer God is requir'd that his justice would forbeare to prevent and as good have said to intrench upon the glory of a mans mercy If God forbeare his Justice it must be sure to the magnifying of his own mercy How then can any mortal man without presumption little less then impious take the boldness to aske that glory out of his hand It may be doubted now by them who understand Religion whether the King were more unfortunat in this his prayer or Hotham in those his sufferings IX Upon the listing and raising Armies c. IT were an endless work to walk side by side with the Verbosity of this Chapter onely to what already hath not bin spok'n convenient answer shall be giv'n Hee begins againe with Tumults all demonstration of the Peoples Love and Loyaltie to the Parlament was Tumult thir Petitioning Tumult thir defensive Armies were but listed Tumults and will take no notice that those about him those in a time of peace listed into his own House were the beginners of all these Tumults abusing and assaulting not onely such as came peaceably to the Parlament at London but those that came Petitioning to the King himself at York Neither did they abstain from doing violence and outrage to the Messengers sent from Parlament he himself either count nancing or conniving at them He supposes that His recess gave us confidence that he might be conquer'd Other men suppose both that and all things els who knew him neither by nature Warlike nor experienc'd nor fortunate so farr was any man that discern'd aught from esteeming him unconquerable yet such are readiest to imbroile others But he had a soule invincible What praise is that The stomach of a Child is ofttimes invincible to all correction The unteachable man hath a soule to all reason and good advice invincible and he who is intractable he whom nothing can perswade may boast himself invincible whenas in some things to be overcome is more honest and laudable then to conquer He labours to have it thought that his fearing God more then Man was the ground of his sufferings but he should have known that a good principle not rightly understood may prove as hurtfull as a bad and his feare of God may be as faulty as a blind zeale He pretended to feare God more then the Parlament who never urg'd him to doe otherwise he should also have fear'd God more then he did his Courtiers and the Bishops who drew him as they pleas'd to things inconsistent with the feare of God Thus boasted Saul to have perform'd the Commandment of God and stood in it against Samuel but it was found at length that he had fear'd the people more then God in saving those fatt Oxen for the worship of God which were appointed for destruction Not much unlike if not much wors was that fact of his who for feare to displease his Court and mungrel Clergy with the dissolutest of the people upheld in the Church of God while his power lasted those Beasts of Amalec the Prelats against the advice of his Parlament and the example of all Reformation in this more unexcusable then Saul that Saul was at length convinc'd he to the howr of death fix'd in his fals perswasion and sooths himself in the flattering peace of an erroneous and obdurat conscience singing to his soul vain Psalms of exultation as if the Parlament had assail'd his reason with the force of Arms and not lie on the contrary their reason with his Armes which hath bin prov'd already and shall be more heerafter He twitts them with his Acts of grace proud and unself-knowing words in the mouth of any King who affects not to be a God and such as ought to be as odious in the ears of a free Nation For if they were unjust acts why did he grant them as of grace If just it was not of his grace but of his duty and his Oath to grant them A glorious King he would be though by his sufferings But that can never be to him whose sufferings are his own doings He faines a hard chois put upon him either to kill his own Subjects or be kill'd Yet never was King less in danger of any violence from his Subjects till he unsheath'd his Sword against them nay long after that time when he had spilt the blood of thousands they had still his person in a foolish veneration Hee complaines That civil Warr must be the fruits of of his seventeen yeares raigning with such a measure of Justice Peace and
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of
Episcopacie among them And if we may beleeve what the Papists themselves have writt'n of these Churches which they call Waldenses I find it in a Book writt'n almost four hundred years since and set forth in the Bohemian Historie that those Churches in Piemont have held the same Doctrin and Goverment since the time that Constantine with his mischeivous donations poyson'd Silvester and the whole Church Others affirme they have so continu'd there since the Apostles and Theodorus Belvederensis in his relation of them confesseth that those Heresies as he names them were from the first times of Christianity in that place For the rest I referr me to that famous testimonie of Jerom who upon this very place which he onely roaves at heer the Epistle to Titus declares op'nly that Bishop and Presbyter were one and the same thing till by the instigation of Satan partialities grew up in the Church and that Bishops rather by custom then any ordainment of Christ were exalted above Presbyters whose interpretation we trust shall be receav'd before this intricate stuffe tattl'd heer of Timothy and Titus and I know not whom thir Successors farr beyond Court Element and as farr beneath true edification These are his fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical examples how undivinelike writt'n and how like a worldly Gospeller that understands nothing of these matters posteritie no doubt will be able to judge and will but little regard what he calls Apostolical who in his Letter to the Pope calls Apostolical the Roman Religion Nor let him think to plead that therfore it was not policy of State or obstinacie in him which upheld Episcopacie because the injuries and losses which he sustain'd by so doing were to him more considerable then Episcopacie it self for all this might Pharaoh have had to say in his excuse of detaining the Israelites that his own and his Kingdoms safety so much endanger'd by his denial was to him more deer then all thir building labours could be worth to Aegypt But whom God hard'ns them also he blinds He endeavours to make good Episcopacie not only in Religion but from the nature of all civil Government where parity breeds confusion and faction But of faction and confusion to take no other then his own testimony where hath more bin ever bred then under the imparitie of his own Monarchical Goverment Of which to make at this time longer dispute and from civil constitutions and human conceits to debate and question the convenience of Divine Ordinations is neither wisdom nor sobrietie and to confound Mosaic Preisthood with Evangelic Presbyterie against express institution is as far from warrantable As little to purpose is it that we should stand powling the Reformed Churches whether they equalize in number those of his three Kingdoms of whom so lately the far greater part what they have long desir'd to doe have now quite thrown off Episcopacie Neither may we count it the language or Religion of a Protestant so to vilifie the best Reformed Churches for none of them but Lutherans retain Bishops as to feare more the scandalizing of Papists because more numerous then of our Protestant Brethren because a handful It will not be worth the while to say what Scismatics or Heretics have had no Bishops yet least he should be tak'n for a great Reader he who prompted him if he were a Doctor might have rememberd the foremention'd place in Sozomenus which affirmes that besides the Cyprians and Arabians who were counted Orthodoxal the Novatians also and Montanists in Phrygia had no other Bishops then such as were in every Village and what Presbyter hath a narrower Diocess As for the Aërians we know of no Heretical opinion justly father'd upon them but that they held Bishops Presbyters to be the same Which he in this place not obscurely seems to hold a Heresie in all the Reformed Churches with whom why the Church of England desir'd conformitie he can find no reason with all his charity but the comming in of the Scots Army Such a high esteem he had of the English He tempts the Clergie to return back again to Bishops from the feare of tenuity and contempt and the assurance of better thriving under the favour of Princes against which temptations if the Clergie cannot arm themselves with thir own spiritual armour they are indeed as poor a Carkass as he terms them Of Secular honours and great Revenues added to the dignitie of Prelats since the subject of that question is now remov'd we need not spend time But this perhaps will never bee unseasonable to beare in minde out of Chrysostome that when Ministers came to have Lands Houses Farmes Coaches Horses and the like Lumber then Religion brought forth riches in the Church and the Daughter devour'd the Mother But if his judgement in Episcopacie may be judg'd by the goodly chois he made of Bishops we need not much amuse our selves with the consideration of those evils which by his foretelling will necessarily follow thir pulling down untill he prove that the Apostles having no certain Diocess or appointed place of residence were properly Bishops over those Presbyters whom they ordain'd or Churches they planted wherein ofttimes thir labours were both joint and promiscuous Or that the Apostolic power must necessarily descend to Bishops the use and end of either function being so different And how the Church hath flourisht under Episcopacie let the multitude of thir ancient and gross errors testifie and the words of some learnedest and most zealous Bishops among them Nazianzen in a devout passion wishing Prelaty had never bin Basil terming them the Slaves of Slaves Saint Martin the enemies of Saints and confessing that after he was made a Bishop he found much of that grace decay in him which he had before Concerning his Coronation Oath what it was and how farr it bound him already hath bin spok'n This we may take for certain that he was never sworn to his own particular conscience and reason but to our conditions as a free people which requir'd him to give us such Laws as our selves shall choose This the Scots could bring him to and would not be baffl'd with the pretence of a Coronation Oath after that Episcopacy had for many years bin settl'd there Which concession of his to them and not to us he seeks heer to put off with evasions that are ridiculous And to omit no shifts he alleges that the Presbyterian manners gave him no encouragement to like thir modes of Government If that were so yet certainly those men are in most likelihood neerer to amendment who seek a stricter Church Discipline then that of Episcopacy under which the most of them learnt thir manners If estimation were to be made of Gods Law by their manners who leaving Aegypt receav'd it in the Wilderness it could reap from such an inference as this nothing but rejection and disesteem For the Prayer wherwith he closes it had bin good som safe Liturgie which he so