Basiliká the works of King Charles the martyr : with a collection of declarations, treaties, and other papers concerning the differences betwixt His said Majesty and his two houses of Parliament : with the history of his life : as also of his tryal and martyrdome.

III. His MAJESTIES Answer to the Paper delivered to Him by the Divines attending the Parliament's Commissioners, concerning Church-Government.

C. R.

[ 1] HIS Majesty upon perusal of your Answer to His Paper of the second of October 1648. findeth that you acknowledg the several Scriptures cited in the Margin to prove the things for which they are cited, viz. That the Apostles in their own per∣sons, that Timothy and Titus by Authority derived from them, and the Angels of the Churches, had power of Church-Government, and did or might actually exercise the same in all the three several branches in His Paper specified: And so in effect you grant all that is desired. For the Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office, as it is distinct from that of Presbyters, than what properly falleth under one of these three, Ordination, giving Rules, and Censures.

[ 2] But when you presently after deny the persons that exercised the power aforesaid to have been Bishops, or to have exercised Episcopal Government in that sense, as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters, you do in effect deny the very same thing you had before granted: For Episcopal Government in that sense being nothing else but the Govern∣ment of the Churches within a certain Precinct (commonly called a Diocese) com∣mitted to one single person, with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end; since the substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars is found in the Scriptures, unless you will strive about names and words (which tendeth to no profit, but to the puzling and subverting those which seek after truth) you must also acknowledg that Episcopal Government in the sense aforesaid may be sufficiently proved from the Scriptures.

In that which you say next, and for proof thereof insist upon three several Texts, His Majesty conceiveth as to the present business, that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places is this, That the word Bishop is there used to signifie Presbyter, and that consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop, are the Office and Work of a Presbyter; which is con∣fest on all sides, although His Majesty is not sure that the proof will reach so far in each of those places. But from thence to infer an absolute Identity of the Functions of a Bishop and a Presbyter, is a fallacy, which his Majesty observeth to run in a manner quite along your whole Answer: but it appears from the Scriptures, by what you have grant∣ed, that single persons (as Timothy and Titus for example) had Authority to perform such Acts and Offices of Church-Government as his Majesty hath not yet found, by any thing represented unto Him by you or any other from the Scripture, that a single Presbyter ever had authority to perform; which is enough to prove that, the Com∣munity of Names in some places notwithstanding, the Functions themselves are in other places by their proper work sufficiently distinguished.

But for the Name Episcopus or Bishop, His Majesty hath long since learned from those that are skilful in the Greek tongue, that it imports properly no more than an Overseer, one that hath the charge or inspection of some thing committed unto him, as hee that is set to watch a Beacon, or to keep Sheep; whence in the New Testament, and in the Ecclesiastical use, it is applied to such persons as have the Care and Inspection of the Churches of Christ committed unto them in Spiritualibus; as both Bishops and Presbyters have in some sort, but with this difference, that mere Presbyters are Epis∣copi gregis only, they have the oversight of the Flock in the duties of Preaching, Ad∣ministration of Sacraments, Publick Prayer, Exhorting, Rebuking, &c. but Bishops are Episcopi gregis and Pastorum too, having the oversight of the Flock and Pastors within their several Precincts, in the acts of external Government; so that the com∣mon work of both Functions is the Ministry of the Gospel, but that which is peculiar to the Function of Bishops as distinguished from Presbyters is Church-Government. It is not therefore to be wondred, if it should happen in the New Testament, the word Episcopus to be [usually] applied unto Presbyters, who were indeed Overseers of the flock, rather than unto Church-Governors, who had then another Title of greater Eminency whereby to distinguish them from ordinary Presbyters, to wit, that of Apostles. But when the government of Churches came into the hands of their Suc∣cessors, the names were by common usage (which is the best Master of words) very soon appropriated, that of Episcopus to the Ecclesiastical Governor or Bishop of a Dio∣cese, and that of Presbyter to the ordinary Minister or Priest.

His Majesty had rather cause to wonder, That upon such premises you should con∣clude with so much confidence, as if the point were rendred most clear to the Judgment of most men, both ancient and of latter times, That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter; whenas His Majesty remembreth to have seen cited, by such Authors as He hath no reason to sus∣pect, both out of the ancient Fathers and Councils, and out of sundry modern Writers, even of those Reformed Churches that want Bishops, great variety of Testimonies to the contrary.

[ 3] His Majesty is not satisfied with your Answer concerning the Apostles exercise of Episcopal Government, which you would put off, by referring it to their extraordinary Calling. Our Saviour himself was the first and chief Apostle, and Bishop of our Souls, sent by the Father, and Anointed by the Holy Ghost, to be both the Teacher and the Governour of his Church. By that Mission he receiv'd Authority, and by his Unction ability for those works which he performed in his own person whilst he lived upon the earth. Before he left the world, that the Church might not want Teaching and Governing to the worlds end, he chose certain persons upon whom he conferred both these Powers, whereby they became also Apostles and Bishops, by making them partakers both of his Mission before his Ascension, (As my Father sent me, so send I you) and of his Vnction shortly after his Ascension, when he poured upon them the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. The Mission both for teaching and governing (at least for the substance of it) was ordinary, and to continue to the end of the world (Matt. xxviii. 18, 20.) and therefore necessarily to descend, and be by them transmitted to others, as their Substitutes and Successors. But the Vnction whereby they were enabled to both Offices or Functions, by the effusion of the Holy Ghost, in such a plenteous mea∣sure of Knowledg, Tongues, Miracles, Prophecyings, Healing, Infallibility of Do∣ctrine, discerning of spirits and such like, was indeed extraordinary in them, and in some few others, though in an inferiour measure, as God saw it needful for the plan∣ting of the Churches and propagation of the Gospel in those Primitive times; and in this (which was indeed extraordinary in them) they were not necessarily to have Successors. But it seems very unreasonable to attribute the exercise of that Power, whether of Teaching or Governing, to an extraordinary calling, which being of ne∣cessary and continual use in the Church, must therefore of necessity be the work of a Function of ordinary and perpetual use: Therefore the Acts of Governing of the Church were no more nor otherwise extraordinary in the Apostles, than the Acts of Teaching the Church were; that is to say, both extraordinary for the manner of per∣formance, in respect of their more than ordinary abilities for the same; and yet both ordinary for the substance of the Offices themselves, and the works to be performed therein: and in these two ordinary Offices, their ordinary Successors are Presbyters and Bishops; Presbyters qua Presbyters immediately succeeding them in the Office of Teaching, and Bishops qua Bishops immediately in the Office of Governing.

The instances of Timothy and Titus you likewise endeavour to avoid by the pretensi∣on of an extraordinary calling. But in this Answer, besides the insufficiency thereof (if all that is said therein could be proved) His Majesty findeth very little satisfaction.

1. First, you say that Timothy and Titus were by Office Evangelists, whereas of Titus the Scriptures no where affirm any such thing at all; and by your own Rule, your Au∣thority without Scripture will beget (if that) but a humane Faith; neither doth the Text clearly Prove that Timothy was so.

2. Setting aside mens conjectures (which can breed but an humane Faith neither) you cannot make it appear by any Text of Scripture, that the Office of an Evangelist is such as you have described it: The work of an Evangelist which Saint Paul exhorteth Timo∣thy to do, seems by the Context (2 Tim: iv. 5.) to be nothing but diligence in prea∣ching the Word, notwithstanding all impediments and oppositions.

3. That which you so confidently affirm, That Timothy and Titus acted as Evange∣lists, is not onely denyed, but clearly refuted by Scultetus, Gerard and others; yea even with scorn rejected of late (as His Majesty is informed) by some rigid Presbyterians, as Gillespy, Rutherford, &c. And that which you so confidently deny, that Timothy and Titus were Bishops, is not onely confirmed by the consentient testimony of all Antiquity (even Jerome himself having recorded it, that they were Bishops, and that of St. Paul's ordination) and acknowledged by very many late Divines; but a Catalogue also of 27. Bishops of Ephesus lineally succeeding from Timothy our of good records, is vouched by Doctor Reynolds against Hart, and by other Writers.

4. You affirm, but upon very weak proofs, that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places. Some that have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and orders of the several journeys and stations of Paul and Timothy, have demonstrated the contrary concerning this particular.

5. Whereas you say it is manifest from the 2. Tim. iv. 9. and Tit. iii. 12. that they were called away from these places; it doth no more conclude that they were not Bi∣shops there, or that they might as well be called Bishops of other Churches, than it may be concluded from the attendance of the Divines at Westminster, that they are no longer Parsons or Vicars of their several Parishes.

Lastly, for the Postscripts of these Epistles, though His Majesty lay no great weight upon them, yet He holdeth them to be of great antiquity, and therefore such as in questi∣on of fact, where there appears no strong evidence to weaken their belief, ought not to be lightly rejected.

[ 5] Neither doth His Majesty lay any weight at all upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination in the next point concerning the Angels of the Churches, as you mistake in your Answer thereunto; wherein His Majesty finds as little satisfaction as in the last point before. The strength of His Majesties instance lay in this, That in the Judge∣ment of all the Ancient and the best Modern Modern Writers, and by many probabilities in the Text it self, the Angels of the Seven Churches were personoe Singulares, and such as had a Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches, and that is in a word, Bishops. And you bring nothing of moment in your Answer to infirm this. You say truly indeed, That those Epistles were written in Epistolary style, and so (as Letters to collective or representative Bodies use to be) directed to one, but intended to the Body: Which when you have proved, you are so far from weakning, that you rather strengthen the Argument to prove those Angels to have been single persons: as when His Majesty sendeth a Message to His two Houses, and directs it to the Speaker of the House of Peers, His intending it to the whole House doth not hinder but that the Speaker to whom it is directed is one single person still. Yet His Majesty cannot but observe in this (as in some parts of your Answer) how willing you are versari in ge∣neralibus, and how unwillingly to speak out, and to declare plainly and directly what your opinion is concerning those Angels, who they were; whether they were, (as the great Antagonist of Episcopacy, Salmasius, very peremptorily (sit ergo hoc fixum, &c.) affirmeth) the whole Churches; or so many individual Pastors of the gathered Churches in those Cities; or the whole College of Presbyters in the respective Churches; or the singular and individual Presidents of these Colleges; for into so many several Opinions are those few divided among themselves, who have divided themselves from the common and received judgement of the Christian Church.

[ 6] In the following discourse, you deny that the Apostles were to have any Successors in their Office, and affirm that there were to be onely two Orders of ordinary and stand∣ing Officers in the Church, wiz. Presbyters and Deacons.

What His Majesty conceiveth concerning the Successors of the Apostles, is in part already declared, viz. That they have no Successors in eundem gradum, in respect of those things that were extraordinary in them, as namely the measure of their Gifts, the ex∣tent of their Charge, the infallibility of their Doctrine, and (which is sundry times mentioned as a special Character of an Apostle properly so called) the having seen Christ in the flesh. But in those things that were not extraordinary (and such those things are to be judged which are necessary for the service of the Church in all times, as the Of∣fice of Teaching, and the power of Governing are) they were to have and had Successors; and therefore the Learned and Godly Fathers and Councils of old times did usually style Bishops the Successors of the Apostles, without ever scrupling thereat.

And as to the standing Offices of the Church, although in the places by you cited, Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention of Bishops as distinct from Presbyters, but of the two Orders only of Bishops or Presbyters and Deacons; yet it is not thereby pro∣ved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides: For there appear two other manifest reasons, why that of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places; the one, because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted, they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching, but took upon themselves the care, and reserved in their own hands the power of Governing in those Churches, for a longer or shorter time, as they saw it expedient for the propagating of the Gospel, before they set Bishops over them; and so it may be probable that there was as yet no Bishop set over the Church of Philippi, when Saint Paul writ his Epistle to them. The other, because in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, the persons to whom he wrote being themselves Bishops, there was no need to write any thing concerning the choice or qua∣lification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their ordination or in∣spection, which were Presbyters and Deacons only, and not Bishops.

[ 7] Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles.

1. His Majesty believeth, that altho Faith, as it is an assent unto Truth supernatu∣ral or of Divine revelation, reacheth no further than the Scriptures, yet in matters of fact, humane Testimonies may beget a Faith, though humane, yet certain and infalli∣ble; as by the credit of Histories we have an infallible Faith that Aristotle was a Greek Philosopher, and Cicero a Roman Orator.

2. The darkness of those times in respect of the History of the Church is a very strong Argument for Episcopacy; which notwithstanding the darkness of the times hath found so full and clear a proof, by the unquestioned Catalogues extant in ancient Wri∣ters of the Bishops of sundry famous Cities, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Ephesus, &c. in a continued succession from the Apostles, as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like.

3. In Clement's Testimony cited by you, His Majesty conceiveth you make use of your old fallacy, from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things: for who can doubt of Clement's Opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bi∣shops and Presbyters, who either readeth his whole Epistle, or considereth that he him∣self was a Bishop in that sense, even by the confession of Videlius himself, a man never yet suspected to favour Bishops, who saith, that after the death of Linus and Cletus, Clemens solus Episcopi nomen retinuit, quia jam invaluerat distinctio Episcopi & Presbyteri? And for Ignatius Epistles, though some of late, out of their partial disaffection to Bishops, have endeavoured to descredit the whole Volume of them by all possible means, without any regard either of ingenuity or truth; yet sundry of them are such as, being attested by the Suffrages of Antiquity, cannot with any forehead be denied to be his; and there is scarce any of them which doth not give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter: Ignatius himself also was a Bishop of Antioch, and a holy Martyr for the Faith of Christ.

4. You grant that not long after the Apostles times Bishops are found in the Writers of those times, as in some superiority to Presbyters; but you might have added farther out of these Writers (if you had pleased) that there were some of them, as James at Jerusalem, Timothy at Ephesus, Titus in Crete, Mark at Alexandria, Linus and Clement at Rome, Polycarpus at Smyrna, constituted and ordained Bishops of these places by the Apostles themselves, and all of them reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office: And His Majesty presumeth you could not be ignorant that all or most of the testimonies you recite of the ancient Fathers, Writers of the middle ages, Schoolmen and Canonists, and the Book published under King Hen. the 8. do but either import the promiscuous and indifferent use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters, whereof advan∣tage

ought not to be made to take away the difference of the things; or else they re∣late to a School-point (which in respect of the thing it self is but a very nicety) dispu∣ted pro and con by curious questionists, Vtrum Episcopatus sit or do vel gradus, both sides in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government to be in the Bishops alone, and not in the Presbyters; as also that there may be produced either from the ve∣ry same Writers, or from others of as good authority or credit, testimonies both for number and clearness far beyond those by you mentioned, to assert the three different Degrees or Orders (call them whether you will) of Ecclesiastical Functions, (viz.) the Bishop, the Presbyter, and the Deacon.

[ 8] As to that which you add lastly, concerning the difference between Primitive Epis∣copacy and the present Hierarchy, albeit His Majesty doth not conceive that the accessi∣ons or additions granted by the favour of His Royal Progenitors, for the enlarging of the Power or Privileges of Bishops, have made, or indeed can make, the Government really and substantially to differ from what formerly it was, no more than the addition of Arms or Ornaments can make a body really and substantially to differ from it self na∣ked or devested of the same; nor can think it either necessary or yet expedient that the elections of the Bishops, or some other Circumstantials touching their Persons or Of∣fice, should be in all respects the same under Christian Princes, as it was when Christians lived among Pagans and under Persecution: yet His Majesty so far approveth of your Answer in that behalf, that he thinketh it well worthy the studies and endeavours of the Divines of both Opinions, laying aside Emulation and private Interests, to reduce Epis∣copacy and Presbytery into such a well-proportioned Form of Superiority and Subordi∣nation as may best resemble the Apostolical and Primitive times, so far forth as the diffe∣rent condition of times and the exigences of all considerable circumstances will admit, so as the power of Church-Government in the particular of Ordination, which is meerly spiritual, may remain Authoritative in the Bishop, but that Power not to be exercised without the concurrence or assistance of his Presbytery, as Timothy was ordained by the authority of St Paul, ii Tim. i. 6. but with the concurrence or assistance of the Pres∣bytery, i Tim. iv. 14. Other powers of Government which belong to Jurisdiction, though they are in the Bishops, (as before is exprest) yet the outward exercise of them, may be ordered and disposed or limited by the Sovereign power, to which by the Laws of the Land and the acknowledgement of the Clergy they are subodinate: but His Ma∣jesty doubteth whether it be in your power to give Him any present assurance, that in the desired Abolition of the present Hierarchy, the utter abolishing of Episcopacy, and consequently of the Primitive Episcopacy, is neither included nor intended.

[ 9] As to the last part of His Majesties Paper, His Majesty would have been satisfied, if you had been more particular in your Answer thereunto. You tell Him in general, that there are Substantials in Church-Government appointed by Christ, &c. but you nei∣ther say what those Substantials are, nor in whose hands they are left; whereas His Ma∣jesty expected that you should have declared your opinions clearly, whether Christ or his Apostles left any certain Form of Government to be observed in all Christian Churches; then, whether the same binds all Churches to the perpetual observation thereof, or whe∣ther they may upon occasion alter the same, either in whole or in part; likewise whe∣ther that certain Form of Government which Christ and his Apostles have appointed as perpetual and unalterable (if they have appointed any such at all) be the Episcopal, or the Presbyterian, or some other differing from them both.

And whereas in the conclusion you beseech His Majesty to look rather to the Original of Bishops than to their Succession; His Majesty thinks it needful to look at both; especial∣ly since their Succession is the best clue, the most certain and ready way to find out their Original.

His Majesty having returned you this Answer, doth profess, that as whatsoever was of weight in yours shall have influence on Him; so He doubts not but somewhat may appear to you in His which was not so clear to you before: and if this Debate may have this end, that it dispose others to the temper of accepting Reason, as it shall Him of en∣deavouring to give satisfaction in all He can to His two Houses, His Majesty believes though it hath taken up, it hath not mis-spent His time.

Newport, Octob. 6.

Notes

• Tit. i. 5, 7.
• Acts xx. 17, 18.
• 1 Pet. v. 1, 2.
• by.
• Exercit. 8. in Ignat. c. 3.