Bishop Bramhall's vindication of himself and the episcopal clergy, from the Presbyterian charge of popery, as it is managed by Mr. Baxter in his treatise of the Grotian religion together with a preface shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of popery.

CHAP. IV.

This Plot weakly Fathered upon Episcopal Divines.

I Mused some while why he should rather father his imaginary design of reducing the Pope into England up∣on Episcopal Divines, than upon any other Divines. For in the first place this is certain, that both Presbyterian Divines, and Independent Divines, and Millenary Divines, and Anaba∣ptistical Divines, and each sort of their Divines, (if any of them may be al∣lowed that Title) have all of them, and every one of them contributed more to the reducing of the Pope into England, than Episcopal Divines ever did, or were likely ever to do. Men do naturally preferr Antiquity in Re∣ligion before Novelty, Order and Uni∣formity before Confusion, Comeliness and Decencie before sordid Unclean∣liness; Reverence and Devotion before Prophaneness and over-much Sawciness

and familiarity with God; Christian Charity before Unchristian Censures; Constancy before Fickleness and fre∣quent Changes, they love Monuments of Piety, and delight not in seeing them defaced and demolished; they are for Memorials of ancient Truth, for an outward splendor of Religion, for helps of Mortification, for adjuments of De∣votion; all which our late Innovators have quite taken away. Nature it self doth teach us that God is to be adored with our Bodies as well as with our Spi∣rits. What comfort can men have to go to the Church, where they shall scarcely see one act of corporeal devo∣tion done to God in their whole lifes? These are the true Reasons why the Roman Emissaries do gain ground daily upon them, why so many apostate from them. If the Pope have a fairer game in England, he is beholden to them for it, not to the Magistrates Sword, much less to Episcopal Di∣vines.

Some may perhaps urge that this ad∣vantage is accidental to Episcopal Di∣vines,

therefore I propose a second consideration; That Episcopal Di∣vines cannot be the Popes Stalking Horses, nor promoters of the Papacy, without deserting their principles a∣bout Episcopacy. Episcopal rights and Papal claims are inconsistent. This appeared evidently in the Council of Trent, in the debating of that great Controversie about Episcopal Right, whether it be divine or humane. Thus much the Spanish, Polonian, and Hun∣garian Divines saw well enough And consulting seriously about the Refor∣mation of the Church, they could find no better ground to build so noble a Fa∣brick upon than the Divine Right of Bishops, as the Archbishop of Granato well observed. Hist. Conc. Trid. l. 7. p. 588.

Father Lainer the General of the Jesuits saw this well enough, and con∣cluded, that it is a meer contradiction to say the Pope is head of the Church, and the Government Monarchical; and then say, that there is a power or jurisdiction in the Church not derived

from him, but received from others, that is, from Christ. Hist. Conc. Trid. ibid.

The Popes Legats themselves found this out at last, when it was almost too late, l. 7. p. 609. Octob. 19. When the question was set on foot in the begin∣ning, the Legats thought that the aim was only to make great the Authority of Bishops, and to give them more reputa∣tion. But before the second Congrega∣tion was ended they perceived very late by the voices given and reasons used, of what importance and conse∣quence it was. For it did imply, that the Keys were not given to St. Peter only, that the Council was above the Pope, and the Bishop equal to him, who had nothing left but a prehemi∣nence above others, &c. the dignity of Cardinals was quite taken away, and the Papal Court reduced to nothing

But before the Papalins discovered this, the Party bent for a serious Re∣formation, was grown numerous and potent in the Council. The Divine Right of Bishops was inserted into the

Anathematisms. Fifty nine of the prime Fathers voted for it, besides all those whom either an Epidemical or a Politick Catarrh deteined at home; notwithstanding all the disswasions and perswasions, threatnings and pro∣mises, and other Artifices used by the Papalins, whereof the chiefest, and that which saved the Court of Rome from utter ruine at that time, was to represent to the Italian Bishops, whose number was double to all the rest of the Christian World in that Council, (a very unequal composition) how much they were concerned in the pre∣servation of the Papacy, as being the only honour which the Italian Na∣tion had above all other Nations. This I urge to shew that Episcopal Divines cannot be Papalins without betraying their own Principles. The very name of Episcopal Divines renders this de∣design less probable.

Thirdly, In stiling them Episcopal Divines he doth tacitely accuse him∣self to be an Anti-Episcopal, or at least no Episcopal Divine. What odious

consequences do flow from thence, and how contrary it is to the title of Catho∣lick, which he gives himself in the Frontispiece of this Treatise, I had much rather he should observe himself, than I collect. Catholick and Anti-Episcopal are contradictory terms.

From Christs time till this day there was never any one Catholick in the Ea∣stern, Southern, or Northern Churches, who professed himself to be Anti-Epi∣scopal, but only such as were cast out for Hereticks or Schismaticks. The same I say of the Western Church for the first 1500. years. Let him shew me but one formed Church without a Bishop, or the name of one Lay Presby∣ter in all that time, who exercised or challenged Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, or the power of the Keys in the Church before Calvins return to Geneva in the year 1538. after he had subscribed the Augustine Confession and Apology for Bishops, and I will give him leave to be as Anti-Episcopal as he will. I will shew him the proper and particu∣lar names of Apostles, Evangelists, Bi∣shops,

Presbyters, Deacons, in Scri∣ptures, in Councils, in Fathers, in Hi∣stories; if he cannot name one parti∣cular Lay-Elder, it is because there ne∣ver was any such thing in rerum na∣tura, for 1500 years after Christ.

I will add one thing more for the ho∣nour of Episcopal Government, that all the first Reformers did approve it, and desired it, if they could have had it. Second Reformations are commonly like Metal upon Metal, which is false Heraldry. After the Waldenses, the first Reformers, were the Bohemian Brethren: and both these were careful to retain Episcopacy. Take their own Testimony in the Preface of their Book called, Ratio, Disciplinae, Ordinisque Ecclesiastici in unitate fratrum Bohe∣morum, lately translated out of Bohe∣mian into Latine, and published by themselves. And whereas the said Waldenses did affirm that they had lawful Bishops, and a lawful uninter∣rupted succession from the Apostles unto this day, they created three of our Mi∣nisters Bishops solemnly, and conferred

upon them power to Ordain Ministers. From that time this Order is continued in all their Churches until this day.

The next Reformers were the Lu∣therans. These retained Bishops name and thing, in the Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark, and the thing under ano∣ther name of Superintendents in Ger∣many. The Confession of Saxony is subscribed by seventeen Superinten∣dents. Harm. Conf. Sect. 19. p. 290. The Snevick Confession complaineth of great wrong done to their Churches, as if they did seek to reduce the power of Ecclesiastical Prelates to nothing. Sect. 11. p. 65. And in Chap. 33. Of the Rights of the Civil Magistrate, they declare most plainly for the Ecclesia∣stical Jurisdiction of Bishops. There cannot be a more luculent Testimony for the Lutherans approbation of Bi∣shops, than the Augustine Confession it self, cap. 7. de Potest. Eccles. It is not now sought that the Government be taken away from Bishops: but this one thing is desired, that they will suffer the Gospel to be purely taught, and re∣lease

some few observances which can∣not be kept without sin. And the Apo∣logie for the same Confession, Cap. de numero & usu Sacrament. This our will shall excuse us both before God and all the World, that it may not be imputed to us that the Authority of Bishops was taken away by our means.

I need not say any thing of the Bri∣tannick Churches. He knoweth well they never wanted Bishops from their first Conversion until these late Tu∣mults, wherein our Native Country was purpled with the Blood of English Subjects, to take them away by force and Rebellion.

The next Reformation was the Zuin∣glian or Helvetian in Switzerland, wherein as they erected no new Bi∣shopricks, so they pulled down no old ones. There was a kind of necessity laid upon them to want Bishops in their own Territories: because the Bishop of Constance, under whose Jurisdiction they were, was of another communion, and lived out of their Territories. But they would gladly have had him to have

continued their Bishop still. They made their addresses to him, they cour∣ted him, they besought him to joyn with them, or but to tolerate them. For proof of this, I produce that fa∣mous Letter written by Zuinglius him∣self, and ten others of their principal Reformers, to the same Bishop of Con∣stance, recorded in the Works of Zuin∣glius, in all humility and observance be∣seeching him to favour and help for∣ward their beginnings, as an excellent work, and worthy of a Bishop. They call him Father, Renowned Prelate, Bishop. They implore his clemency, wisdom, learning, that he would be the first fruits of the German Bishops, to favour true Christianity springing up again. They beseech him by the com∣mon Christ, by one Christian Liberty, by that Fatherly affection which he did owe unto them, by whatsoever was di∣vine and humane, to look graciously upon them; or if he would not grant their desires, to connive at them; so he should make his Family yet more illu∣strious, and have the perpetual tribute

of their praises; so he would but shew himself a Father, and grant the requests of his obedient sons. They conclude, God Almighty long preserve your Excel∣lency.

The last Reformation of those which he approveth, was that of Cal∣vin. How farr Calvin and his Party were Episcopal or Anti-Episcopal in their desires, let their own testimonies bear witness. First Calvin himself acknowledgeth that he subscribed the Augustine Confession formerly mentio∣ned, or the Apology for it, both which are for Bishops. And in his 190. Epi∣stle to the King of Polonia, he repre∣senteth Episcopal Government as fittest for Monarchies; where having shewed the regiment of the Primitive Church by Patriarchs; Primats, Bishops, in these words: Indeed the ancient Church instituted Patriarchs, and gave certain Primacies to particular Provinces, that Bishops might remain bound one to ano∣ther by this bond of Concord. He pro∣ceedeth thus, As if at this day one Arch-bishop should be over the illu∣strious

Kingdom of ••olonia, &c. And farther, there should be a Bishop in each City or Province, to attend peculiarly to the preservation of Order, as nature itself doth dictate to us, that in every Colledge one ought to be chosen, upon whom the principal care of the Colledge should rest. And in his Institutions ha∣ving described at large the Regiment of the Primitive Church, and shewed the end of Arch-bishops, and the con∣stitution of Patriarchs, he concludeth, that some called this kind of Govern∣ment an Hierarchy, by a name improper, or at least not used in the Scripture. But if we pass by the name and look upon the thing itself, we shall find that the ancient Bishops did go about to devise no other form of governing the Church, than that which God hath prescribed in his Word, lib. 4. Inst. c. 4. Sect. 4.

And in his Answer to Cardinal Sa∣dolet, on the behalf of the City of Ge∣neva, as it is cited by Archbishop Bancroft, for I cannot procure the first Edition at present, and in the later Edi∣tions they have made a shift to purge it

out. Talem nobis Hierarchiam, &c. If they make tender of such an Hierar∣chie to us, wherein Bishops may retain their eminence, so as they refuse not to be under Christ, and have their depen∣dence upon him as their only Head, and refer themselves to him, and observe such a brotherly society among them∣selves, and be bound together with no other bond but the truth, then I confess that they deserve all sorts of curses or anathemas, if there be any who do not observe it with reverence and the highest obedience.

Lay all these together, If the Law of Nature, which is divine Law, writ∣ten in our hearts by God himself, and needing no other promulgation, do di∣ctate that in every Society there ought to be one upon whom the principal care of the Society should rest. If the an∣cient Bishops devised no other form of governing the Church by Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, than that which God had prescribed in his Word; If they deserve the severest curses and anathemas, who shall not regard such

an Hierarchy with reverence and obe∣dience, where Christ is acknowledged to be the only Head of his Church, where the Pastors are freed from all Oaths and Obligations to the Bishop of Rome, let him be his own Judge what they deserve, who have destroyed the Church of England.

Before Calvin, Farellus offered the Bishop of Geneva terms to retain his Bishoprick, if he would give way to the Reformation. Beza his Successor was not for the divine Right of Bishops in express terms by the Evangelical Law: But he was for the precedencie of one Clergy man above the rest by the Law of Nature.

From Geneva let us pass over into France, where we find Monsieur Mou∣line as high or higher than any of them, in his third Epistle to the Bishop of Winchester. I am not so brazen-faced as to give sentence against those lights of the ancient Church, Ignatius, Poly∣carpus, Cyprian, Augustine, Chryso∣stom, Basil, the two Gregories Nissene Nazianzene Bishops, as against men

wrongfully created, or as usurpers of an unlawful Office. The venerable an∣tiquity of those Primitive Ages shall al∣ways weigh more with me than any mans new-fangled Institution. And a little after, in the same Epistle, I spake with honour of the Bishops of England, I derived the Episcopal dignity from the very cradle of the Church, I condemned Aerius, I affirmed that St. James was Bishop of Hierusalem, from whom the succession of the Bishops of that City was derived by a long row of Bishops.

Mr. Blondel in his needless Apology for St. Hierome made a very necessary Apology for himself, and sent it; to Mr. Rivet to be added as an Appendix to his Book in the Impression of it, by whose neglect it was omitted. And now having mentioned Doctor Rivet, I shall make bold to add, that he him∣self did intreat a Noble Earl, yet living, to procure him a dignity or Prebend in England, as his Brother Mouline and Vossius had. The Earl answered, that he could not hold any such place in England without subscribing to Epis∣copacy,

and the Doctrine and Disci∣pline of the English Church. And he replied, that he was most ready to subscribe to them both with his hand and heart.

I conclude that all Divines through∣out the Christian World, who main∣tain a necessity of Holy Orders, ever were and still are Episcopal Divines: except some weaker and wilful Bre∣thren, who for their Antiquity are but of Yesterday, and for their Universa∣lity come much short of the very Do∣natists in Africk, condemned by all moderate and rational persons of their own Communion. And therefore Mr. Baxter might have done better to have given his pretended Designers, a lower and more distinctive name than that of Episcopal Divines.

It will not help him at all which he saith, pag. 21. It is not all Episcopal Divines which I suspected of a compli∣ance with Grotius and Cassander, no not all of the later strein, &c. I ex∣tended it to none of the new Episcopal Party, but such as I there described.

His distinction of Episcopal Divines into Old and New, is but a Chimera of his own brain, without any ground; neither doth he bring one grain of rea∣son to make it good. And by his plain Confession here, it appeareth that this great design is but his own suspicion. To accuse men of a design to introduce the Pope into England, meerly upon suspicion, is a liberty, or rather license, to be abhorred of all conscionable Christians.

Yet of the old Episcopal Divines he nameth many, Bishop Jewel, Pilkinson, Hall, Carlton, Davenant, Morton, Abbot, Usher, Potter, Downham, Grin∣dal, Parker, Hooper, Farrar, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, and forty more Bi∣shops here. p. 103. as if so many names blended together confusedly in an heap as an hotchpotch, were able like a Medu∣sas head to transform reasonable men into stocks and stones. If he had made his forty up an hundred, he might have found instances enough to have made it good, and sundry of them no way infe∣riour to any whom he nameth, and su∣periour

to many. In commemorating some, and pretermitting others, he sheweth sometimes want of judgement, always respect of persons. What his description was of New Episcopal Di∣vines, I do not know, (having never seen any Treatise of his, but this of the Grotian Religion; neither should I have meddled with that, if he had not brought me publickly upon the Stage,) neither do I much regard. But how∣soever he describeth them he instanceth in no man but my self, either because he is not able to name any, or because he thinks it easiest to leap over the hedge where it is lowest. Have I not great reason to thank him for being so mindful of me in my absence.

As for my part I profess ingeniously before God and Man, I never knew of any such design, I am confident there never was any such design, and I am certain that I neither had nor could have an hand in any such design, either for Italian Popery, or French Po∣pery. or any Popery, unless he call the Doctrine and Discipline of the Primi∣tive

Church Popery, unless our Holy Orders and Liturgy and Articles be Popery. Other Popery he shall never be able to prove against me, nor I hope against any true Episcopal Divines. His design, like the Phoenix, is much talked of by himself, but never was seen.

I know as little of any such distin∣ction between Old and New Episcopal Divines. All the World seeth evi∣dently, that all the material differences which we have with them, are about those Holy Orders, and that Liturgy, and those Articles, and those Rites, which we received from those Old Epi∣scopal Divines.

Non tellus cimbam, tellurem cim••a reliquit.

We have not left our Predecessors, but They have left both us and our Pre∣decessors, and the Church of England. And it fareth with Mr. Baxter as it doth with new Sailers, who by the de∣ception of their sight, suppose that the

Land leaveth them, terraeque, urbes∣que recedunt, when in truth it is they themselves that leave the Land. In a word, his supposed design and his pre∣tended distinction, are meer fansies, which never had any being in the na∣ture of things. Where did these de∣signers ever meet together to contrive their Plot? They are never likely to do any great actions, who want sinews to knit them together. When or where had ever any of them any intercourse or correspondence with Rome, or any that belonged to Rome, by word or writing? It was a sensless silly Plot to design the Introduction of the Pope into England without his own know∣ledge or consent, upon terms never ac∣corded, never so much as treated upon. Thus have we seen melancholick per∣sons out of a strong fantasie, imagine that they see Ships and Minotaures in the Clouds. The proofs of such accusati∣ons as this is, ought to have been clearer than the Noon-day light, not ungroun∣ded or ill grounded jealousies and suspi∣cions of credulous and partial persons.