V. His MAJESTIES Final Answer concerning Episcopacy, Nov. 1. MDCXLVIII.
WHat you have offered by way of Reply to His Majesties Second Paper of October 6. in yours of October 17. in order to the further satisfaction of His Conscience in the point of Episcopacy, His Majesty heard, when it was publickly read by you, with diligent attention, and hath since (so far as His leisure would per∣mit) taken the same into his private and serious Consideration: Wherein His Ma∣jesty not only acknowledgeth your great Pains and Endeavours to inform His Judg∣ment, acording to such perswasions as your selves have in the matter in debate; but also taketh special notice of the Civility of your applications to Him both in the Body and Conclusion of your Reply: yet He cannot but observe withall, that in very many things you either mistake His meaning and purpose in that Paper, or at least come not up fully enough thereunto in this Reply. Which to have shown, will sufficiently re∣monstrate your present Reply to be unsatisfactory in that behalf, without making a particular Answer to every passage in it, which to a Paper of that length would require more time than His Majesty can think fit (amidst the present weighty affairs) to allow unto a debate of this nature: Especially since His Majesty hath often found mutual re∣turns of long Answers and Replies, to have rather multiplied disputes by starting new Questions, than informed the Conscience by removing former Scruples.
As to the Scriptures cited in the Margin of His Majesties first Paper.* 1.1 It being granted by you, that those Scriptures did prove the Apostles, and others being single Persons, to have exercised respectively the several powers in the Paper specified, which powers (by your own confession in this Reply, Sect. 7.) a single Person who is but a mere Presbyter hath no right to exercise; and it being withall evident that a Bishop in the Ecclesiasti∣cal sense, and as distinct from a Presbyter, layeth claim to no more than to a peculiar right in the exercise of some or all of the said Powers, which a mere Presbyter hath not; the Conclusion seemeth natural and evident, that such a Power of Church-Go∣vernment as we usually call Episcopal is sufficiently proved by those Scriptures.
As to the Bishops Challenge.* 1.2 First, when you speak of a Writ of partition, you seem to take His Majesties words, as if He had shared and cantoned out the Episcopal Office, one part to the Bishops alone, another to the Presbyters alone; and you fall upon the same again afterwards (Sect. 6.) Whereas His Majesties meaning was, and by His words ap∣peareth so to have been, that one part of the Office (that of Teaching, &c.) was to be common to both alike; but the other part (that of Governing Churches) peculiar to the Bishop alone.
Secondly, you infer from His Majesties words, That the Bishops Challenge appeareth to be grown to more than was formerly pretended to. Which inference His Majesties words by you truly cited, if rightly understood, will not bear. For having proved from Scrip∣ture the power of Church-Government in all the three mentioned Particulars to have been exercised by the Apostles and others; His Majesty said but this only, That the