Beasts as these I shall easily believe the worst that he or his Complices can say of them But the truth is he is only disgorging his stomach all this while and now as I said is come to the last strain which brings up the foulest stuff of all For the highest words that the highest Sons or Fathers of this Church to use his phrase have spoken concerning Ceremonies are these t Bishop Bramhall 〈◊〉 his Romphaea chap. 11. p. 234. That they are advancements of Order Decency Modesty and Gravity in the Service of God expressions of those heavenly desires and dispositions which we ought to bring along with us to Gods House adjuments of Attention and Devotion furtherances of Edification visible Instructors helps of Memory exercises of Faith the shell that preserves the kernel of Religion from contempt the leaves that defend the blossoms and the fruit But the very same person who wrote all this immediately adds that if they grow over thick and ranck they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity and then the Gardener plucks them off When Ceremonies become burdensome by excessive superfluity or unlawful Ceremonies are obtruded or the substance of Divine Worship is placed in Circumstances or the Service of God is more respected for Humane Ornaments than for the Divine Ordinance it is high time to pare away excesses and reduce things to the antient mean So our Church hath done between whom and the Roman Church there is as wide a difference in this regard as between the hearty expressions of a faithful friend and the mimical gestures of a fawning flatterer or between the unaffected comeliness of a grave Matron and the fantastical paintings and patchings and powdering of a garish Curtesan And whereas this man would have you believe that there are those who are so enamoured of these few Ceremonies that they even dote upon them nay have set their hearts upon them more than upon Almighty God himself Another great Prelate u Bishop Sandersons Preface to the first Volume of Serm. sect 12. An. 1657. hath declared That he knew no true Son of the Church of England that doteth upon any Ceremony whatsoever opinion they have of the decency or expediency of some of them Nor doth this Gentleman I have reason to believe know such an one at this day For they have been told a thousand times over as that Bishop proceeds x Ib. sect 13. in the Sermons and Writings of private men as well as in the Publick Declaration of our Church that we place no necessity at all in these things but hold them to be merely indifferent 2. That when for Decency Order or Uniformity sake any constitutions are made there is the same necessity of obeying such constitutions as of obeying other Laws made for the good of the Commonwealth concerning any other indifferent thing And 3. That this necessity whether of the one or of the other arises not properly from the Authority of the immediate Law-giver but from the Ordinance of God who hath commanded us to obey the Ordinances of men for his sake And to add no more 4. That such necessity of Obedience notwithstanding the things remain in the same indifferency as before every way as to their Nature and even in respect of us thus far That there is a liberty left for men upon extraordinary and other just occasions sometimes to do otherwise than the constitution requires when there is no scandal nor contempt in the case A liberty which we dare not either take our selves or allow to others in things properly and absolutely necessary Upon which very account I mean the consideration of the indifferency of the things in themselves and upon this alone it was that those who did most sadly resent the voting down of Liturgy Festivals and the Ceremonies of the Church did yet so far yield to the sway of the times as to forbear the use thereof in publick Worship Which is a direct answer to that which this Apologist talks of about our omission of things required by Law in the late times p. 128. And he may find more full satisfaction if he be disposed in the same Bishops seventh Sermon to the people y First Volume of Sermons in Folio page 390. where he shews that since the obligation to those doth not spring from the things themselves nor immediately and by its proper virtue from the constitution of the Magistrate but by consequence only and by virtue of that Law of God which commands to obey them thereby a liberty is left in cases extraordinary and of some pressing necessity not otherwise well to be avoided to do sometimes otherwise these two things provided First that a man be driven thereto by a true real and not by a pretended necessity only and secondly that in the manner of doing he use such Godly discretion as neither to shew the least contempt of the Law in himself nor to give ill example to others to despise Government or Governours 7. This is the sum of what our Church-men high and low as he is pleased to distinguish them have declared about Ceremonies O but saith the Apologist why then will you not consent to a change nay a laying aside all those Ceremonies since you do not make them necessary in themselves Let them be removed whether nocent or innocent as they have been out of other Reformed Churches page 18. This he is at again page 131. and propounds this as a good means to keep the people from grieving and vexing the Magistrate by the breach of his Laws Remove the Law saith he and where there is no Law there is no Transgression p. 133. very right nor is there any obedience He hath found out a rare way for the Magistrate to ease himself wholly of his Office by letting the people do as they will and govern him For when they please to scruple any other Laws he must repeal them too according to this wise advice unless he will be vexed and grieved with the clamours and disobedience of his people who will not be contented unless in effect they make Laws for themselves King James indeed in his Proclamation in the first year of his Reign March 5. admonishes all men hereafter not to expect nor attempt so much as any further change in the common and publick Form of Gods Service from that which was then established For which he there gives such substantial reasons that my Lord Bacon z Cahala page 42. makes it his request to the Duke of Buckingham to read that excellent Proclamation as he calls it And if at any time there should be the least motion made for innovation to put the King in mind to read it himself for it is most dangerous in a state to give ear to the least alteration in Government But it is all one for that no matter what the King said or any one else they have been ever since and are not merely for alterations but for abolishings
lowdly against them And all this serves to convince our Apologist of unskilfulness in these matters who pronounces roundly that Mr. Gataker k p. 13. of his Book never had any Episcopal Ordination because he was Ordained by a Suffragan of one of those places mentioned in the Statute viz. the Suffragan of Colchester Suppose he were * As Mr. Clark tells us he was Collect. of Lives of ten Divines p. 131. he had notwithstanding Episcopal Ordination as I have demonstrated and as good as if he had been Ordained by the greatest Bishop in the World But he did not understand I see by this what those Suffragans were and contrary to what became an humble and modest man and the Title likewise of his Book wrote about things which he had not studied or considered Which made him also confound these with the Rural Deans alledging the Primate of Armaghs judgment concerning the power of Suffragans to prove it to be his Judgment that the Chorepiscopi or Rural Deans might lawfully ordain In which he hath done him a notorious injury for there is not such a word in his Book as that the Rural Deans may lawfully ordain But only that the number of Suffragans which was 26 might well be conformed to the number of the several Rural Deanries and supplying the place of those who in the Antient Church were called Chorepiscopi might every month assemble a Synod of the Rectors within the Precinct and conclude all matters brought before them by the major part of voices These are his words which do not signifie that Suffragans were the same with Rural Deans or Chorepiscopi but that there might be as many of the one as there are of the other and Suffragans do all that which those antient Officers did though they had power to do a great deal more For I have proved a plain distinction between them The Chorepiscopi were made by one single Bishop viz. the Bishop of the City to whom they belonged as the Council of Antioch tells us Can. 10. But the Suffragans being real Bishops were made as other Bishops are by three at the least according to the fourth Canon of the first Council at Nice And so they had power to Ordain Presbyters and joyn in the Consecration of other Bishops which the Chorepiscopi had not Nor did our Church ever acknowledge any such power residing in the Rural Deans or any meer Presbyters subject to the Jurisdiction of our Bishops to ordain Priests But as Hadrianus Saravia tells the Ministers of Guernsey l See Clavi Trabales p. 142. in his Letter to them As many Ministers as were naturally of the Country being not made Ministers of the Church by their Bishop or his Demissories nor any others according to the Order of the English Church were not true and lawful Ministers Where by Demissories I think he means the Suffragans of the Bishop of Winchester to whose jurisdiction they belonged Yes may some say our Bishops have sometimes declared otherwise For this Apologist m Pag. 13. out of Archbish Spotswood alledges the story of the three Scots Bishops who never had been ordained but by Presbyters and yet Bishop Bancrofts opinion was that they need not be ordained again which hath often been alledged heretofore by others particularly by the Lancashire Ministers of the first Classis at Manchester in whom he might have found a great deal more than this amounts unto For they fly to a Letter of the late Primate of Ireland with the Animadversions of Dr. Bernard upon it n The judgment of the late Archb. of Armagh c. 1658. in which this Story is cited and the judgment of many other learned Divines but nothing at all to the business For as the Gentlemen to whom the Lancashire Ministers wrote their Letter well observe o Excommunicatio excommunicata p. the Primate did not make void the Ordination by Presbyters but it was with a special restriction to such places where Bishops could not be had Which are the very words also of Archbishop Bancroft in the case of the Scottish Bishops As for the Ordinations made by our Presbyters the Primate declared himself against them in the very same Letter which they craftily concealed as you may read p. 112. of Dr. Bernards Book The words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical Obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being Schismatical Which I find cited again in another Book of of his called Clavi Trabales p. 56. And both in that and the former Book p Judgment of the Archb. p. 122 c. Clavi Tiab p. 55. he tells us the Primate thought their Ordination void upon another score Because at the imposition of hands they neither used those antient words Receive thou the Holy Ghost c. nor the next Be thou a faithful dispenser c. nor any other words to that sense at least there is no order or direction for it And they also wholly omitted those words at the solemn delivery of the Bible inro the hands of the person ordained Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God c. So that there being no express transmission of Ministerial Power he was wont to say that such Imposition of hands by some called the Seal of Ordination without a Commission annexed seemed to him to be as the putting of a Seal to a Blank And if a Bishop had been present and done no more than they did he thought the same quere might have been of the validity of such Ordinations As for other Reformed Churches their case is widely different from that of these men as he might have learnt from another Bishop whom he cites now and then to no purpose viz. Bishop Bramhall * Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. who rells you that he knew many learned persons among them who did passionately affect Episcopacy and some of them acknowledged to him that their Church would never be rightly settled till it was new moulded And others he tells you though they did not long for Episcopacy yet they approve it and want it only out of invincible necessity And that their principal learned men were of this mind appears from hence that Dr. Carlton afterward Bishop of Chichester protesting in open Synod which then sate at Dort that Christ instituted no parity but made twelve Apostles the chief and under them seventy Disciples that Bishops succeeded to the Twelve and Presbyters of inferiour rank to the Seventy and challenging the judgment of any learned men that could speak to the contrary Their answer was silence which was approbation enough And after saith he discoursing with divers of the best learned in the Synod and telling them how necessary Bishops were to suppress their Schisms then rising their answer was That they did much honour and reverence the good
Church before the Reformed transmarine Churches Arminius before St. Austin who judge Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius who have more charity for those that deny the Deity of our Saviour than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy and who can with more patience bear a dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony c. This is the language not of the bold blades but of a modest Presbyterian of one that uses hard reasons and soft words if you will believe himself in the very leaf before-going q Preface p 9. Whatsoever charity they have for us their good words shall never be wanting to themselves They will call themselves humble and modest whatsoever they say or do Though they blush not to defend themselves by injuring any body nor fear to cast reproaches on whomsoever that for defence of the truth stand in their way For every part of this Charge is a vile slander and some of it is confuted you shall see by himself Which that I may demonstrate let me tell you In the first place that it is no Hectorism to assert the Divine Right of Episcopacy in the strictest sense This is no upstart opinion broached by some swaggering hot-brain'd men who love to rant and vapour beyond other Folk which is the proper quality of a Hector but hath been antiently believed in this Church from the very beginning of the Reformation and maintained by the soberest men in it I know they would have you to think otherwise and have endeavoured to perswade the World that it is a novel Doctrine advanced of later times by some proud and haughty Divines Mr. Robert Baily made bold to say that before Bishop Bancrofts time the Bishops did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of Divine Right r Reply to fair warning p. 49. Printed at Delf 1649 And the Letter to Dr. Samuel Turner Printed 1647. will not allow it to be so Antient but affirms p. 3. that it is an opinion but lately countenanced in England and that by some of the more Lordly Clergy He means I think Archbishop Laud as some since have explained it But both the one and the other of these talk'd at random out of their own imaginations not from Historical observation Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson as the Answer to that Letter suggests were both of a contrary perswasion And I can name a Divine of their Opinion elder than either and much reverenced even by the Presbyterians who was offered a Bishoprick also but refused it And that is Old Bernard Gilpin who left the World that very year in which Bishop Whitgift was advanced to the See of Canterbury 1583. For when Mr. Cartwrights book was newly come forth a certain Cambridge man who seemed a very great Scholar came to this famous Preacher and dealt very earnestly with him about the Discipline and Reformation of the Church But Mr. Gilpins answer was That he could not allow that any Humane invention should take place in the Church in stead of a Divine Institution How said the man do you think that this Form of Discipline is an Humane Invention I am said Mr. Gilpin altogether of that mind And as many as diligently turn over the Writings of the Fathers will be of my opinion O but the later men replied the Disciplinarian see many things which those antient Fathers saw not and the present Church seems better provided of many ingenious and industrious men At which Mr. Gilpin saith my Author Å¿ Life of Bernard Gilpin Edit 4. 1636. p. 106 107 c. seemed somewhat moved and answered I for my part do not hold the virtues of the later men to be compared to the Infirmities of the Fathers Which words he used on purpose because he perceived this young man had a strong conceit of I know not what rare virtues in himself which opinion the good old man was desirous to root out of him But there is an Authority ancienter than all these viz. The Form and Order of making and consecrating Bishops c. confirmed by Act of Parliament In which three things are considerable The very first words of the Preface are That it is evident to all men reading the holy Scriptures and antient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders in Christs Church Bishops Priests and Deacons Then secondly the Prayer after the Letany at the Consecration of a Bishop begins in this manner Almighty God giver of all good things which by thy holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in thy Church c. which must needs be understood of those before named And lastly the first question to the person to be Consecrated is Are you perswaded that you be called to this Ministration according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ To which the Answer is I am so perswaded Put now all these together and you will not be able to conceive as the Answer to the Letter t page 12 13. observes how these words should fall from any men not possessed with this Tenet that Episcopacy is of Divine Right in the strictest sense For if God by his holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church and we may find evidently by Scripture and antient Writers that there are three Orders whereof Bishops the highest and this is made the ground of praying for the Bishop to be Consecrated and he must profess he is perswaded that he is called to that Ministration according to Christs will then Episcopacy in the opinion of those who composed and confirmed this Book is in such a manner according to Christs Will that it is grounded in Scripture and appointed by the Spirit of God and all this hath not been said only of late nor countenanced only by some few and those of the more Lordly Clergy 2. For which cause no man ought to be disgraced with any odious name much less be called an Hector who is now of the same Perswasion The most illustrious persons that have been in our Church men far from that boisterous humour have declared themselves for this Doctrine and doubted not but they could maintain it I need instance in no more than two Bishop Andrews whose mind is well known from his three Letters to Peter du Moulin 1618. u Translated and Printed 1647. to which I refer you and the late Bishop Sanderson whom the best of you have spoken of with honour and reverence He declares his opinion to be that Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord Christ x Postscript to Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power who being sent by his Father afterward sent his Apostles to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal Pastoral Office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church till his coming again and so the
fain to call it so because they cannot tell how to answer it otherways and they will not lay their hands on their mouths If better were within better would come out they are fain to throw out such words because they want a substantial Apology The same Mr. Baily I remember charges the strength of one of the Bishops Reasons to be black Atheism and much worse than Pagan Scepticism o Ib. 89. By which you may see it is their manner to censure boldly and tumble out frightful words without regard to Truth For if you would know what Doctrine it is which he calls by the name of Brutish and Atheistical Maxims that 's another of his civil words p. 90 it is this That it is not lawful for Subjects to plant that which they apprehend to be true Religion by force of Arms nor to take up Arms against their Prince merely for Religion This was all the Bishop had said and not without great reason But they are Brutes or Atheists divested of all Reason or Religion who prefer not their Enthusiastical Heats before the most sober and wise Resolutions They as the Bishop speaks in the end of that Treatise are more ridiculously partial than the men of China for they talk as if they only had two eyes and all the rest of the world were stark blind So one would think this Apologist supposed when he thought to put us off with such a wretched Reply to what was objected from the Practices of the Old Nonconformists who being silenced forbore to preach and justified their silence against the Brownists who accused them for their submission to the Ecclesiastical Censures His Answer is That the Number of the ejected Ministers then was not comparable to what it is now p. 6. Which is just like the Exposition which they sometime gave of that Scripture Rom. 13.1 I conceive saith one p Natures Dowry 1652. p. 31. that those Christians who lived under the Heathenish Emperours but wanted strength to defend themselves were by that precept let every soul be subject to the higher powers obliged to sit still and to endeavour nothing against those that had the sword in their hands For it would have discovered them to be of unruly Spirits in that they proceeded wholly according to passion and not according to sober judgment So that there was nothing of Christian Virtue in their subjection but only of humane Prudence and no great store of that was necessary for they had been arrand fools if they had made a stir when they knew they could do nothing It is not want of will it seems but want of strength that keeps these men from breaking those Laws that restrain them The old Nonconformists he would have you think would have done as they do now had they been as numerous Then they would have entred into strong Combinations and slighted that Authority to which they submitted But weigh their Reasons which I alledged q In the Continuation Edit 1. 345. and shall not now repeat and you will see he casts a blot on them as well as us for they are such as will shut up the mouths of a great many as well as a few But how few were they in those daies do you think that were ejected He tells you usually not one to one hundred to what it is in our daies Ib. It is notably guessed by instinct for I dare say he hath no Author to warrant his Assertion and for once as the forenamed Bishop speaks in another case his instinct hath deceived him According to the computation of Philagathus there should not at this rate be five and twenty in all the Kingdome whereas the Humble Supplication in King James his time r An. 1609. p. 26. 31. talks of sharpness and rigour for the silencing and removing of no mean number of the worthiest Pastors in the Land insomuch that the ordinary means of Conversion from blindness and infidelity was interrupted and crossed in that so many worthy Lights had been by the Prelates removed from shining in the Church Nay one would think by their words that all who were good for any thing were silenced for they say p. 25. in an indefinite manner The faithful Ministers of the Gospel are in all disgracive and unworthy sort discarded and removed from being any longer the Lords Sentinels and Watchmen Which they repeat again p. 28. And the Defence of the Ministers Reasons for refusal of Subscription Å¿ Preface 1607. tells you of so many turned out from that high and heavenly calling that for any means of maintenance left to many of them they may seek their bread Here is such a many that being divided into two parts rich and poor one of them makes a many and therefore the whole was a great many not a few as this man affirms Nay by that time the War was begun there was none of the best sort of Ministers left if we will believe the Dialogue I mentioned t Between a Netherlander and Englishman which saith the Bishops had stript all the Assemblies of their faithfullest Preachers In this stile they were wont to speak then as they do now though I have reason to think that some of these faithfullest Preachers and Watchmen stood more upon their Credit than any thing else when they refused Subscription For I find it recorded above 60 years ago by Mr. Tho. Bell u Regiment of the church Chap. 5. that he discoursing with a Preacher about the Canons just then made 1604. against which he could alledg nothing of moment was told by him that he would neither lose his living nor yet conform to those Orders And when he demanded how that could be was answered that he would have one to do it but not do it himself And again being told he might as lawfully do it himself as procure another to do it uttered these words How can I do that against which I have so often preached which saith Mr. Bell I told him savoured of the Spirit of the proud Pharisee not of the humble Publican I thought indeed before that all their Proceedings had been out of mere Conscience which now I perceive to be of Pride in a great many of them through which manner of dealing the simpler sort become disobedient and are deeply drowned in Error and our Church pitifully turmoiled with Schisms and dissention Honest Bernard Gilpin x See his Life p. 132. 133. was of another mind who being called to subscription in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign though dissatisfied in two points of the Articles of smaller consequence yet subscribed to them least thought he with himself if I shall refuse I shall be a means to make many others to refuse and so consequently hinder the course of the word of God But perhaps you desire to know the precise Number which were then ejected and if you give Credit to one of your own Authors this man is much out of the way for
that he should study rather how to give no account at all For he is grosly ignorant in other Learning as well as in this as appears by his discourse about Ordination by Presbyters which follows a little after The Friendly Debate gave him no occasion to mention any thing of this nature but he had a mind it seems to give us a taste of his skill in this great Question though it be so small that I know not how to excuse his boldness in medling with it He supposes that the Chorepiscopi which he makes the same with our Rural Deans may lawfully Ordain And next that Suffragans were but such Presbyters so that he who was Ordained by them had not Episcopal Ordination And then thirdly He would have you believe that Archbishop Vsher and other Learned men concurring in judgment with him were of this opinion Every one of which propositions are notoriously false as I will plainly shew you by demonstrating these three things 1. That those called Chorepiscopi Rural or Country Bishops never had the Power of Ordination being not of the Order of Bishops but Presbyters something advanced above the rest 2. On the other side that Suffragans had the power of Ordination being not meer Presbyters but Bishops as those in the City were And lastly That the late Primate saith nothing contrary to this For the first The Country Bishops saith the Council of Neocaesarea n About the year 314. Can. 13. were but of such a degree as the seventy Disciples and appointed after their Type to whom the Antients every body knows make Presbyters to be the Successors as Bishops are to the Apostles And therefore that Council calls them only Assistants to the Bishops in that part of their Diocess which was distant from the City But that they had only a part of the Episcopal Power committed to them not the whole we learn from the Council of Ancyra presently after Can. 13. which decreed that the Chorepiscopi or Country Bishops ought not to ordain either Ppesbyters or Deacons o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To which purpose he that pleases may find many authorities in Justellus his notes upon that place And in the Council of Antioch Can. 10. the same is decreed again that they should know their bounds or measures and appoint Readers Sub-Deacons and Catechists but not dare to proceed further nor to make a Priest or Deacon without the Bishop of the City to which both he and his Region were subject The same Canons were in the Roman Church as appears by the Body of the Decrees p v. part 1. Distinct 63. c. 4. The words of which being abbreviated by Sigebert he calls them Arch-Deacons But afterward the Council of Laodicea decreed Can. 57. that this sort of Officers should be abolished and no Bishops should be appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Villages and in the Countries and that they who had been already constituted should do nothing without the consent of the Bishop of the City But instead of them there should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Visitors that should go about to find out what was amiss and correct mens manners In like manner we find in the Body of the Canon Law q Distinct 68. c. 5. a Decree of Pope Damasus to this purpose That the Chorepiscopi have been prohibited as well by that See as by the Bishops of the whole world One reason of which prohibition might be that they did not r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 know their own bounds as the Council of Antioch determined but ventured to appoint Church Officers without the Bishops Consent Upon which occasion St. Basil wrote a particular Epistle to the Chorepiscopi requiring that no Minister ſ Epist 181. p. 959. Tom. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Readers and such Ministers as those Luke 4.10 whatsoever though of the lower rank should be made without him contrary to the Canons It is a sad thing saith he to see how the Canons of the Fathers are laid aside insomuch that it is to be feared all will come to Confusion The Antient Custom was this That there should be a strict inquiry made into the lives of those who were to be admitted to minister in the Church The care of this lay upon the Presbyters and Deacons who were to report it to the Chorepiscopi and they having received a good testimony of them certified it to the Bishop and so the Minister t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was admitted into Holy Orders But now you Country Bishops would make me stand for a Cypher and take all this Authority to your selves nay you permit the Presbyters and Deacons to put in whom they please according as Kindred or Affection inclines them without regard to their worth But let me saith he have a note of the Ministers of every Village and if any have been brought in by the Presbyters let them be cast out again among the common people And know that he shall be but a Lay-man whoever he is that is received into the Ministry without our consent By this it is apparent that Presbyters had not power so much as to make the lowest Officers in the Church and that the Chorepiscopi though above the rest of the Presbyters in Office yet were not so high as Bishops but were a middle sort of men between both An image of whom was remaining in the late Bohemian Church as I learn from Comenius who in his Book concerning the Discipline and Order among them tells us that beside the Seniors or Bishops u For they had Episcopal Ordination after they had been made Presbyters and Epicopal Jurisdiction and Succession from the Bishops of the Waldenses and Ministers or Presbyters they had certain Ecclesiastical Persons called Conseniors who were between the other two For they were chosen out of the Ministers presented by them to the Bishop and then solemnly ordained by him to the Office of Conseniors by a new imposition of hands But at the same time these Conseniors promised Obedience to the Bishop x Ratio Discipl Ord. Eccl. cap. 2. p. 37. as the Ministers when they were Ordained promised Obedience to them as well as to the Bishop z Ib. p. 33. Their Office therefore was among other things as we are told Chap. 1. page 23 24. to keep good Order to observe what was worthy of correction to inform the Bishop of it to provide fit persons for the Ministry to exercise Discipline with the Bishop and visit with him or without him if he required it to examine those that were to be ordained Ministers or Deacons to give them testimonials to the Bishop and in short To supply the place of the Bishop in businesses of lesser moment So it appears by the Book and by Comenius his Annotations upon that Chapter a page 92. Minoribus in negotiis Episcopi vices obirent Thus much may suffice for the Chorepiscopi who had not such
Thus this modest Apologist puts in their exception a Pag. 20. against our Church for committing the power of Excommunication to men that are not in holy Orders Which is notoriously false and the contrary I could shew him hath been acknowledged in their own Books But he needed have look'd no further than to a Book published not many years ago concerning the Practice in the Ecclesiastical Courts Where he might have been informed in express terms b Francisci Clark Praxis in Curiis Eccles Titul 20 an 1666. That the Judge of the Court having pronounced a man contumacious and decreed that he is to be excommunicated in punishment of his contumacy next proceeds to read the Excommunication if he be in holy Orders Otherwise he delivers it to be read by the Priest appointed by the Archbishop for this purpose Which Priest to this effect sits judicially with the Judge himself ☞ Of if he never heard of this Book yet he hath heard I am sure of the Third Part of the Friendly Debate Where if he had been pleased to read a Book before he had censured it he might have found this bold Error corrected in Philagathus and so avoided it himself But I see plainly and am heartily sorry for it there are more of that mans evil humour who love to talk of things upon Record out of their own drowsie imaginations The general cry against the continuation of the Friendly Debate was that it was a breach of the Act of Indemnity or Oblivion which was raised meerly out of their own brains that are stuft with words more than things without consulting the Act it self But this cry Philagathus followed with open mouth and now he hath got another to bear him company who deserves in like manner to be chastized for his bold folly Especially since he mentions this so often first in his Preface then at least five c Pag. 34 73 106. 112 150. times in his Book and in one place affirms my Book seems to be a continued breach of the Act of Indemnity in the very design of it And all this after I had evidently demonstrated in the further Continuation which he also mentions p. 150. that whatever it seems to him this is a gross and impudent Calumny But I shall spare him notwithstanding this boldness and have I assure him thrown away those apt illustrations of his Vanity which offered themselves because he hath more civility in him than the sober Answerer I shall only desire him to follow his own advice which he gives me on this occasion d Pref. p. 8. viz. To do justice upon himself and execute his own Book in the flames for committing such crimes For I must tell you there are a great many more of them He tells you confidently that the Notes commonly called the Assemblies came out before the Assembly convened p. 15. By which I see he is no better skill'd in Ordinances than in Laws For the Ordinance for their convention bears date June 12. 1643. requiring them to meet the next first of July And the Annotations came not out till two years after in 1645 e So it should be Printed in the Friendly Debate not 1646. But you may think perhaps they did not convene at the time appointed Know therefore that on June 24. 1643. all Ministers were required by an Order to pray on the next Fast for a blessing on the Assembly who were to meet on Saturday July 1. and that accordingly they did meet on that day as Mr. Fuller quoted sometimes by this man observes in his History And not long after f July 19. 1643. I find presented an humble Petition for an extraordinary Fast beseeching among other things that Justice might be executed on all delinquents and after this an Order * Aug. 10. 1643. that those of them who were Residents in the Associated Counties should be desired to go down and stir up the People to rise in their defence By which it appears they not only convened but began at least to be busie about that which did not concern them long before those Notes saw the light But let us pass by this And observe rather how he satisfies in the lame excuse he makes for their not calling the Apostles alwaies by the name of Saints In the judgment of our Church saith he it is not necessary as may hence be concluded That in all the Collects for the days set apart to commemorate the holy Apostles in there are but two wherein they are stiled Saints These are his words g Pag. 43. but if you love truth call to mind the Rule I gave you and remember not to trust Even they who call one another frequently by the name of Saints have not such a care as one would expect of common honesty nor of their own fame neither but will assert such manifest untruths as lie open to every eye Turn to the Prayers for particular days in the Service Book and you shall find that they who told him this for I charitably suppose he took it upon trust made no conscience of what they said For those glorious persons whose memories are celebrated in our Church and I hope always will be are called no less than nine times in the very body of the Collects by the names of Saints h St. Steven St. John St. Andrew St. Paul St. Mark St. Philip and St. James St. Peter and St. James Seven of which were Apostles and the other an Evangelist and the first Martyr And lest any one should imagine he made his observation by the old Common-Prayer Book and thence may justifie himself you may understand that there is no difference in this point but only in two of the Collects in one of which in stead of St. John the Evangelist as it is now the words were the blessed Apostle and Evangelist John and in the other instead of St. Philip and St. James it was St. Philip and other Apostles This may teach you to suspect the reasonings of these men which may very well be thought to be exceeding careless who are no more exact in reporting matters of Fact which lie before their eyes But as for their stories which they spread up and down and indeavour to propagate to posterity by stuffing their Books with them as this man doth there is the greatest cause to think that either they have no truth at all in them or are very much altered from their original You ought to let them pass for idle tales unless you have better authority for them than these mens Books who you see are so bold as to report notorious falshoods which every body can confute Their Traditions you should look upon as of no more credit than the Popish Legends It being so easie for men to forget the very words they heard and to place others in their room so common to add or leave out what is most material so hard and often impossible to know all
same Office to continue in them and their Successors to the end of the World But suppose all our Church-men had been silent or that they are of no esteem with our Adversaries yet since this Opinion of the Divine Right of Episcopacy hath been asserted by other Divines whom they respect it ought not to have been reproached Bucer declares in his Book of the Kingdom of Christ as I find him cited above 60 years ago y Regiment of the Church by Mr. Tho. Bell chap. 9. just as our Book of Consecration doth that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost that one to whom the name of Bishop was peculiarly attributed should take the care of the Churches and preside over all the Presbyters And nearer still to the very words of our Book in his Treatise of the power and use of the Ministry as he is alledged by Saravia These Orders of Ministers have been perpetual in the Church and were presently in the beginning appointed by the Holy Ghost of Bishops Priests and Deacons He that will see more to this purpose may read Bishop Mortons Episcopacy Asserted Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Nay this is the Language of Antiquity and they may as well call St. Gregory of Nazianzum a Hector as any of us For he sticks not to tell his Auditors in plain words that he held his Office by the Law of Christ You may find the passage in his seventeenth Oration z page 271. where after he had exhorted all the People to obedience he turns his speech more particularly to the Rulers and Magistrates asking them if they will give him leave to speak freely As truly saith he I think I may since the Law of Christ hath made you subject to my Power and to my Tribunal 3. This you may think is very high but I must let you know they who seem to lay their claim lower and speak in a more humble stile as some love to call it differ but in a verbal nicety in the different manner of expressing the same thing rather than in their different judgment upon the substance of the matter So that excellent Bishop lately mentioned Dr. Sanderson hath clearly resolved a Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power p. 12 13. For sometimes this term Divine Right imports a Divine Precept which is the first and most proper signification when it appeareth by some clear express and peremptory Command of God in his Word to be the Will of God that the thing so commanded should be perpetually and universally observed And that the Government of the Church by Bishops is of Divine Right in this stricter sense is an Opinion saith he at least of great probability and such as may more easily and on better grounds be defended than confuted But they that chuse to speak otherwise understand by Divine Right an Authority for a thing from the Institution Example or Approbation either of Christ or of his Apostles c. which is a secondary meaning of the term but not much distant from the former For the Observation of the Lords Day depends on this Divine Right and there is as much to shew as he saith p. 19. if not more for such a Divine Right of Episcopacy as for the Divine Right of that day So that whosoever they be that either wave the term Divine Right or else so expound it as not of necessity to import any more than an Apostolical Institution Yet the Apostles Authority b Ib. page 39 40. in the Institution of Episcopacy being warranted by the Example and as they doubt not by the direction of their Master Jesus Christ they worthily esteem to be so reverend and obligatory as that they would not for a world have any hand in or willingly and deliberately contribute the least assistance towards the extirpation of that Government but rather hold themselves obliged in their Consciences to the utmost of their power to endeavour the preservation and continuance of it in these Churches and do heartily wish the restitution and establishment of the same wheresoever it is not c Now that Episcopacy is of such institution and so of Divine Right he further adds c v. Ib. p. 18. is in truth a part of the established Doctrine of the Church of England and hath been constantly and uniformly maintain'd by our best Writers mark these words and by all the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church This is sufficient to shew that there ought to be no such distinction made as we find in this man between high and low Conformists since all have spoken to the same effect and yet were no Swashbucklers but in this great persons opinion the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church 4. But let us suppose there is some difference yet they that have spoken the highest words of Episcopacy never thought Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius nor had more Charity for those that deny our Saviour's Deity than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy No this is a suggestion from the Father of lyes the Calumniator of the Brethren and seem to me to be the words of one whose tongue is set on fire of Hell For though our best Divines have called it the Heresie of Arius d Doctor Crackenthorp Defens Eccl. Anglicanae p. 241 242 to affirm that there ought to be no imparity in the Church or distinction between Bishops and Presbyters and determined that this imparity was instituted and approved by the Apostles yet they have declared withal that they who think as Aerius did are so far from being in a worse case than Arius was that they are not in so bad Let but obstinacy and perverseness be wanting it will be no Heresie and if it be Heresie being about a point of Discipline it will not be among those which St. Peter calls damnable Heresies e Bishop Andrews 3. Letter p. 56 57. These are the words of one who was as vehement an Assertor of the Divine Right of Episcopacy as any hath been and there are none among us but will subscribe to them who is so far you see from making Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius that his words plainly make him less 5. But these perhaps are such Hectorly Divines you may think that they mind not what they say so belike if it be true which he says just before that they prefer Arminius before St. Austin A very strange humour that these high Episcopal men should set a Presbyterian Divine above a great Bishop But suppose upon other scores they should be so phantastical yet this part of his accusation will contradict the calumny next before it namely that they prefer the Romish Church before the Reformed Transmarine Churches How can that be when the Arminians are among those Reformed Churches for whom it seems they have such a great affection and when the Pope himself as every one knows that understands these matters is against the Divine Right of Bishops nay