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.

AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING THE PAPERS WHICH PASSED BETWIXT HIS MAJESTY And the Divines which Attended the Commissioners of the TWO HOUSES at the TREATY at NEWPORT, CONCERNING CHURCH-GOVERNMENT.

In this APPENDIX are contained

• I. His MAJESTIES Reason why He cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the Episcopal Government. October 2. 1648. p. 612.
• II. The Answer of the Divines to His MAJESTIES Reason, Octob. 3. ibid.
• III. His MAJESTIES Reply to their Paper, Octob 6. p. 616.
• IV. The Rejoinder of the Divines to His MAJESTIES Reply, Octob. 17. p. 621.
• V. His MAJESTIES Final Answer concerning Episcopacy, Nov. 1. 1648. p. 634.

I. His MAJESTIES Reason why He cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the Episcopal Government.

CHARLES R.

I Conceive that Episcopal Government is most consonant to the Word of God, and of Apostolical Institution,* 1.1 as it appears by the Scripture to have been practised by the Apostles themselves,* 1.2 and by them committed and derived to particular Persons, as their Substitutes or Successors therein (as for Ordaining Presbyters and Deacons,* 1.3 giving Rules for Christian Discipline, and exercising Censures over Presbyters and others) and hath ever since till these last times,* 1.4 been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ:* 1.5 And therefore I cannot in Conscience consent to abolish the said Government.

Notwithstanding this My perswasion,* 1.6 I shall be glad to be informed, if our Saviour and the Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty, as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure:* 1.7 Which if you can make appear to Me,* 1.8 then I will confess that one of My great Scruples is clean taken away; And then there only remains,* 1.9

That being by My Coronation-Oath obliged to maintain Episcopal Government as I found it setled to My hands,* 1.10 Whether I may consent to the abolishing thereof, un∣til the same shall be evidenced to Me to be contrary to the Word of God?

Newport, 2. Oct. 1648.

II. An Humble Answer returned to Your Majesties Paper delivered to us, Octob. 2. MDCXLVIII.

May it please Your Majesty,

[ 1] WE do fully agree without hesitation, That these Scriptures cited in the margin of Your Paper, Acts xiv. 23. Acts vi. 6. 1 Cor. xvi. 1. 1 Cor. xiv. 1 Cor. v. 3. iii John 9, & 10. do prove that the Apostles did ordain Presbyters and Deacons, give Rules concerning Christian Discipline, and had power of exercising Censures over Presbyters and others: and that these places of Scripture, 1 Tim. v. 22. Tit. i. 5. 1 Tim. v. 19. Titus 3. 10. do prove that Timothy and Titus had power to ordain Pres∣byters and Deacons, and to exercise censures over Presbyters and others: and that the se∣cond and third Chapters of the Revelation do prove, That the Angels of the Churches had power of governing of the Churches, and exercising Censures.

[ 2] But that either the Apostles, or Timothy and Titus, or the Angels of the Churches were Bishops, as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters, exercising Episcopal Government in that sense; or that the Apostles did commit and derive to any particular persons as their Substitutes and Successors any such Episcopal Government; or that this is proved in the least measure by the Scriptures alledged, we do as fully deny. And therefore do humbly deny also, That Episcopal Government is therefore most consonant to the Word of God, and of Apostolical institution, or proved so to be by these Scriptures. None of these were Bishops, or practised Episcopal Government, as Bishops are distinct from Presbyters. Neither is such an Officer of the Church as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter to be found in the New Testament (by which we humbly conceive that our Faith and Conscience touching this point ought to be concluded.) The Name, Office, and Work of Bishop and Presbyter being one and the same in all things, and never in the least distinguisht, as is clearly evident, Tit. i. 5, 7. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain Presbyters in every City, as I had appointed thee. For a Bishop must be blameless. In which place the Apo∣stle his reasoning were altogether invalid and inconsequent, if Presbyter and Bishop were not the same Office, as well as they have the same Name.

The same is manifest, Acts xx. 17, 28. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and cal∣led

the Presbyters of the Church, to whom he gave this charge, verse 28. Take heed therefore unto your selves, and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Bi∣shops, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to feed and govern the Church of God. Where we observe, That the Apostle being to leave these Presbyters, and never to see their faces more, verse 28. doth charge them with the feeding and governing of the Church, as being Bishops of the Holy Ghost's making. But that the Holy Ghost did make any superior or high∣er kind of Bishops than these common Presbyters, is not to be found in that or any o∣ther Text.

And that under the mouth of two or three witnesses this assertion of ours may stand; we add to what we have already said, that in 1 Pet. v. 1, 2. The Presbyters which are among you I exhort, who am also a Presbyter; Feed the flock of God which is among you, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. performing the office of Bishops. Where it appears plain to us, that under the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, used in this place, is expressed whatsoever work the Pres∣byters are to do. Neither can Bishops, so called, as above Presbyters, do more for the government and good of the Church otherwise than is there expresly enjoyned unto Presbyters. By all which that hath been said, the point is rendred to be most clear to the judgement of most men, both ancient and of later times, That there is no such Officer to be found in the Scriptures of the New Testament as a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter: neither doth the Scripture afford us the least notice of any qualification required in a Bi∣shop that is not required in a Presbyter, nor any Ordination to the Office of a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter, nor any work or duty charged upon a Bishop which Presby∣ters are not enjoyned to do, nor any greater honour or dignity put upon them. For that double honour which the Apostle speaks of 1 Tim. v. 17. as due to Presbyters that rule well, is with a note of (especially) affixed to that Act or work of labouring in the word and Doctrine, which is not that Act wherein Bishops have challenged a singularity or peculiar eminency above the Presbyters.

[ 3] To that which Your Majesty doth conceive, That Episcopal government was practised by the Apostles themselves; we humbly answer, That the Apostles, as they were the high∣est Officers of the Church of Christ, so they were extraordinary in respect of their com∣mission, gifts and Office, and distinguisht from all other Officers, 1 Cor. xii. 28. God hath set some in the Church, first, Apostles, secondarily, Prophets, thirdly, Teachers; Ephes. iv. 11. Christ gave some Apostles, and some Prophets, and some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers. Where the Apostles are distinguished from Pastors and Teachers, who are the ordinary Officers of the Church for Preaching the Word, and Government. That they had power and authority to ordain Church-Officers, and to exercise Censures in all Churches, we affirm; and withal, that no other Persons or Officers of the Church may challenge or assume to themselves such power in that respect alone, because the Apostles practised it: except such power belong unto them in common, as well as to the Apo∣stles, by warrant of the Scripture. For that Government which they practised was Apo∣stolical, according to the peculiar commission and authority which they had, and no otherwise to be called Episcopal, than as their Office was so comprehensive, as they had power to do the work of any or all other Church-Officers; in which respect they call themselves Presbyteri, Diaconi, (but never Episcopi in distinct sense;) and therefore we humbly crave leave to say, that to argue the Apostles to have practised Episcopal Goverment because they ordained other Officers, and exercised Censures, is as if we should argue a Justice of Peace to be a Constable, because he doth that which a Constable doth in some particulars. It's manifest that the Office of Bishops and Presbyters was not distinct in the Apostles. They did not act as Bishops in some Acts, and as Presbyters in other Acts: the distinction of Presbyters and Bishops being made by men in after-times.

[ 4] And whereas Your Majesty doth conceive that the Episcopal Government was by the Apostles committed and derived to particular persons, as their Substitutes or Successors there∣in, as for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons, giving rules concerning Christian discipline, and exercising censures over Presbyters and others, seeming by the alledged places of Scripture to instance in Timothy and Titus, and the Angels of the Churches; we humbly answer, and first, to that of Timothy and Titus. We grant that Timothy and Titus had Authority and Power of ordaining Presbyters and Deacons, and of exercising Censures over Pres∣byters and others; though we cannot say they had this power as the Apostles Substitutes or Successors in Episcopal Government; nor that they exercised the power they had as being Bishops in the sense of Your Majesty; but as extraordinary Officers or Evangelists,

which Evangelists were an Office in the Church distinct from Pastors and Teachers, Eph. iv. 11. and that they were Evangelists, it appears by their being sent up and down by the Apostles, or taken along with them in company to several Churches, as the neces∣sity and occasion of the Churches did require: The one of them being expresly called an Evangelist, 1 Tim. iv. 5. and neither of them being any where in Scripture called Bi∣shop. Neither were they fixed to Ephesus and Crete, as Bishops in the Churches com∣mitted to them; but removed from thence to other places, and never, for ought ap∣pears in Scripture, returned to them again. And it seems clear to us, that neither their abode at Ephesus and Crete was for any long time, nor so intended by the Apostle. For he imploys them there upon occasional business, and expresses himself in such manner, (I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine, 1 Tim. i. 3. For this cause left I thee in Crete, Tit. i. 5.) as doth not carry the fixing or constituting of a Bishop in a place as perpetu∣al Governour. And it is as manifest that they were both of them called away from these places: ii Tim. iv. 9. Do thy diligence to come to me shortly; Tit. iii. 12. Be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis. So that they may as well be called Bishops of any other Cities or Churches, where they had any considerable abode, as they are pretended to have been of Ephesus and Crete; as they are called by the Postscripts of these Epistles; the credit of which Postscripts we cannot build upon in this point.

[ 5] Secondly, to that of the Angels of the Churches.

The Ministers of the Churches are called Stars, and Angels, which denominations are metaphorical and in a mystery, Rev. i. 20. the mystery of the seven Stars; Angels in respect of their Mission or sending, Stars in respect of their Station and shining. And it seems strange to us, that to so many express Testimonies of Scripture, an allegorical deno∣mination or mystery should be opposed: These Angels being no where called Bishops in vulgar acceptation; nor the word Bishop used in any of John's writings, who calls himself Presbyter; nor any mention of superiority of one Presbyter to another, but in Diotrephes affecting it. And as to that which may be said, that the Epistles are directed to one, we answer, that a number of persons are in the mysterious and prophetick writings expres∣sed in singulars; and we humbly conceive, that being written in an Epistolary style, (for they are as Letters or Epistles to the Churches) these writings are directed as Letters to collective Representative Bodies use to be, that is, to one, but intended and meant to that Body in meeting assembled; which that they were so intended, is clear to us, both because there were in Ephesus Bishops and Presbyters, one and the same, to whom the Apostle at his farewel commendeth the Government of the Church; and by divers expressions in these Epistles, as Rev. 11. 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira; by which distinction of you and the rest, we conceive the particular Governours (which were more than one) and the people to be signified. And so cannot consent that any sin∣gular person had majority over the rest, or sole power of exercising Church-Censures and Government spoken of in these Chapters.

[ 6] Having thus (as we humbly conceive) proved by pregnant places of Scripture com∣pared together, that the Apostles themselves did not institute or practice Episcopal Go∣vernment, nor commit and derive it to particular persons, as their Substitutes or Successors therein; we shall in farther discharge of our duty to, and for the more clear and full sa∣tisfaction of, Your Majesty in this point, briefly declare into what Officers hands the ordinary and standing Offices of the Church were transmitted and derived by and from the Apostles. The Apostles had no Successors in eundem gradum: the Apostolical Of∣fice was not derived by Succession, being instituted by Christ by extraordinary and spe∣cial Commission. But for the ordinary and standing use and service of the Church, there were ordained only two Orders of Officers, viz. Bishops and Deacons; which the Apo∣stle expresseth, Phil. 1. 1. To all the Saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the Bishops and Deacons; and onely of them doth the Apostle give the due Characters of Officers, 1 Tim. iii 2, 8. From both which places of Scripture we conclude with ancient Expositors, both Greek and Latine, that Bishops are the same with Presbyters, and be∣sides Presbyters, there is no mention of any other Order but that of Deacons. Of both which Orders in the Apostles times there were in one City more than one, as in Philip∣pi and Ephesus. And we humbly offer to Your Majesty as observable, That though one Order might be superiour to another Order, yet in the same Order of Officers there was not any one superior to others of the same Order: No Apostle was above an Apostle; no Evangelist above an Evangelist; no Presbyter above a Presbyter; no Deacon above

a Deacon. And so we conclude this part, That since Church Officers are instituted and set in the Church by God or Christ Jesus, and that Ordination by or in which the Of∣fice is conveyed is of no other Officers but of Presbyters and Deacons, therefore there are no other Orders of ordinary and standing Officers in the Churches of Christ.

[ 7] As for the Ages immediately succeeding the Apostles, we answer, first, Our Faith reaches no farther than the Holy Scriptures: No human testimony can beget any more than a human faith. Secondly, we answer, That it is agreed upon by Learned men, as well such as contend for Episcopacy, as others, that the times immediately suc∣ceeding the Apostles, are very dark in respect of the History of the Church. Thirdly, That the most unquestionable Record of those times gives clear testimony to our as∣sertion, viz. The Epistle of Clemens to the Corinthians, who reciting the Orders of Church-Officers, expresly limits them to two, Bishops and Deacons; and them whom in one place he calls Bishops, he always afterwards nameth Presbyters. The Epistles of Ignatius pretend to the next Antiquity, but are by some suspected as wholly spurious, and proved by Vedelius to be so mixed, that it is hard, if not impossible, to know what part of them are genuine: Besides, Bishop Vsher in his late observations on them, chap. 18. pag. 138. confesses, that of the twelve of his Epistles, six are counterfeit, the other six mixt, and none of them in every respect to be accounted sincere and genuine. Fourthly, we grant, That not long after the Apostles times, Bishops in some superiori∣ty to Presbyters are by the Writers of those times reported to be in the Church; but they were set up not as a Divine Institution, but as an Ecclesiastical, as afterwards both Arch-Bishops and Patriarchs were. Which is clear by Doctor Reynolds his Epistle to Sir Francis Knowles, wherein he shews out of Bishop Jewel, that Ambrose, Chrysostome, Jerome, Augustine, and many more holy Fathers, together with the Apostle Paul, agree that by the Word of God there is no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter; and that Medina in the Council of Trent affirms not only the same Fathers, but also ano∣ther Jerome, Theodoret, Primasius, Sedulius and Theophylact, to be of the same judgment: and that with them agree Oecumenius, Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and another Anselme, Gregory and Gratian, and after them many others: that it was inrolled in the Canon Law for sound and Catholick Doctrine, and publickly taught by Learned men. And adds, That all who have laboured in the Reformation of the Church for these 500 years, have taught that all Pastors, be they intituled Bishops or Priests, have equal authority and power by God's word. The same way goes Lombard Master of the Sen∣tences, and Father of the School-men, who speaking of Presbyters and Deacons, saith, The Primitive Church had those Orders only, and that we have the Apostles precept for them alone. With him agree many of the most eminent in that kind, and gene∣rally all the Canonists. To these we may add Sixtus Senensis, who testifies for himself and many others: and Cassander, who was called by one of the German Emperors, as one of singular ability and integrity, to inform him and resolve his Conscience in que∣stions of that nature; who said, It is agreed among all, that in the Apostles times there was no difference between a Bishop and a Presbyter. For a conclusion, we add, that the Doctrine we have herein propounded to Your Majesty concerning the Identity of the Order of Bishops and Presbyters, is no other than the Doctrine published by King Henry the 8. 1543. for all his Subjects to receive, seen and allowed by the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal, with the neather House of Parliament. Of these two Orders on∣ly, (so saith the Book) that is to say, Priests and Deacons, Scripture maketh express mention, and how they were conferred of the Apostles by Prayer and Imposition of hands. By all which it seems evident, that the Order of Episcopacy, as distinct from Presbytery, is but an Ecclesiastical Institution, and therefore not unalterable.

[ 8] Lastly, we answer, That Episcopal Government which at first obtained in the Church, did really and substantially differ from the Episcopal Goverment which the Honoura∣ble Houses of Parliament desire the abolition of. The Bishop of those times was one presiding and joining with the Presbytery of his Church, ruling with them, and not without them: either created and made by the Presbyters, chusing out one among themselves, as in Rome and Alexandria; or chosen by the Church, and confirmed by three or more of his Neighbours of like dignity within the same precinct; lesser Towns and Villages had, and might have have, Bishops in them, as well as populous and eminent Cities, until the Council of Sardis decreed, That Villages and small Cities should have no Bishops, lest the name and authority of a Bishop might thereby come into con∣tempt. But of one claiming as his due and right, to himself alone, as a superior order or degree, all power about Ordination of Presbyters and Deacons, and all jurisdiction,

either to exercise himself, or delegate to whom he will of the Laity or Clergy, (as they distinguish) according to the Judgment and Practice of those in our times, we read not till in the latter and corrupter Ages of the Church.

By all which it appears, that the present Hierarchy, the abolition whereof is desired by the Honourable Houses, may accordingly be abolished, and yet possibly the Bishops of those Primitive times, be. They are so far differing one from another.

[ 9] In answer to that part of Your Majesties Paper, wherein You require whether our Saviour and his Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty, as they might totally alter or change the Church-Government at their pleasure; we humbly conceive that there are Sub∣stantials belonging to Church-Government, such as are appointed by Christ and his Apostles, which are not in the Churches liberty to alter at pleasure. But as for Arch-Bishops, &c. we hope it will appear unto Your Majesties Conscience, that they are none of the Church-Governors appointed by our Saviour and his Apostles. And we beseech Your Majesty to look rather to the Original of them, than Succession.

Octob. 3. 1648.

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,* 1.11 and for proof thereof insist upon three several Texts, His Majesty conceiveth as to the present business,* 1.12 that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places is this,* 1.13 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* 1.14 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* 1.15 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.

IV. The Humble Answer of the Divines attending the Honourable Com∣missioners of Parliament at the Treaty at Newport in the Isle of Wight, to the Second Paper delivered to them by His Majesty, Octob. 6. 1648. Delivered to His Majesty, Octob. 17.

May it please Your Majesty,

[ 1] AS in our Paper of October the third, in Answer to Your Majesties of October the second, we did, so now again we do, acknowledg that the Scriptures cited in the Margin of Your Majesties Paper do prove, that the Apostles in their own persons, that Timothy and Titus, and the Angels of the Churches, had power respectively to do those things which are in those places of Scripture specified: But as then, so now also we humbly do deny, that any of the persons or Officers fore-mentioned were Bishops as distinct from Presbyters, or did exercise Episcopal Government in that sense; or that this was in the least measure proved by the alledged Scriptures. And therefore our Negative not being to the same point or state of the Question which was affirmed, we humbly conceive that we should not be interpreted to have, in effect, denied the very same thing which we had before granted, or to have acknowledged that the several Scriptures do prove the thing for which they are cited by Your Majesty. And if that which we granted were all that, by the Scripture cited in Your Margin, Your Majesty intended to prove; it will follow, that nothing hath yet been proved on Your Ma∣jesties part, to make up that Conclusion which is pretended.

[ 2] As then we stood upon the Negative to that Assertion, so we now crave leave to represent to Your Majesty, that Your Reply doth not infirm the Evidence given in main∣tenance thereof. The reason given by Your Majesty in this Paper to support Your As∣sertion, That the persons that exercised the power aforesaid were Bishops in distinct sense, is taken from a description of Episcopal Government; which is (as Your Majesty saith) nothing else but the Government of the Churches within a certain Precinct (commonly called a Diocess) committed to one single person, with sufficient authority over the Presbyters and people of those Churches for that end: which Government so described being for substance of the thing it self in all the three forementioned particulars (Ordaining, giving rules of Discipline, and Censures) found in Scriptures, except we will contend about names and words, must be acknowledged in the sense aforesaid to be sufficiently proved from Scriptures. And Your Majesty saith farther, that the Bishops do not challenge more or other power to belong to them, in respect of their Episcopal Office, as it is distinct from that of Presbyters, than what properly falls under one of those three.

[ 3] We desire to speak both to the Bishops Challenge, and to Your Majesties Description of Episcopal Government. And first to their Challenge, because it is first exprest in Your Majesties Reply.

[ 4] The Challenge we undertake in two respects: 1. In respect of the Power challenged, 2. in respect of that ground or Tenure upon which the claim is laid. The Power chal∣lenged consists of three particulars, Ordaining, giving Rules of Discipline, and Censures: No more, no other, in respect of their Episcopal Office. We see not by what war∣rant this Writ of partition is taken forth by which the Apostolical Office is thus shared or divided; the Governing part into the Bishops hands, the Teaching and administring Sacraments into the Presbyters. For besides that the Scripture makes no such inclosure or partition-wall, it appears, the challenge is grown to more than was pretended unto in the times of grown Episcopacy. Jerome and Chrysostom do both acknowledg for their time, that the Bishop and Presbyter differed only in the matter of Ordination: and learned Doctor Bilson makes some abatement in the claim of three, saying, the things proper to Bishops, which might not be common to Presbyters, are singularity of Suc∣ceeding, and superiority in Ordaining.

[ 5] The Tenure or ground upon which the claim is made, is Apostolical, which with us is all one with Divine Institution. And this, as far as we have learned, hath not been anciently, openly, or generally avowed in this Church of England, either in time of Po∣pery, or of the first Reformation; and whensoever the pretension hath been made, it

was not without the contradiction of learned and godly men. The abettors of the chal∣lenge, that they might resolve it at last into the Scripture, did chuse the most plausi∣ble way of ascending by the scale of Succession, going up the River to find the Head: but when they came to Scriptures, and found it like the head of Nile (which cannot be found) they shrouded it under the name and countenance of the Angels of the Churches, and of Timothy and Titus. Those that would carry it higher, endeavoured to impe it into the Apostolical Office, and so at last called it a Divine Institution, not in force of any express precept, but implicite practice of the Apostles; and so the Apostolical Office (ex∣cepting the gifts or enablements confest only extraordinary) is brought down to be Episcopal, and the Episcopal raised up to be Apostolical. Whereupon it follows, that the Highest Officers in the Church are put into a lower orb; an extraordinary Office turned into an ordinary, a distinct Office confounded with that which in the Scripture is not found, a temporary and an extinct Office revived. And indeed if the definitions of both be rightly made, they are so incompetible to the same subject, that he that will take both must lose that one; aut Apostolus Episcopatum, aut Apostolatum Episcopus: For the Apostles, though they did not in many things act aliud, yet they acted alio nomine & alio munere, then Presbyters or Bishops do: and if they were indeed Bishops, and their Government properly Episcopal in distinct sense, then it is not needful to go so far about to prove Episcopal government of Divine Institution, because they practised it; but to assert expresly, that Christ instituted it immediately in them.

[ 6] For Your Majesties Definition of Episcopal Government, it is extracted out of the Bi∣shops of later date than Scripture-times, and doth not sute to that Meridian under which there were more Bishops than one in a Precinct or Church; and it is as fully competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government, as Episcopal. The parts of this definiti∣on, materially and abstractly considered, may be found in Scripture. The Apostles, Ti∣mothy and Titus, were single persons, but not limited to a Precinct: The Government of the Angel was limited to a Precinct, but not in single persons. In several Offices, not to be confounded, the parts of this definition may be found; but the aggregation of them all together into one ordinary Officer cannot be found. And if that word, ordi∣nary, and standing Government, had made the Genus in your Majesties Definition (as it ought to be) we should crave leave to say it would be gratis dictum, if not petitio principii: for the Scripture doth not put all these parts together in a Bishop, who never borrowed of Apostles, Evangelists, and Angels, the matter of Governing and Ordaining, and left the other of Teaching, dispensing Sacraments, and dealing only in foro interno, to Presbyters, until after-times. By this that hath been said it is mani∣fest enough, that we contend not, first, de nomine, about the Name of Episcopal Go∣vernment; which yet (though names serve for distinction) is not called or distin∣guished by the name in Scripture: nor secondly, de opere, about the Work, whether the work of Governing, Ordering, Preaching, &c. be of continuance in the Church, which we clearly acknowledg: But thirdly, de munere, about the Office, it being a great fallacy to argue, That the Apostles did the same work which Bishops or Presbyters are to do in ordinary: Therefore they were of the same Office. For as it is said of the libe∣ral and learned Arts, one and the same thing may be handled in divers of them: and yet these Arts are distinguisht by formalis ratio of handling of them: so we say of Offices, they are distinguisht by their Callings and Commissions, though not by the work; as all those that are named Eph. iv. ii. Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, are designed to one and the same general and common work, the work of the Ministry, ver. 12. and yet they are not therefore all one; for it's said, some Apostles, some Prophets, some Evangelists, and some Pastors and Teachers. A Dictator in Rome and an ordinary Tribune, Moses and the subordinate Governors of Israel, the Court of Parliament and of the Kings-Bench, an Apostle and a Presbyter or Deacon, may agree in some common work, and yet no confusion of Offices follows thereupon.

[ 7] To that which Your Majesty conceives, that the most that can be proved from all or any of those places by us alledged (to prove that the Name, Office, and Work of Bishops and Presbyters is one and the same in all things, and not in the least distinguisht) is, That the word Bishop is used in them to signifie a Presbyter, and the consequently the Office and Work mentioned in those places as the Office and Work of a Bishop, are the Office of a Presbyter, which is confessed on all sides; we make this humble return, That though there be no supposition so much as implied that the Office of a Bishop and a Presbyter are distinct in any thing (for the names are mutually reciprocal,) yet we take Your

Majesties Concession, that in these times of the Church and places of Scripture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters; and consequently, that the identity of the Office must stand, until there can be found a clear distinction of division in the Scriptures. And if we had argued the identity of Functions from the Community of names and some part of the work, the Argument might have been justly termed a fallacy; but we proved them the same Office from the same work, per omnia, being allowed so to do by the fulness of those two words used in the Acts and S. Peter his Epistle, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, under the force of which words the Bishops claim their whole power of Government and Jurisdiction: and we found no little weight added to our Argument from that in the Acts, where the Apostle departing from the Ephesian Presbyters or Bi∣shops, as never to see their faces more, commits (as by a final charge) the Government of that Church, both over parricular Presbyters and people, not to Timothy, who then stood at his elbow, but to the Presbyters, under the name of Bishops, made by the Holy Ghost; whom we read to have set many Bishops over one Church, not one over either one or many. And the Apostles arguing from the same Qualification of a Presbyter and of a Bishop in order to Ordination or putting him into Office, fully proves them to be two names of the same Order or Function; the divers orders of Presbyter and Deacon be∣ing diversly characterised. Upon these grounds (we hope without fallacy) we con∣ceive it justly proved, that a Bishop and a Presbyter are wholly the same. That Timothy and Titus were single persons, having authority of Government, we acknowledge; but deny that from thence any argument can be made unto either single Bishop or Presbyter: for though a singie Presbyter by the power of his Order (as they call it) may preach the Word and dispense the Sacraments; yet by that example of the Presbytery, their Laying on of hands, and that Rule of Telling the Church in matter of scandal, it seems manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter: neither hath Your Majesty hitherto proved either the names of Bishops and Presbyters, or the Function, to be in other places of Scripture at all distinguished; You having wholly waved the notice or answer of that we did assert (and do yet desire some de∣monstration of the contrary) viz. That the Scripture doth not afford us the least notice of any Qualification, any Ordination, any work or duty, any honour peculiary belonging to a Bishop distinct from a Presbyter; the assignment of which, or any of them, unto a Bishop by the Scripture, would put this Question near to an issue. That God should in∣tend a distinct and highest kind of Officer for Government in the Church, and yet not express any qualification, work, or way of constituting and ordaining of him, seems unto us improbable.

[ 8] Concerning the signification of the word Episcopus, importing an Overseer, or one that hath a charge committed to him, for instance, of watching a Beacon, or keeping sheep, and the application of the name to such persons as have inspection of the Churches of Christ committed to them in spiritualibus; we also give our suffrage; but not to that distinction of Episcopus gregis, and Episcopus pastorum & gregis; both because it is the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or point in question; and also because Your Majesty having signified that Episcopus imports a keeper of sheep, yet You have not said that it signifies al∣so a keeper of shepherds. As to that which is affirmed by Your Majesty, that the pe∣culiar of the Function of Bishops is Church-Government; and that the reason why the word Episcopus is usually applied to Presbytery, was because Church-Governors had then another title of greater eminency, to wit, that of Apostles, until the Government of the Church came into the hands of their Successors, and then the names were by common usage very soon appropriated, that of Episcopus to Ecclesiastical Governors, that of Presbyter to the ordinary Ministrrs: This assertion Your Majesty is pleased to make without any demonstration; for whom the Scripture calls Presbyters, Rulers, and Pastors, and Teachers, it calls Governors, and commits to them the charge of feeding and inspecti∣on, as we have proved, and that without any mention of Church-Government pecu∣liar to a Bishop. We deny not but some of the Fathers have conceived the notion that Bishops were called Apostles, till the names of Presbyter and Episcopus became appro∣priate; which is either an allusion or conceit, without Evidence of Scripture; for while the Function was one, the names were not divided; when the Function was divided, the name was divided also, and indeed impropriate; but we that look for the same warrant for the division of an Office as for the Constitution, cannot find that this appropriation of names was made till afterwards, or in process of time, as Theodore (one of the Fathers of this conceit) affirms, whose saying, when it is run out of the pale of Scrip∣ture time, we can no further follow. From which premisses laid all together, we did con∣clude

the clearness of our assertion, that in the Scriptures of the New Testament, a Bishop di∣stinct from a Presbyter in Qualification, Ordination, Office or Dignity, is not found: the contrary whereof though Your Majesty saith that You have seen confirmed by great variety of credible Testimony, yet we believe those Testimonies are rather strong in assert∣ing, than in demonstrating the Scripture-Original of a Bishop, which is declared against by a cloud of Witnesses, named in the latter end of our former Answer, unto which we should refer, if matter of right were not properly triable by Scripture, as matter of Fact is by Testimony.

[ 9] We said that the Apostles were the highest Order of Officers of the Church; that they were extraordinary; that they were distinguisht from all other Officers; and that their Government was not Episcopal, but Apostolical. To which Answer Your Majesty, being not satisfied, doth oppose certain Assertions, That Christ himself and the Apostles received their Authority by Mission, their Ability by Vnction; That the Mission of the Apostles was ordinary, and to continue to the end of the World; but the Vnction, whereby they were enabled to both Offices and Functions, Teaching and Governing, was indeed extraor∣dinary; That in their Vnction they were not necessarily to have Successors, but necessarily in their Mission or Office of Teaching and Governing; That in these two ordinary Offices, their ordinary Successors are Presbyters and Bishops; That Presbyters qua Presbyters, do immediately succeed them in the Office of Teaching, and Bishops qua Bishops immediately in the Office of Governing: the demonstration of which last alone would have carried in it more conviction than all these Assertions put together. Officers are distinguished by that whereby they are constituted, their Commission, which being produced signed by one place of Scripture, gives surer evidence than a Pedigree drawn forth by such a se∣ries of distinctions as do not distinguish him into another Officer from a Presbyter. Whe∣ther this chain of distinction be strong, and the links of it sufficiently tackt together, we crave leave to examine. Christ, saith Your Majesty, was the Apostle and Bishop of our Souls, and he made the Apostles both Apostles and Bishops. We do not conceive that Your Majesty means that the Apostles succeeded Christ as the chief Apostle, and that as Bishops they succeed Christ as a Bishop, lest thereby Christ his Mission as an Apostle and Bishop might be conceived as ordinary as their Mission is said to be; but we appre∣hend Your Majesty to mean, that the Office of Apostle and Bishop was eminently contained in Christs Office, as the Office of a Bishop was eminently contained in that of Apostleship: but thence it will not follow that inferior Offices being contained in the superior eminent∣ly, are therefore existent in it formally. For because all Honours and Dignities are eminently contained in Your Majesty, would it therefore follow that Your Majesty is formally and distinctly a Baron of the Realm, as it is asserted, the Apostles to have been Bishops in distinct sense? That Mission refers to Office and Authority, and Vnction only to Abili∣ty, we cannot consent; for besides that the breathing of Christ upon his Disciples, say∣ing, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, doth refer to mission as well as unction; we conceive that in the proper anointing of Kings or other Officers, the natural use and effect of the oil upon the body was not so much intended, as the solemn and ceremonious use of it in the Inaugura∣tion of them. So there is relation to Office in unction, as well as to conferring of abilities; else how are Kings or Priests or Prophets said to be anointed? And what good sense could be made of that expression in Scripture, of anointing one in anothers room? To omit, that Christ by this construction should be called the Messias in respect of Abili∣ties only. And although we should grant Your Majesties explication of Mission and Vnction; yet it will not follow that the mission of the Apostles was ordinary, and their unction only extraordinary. That into which there is succession, was ordinary; that into which there is no succession, (for succession is not unto abilities or gifts) extra∣ordinary; and so the Apostles were ordinary Officers in all whereunto there is pro∣perly any succession, and that is Office. They differed from Bishops in that wherein one Apostle or Officer of the same order might differ from another, to wit, in abili∣ties and measure of Spirit, but not in that wherein one order of Officers is above ano∣ther by their Office; To which we cannot give consent. For since no man is denomi∣nated an Officer from his meer abilities or gifts; so neither can the Apostles be called extraordinary Officers because of extraordinary gifts: but that the Apostles Mission and Office (as their abilities) was extraordinary and temporary, doth appear in that it was by immediate Commission from Christ, without any intervention of men, either in Election or Ordination, for planting an authoritative governing of all Churches through the World, comprehending in it all other Officers of the Church whatsoever; and therefore it seems to us very unreasonable that the Office and Authority of the Apostles

should be drawn down to an ordinary, thereby to make it, as it were, a fit stock into which the ordinary Office of a Bishop may be ingrafted; nor doth the continuance of Teaching and Governing in the Church more render the Office of teaching and go∣verning in the Apostles an ordinary Office, than the Office of teaching and governing in Christ himself renders his Office therefore ordinary. The reason given, That the Office of Teaching and Governing was ordinary in the Apostles, because of the con∣tinuance of them in the Church (we crave leave to say) is that great mistake which runs through the whole file of Your Majesties Discourse: for tho there be a Succession in the Work of Teaching and Governing, yet there is no Succession in the Commission or Office by which the Apostles performed them; for the Office of Christ, of Apostles, of Evangelists or Prophets, is thence also concluded ordinary, as to Teaching and Govern∣ing, and the distinction of Offices Extraordinary and Ordinary eatenus destroyed. The Succession may be into the same Work, not into the same Commission and Office: The ordinary Officers, which are to manage the work of Teaching and Government, are constituted, settled and limited by warrant of Scripture, as by another Commission than that which the Apostles had. And if Your Majesty had shewn us some Record out of Scripture, warranting the division of the Office of Teaching and Governing into two hands, and the appropriation of Teaching to Presbyters, of Governing to Bi∣shops, the question had been determined; otherwise we must look upon the dissolving of the Apostolical Office, and distribution of it into these two hands, as the dictate of men who have a mind, by such a precarious Argument, to challenge to themselves the Keys of Authority, and leave the Word to the Presbyters.

[ 10] In our answer to the instances of Timothy and Titus (which Doctor Bilson acknow∣ledgeth to be the main erection of Episcopal power, if the proof of their being Bi∣shops do stand; or subversion, if the answer that they were Evangelists be good) Your Majesty finds very little satisfaction, though all that is said therein could be proved.

First, because the Scriptures no where imply any such thing at all, that Titus was an E∣vangelist, neither doth the text clearly prove that Timothy was so.

1. The name of Bishop the Scripture neither expressly nor by implication gives to either; the work which they are injoyned to do is common to Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers, and cannot of it self make a character of one distinct and pro∣per Office: But that there was such an Order of Officers in the Church as Evangelists reckoned amongst the extraordinary and temporary Offices, and that Timothy was one of that Order, and that both Timothy and Titus were not ordained to one particular Church, but were companions and fellow-Labourers with the Apostles, sent abroad to several Churches as occasion did require; it is (as we humbly conceive) clear e∣nough in Scripture, and not denied by the learned defenders of Episcopal Government, nor (as we remember) by Scultetus himself, during the time of their travels.

[ 11] 2. To that which Your Majesty secondly saith, That we cannot make it appear by any Text of Scripture that the Office of Evangelist is such as we have described, his work seeming, 11 Tim. VIII. 4, 5. to be nothing else but diligence in preaching the word, not∣withstanding all impediments and oppositions; we humbly answer, that exact definitions of these or other Church-Officers are hard to be found in any Text of Scripture, but by comparing one place of Scripture with another, it may be proved as well what they were, as what the Apostles and Presbyters were, the description by us given be∣ing a Character made up by collation of Scriptures; from which Mr. Hooker doth not much vary, saying, that Evangelists were Presbyters of principal sufficiency, whom the Apostles sent abroad and used as Agents in Ecclesiastical Affairs, wheresoever they saw need. And that Pastors and Teachers were settled in some certain charge, and thereby differed from Evangelists, whose work that it should be nothing but diligence in preaching, &c. which is common to Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers, and so not distinctive of this particular Office, argueth to us, that as the Apostles Office was divided into Episcopal and Apostolical, so this also is to be divided into Episcopal and Evangelisti∣cal, Ordination and Censures belonging to Timothy as to a Bishop, and diligence in Preaching only being left to the Evangelist: which division (as we humbly conceive) is not warranted by the Scripture.

[ 12] Thirdly, Your Majesty faith, that that which we so confidently affirm of Timothy and Titus their acting as Evangelists, is by some denied and refuted, yea even with scorn rejected by some rigid Presbyterians; and that which we so confidently deny, that they were Bishops, is confirmed by the consentient testimony of all antiquity, recorded by Jerome himself that they were Bishops of Paul's ordination, acknowledged by very many late Di∣vines, and that a Catalogue of 27 Bishops of Ephesus lineally succeeding from Timothy, out of good Record, is vouched by Dr. Reynolds and other Writers.

Our confidence (as Your Majesty is pleased to call it) was in our Answer exprest in these words, We cannot say that Timothy and Titus were Bishops in the sense of Your Majesty, but extraordinary Officers or Evangelists: in which opinion we were then clear, not out of a total ignorance of those Testimonies which might be alleged against it, but from intrinsick arguments out of Scripture, from which Your Majesty hath not produced any one to the contrary. Nor is our confidence weakned by such replies as these, The Scripture never calls them Bishops, but the Fathers do; The Scripture calls Timothy an Evangelist, some of late have refuted it and rejected it with scorn; The Scripture relates their motions from Church to Church, but some affirm them to be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete; The Scripture makes distinction of Evangelists and Pastors, but some say that Timothy and Titus were both. We cannot give Your Majesty a pre∣sent account of Scultetus and Gerard's Arguments, but do believe that Mr. Gillespy and Rutherford are able with greater strength to refute that opinion of Timothy and Titus their being Bishops, than they do (if they do) with scorn reject this of their being Evangelists. As for Testimonies and Catalogues, tho we undervalue them not, yet Your Majesty will be pleased to allow us the use of our Reason, so far as not to erect an Office in the Church which is not found in Scripture, upon general appellations or titles, and allusions frequently found in the Fathers, especially when they speak vulgarly, and not as to a point in debate; for even Jerome, who, as Your Majesty saith, doth record that Timothy and Titus were made Bishops, and that of St. Paul's Ordination, doth, when he speaks to the point between Your Majesty and us, give the Bishops to under∣stand that they are superior to Presbyters consuetudine magis quam Dominicoe veritatis dispositione. For Catalogues, their credit rests upon the first witnesses, from whom they are reported by tradition from hand to hand, whose writings are many times suppositi∣tious, dubious, or not extant: besides that these Catalogues do resolve themselves in∣to some Apostle or Evangelist as the first Bishop, as the catalogue of Jerusalem into the Apostle James, that of Antioch into Peter, that of Rome into Peter and Paul, that of Alexandria into Mark, that of Ephesus into Timothy; which Apostles and Evangelists can neither themselves be degraded by being made Bishops, nor be succeeded in their proper Calling or Office: and it is easie for us to proceed the same way, and to find many ancient rites and customs generally received in the Church (counted by the anci∣ents Apostolical traditions) as near the Apostles times as Bishops, which yet are confes∣sedly not of Divine Institution. And further, if Timothy and the rest that are first in the catalogue were Bishops with such sole Power of Ordination and Censures as is assert∣ed, how came their pretended Successors, who were but primi Presbyterorum (as the Fathers themselves call them) to lose so much Episcopal power as was in their Predeces∣sors, and as was not recovered in 300 years? And therefore we cannot upon any thing yet said recede from that of our Saviour, Ab initio non fuit sic, from the beginning it was not so.

[ 13] 4. Your Majesty saith, that we affirm, but upon very weak proofs, that they were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places, the contrary whereunto hath been demonstra∣ted by some, who have exactly out of Scripture compared the times and order of the seve∣ral Journeys and Stations of Paul and Timothy.

It is confessed that our assertion, that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists, lies with some stress upon this, that they removed from place to place, as they were sent by, or accompanied the Apostles; the proof whereof appears to us to be of greater strength than can be taken off by the comparison which Your Majesty makes of the Divines of the Assembly at Westminster. We begin with the travels of Timothy, as we find them in order recorded in the Scripture-places cited in the Margin, and we set forth froma 1.16 Beraea, where we find Timothy; then next atb 1.17 Athens, from whence Paul sends him toc 1.18 Thessalonica; afterwards having been in Macedonia, he came to Paul atd 1.19 Corinth; and after that he is with Paul at Ephesus, and thence sent by him intoe 1.20 Macedonia, whiter Paul went after him, and was by Timothy accompanied intof 1.21 Asia, who was with him atg 1.22 Troas andh 1.23 Miletus, to which place S. Paul

sent for the Presbyters of the Church in Ephesus, and gave them that solemn charge to take heed unto themselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops, not speaking a word of recommendation of that Church to Timo∣thy, or of him to the Elders. And if Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus, he must needs be so when the first Epistle was sent to him, in which he is pretended to receive the charge of exercising his Episcopal power in Ordination and Government: but it is manifest that after this Epistle sent to him he was in continual Journeys, or absent from Ephe∣sus. For Paul left him at Ephesus when he went intoh 1.24 Macedonia, and he left him there to exercise his Office, in regulating and ordering that Church, and in ordaining: but it was after this time that Timothy is found with Paul at Miletus; for after Paul had been at Miletus, he went to Jerusalem, whence he was sent prisoner to Rome, and never came more into Macedonia, and ati 1.25 Rome we find Timothy a prisoner with him, and those* 1.26 Epistles which Paul wrote while he was prisoner at Rome, namely, the Epistle to the Philippians, to Philemon, to the Colossians, to the Hebrews, do make mention of Timothy as his companion at these times; nor do we ever find him again at Ephesus, for we find that after all this, towards the end of St. Paul's life, after his first answering before Nero, and when he said his departure was at hand, he sent for Timothy to Rome, not from Ephesus: for it seems that Timothy was not there, because Paul giving Timothy an account of the absence of most of his companions sent into divers parts, he saith, Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. Now if Your Majesty shall be pleased to cast up into one total that which is said, the several journeys and stations of Timothy, the order of them, the time spent in them, the nature of his employment, to ne∣gotiate the affairs of Christ in several Churches and places, the silence of the Scriptures as touching his being Bishop of any one Church, you will acknowledg that such a man was not a Bishop fixed to one Church or Precinct; and then by assuming that Timothy was such a man, you will conclude that he was not Bishop of Ephesus.

[ 14] The like conclusion may be inferred from the like premisses from the instance of Titus, whom we find atk 1.27 Jerusalem before he came to Crete, from whence he is sent for tol 1.28 Nicopolis, and after that he is sent to Corinth, from whence he is expected atm 1.29 Troas, and met with Paul inn 1.30 Macedonia, whence he is sent again too 1.31 Co∣rinth, and after all this is near the time of Paul's death at Rome, from whence he went not into Crete, but intop 1.32 Dalmatia, and after this is not heard of in the Scripture. And so we hope Your Majesty doth conceive, that we affirm not upon very weak proofs that Timothy and Titus were from Ephesus and Crete removed to other places.

[ 15] In the fifth exception Your Majesty takes notice of two places of Scripture cited by us, to prove that they were called away from those places of Ephesus and Crete, which they do not conclude much of themselves, yet being accompanied by two other places which Your Majesty takes no notice of, may seem to conclude more, and these i Tim. i. 3. Titus i. 5. as, I be sought thee to abide still at Ephesus; for this cause left I thee in Crete: in both which is specified the occasional employment for which they made stay in those places: and the expressions used, I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, I left thee in Crete, do not sound like words of instalment of a man into a Bishoprick, but of an in∣tendment to call them away again; and if the first and last be put together▪ his actu∣al revocation of them both, the intimation of his intention that they should not stay there for continuance, and the reason of his beseeching the one to stay, and of his leav∣ing the other behind him, which was some present defects and distempers in those Churches, they will put fair to prove that the Apostle intended not to establish them Bi∣shops of those places, and therefore did not.

For the Postscripts; because your Majesty lays no great weight upon them, we shall not be solicitous in producing evidence against them, though they do bear witness in a matter of fact which in our opinion never was, and in Your Majesties Judgment was long before they were born. And so we conclude this discourse about Timothy and Ti∣tus with this observation, that in the same very Epistle of Paul to Timothy, out of which Your Majesty hath endeavoured to prove that he was a Bishop, and did exercise Episco∣pal Government, there is clear evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in Ordination, and for their Ruling.

[ 16] In the next point, concerning the Angels of the Churches, tho Your Majesty faith that you lay no weight upon the Allegory or Mystery of the denomination, yet you as∣sert that the persons bearing that name were personae singulares, and, in a word, Bi∣shops;

who yet are never so called in Scripture; and the allegorical denomination of Angels or Stars, which in the Judgment of ancient and modern Writers doth belong to the faithful Ministers and Preachers of the Word in general, is appropriate (as we may so say) to the Mitre and Crosier-staff, and so opposed to many express testimo∣nies of Scripture. And if Your Majesty had been particular in that, wherein You say the strength of Your instance lies, viz. the Judgment of all ancient and of the best mo∣dern Writers, and many probabilities in the Text it self, we hope to have made it ap∣parent, that many ancient and eminent modern Writers, many probabilitirs out of the Text it self, do give evidence to the contrary. To that which is asserted, That these singular persons were Bishops in distinct sense, whether we brought any thing of mo∣ment to infirm this, we humbly submit to Your Majesties Judgment, and shall only present to You, that in Your Reply You have not taken notice of that which in our Answer seems to us of moment, which is this, That in Mysterious and prophetick wri∣tings, or visional representation (such as this of the Stars and golden Candlesticks is) a number of things and persons is usually exprest in singulars: and this in Visions is the usual way of Representation of things; a thousand persons making up one Church, is represented by one Candlestick; many Ministers making up one Presbytery, by one Angel. And because Your Majesty seems to call upon us to be particular, though we cannot name the Angels, nor are satisfied in our judgment, that those whom some do undertake to name were intended by the name of Angels in those Epistles; yet we say, First, that these Epistles were sent unto the Churches, and that under the ex∣pression of this thou dost, or this thou hast, and the like, the Churches are respectively intended; for the Sins reproved, the Repentance commanded, the Punishments threat∣ned, ate to be referred to the Churches, and not to the singular Angels only: and yet we do not think that Salmasius did intend, nor do we, that in formal denomination the Angels and Candlesticks were the same.

Secondly, The Angels of these Churches or Rulers were a Collective body, which we endeavoured to prove by such probabilities as Your Majesty takes no notice of, namely, the instance of the Church of Ephesus, where there were many Bishops, to whom the charge of that Church was by St. Paul at his final departure from them committed; as also by that expression, Rev. xi. 24. To you and to the rest in Thyatira: Which distincti∣on makes it very probable that the Angel is explained under that plurality, to you. The like to which many expressions may be found in these Epistles, which to interpret ac∣cording to the consentient Evidence of other Scriptures of the New Testament is not Safe only, but Solid and Evidential.

Thirdly, These Writings are directed as Epistolary Letters to Collective Bodies usually are, (that is) to One, but intended to the Body: which Your Majesty illustrateth by Your sending a Message to Your Two Houses, and directing it to the Speaker of the House of Peers: which as it doth not hinder (we confess) but that the Speaker is one single Person; so it doth not prove at all that the Speaker is always the same per∣son; or if he were, that therefore because Your Message is directed to him, he is the Governour or Ruler of the two Houses in the least. And so Your Majesty hath gi∣ven clear instance, that tho these Letters be directed to the Angels, yet that not∣withstanding they might neither be Bishops, nor yet perpetual Moderators. For the several opinions specified in Your Majesties Paper, three of them, by easy and fair ac∣commodation (as we declared before) are soon reduced and united amongst themselves, and may be holden without recess from the received Judgment of the Christian Church, by such as are far from meriting that Aspersion which is cast upon the Re∣formed Divines by Popish Writers, that they have divided themselves from the Common and received Judgment of the Christian Church; which Imputation, we hope, was not in Your Majesties intention to lay upon us, until it be made clear that it is the common and received Judgment of the Christian Church that now is, or of that in former Ages, that the Angels of the Churches were Bishops, having Prelacy as well over Pastors as People within their Churches.

[ 17] In the following Discourse we did deny that the Apostles were to have any Suc∣cessors in their Office, and affirmed only Two Orders of ordinary and standing Offi∣cers in the Church, viz. Presbyters and Deacons. Concerning the former of which Your Majesty refers to what you had in part already declared; That in those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles, as namely the Measure of their Gifts, &c. They had no Successors in eundem gradum; but in those things which were not ex∣traordinary, as the Office of Teaching and Power of Governing (which are necessary

for the Service of the Church in all times) they were to have, and had, Successors. Where Your Majesty delivers a Doctrine new to us; namely, that the Apostles had Successors into their Offices, not into their Abilities: For (besides that Succession is not properly into Abilities, but into Office, we cannot say that one succeeds another in his Learning, or Wit, or Parts, but into his Room and Function) we conceive that the Office Apo∣stolical was extraordinary in whole, because their Mission and Commission was so, and the service or work of Teaching and Governing being to continue in all times, doth not render their Office Ordinary; as the Office of Moses was not rendered Ordinary, because many works of Government exercised by him were re-committed to the stand∣ing Elders of Israel. And if they have Successors, it must be either into their whole Office, or into some parts. Their Successors into the whole (however differing from them in measure of Gifts and peculiar Qualifications) must be called Apostles, the same Office gives the same Denomination; and then we shall confess that Bishops, if they be their Successors in Office, are of Divine Institution, because the Apostolical Office was so. If their Successors come into part of their Office only, the Presbyters may as well be called their Successors as the Bishops, and so indeed they are called by some of the anci∣ent Fathers, Irenoeus, Origen, Hierome and others. Whereas in truth the Apostles have not properly Successors into Office, but the ordinary Power of Teaching and Govern∣ing (which is setled in the Church for continuance) is instituted and settled in the hands of ordinary Officers by a New Warrant and Commission, according to the rules of Ordination and Calling in the Word, which the Bishop hath not yet produced for himself, and without which he cannot challenge it upon the general allusive Speeches used by the Fathers without scruple.

[ 18] And whereas Your Majesty numbers the extent of their work amongst those things which were extraordinary in the Apostles; we could wish that You had decla∣red whether it belong to their Mission or Vnction: for we humbly conceive, that their Authoritative Power to do their Work in all places of the World did properly belong to their Mission, and consequently that their Office as well as their Abilities was ex∣traordinary; and so by Your Majesties own Concession not to be succeeded into by the Bishops.

[ 19] As to the Orders of standing Officers of the Church, Your Majesty doth reply, That although in the places cited, Phil. i. 1. i Tim. iii. 8. there be no mention but of the two Or∣ders only of Bishops or Presbyters, and Deacons, yet it is not thereby proved that there is no other standing Office in the Church besides: Which we humbly conceive is justly proved, not only because there are no other named, but because there is no rule of Ordaining any third, no Warrant or way of Mission; and so Argument is as good as can be made, a non causa ad non effectum: for we do not yet apprehend that the Bishops pretending to the Apostolick Office do also pretend to the same manner of Mission; nor do we know that those very many Divines that have asserted two Or∣ders only, have concluded it from any other grounds than the Scriptures cited.

[ 20] There appear (as your Majesty saith) two other manifest Reasons why the Office of Bishops might not be so proper to be mentioned in those places. And we humbly conceive there is a third more manifest than those two, viz. because it was not.

[ 21] The one Reason given by Your Majesty is, because in the Churches which the Apostles themselves planted, they placed Presbyters under them for the Office of Teaching, but re∣served in their own hands the Power of Governing those Churches, for a longer or shorter time, before they set Bishops over them. Which, under Your Majesties favour, is not so much a reason why Bishops are not mentioned to be in those places, as that they indeed were not. The variety of Reasons (may we say? or Conjectures) rendred why Bishops were not set up at first, as namely, because fit men could not be so soon found out, which is Epiphanius his reason; or for remedy of Schism, which is Jerome's rea∣son; or because the Apostles saw it not expedient, which is Your Majesties reason; doth shew that this Cause labours under a manifest weakness. For the Apostles reserving in their own hands the power of Governing, we grant it, they could no more devest themselves of power of Governing, than (as Dr. Bilson saith) they could lose their Apostleship: had they set no Bishops in all Churches, they had no more parted with their power of Governing than they did in setting up the Presbyters; for we have proved that Presby∣ters, being called Rulers, Governors, Bishops, had the power of Governing in Ordinary

committed to them, as well as the Office of Teaching, and that both the Keys (as they are called) being by our Saviour committed into one hand, were not by the Apostle divided into two. Nor do we see how the Apostle could reasonably commit the Go∣vernment of the Church to the Presbyters of Ephesus, Acts 20. and yet reserve the power of Governing (viz. in Ordinary) in his own hands, who took his solemn leave of them, as never to see their faces more. As concerning that part of the power of Go∣vernment, which for distinction sake, may be called Legislative, and which is one of the three fore-mentioned things challenged by the Bishops, viz. giving Rules, the reser∣ving of it in the Apostles hands hindred not but that, in Your Majesties Judgment, Timothy and Titus were Bishops of Ephesus and Crete, to whom the Apostle gives Rules for Ordering and Governing of the Church: Nor is there any more reason that the Apo∣stles reserving that part of the Power of Governing which is called Executive in such cases and upon such occasions as they thought meet, should hinder the setting up of Bi∣shops, if they had intended it; and therefore the reserving of Power in their hands can be no greater reason why they did not set us Bishops at the first, than that they ne∣ver did. And since (by Your Majesties Concession) the Presbyters were plac'd by the Apostles first, in the Churches by them planted, and that with Power of Govern∣ing, as we prove by Scripture; You must prove the super-institution of a Bishop over the Presbyters by the Apostles in some after-times, or else we must conclude that the Bishop got both his Name and Power of Government out of the Presbyters hand, as the Tree in the wall roots out the stones by little and little as it self grows.

As touching Philippi, where Your Majesty saith it may be probable there was yet no Bishop, it is certain there were many like them, who were also at Ephesus, to whom if only the Office of Teaching did belong, they had the most laborious and honourable part, that which was less honourable being reserved in the Apostles hands, and the Churches left in the mean time without ordinary Government.

The other Reason given why only two Orders are mentioned in those places is, be∣cause he wrote in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus to them that were Bishops, so there was no need to write any thing concerning the Choice or Qualification of any other sort of Officers than such as belonged to their Ordination or Inspection; which were Presbyters and Deacons only, and no Bishops.

[ 22] The former Reason why only two Orders are mentioned in the Epistle to the Philip∣pians, was, because there was yet no Bishop; this latter Reason why the same two only are mentioned in these Epistles, is, because there was no Bishop to be Ordained. We might own the reason for good, if there may be found any rule for the Ordination of the other Order of Bishops in some other place of Scripture: but if the Ordination can∣not be found, how should we find the Order? And it is reasonable to think that the Apo∣stle in the Chapter formerly alledged, i Tim. iii. where he passes immediately from the Bishop to the Deacon, would have distinctly exprest, or at least hinted, what sort of Bishops he meant, whether the Bishop over Presbyters, or the Presbyter-Bishop, to have avoided the confusion of the Name, and to have set as it were some matk of difference in the Escocheon of the Presbyter-Bishop, if there had been some other Bishop of a higher house. And whereas Your Majesty saith, there was no need to write to them about a Bishop in a distinct sense, who belonged not to their Ordination and Inspecti∣on: we conceive that in Your Majesties judgment, Bishops might then have Ordained Bishops like themselves; for there was then no Canon forbidding one single Bishop to ordain another of his own rank; and there being many Cities in Crete, Titus might have found it expedient (as those ancient Fathers that call him Arch-bishop think he did) to have set up Bishops in some of those Cities. So that. this Reason fights against the Principles of those that hold Timothy and Titus to have been Bishops. For our part, we believe that these Rules belonged not to Timothy and Titus with strict limitation to Ephesus and Crete, but respectively to all the places or Churches where they might come, and to all that shall at any time have the Office of Ordaining and Governing; as it is writ∣ten in the same Chapter, i Tim. iii. 14, 15. These things I have written unto thee, &c. that thou mayest know how to behave thy self in the House of God, which is the Church. And therefore if there had been any proper Character or Qualification of a Bishop di∣stinct from a Presbyter, if any Ordination or Office; we think the Apostle would have signified it; but because he did not, we conclude (and the more strongly from the in∣sufficiency of Your Majesties two Reasons) that there are only two Orders of Officers, and consequently that a Bishop is not superior to a Presbyter: for we find not (as we said in our Answer) that one Officer is superior to another who is of the same Order.

Concerning the Ages succeeding the Apostles.

[ 23] Your Majesty having in Your first Paper said, that You could not in Conscience consent to Abolish Episcopal Government, because You did conceive it to be of Apo∣stolical Institution, practised by the Apostles themselves, and by them committed and derived to particular persons as their Successors, and hath ever since till these last times been exercised by Bishops in all the Churches of Christ: we thought it necessary in our Answer, to subjoyn to that we had said out of the Scriptures, the Judgment of divers ancient Writers and Fathers, by whom Bishops were not acknowledged as a Divine, but as an Ecclesiastical Institution, as that which might very much conduce both to the easing of Your Majesties Scruple, to consider that howsoever Episcopal Government was generally current, yet the superscription was not judged Divine by some of those that either were themselves Bishops, or lived under that Government; and to the vindication of the opinion which we hold from the prejudice of Novellisme, or of Recess from the Judgment of all Antiquity.

[ 24] We do as firmly believe (as to matter of fact) that Chrysostome and Austin were Bi∣shops, as that Aristotle was a Philosopher, Cicero an Orator; though we should rather call our Faith and belief thereof certain in matter of fact, upon humane Testimonies uncontroll'd, than infallible, in respect of the Testimonies themselves. But whereas Your Majesty saith, That the darkness of the History of the Church in the times succee∣ding the Apostles is a strong Argument for Episcopacy, which notwithstanding that dark∣ness hath found so full proof by unquestioned Catalogues, as scarce any other matter of fact hath found the like: we humbly conceive, that those fore-mentioned times were dark to the Catalogue-makers, who must derive the series of Succession from and through those Historical darknesses, and so make up their of Catalogues very much from Traditions and Reports, which can give no great Evidence, because they agree not amongst themselves: and that which is the great blemish of their Evidence is, that the nearer they come to the Apostles times (wherein they should be most of all clear, to establish the Succession firm and clear at first) the more doubtful, uncertain, and indeed contradictory to one another, are the Testimonies. Some say that Clemens was first Bi∣shop of Rome after Peter; some say the third: and intricacies about the Order of Succession in Linus, Anacletus, Clemens, and another called Cletus (as some affirm) are inextricable. Some say that Titus was Bishop of Crete; some say, Arch-Bishop; and some, Bishop of Dalmatia. Some say that Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus; and some say that John was Bishop of Ephesus at the sametime. Some say that Polycarpus was the first Bishop of Smyrna; another saith that he succeeded one Bucolus; and another, that Aristo was first. Some say that Alexandria had but one Bishop, and other Cites two; and others, that there was but one Bishop of one City at the same time. And how should those Catalogues be unquestionable, which must be made up out of Testimo∣nies that fight one with another? We confess that the Ancient Fathers, Tertullian, Irenoeus, &c. made use of Succession as an Argument against Hereticks or Innova∣tors, to prove that they had the traduces Apostolici seminis, and that the Godly and Orthodox Fathers were on their side. But that which we now have in hand is Succes∣sion in Office; which, according to the Catalogues, resolves it self into some Apostle or Evangelist, as the first Bishop of such a City or Place, who (as we conceive) could not be Bishops of those places, being of higher Office; though, according to the language of after-times, they might by them that drew up the Catalogues be so called, because they planted and founded, or watered those Churches to which they are Entitled, and had their greatest residence in them. Or else the Catalogues are drawn from some eminent men that were of great veneration and reverence in the times and places where they lived, and Presidents or Moderators of the Presbyteries whereof themselves were Mem∣bers: from whom to pretend the Succession of after-Bishops, is as if it should be said that Caesar was Successor to the Roman Consuls. And we humbly conceive that there are some Rites and Ceremonies used continually in the Church of old, which are asser∣ted to be found in the Apostolical and Primitive times, and yet have no colour of Di∣vine Institution; and, which is Argument above all other, the Fathers, whose Names we exhibited to your Majesty in our Answer, were doubtless acquainted with the Cata∣logues of Bishops who had been before them, and yet did hold them to be of Ecclesiastical Institution.

[ 25] And lest Your Majesty might reply, That however the Testimonies and Cata∣logues may vary, or be mistaken, in the order, or times, or names of those persons that

succeeded the Apostles, yet all agree that there was a Succession of some persons; and so though the credit of the Catalogues be infirmed, yet the thing intended is confirmed thereby. We grant that a Succession of men to feed and govern those Churches while they continued Churches, cannot be denied, and that the Apostles and Evangelists, that planted and watered those Churches, (though extraordinary and temporary Offi∣cers) were by Ecclesiastical Writers, in compliance with the Language and usage of their own times, called Bishops; and so were other eminent men, of chief note, presi∣ding in the Presbyteries of the Cities or Churches, called by such Writers as wrote after the division or distinction of the names of Presbyters and Bishops. But that those first and ancientest Presbyters were Bishops in proper sense, according to Your Majesties description, invested with power over Presbyters and people, to whom (as distinct from Presbyters) did belong the power of Ordaining, giving Rules, ahd Censures, we hum∣bly conceive can never be proved by authentick or competent Testimonies. And grant∣ing that Your Majesty should prove the Succession of Bishops from the Primitive times seriatim; yet if these from whom You draw, and through whom You derive it, be found either more than Bishops, as Apostles, and extraordinary persons, or less than Bi∣shops, as merely first Presbyters, having not one of the three Essentials to Episcopal Go∣vernment (mentioned by Your Majesty) in their own hand; it will follow, that all that Your Majesty hath proved by this Succession is the Homonymy and equivocal accep∣tation of the word Episcopus.

[ 26] For Clemens his Testimony, which Your Majesty conceiveth to be made use of as our old fallacy, from the promiscuous use of the words to infer the indistinction of the things; we refer our selves to himself in his Epistle, now in all mens hands, whose Testimony we think cannot be eluded but by the old Artifice of hiding the Bishop under the Presby∣ters name: for they that have read his whole Epistle, and have considered that himself is called a Bishop, may doubt of Clement's opinion concerning the distinct Offices of Bishops and Presbyters, or rather not doubt of it, if only his own Epistle may be im∣panel'd upon the Inquest. Concerning Ignatius his Epistles, Your Majesty is pleased to use some earnestness of expression, charging some of late, without any regard of inge∣nuity or truth, out of their partial disaffection to Bishops, to have endeavour∣ed to discredit his Writings. One of those cited by us cannot (as we con∣ceive) be suspected of disaffection to Bishops; and there are great Arguments drawn out of those Epistles themselves, betraying their insincerity, adulterate mix∣tures, and interpolations; so that Ignatius cannot be distinctly known in Ignatius. And if we take him in gross, we make him the Patron (as Baronius and the rest of the Popish Writers do) of such rites and observations as the Church in his time cannot be thought to have owned. He doth indeed give testimony to the Prelacy of a Bishop above a Presbyter; that which may justly render him suspected is, that he gives too much. Honour (saith he) the Bishop, as God's high Priest, and after him you must honour the King. He was indeed a holy Martyr, and his writings have suffered Martyrdom as well as he: Corruptions could not go current but under the credit of worthy Names.

[ 27] That which Your Majesty saith in Your fourth Paragraph, that we might have added, (if we had pleased) That James, Timothy, Titus, &c. were constituted and ordained Bishops of the forementioned places respectively, and that all the Bishops of those times were reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office; we could not have added it without prejudice (as we humbly conceive) to the truth: for the Apostles did not ordain any of themselves Bishops, nor could they do it, for even by Your Majesties Concession they were Bishops before, viz. as they were Apostles; nor could any Apostle his choice of a certain Region or place to exercise his function in whilst he pleased, ren∣der him a Bishop any more, than Paul was Bishop of the Gentiles, Peter of the Circum∣cision. Neither did the Apostles ordain the Evangelists Bishops of those places unto which they sent them; nor were the Bishops of those times any more than, as Your Majesty saith, reputed Successors to the Apostles in their Episcopal Office; they came after the Apostles in the Churches by them planted, so might Presbyters do. But that's not properly succession, at least not succession into Office; and this we say with a Salvo to our Assertion, That in those times there were no such Bishops distinct from Presby∣ters. Neither do we understand, whether the words Episcopal Office in this Section re∣fer to the Bishops or Apostles: for in reference to Apostles it insinuates a distinction of the Apostles Office into Apostolical and Episcopal, or that the Office Apostolical was wholly Episcopal; unto neither of which we can give our consent for reasons

forementioned. To the testimonies by us recited in proof of two only Orders, Your Majesty answers, first, That the promiscuous use of the names of Bishops and Presbyters is imported. That which Your Majesty not long ago called our old fallacy, is now Your Answer, only with this difference: we under promiscuous names hold the same Office; Your Majesty under promiscuous names supposes two, which if, as it is often asserted, was but once proved, we should take it for a determination of this Controver∣sie. Secondly, that they relate to a School-point, or a nicety, utrum Episcopatus fit or do vel gradus; both sides of the questionists or disputants in the mean time acknowledging the right of Church-government in the Bishops alone. It is confest by us, that that question as it is stated by Popish Authors is a curious nicety, to which we have no eye or reference; for though the same Officers may differ from, and excel others of the same order in Gifts or Qualifications, yet the Office it self is one and the same, without difference or de∣grees, as one Apostle or Presbyter is not superior to another in the degree of Office; they that are of the same Order are of the same degree in respect of Office, as having Power and Authority to the same Acts. Nor doth the Scripture warrant or allow any Superiority of one over another of the same Order; and therefore the proving of two Orders only in the Church is a demonstration that Presbyters and Bishops are the same. In which point the Scripture will counter-balance the testimonies of those that assert three degrees or orders, though ten for one. But, for easing of Your Majesty of the trouble of produ∣cing testimonies against those cited by us, we make this humble motion, that the Regi∣ments on both sides may be discharged out of the field, and the Point disputed by Dint of holy Scripture. Id verum quod primum.

[ 28] Having passed through the Argumentative parts of Your Majesties Reply, wherein we should account it a great happiness to have given Your Majesty any satisfaction, in order whereunto You pleased to honour us with this employment, we shall contract our selves in the remainder, craving Your Majesties pardon, if You shall conceive us to have been too much in the former, and too little in that which follows. We honour the pious intentions and munificence of Your Royal Progenitors; and do acknowledge that Orna∣mental Accessions granted to the Person do not make any substantial change in the Of∣fice: the real difference betwixt that Episcopal Government which first obtained in the Church, and the present Hierarchy, consists in ipso regimine & modo regiminis; which cannot be clearly demonstrated in particulars, until it be agreed on both sides what that Episcopacy was then, and what the Hierarchy is now; and then it would appear whe∣ther these three forementioned Essentials of Episcopal Government were the same in both. For the Power under Christian Princes and under Pagan is one and the same, though the Exercise be not. And we humbly receive Your Majesties pious Advertisement, (not unlike that of Constantine's) stirring us up, as men unbiassed with private interests, to study the nearest Accommodation and best resemblance to the Apostolical and Primitive times. But for Your Majesties Salvo to the Bishops sole power of Ordination and Jurisdi∣ction, and that distinction of Ordination, Authoritative in the Bishop, and Concomitant in the Presbytery, which You seem to found upon these two Texts, 11 Tim. i. 6. 1 Tim. IV. 14. and which is used by Dr. Bilson, and other Defenders of Episcopacy, in explica∣tion of that Canon of the fourth Council of Carthage, which enjoyns the joynt imposition of the Bishops and Presbyters hands, we shall give Your Majesty an accompt when we shall be called to the inquisition thereof: Albeit that we do not for the present see, but that this Proviso of Your Majesty renders our accommodation to the Apostolical and Pri∣mitive times (whereunto You did exhort us) unfeisible. We notwithstanding do ful∣ly profess our acknowledgement of subordination of the outward exercise of Jurisdiction to the Sovereign power, and our accomptableness to the Laws of the Land.

[ 29] As for Your Majesties three Questions of great importance, Whether there be a certain form of Government left by Christ and his Apostles to be observed by all Christian Churches; Whether it bind perpetually, or be upon occasion alterable in whole or in part; Whether that certain form of Government be the Episcopal, Presbyterian, or some other differing from them hoth: The whole Volume of Ecclesiastical Policy is contained in them; and we hope that neither Your Majesty expected of us a particular Answer to them at this time, nor will take offence at us, if we hold only to that which is the question in order to the Bill of Abolition. For we humbly profess our readiness to serve Your Majesty, in An∣swering these or any other questions within our proper cognisance, according to the pro∣portion of our mean abilities.

[ 30] For Your Majesties Condescension, in vouchsafing us the liberty and honour of exa∣mining Your learned Reply cloathed in such Excellency of Style, and for Your exceeding Candour shewed to such men as we are, and for the acceptation of our humble duty, we render to Your Majesty most humble Thanks, and shall pray,

That such a Pen in the hand of such Abilities may ever be employed in a Subject worthy of it.

That your Majesty would please to consider, that in this point under debate Succession is not the best Clue, and most certain and ready way to find out the Original; for to go that way, is to go the furthest way about, yea, to go backward: and when You are at the Spring, viz. the Scripture it self, You go to the Rivers end, that You may seek the Spring.

And that the Lord would guide Your Majesty, and the two Houses of Parliament, by the right hand of his Counsel, and shew You a happy way of healing our unhappy Dif∣ferences, and of settling the Commonwealth of Jesus Christ, which is the Church; so as all the members thereof may live under You in all Godliness, Peace and Honesty.

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.* 1.33 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.* 1.34 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

Bishops challenge no more or other power to belong unto them, in respect of their Episcopal Office, than what properly falleth under one of these three. The Words are true; for he that believeth they challenge not so much, might safely say they challenge no more. But the Inference is not good; For he that saith they challenge no more, doth not ne∣cessarily imply they challenge all that. In the power of Ordination, which is purely spiritual, His Majesty conceiveth the Bishops challenge to have been much-what the same in all times of the Church; and therefore it is that the matter of Ordination is most insisted on, as the most constant and most evident difference between Bishops and Presbyters, especially after the times of Constantine, which His Majesty by your re∣lating to Chrysostom and Hierom taketh to be the same you call the times of Grown Epis∣copacy. But His Majesty seeth no necessity that the Bishops challenge to the power of Jurisdiction should be at all times as large as the exercise thereof appeareth at some times to have been; the exercise thereof being variable according to the various conditions of the Church in different times. And therefore His Majesty doth not believe that the Bi∣shops under Christian Princes do challenge such an amplitude of Jurisdiction to belong unto them in respect of their Episcopal Office precisely, as was exercised in the Primi∣tive times by Bishops before the days of Constantine. The reason of the difference being evident, That in those former times under Pagan Princes the Church was a distinct Body of it self, divided from the Commonwealth, and so was to be governed by its own Rules and Rulers; the Bishops therefore of those times, tho they had no outward coercive power over mens Persons or Estates, yet inasmuch as every Christian man, when he became a Member of the Church, did ipso facto, and by that his own voluntary act, put himself under their Government, they exercised a very large power of Jurisdiction in Spiritualibus, in making Ecclesiastical Canons, receiving Accusations, conventing the Accused, examining Witnesses, judging of Crimes, excluding such as they found guilty of scandalous offences from the Lord's Supper, enjoyning Penances upon them, casting them out of the Church, receiving them again upon their Repentance, &c. And all this they exercised as well over Presbyters as others. But after that the Church under Chri∣stian Princes began to be incorporated into the Commonwealth, whereupon there must of necessity follow a complication of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Powers, the Jurisdicti∣on of Bishops (in the outward exercise of it) was subordinate unto and limitable by the supreme Civil power, and hath been, and is at this day, so acknowledged by the Bi∣shops of this Realm.

Thirdly, you seem to affirm in a Parenthesis, as if nothing were confessed to have been extraordinary in the Apostles but their Gifts and Enablements only; whereas His Majesty in that Paper hath in express words named as Extraordinaries also, the Extent of their Charge, and the Infallibility of their Doctrine, without any meaning to exclude those not named, as their immediate Calling, and if there be any other of like reason.

Fourthly, for the Claim to a jus Divinum, His Majesty was willing to decline both the Term (as being by reason of the different acception of it subject to misconstruction) and the dispute, whether by Christ, or his Apostles. Nevertheless, altho His Majesty sees no cause to dislike their opinion who derive the Episcopal power originally from Christ himself, without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it them∣selves, or derived it to others; Yet for that the practice in them is so clear and evident, and the warrant from him exprest but in general Terms (As my Father sent me, so send I you, and the like) He chose rather (as others have done) to fix the claim of the power upon the practice, as the more evidential way, than upon the warrant, which by reason of the generality of expression would bear more dispute.

As to the Definition of Episcopacy. First, whereas you except against it, for that it is competent to Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Government as well as Episcopal,* 1.35 His Ma∣jesty thinketh you might have excepted more justly against it if it had been otherwise.

Secondly, His Majesty believeth that even in the persons by you named. (Timothy, Ti∣tus and the Angels) the definition in all the parts of it is to be found, viz. that they were all single persons; that they had their several peculiar Charges; and that with∣in their several precincts they had authority over Presbyters as well as others.

Neither, thirdly, doth His Majesty think it needful that any word be added to the Genus in the definition, or that the Scripture should any where put all the parts of the definition together. It would be a hard matter to give such a definition of an Apostle, or a Prophet, or an Evangelist, or a Presbyter, or a Deacon, or indeed almost of any thing, as that the parts thereof should be found in any place of Scripture put alto∣gether.

Fourthly, His Majesty consenteth with you, that the point in issue is not the Name or Work meerly, but the Office, and that it were a Fallacy to argue a particular Office from a General or Common work: But judgeth withal, that it can be no Fallacy to ar∣gue a Particular Office from such a work as is peculiar to that Office, and is as it were the formalis ratio thereof; and therefore no Fallacy from a work done by a single per∣son which a single Presbyter hath no right to do, to infer an Office in that person di∣stinct from the Office of a Presbyter.

As to the Scriptures cited by you,* 1.36 viz. Titus 1. Acts xx. 11 Peter v. First, when you say you take His Majesties Concession, That in those times of the Church and places of Scrip∣ture there was no distinct Office of Bishops and Presbyters; if you take it so, truly you take it gratis (His Majesty never gave it you:) and you mistake it too more ways than one; for, to speak properly, His Majesty made no Concession at all. It was rather a Preterition in order to the present business, and to avoid unnecessary disputes, which ought not to be interepreted as an acknowledgement of the Truth of your Expositions of those places. For his own express words are, [Although His Majesty be not sure that the Proof will reach so far in each of those Places.] Which words plainly evidence, that which you call His Majesties Concession to be indeed no Concession, but to have been meant ac∣cording to that form of Speech very usual in disputations, Dato, non Concesso. But in that Concession, such as it is, His Majesty is not yet able to imagine what you could find whereon to ground those words, That in those times of the Church there was no di∣stinct, &c. there being not any thing in the whole passage that carrieth the least sound that way, or that hath relation to any particular times of the Church. Neither is the Concession such as you take it, as it relateth to those places of Scripture: What His Majesty said was confessed on all sides (which are the words you take for a Concession) was but this, That supposing (but not granting) the word Bishop to be used in all those places to signifie a Presbyter, the Office and Work in those places mentioned as the Of∣fice and Work of a Bishop, are (upon that supposal) the Office and Work of a Presbyter; which is so manifest a Truth, that no man without admitting Contradictions can say the contrary. But how wide or short that is from what you make to be His Majesties Concession, your selves by comparing His words with yours may easily judge. But your selves a little after make a Concession which His Majesty (warned by your example how soon anothers meaning may be mistaken when his words are altered) is willing to take in the same words you give it, viz. When you say, and you bring reasons also to prove it, That it seemeth manifest that Ordination and Censures are not to be exercised by a single Presbyter.

Secondly, you repeat your Arguments formerly drawn from those places, and press the same from the force of the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and from the Circumstances of the Text, and otherwise; adding withal, that His Majesty hath waved the notice or an∣swer of something by you alledged therein. Hereunto His Majesty saith, that He waved not any thing in your former Paper for any great difficulty He conceived of answering it; but being desirous to contract His Answer, and knowing to what frailties Arguments drawn from Names and Words and Conjectural Expositions of Scripture are subject, He passed by such things as He deemed to be of least Consideration in order to the end of the whole Debate, to wit, the satisfaction of His Judgement and Conscience in the main bu∣siness. Otherwise His Majesty could have then told you, That there are who, by the like Conjectures, grounded (as seemeth to them,) upon some Probabilities in the Text, in∣terpret those places in the Acts and in St Peter, of Bishops properly so called, and in the restrained Ecclesiastical sense, rather than of ordinary Presbyters: That supposing them both meant of Ordinary Presbyters, the words 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 (which signifie to feed and oversee) might not unfitly be applied to them as inferior Pastors, in relation to their Flocks under their charge and oversight (the Flock being in both the places expresly mentioned) which hindreth not, but that the same words may in a more particular manner be appropriated to Bishops in respect of that Authority and oversight they have even over Presbyters themselves also: That still granting your own interpretation of the word Bishop in that place to Titus, it can prove no more than that the two names in that place are given to the same Function: That from all the Premisses in your Paper there laid together, and supposed true, His Majesty doth not conceive it justly proved, That the Office of a Bishop and Presbyter is wholly the same, but at the most, That the Offices were not in those places distinguished by those Names.

Thirdly, if the Assignment of any particular Qualification, work or duty, unto a Bishop, di∣stinct from a Presbyter, by the Scripture, would (as you say) put this question near to an is∣sue;

His Majesty should well have hoped that it might soon be brought to a near point, and that from the evidence of the Epistles onely of St. Paul to Timothy, wherein as he par∣ticulary expresseth the qualification, work, and duty of Presbyters and Deacons, that Ti∣mothy might know what persons were fit to be ordained unto those Offices; so in the di∣rections given to Timothy throughout those Epistles, he sufficiently describeth the quali∣fication, work and duty of a Bishop, that Timothy might know how to behave himself in the exercise of his Episcopal Office, as well in Ordaining as in Governing the Church.

As to the signification of the word Episcopus,* 1.37 the primary signification thereof, and the application of it to Church-Officers, you acknowledge; and that the same was after by Ecclesiastical usage appropriated to Bishops you deny not: But the distinction of Epi∣scopus Gregis and Episcopus Pastorum you do not allow. If you disallow it for the unfitness of the word, as may seem by that passage, where you say that His Majesty hath said that Episcopus signifieth a Keeper of Shepherds, His Majesty thinketh you might very well have spared that exception: For if there be a person that hath the oversight of many Shep∣herds under him, there is no more impropriety in giving such a person the style of Epis∣copus Pastorum, than there is in using the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or in calling Doeg the Master of Saul's Herdsmen. And for the thing it self, it cannot be denied but that the Apostles, and Timothy and Titus, (by what claim, ordinary or extraordinary, as to the present busi∣ness it matters not) had the oversight and authority over many Pastors and were there∣fore truly and really Episcopi Pastorum.

The appropriation of the names of Episcopus and Presbyter to these distinct Offices, considering that it was done so early, and received so universally in the Church, as by the writings of Clemens, Ignatius, the Canons commonly called of the Apostles, and other ancient evidences doth appear, His Majesty hath great reason to believe that it was done by consent of the Primitive Bishops, merely in honour of the Apostles, out of their re∣spect and reverence to whose persons and personal Prerogatives. they chose to call them∣selves Bishops rather than Apostles in common usage; although they made no scru∣ple to maintain their succession from the Apostles, when they spake of things proper to their Episcopal Function, nor to use upon occasion the terms of Apostle and Apostoli∣cal in that sense. The truth of all which is to be seen frequently in the writings of the Ancients.

The Testimonies of so many Writers, ancient and modern, as have been produced for the Scripture-original of Bishops, His Majesty conceiveth to be of so great importance in a question of this nature, that He thinks himself bound both in Charity and Reason to believe, that so many men of such quality would not have asserted the same with so much confidence, but upon very good ground. The Men respectively of high estimation and reverend authority in the Church, worthily renowned for their Learning and Piety, of moderate and even Passions, of Orthodox belief, sundry of them uninteressed in the Quar∣rel, and some of them of later times by interest and education byassed the other way. Their assertions positive, peremptory and full of assurances (Constat, & nemo ignorat, it is clear, none can be ignorant, and other such like expressions;) namely That Christ con∣stituted Bishops in the Apostles, That it was founded upon a divine Law, That Episco∣pacy is 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 the Ordinance of God, That it seemed good to the Holy Ghost so to order it, &c. Insomuch as they accounted Aerius an Heretick for holding the con∣trary. And this their Judgment they delivered as led thereunto by evidence of Scri∣pture (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, God's Word teacheth it; apertis Scripturae testimoniis, it appeareth by plain testimonies of Scripture; discimus ex hoc loco, from this place we learn, and the like.) Which testimonies should they be encountred (as His Majesty doth not yet believe they can be) with a cloud of Witnesses to the contrary, for number, and in every other respect, equal thereunto; yet should not the Authority of their evidence in reason be much lessened thereby; inasmuch as one Witness for the Affirmative, ought to be of more value than ten for the Negative; and the testimony of one person that is not interessed, than of an hundred that are.

And whereas you seem in this Question to decline this kind of trial, because matter of Right is properly triable by Scripture; His Majesty conceiveth this present Question, in what terms soever proposed, to be yet in the true stating of it, and in the last Re∣solution, clearly a Question of Fact, and not of Right: For what Right soever the Bi∣shops have, or pretend to have, must be derived from the Fact of Christ or his Apo∣stles. Which matter of Fact, if it be not in the most plain Historical manner that may be, related in the Scriptures, but is to be deduced thence by topical remote infe∣rences and probability of Conjectures, the most rational and proper expedient for the

finding out of the Right is to have recourse to the Judgment, but especially to the Practice, of the nearest and subsequent times, according to the received Maxims, Lex currit cum Praxi, & Consuetudo optimus interpres Legum. Now he that shall find by all the best Records extant, that the distinction of Bishops from, and the Superio∣rity over Presbyters, was so universally and speedily spread over the face of the whole World, and their Government submitted unto so unanimously by the Presbyters, that there never was any considerable opposition made there-against before Aerius, (and that cryed down as an Heresie) nor since, till this last Age; and shall duly consider withal, that if Episcopal Government had not then been conceived to have had its in∣stitution from the Authority of Christ or his Apostles, or if any other form of Church-Government could have pretended to such institution, it had been the most impossible thing in the world, when there neither was any outward coercive power to inforce it, nor could be any General Council to establish it, to have introduced such a Form of Government so suddenly and quietly into all Christian Churches, and not the Spirit of any one Presbyter, for ought that appeareth, for above Three Hundred years, to have been provoked either through Zeal, Ambition, or other motive, to stand up in the just defence of their own and the Churches liberty against such an Usurpation; His Maje∣sty believeth that whosoever shall consider the premisses, together with the Scripture∣evidences that are brought for that Government, will see reason enough to conclude the same to have something of Divine Institution in it, notwithstanding all the evasi∣ons aad objections that the subtil wit of man can devise to perswade the contrary. And therefore His Majesty thinketh it fit plainly to tell you, that such Conjectural In∣terpretations of Scripture as He hath yet met with in this Argument, how handsom∣ly soever set off, are not Engines of strength enough to remove Him from that Judg∣ment wherein He hath been setled from His Childhood, and findeth so consonant to the Judgment of Antiquity, and to the constant Practice of the Christian Church for so many hundred years; which in a matter of this nature ought to weigh more than mere Conjectural Inferences from Scripture-Texts that are not so attested. Which ha∣ving now once told you, His Majesty thinketh Himself discharged from the necessity of making so large and particular an Answer to every Allegation in the sequel of your Reply, as hitherto He hath done.

As to the Apostles Mission and Succession;* 1.38 To make His Answer the shorter to so long a discourse, His Majesty declareth, that His meaning was not by distinguishing the Mission and Vnction of the Apostles, so to confine them as if they should relate precisely and exclusively, the one to the Office, the other to the Abilities; but that they did more especially and eminently so relate: For the Apostles after their last Mission, (Matth. xxviii. 19, 20.) whereby they were further warranted to their Office and Work, were yet to wait for that promised anointing, (Luke xxiv. 49. Acts i. 4.) the special effect whereof was the enduing them with Gifts of the Holy Ghost, for the better and more effectual performing of that their Work and Office. Nor was it His Majesties meaning to restrain the Extraordinaries in the Apostolical Office to those Gifts only: (for His Majesty afterwards in the same Paper mentioneth other Extraor∣dinaries also, as before is said) but only to instance in those Gifts, as one sort of Ex∣traordinaries, wherein the Apostles were to have no Successors. But His Majesties full meaning was, that the whole Apostolical Office (setting aside all and only what was personal and extraordinary in them) consisted in the work of Teaching and Govern∣ing; which being both of necessary and perpetual use in the Church to the worlds end, the Office therefore was also to continue, and consequently, the persons of the Apostles being mortal, to be transmitted and derived to others in succession: And that the Or∣dinary Successors of the Apostles immediately, and into the whole Office both of Teaching and Governing, are properly the Bishops; the Presbyters succeeding them also, but in part, and into the Office of Teaching only, and that mediately and subor∣dinately to the Bishops, by whom they are to be ordained and authorized thereunto, which His Majesty taketh not to be, as you call it, a dissolving of the Apostolical Office.

Now the ground of what His Majesty hath said concerning the manner of Succession to the Apostles, that it may appear not to have been said gratis, is this; The things which the Scriptures record to have been done by Christ or his Apostles, or by others at their appointment, are of three sorts, some acts of Power merely extraordinary; others acts of an ordinary power, but of necessary and perpetual use; othersome, lastly, and those not a few, Occasional and Prudential, fitted to the present condition

of the Church in several times. To the Apostles in matters of the first sort none pretend succession; nor are either the Examples of what the Apostles themselves did, or the dire∣ctions that they gave to others what they should do, in matters of the third sort, to be drawn into consequence so far as to be made necessary Rules, binding all succeeding Church-officers in all Times to perpetual observation. So that there remain the things of the middle sort only, which we may call Substantials, into which the Apostles are to have ordinary and standing Successors. But then the difficulty will be, by what certain marks Extraordinaries, Substantials and Prudentials may be known and di∣stinguished each from other. Evident it is, the Scriptures do not afford any particular discriminating Characters whereby to discern them; the Acts of all the three sorts being related in the like narrative forms, and the directions of all the three sorts ex∣pressed in the like preceptive forms. Recourse therefore must of necessity be had to those two more general Criterions [the Laws of all human actions] Reason and Com∣mon Usage. Our own Reason will tell us, that instructing the People of God in the Christian Faith, exhorting them to Piety and good Works, administring the Sacra∣ments, &c. which belong to the Office of Teaching; that Ordaining of Ministers, Inspection over their Lives and Doctrines, and other Administrations of Ecclesiastical Affairs belonging to the Office of Governing, are matters of great importance, and necessary concernment to the Church in all ages and times; and therefore were to be concredited to standing Officers in a Line of succession, and accordingly were judged, and the continuance of them preserved in the constant usage of the Churches of Christ: But that, on the other side, the decrees concerning Abstinence from Blood and Strang∣led, Acts xv. the Directions given for the ordering some things in the Church-Assem∣blies, i Cor. xiv. for making Provisions for the Poor, i Cor. xvi. 1. for the choice and maintenance of Widows, i Tim. v. for the enoiling of the sick, James v. 14. and other like, were but Occasional, Prudential and Temporary, and were so esteemed by the Churches; and the practice of them accordingly laid aside. So for the Succession into the Apostolical Office, we find in the Scriptures Evidence clear enough, that the Apo∣stles committed to others, as namely to Timothy and Titus, the Power both of Teaching and Governing the Churches. And common Reason and Prudence dictating to us, that it is good for the edifying of the Church, that there should be many Teachers within a competent precinct, but not so that there should be many Governours; and the difference of Bishops and Presbyters to the purposes aforesaid, having been by continual usage recei∣ved and preserved in the Christian Church, down from the Apostles to the present times; His Majesty conceiveth the succession of Bishops to the Apostles into so much of their Office as was ordinary and perpetual, and such a distinction of Bishops and Presbyters as His Majesty hath formerly expressed, needeth no further Confirmation from Scrip∣ture (to such as are willing to make use of their Reason also, which in interpreting Scripture upon all other occasions they are inforced to do) nor any thing by you pro∣duced in this Paragraph any further Answer: only that distinction of Eminently and Formally, because you illustrate it by instancing in Himself, His Majesty could not but take notice of, which He either understandeth not, or thinketh your Illustration thereof not to be very apposite: for Actions and Operations flow from the Forms of things, and de∣monstrate the same, as Effects do their Causes. The Apostles therefore acting in the or∣dinary exercise of Church-Government, did act not Eminently only, but Formally also, as Bishops rather than Apostles.

As Concerning Timothy and Titus.

First, Whether they were Evangelists or no, His Majesty never meant to dispute: Only,* 1.39 because you often call for Scripture-proof, His Majesty thought fit to admonish you, that in your Answer you take two things for granted (viz. that Timothy and Ti∣tus were Evangelists and that Evangelists, were such Officers as you described) neither of which, if it should be denied, you could clearly prove from Scripture alone, without calling in the help of other Writers to attest it, as in your Reply you have now done Master Hooker's: neither have you indeed brought any thing in this Reply out of Scri∣pture to prove either of both, sufficient to convince him that were of a contrary mind.

Secondly, you seem (Sect. 12.) to mistake that which was the Third Point in that part of His Majesties Paper, which was not, Whether Timothy and Titus were Evange∣lists or no; (concerning which His Majesty neither did, nor doth contend) but Whe∣ther in the Church-Government they exercised, they acted as Evangelists (as you affirm) and so only as extraordinary Officers, or not. Zuinglius having said that the Name of a Bishop and Evangelist is the same thing, proveth it from ii Tim. iv. and concludeth,

Constat idem fuisse officium utriusque, Bishop and Evangelist the same Office both. Gerard saith, the word Evangelist in that place is taken generally, and not in the special sense, that is to say, for a Minister of the Gospel at large, (and the Context there indeed seem∣eth to import no more) and not for an Evangelist by peculiar Office. And Scultetus not only affirmeth, that Saint Paul appointed Timothy and Titus to Ephesus and Crete, not as Evangelists, but as Church-Governours; but saith further, that the Epistles written to them both do evince it, and also bringeth Reasons to prove it. Upon what particular Reasons Gillespy, &c. reject the conceit of their acting as Evangelists, His Majesty certainly knows not: But if this be one of their Arguments (as, to their best remembrance from whom His Majesty had the Information, it is) That if whatsoever is alleged from the Scripture to have been done by the Apostles, and by Timothy and Ti∣tus, in point of Ordination, Discipline and Government, may be eluded by this, that they acted therein as extraordinary Officers; there will be no proof at all from Scripture of any power left in any ordinary Church-Officer to the purposes aforesaid: His Majesty then re∣commendeth to your most sober thoughts to consider, First, how this Conceit of their acting as extraordinary Ministers only tends to the subversion of all Ministers, as well as of the Bishops, (since upon this very ground especially the Socinians deny all Mission and Ordination of Ministers in the Church); and Secondly, if the contrary be proved by Gillespy, &c. by good Arguments, that they acted as ordinary Officers in the Church, then, whether they have not thereby laid a better foundation for the claim of the Bi∣shops, (viz. of Governing the Churches as single persons in Ordinary Office) than either they or you are willing to acknowledg.

Thirdly, His Majesty thinketh it a great liberty which you take in rendring the sense of His Reply as you have done; viz. The Scriptures never call them Bishops, but the Fathers do, &c. Whereas if you had followed His sense in that Paper, you might rather have delivered thus, The Scripture describeth them as Bishops, and the Fathers call them so. For that of yours, The Scripture calls Timothy an Evangelist; some of late have re∣futed it, and rejected it with scorn: you should have said rather, The Scripture doth not any where affirm of Titus, nor clearly prove of Timothy, that they were (by peculiar Office) Evangelists; but that in governing the Churches they acted as Evangelists, or extraordinary Officers, is by sundry late Writers (the Evasion it self having been but of late time minted) refuted and rejected. For that of yours, The Scripture relates their motion from Church to Church; but some affirm them to be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete; It should have been, Neither doth their motion from Church to Church hinder but that they might afterward be fixed at Ephesus and in Crete: neither doth their being Bishops of Ephesus and Crete hinder but that they might afterwards, for propagation of the Gospel, be by the Apostles appointment often imployed other-where. For that of yours, The Scripture makes distinction of Evangelists and Pastors, but some say that Timo∣thy and Titus were both; It should have been, The Scripture maketh no such distinction of Evangelists and Pastors, but that the same persons might not only successively be both, but even at the same time also be called by both Names.

Fourthly, Tho you say, You do not undervalue the Testimonies and Catalogues mentioned, yet you endeavour (which cometh not far short of undervaluing) to lessen the reputa∣tion of both but too much. Of those Testimonies, by putting them off, as if, when they report Timothy and Titus and others to have been Bishops, they speak but vulgarly, or by way of allusion, and not exactly as to the point in Debate. But of Hierom, upon whom you chiefly rely in this cause, the contrary is evident, who in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, wherein he was to deliver things Fide Historica, and to describe the persons of such as are Registred in that Catalogue by their proper and known di∣stinctive Titles and Styles, expresly styleth Timothy, Titus, Mark, Polycarp and others, Bishops of such and such places; and such on the other side as were but mere Presby∣ters, Ecclesioe Antiochenoe or Alexandrinoe Presbyteri, &c. observing the difference so constantly and exactly throughout the whole Book, that nothing can be more clear, than that he understood the word Episcopus no otherwise than in the ordinary Ecclesiastical sense, and as a Bishop is distinct from a Presbyter. As for that passage you allege out of him, by custome, in the judgment of Learned men, he must mean the practice of the Apostolick times; and by Dominica dispositio, the express Precept of Christ: unless you will have himself contradict what himself hath written in sundry other places; whose Testimonies in the behalf of Episcopal Superiority are so clear and frequent in his Wri∣tings, that (altho he of all the Ancients be least suspected to favour that Function over∣much, yet) the Bishops would not refuse to make him Arbitrator in the whole busi∣ness. As for the Catalogues, there will be more convenient place to speak of them after∣wards.

Fifthly, your long Discourse concerning the several stations and removes of Timothy and Titus (Sect. 13, 14.) and their being called away from Ephesus and Crete (Sect. 15.) His Majesty neither hath time to examine, nor thinketh it much needful (in respect of what He hath said already) so to do. It is sufficient to make His Majesty at least su∣spend His Assent to your Conjectures and Inferences, First, that He findeth other Learn∣ed men, from the like Conjectures, to have made other Inferences; as namely, that Timothy and Titus having accompanied Paul in many journeys, postea & tandem were by him constituted Bishops of Ephesus and Crete. Secondly, that supposing they were, after the times of the several Epistles written to them, sent by the Apostles to other places, or did accompany them in some of their journeys, even for a long time together, it cannot be concluded thence that they were not then Bishops of those Churches, or that the Government of those Churches was not committed to their peculiar charge: If it be supposed withall (which is but reasonable) that their absence was commanded by the Apostle, and that they left their Churches cum animo revertendi. Thirdly, that the places which you press again of i Tim. i. 3. and Titus i. 5. weigh so little to the purpose intended by you, even in your own judgments (for you say only, They put fair to prove it) that you cannot expect they should weigh so much in His as to need any further Answer; save only that His Majesty knoweth not what great need or use there should be of leaving Timothy at Ephesus, or Titus in Crete, for ordaining Presbyters and Dea∣cons, with such directions and admonitions to them for their care therein, if they were not sent thither as Bishops. For either there were Colleges of Presbyters in those places before their coming thither, or there were not: if there were, and that such Colleges had power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons without a Bishop, then was there little need of sending Timothy and Titus so solemnly thither about the work; if there were none, then had Timothy and Titus power of sole Ordination, which is a thing by you very much disliked. Those inconveniences His Majesty thinketh it will be hard wholly to avoid upon your Principles.

That Discourse you conclude with this Observation, That in the very same Epistle to Timothy, out of which he is endeavoured to be proved a Bishop, there is clear evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in Ordination, and for their Ruling: Yet His Majesty presumeth you cannot be ignorant, that the evidence is not so clear in either particular, but that in the former very many, of the Latin Fathers especially and sundry later Wri∣ters, as Calvin and others, refer the word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to the remoter Substantive Grace or Gift, and not that of Imposition of Hands; and so understand it as meant of the Office of Presbytery, or, as we were wont to call it in English, by derivation from that Greek word, of Priesthood, in Timothy himself, and not of a Colledg or Company of Presby∣ters collectively imposing hands on him: and that the Greek Fathers, who take the word collectively, do yet understand by 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 there a Company of Apostles or Bi∣shops who laid hands on Timothy in his ordination to the Office of a Bishop, (as was ordinarily done by three joyning in that act in the Primitive and succeeding times) and not of a College of mere Presbyters: and that in the latter particular, to wit, that of Ruling, the place whereon His Majesty conceiveth your Observation to be grounded, hath been by the Adversaries of Episcopal Government generally and mainly insisted upon, as the only clear proof for the establishing of Ruling-Lay-Elders, which interpre∣tation His Majesty knoweth not how far you will admit of.

As to the Angels of the Churches.

His Majesties purpose in naming these Angels in His first Paper,* 1.40 sufficiently declared in His second, required no more to be granted for the proving of what He intended, but these Two Things only: First, That they were Personae singulares; and then, That they had a Superiority in their respective Churches, as well over Presbyters as others: which two being the Periphrasis or Definition of a Bishop, His Majesty conceived it would fol∣low of it self, That they were Bishops. That the Epistles directed to them in their re∣spective Reproofs, Precepts, Threatnings, and other the contents thereof, did concern their fellow-Presbyters also, and indeed the whole Churches (which in your last you again remember) His Majesty did then and doth still believe, finding it agreeable both to the tenor of the Epistles themselves, and to the consentient judgment of Interpre∣ters. Only His Majesty said, and still doth, That that hindreth not but that the Angels to whom the Epistles were directed were Personae singulares still. This His Majesty il∣lustrated by a Similitude, which tho it do not hold in some other respects, and namely those you observe, (for His Majesty never dreamt of a four-footed Similitude) yet it perfectly illustrates the thing it was then intended for; as is evident enough, so that there needeth no more to be said about it.

That which you insist upon to prove the contrary from Revel. xi. 24. But I say to you (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 plurally) and the rest in Thyatira, is plainly of no force, if those Copies in which the copulative conjunction is wanting be true; for then the Reading would be this, But I say to you the rest in Thyatira. But following the ordinary Copies, the difficulty is not great, such manner of Apostrophes by changing the number, or turning the speech to another person, being very usual both in Prophetick Writings, such as this Book of Re∣velation is, and in Epistles of this nature written to one, but with reference to many others therein concerned. Beza expoundeth it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 to you, (that is, the Angel as Presi∣dent, and his Collegues the other Presbyters) and to the rest, that is, to the whole flock or people: which manner of speaking might be illustrated by the like forms of speech to be used in a Letter written to a Corporation, wherein the Mayor and Aldermen especi∣ally, but yet the whole Town generally, were concerned, but directed to the Mayor alone; or from a Lord, containing some Orders for his own houshould especially, and generally for the whole Township, but by the Inscription directed to his Steward only, or the like.

The Consent of ancient and later Writers was produced by His Majesty for the proof of the two things before named only, but especially of the first, viz. That the An∣gels were Personae singulares: (for the latter, viz. That they were superiour to Presbyters also, had been confessed by your selves in your first Grant before) but was not produced to prove the Conclusion it self immediately, viz. That they were Bishops in distinct sense, altho sundry of their Testimonies come up even to that also. But to the first point, That they were Single persons, the concurrence is so general, that His Majesty remembreth not to have heard of any one single Interpreter, before Bright∣man, that ever expounded them otherwise: And yet the same man (as His Majesty is informed) in his whole Commentary upon the Revelation doth scarce, if at all, any where else, save in these Seven Epistles, expound the word Angel collectively, but still of one single person or other, insomuch as he maketh one Angel to be Gregory the Great, another Queen Elizabeth, another Cranmer, another Chemnitius, and the like. But ge∣nerally both the Fathers and Protestant Divines agree in this, That the Angel was a Single person: some affirming plainly, and that in terminis, he was the Bishop; some naming the very persons of some of them, as of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna, and others; some calling him the chief Pastor or Superintendent of that Church; and those that speak least, and were more or less disaffected to Bishops, as Beza, Doctor Reynolds, the Geneva Notes, and even Cartwright himself, the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, President or chief among the Presbyters. And this they do sundry of them, not crudely delivering their Opinions only, and then no more, but they give Reasons for it, and after examination of the se∣veral Opinions, prefer this before the rest, affirming, That Doctissimi quique interpretes, all the best learned Interpreters so understand it, and that they cannot understand it otherwise, vim nisi facere Textui velint, unless they will offer violence to the Text.

That which His Majesty said concerning the Subdivision of those that had divided themselves from the common received judgment of the Church, was meant by His Majesty, as to the Subdivision, in respect of this particular of the Angels, wherein they differ one from another; as to the Division, in respect of their dislike of Bishops, where∣in they all agree. And truly His Majesty doth not yet see, how either their Differences can be possibly reconciled in the former (no accommodation in the world being able to make all the people of the whole Church, nor yet a Colledg consisting of many Pres∣byters, to be one Single person;) or their recess wholly excused in the latter, their dis∣senting from the common and received Judgment and Practice of the Christian Church in the matter of Episcopacy, and the evil consequents thereof, having, in His Majesties Opinion, brought a greater reproach upon the Protestant Religion, and given more advan∣tage (or colour at least) to the Romish party to asperse the Reformed Churches in such sort as we see they do, than their disagreement from the Church of Rome in any one controverted Point whatsoever besides hath done.

As to the Apostles Successors.* 1.41

Here little is said, the substance whereof hath not been Answered before. His Majesty therefore briefly declares His meaning herein, That the Apostles were to have no necessary Successors in any thing that was extraordinary, either in their Mission or Unction; That His Majesty spake not of Succession into Abilities otherwise than by instance, mentioning other particulars withal, which thing, He thinketh, needeth not to have been now the third time by you mentioned; That in the Apostles Missi∣on or Commission (for His Majesty under the name of Mission comprehended both) and consequently in the Apostolical Office, as there was something extraordinary, so

there was something ordinary, wherein they were to have Successors; That Bishops are properly their Successors in the whole Apostolical Office, so far as it was ordinary, and to have Successors; That therefore the Bishops Office may in regard of that Suc∣cession be said to be Apostolical; That yet it doth not follow that they must needs be called Apostles, taking the Denomination from the Office, inasmuch as the Denominati∣on of the Apostles, peculiarly so called, was not given them from the Office whereunto they were sent, but (as the word it self rather importeth) from the immediateness of their Mission, being sent immediately by Christ himself, in respect whereof, for di∣stinction sake, and in Honour to their Persons, it was thought fitter by those that suc∣ceeded, in common usage to abstain from that Denomination, and to be styled rather by the Name of Bishops; That if the Apostles had no Successors, the Presbyters (who are their Successors in part, mediately and subordinately to the Bishops) will be very hard set to prove the Warrant of their own Office and Mission; which if not derived from the Apostles (who only received power of Mission from Christ) by a continued line of Succession, His Majesty seeth not upon what other bottom it can stand.

As to the standing Officers of the Church.

You insisted upon Two Places of Scripture,* 1.42 Phil. i. 1. and 1 Tim. iii. to prove that there were to be no more standing Officers in the Church than the two in those places mentioned (viz.) Presbyters (who are there called Bishops) and Deacons; whereunto His Majesties Answer was, That there might be other, tho not mentioned in those places: which Answer tho it were alone sufficient, yet, ex abundanti, His Majesty shewed with∣all, that supposing your interpretation of the word Bishop in both the places (viz.) to de∣note the Office of Presbyter only) there might yet be given some probable conjectures, which (likewise supposed true) might satisfie us, why that of Bishop in the distinct sense should not be needful or proper to be named in those places.

His Majesties former Reason, tho in Hypothesi, and as applied to the Church of Phi∣lippi it be but conjectural, yet upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical Histories and consi∣deration of the Condition of those times, as it is set forth in the Scriptures also, it will appear in Thesi to be undoubtedly true (viz.) That the Apostles themselves first planted Churches; That they were perpetual Governours, and, in chief, of all the Churches whilst they lived; That as the burthen grew greater by the propagation of the Gospel, they assumed others in partem curae, committing to their charge the peculiar oversight of the Churches in some principal Cities, and the Towns and Villages adjacent, as James at Jerusalem, and others in other places, sooner or later, as they saw it expedient for the service of the Church; That the persons so by them appointed to such peculi∣ar charges did exercise the powers of Ordination, and other Government, under the Apostles, and are therefore in the Church Stories called Bishops of those places in a di∣stinct sense; That in some places, where the Apostles were themselves more frequently conversant, they did for some while govern the Churches immediately by themselves, before they set Bishops there; and that after the Apostles times, Bishops only were the ordinary Governours of the Churches of Christ: And His Majesty believeth it cannot be proved, either from clear evidence of Scripture, or credible testimonies of Antiqui∣ty, that ever any Presbyter or Presbytery exercised the power either of Ordination at all without a Bishop, or of that which they call Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in ordi∣nary, and by their own sole Authority, or otherwise than as it was delegated unto them upon occasion, and for the time, by Apostles or Bishops.

For that place of Phil. 1. 1. in particular, His Majesties purpose being not to interpret the place, (a work fitter for Divines) but to manifest the inconsequence of the Argu∣ment whereby you would conclude but two standing Officers only, because but two there named, He gave this as one probable conjecture why there might be no Bishop in distinct sense there mentioned, because possibly the Apostles had not as yet set any Bishop over that Church: which His Majesty did not propose as the only, no, nor yet as the most probable conjecture, (for which cause He delivered it so cautiously, saying only, It might be probable) but as that which for the present came first into His thoughts, and was sufficient for His purpose, without the least meaning thereby to prejudice other interpretations; as, namely, of those Expositors who take the words (with the Bishops and Deacons) as belonging to the persons saluting, and not to the persons saluted, to this sense, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, with the Bishops and Deacons, to the Saints at Philippi, &c. or of those who affirm, and that with great probability too, that Epaphroditus was then actually Bishop of Philippi, but not to be mentioned in the In∣scription of the Epistle, because he was not then at Philippi, but with Saint Paul at Rome

when that Epistle was written. Any of which conjectures if they be true, (as there is none of them utterly improbable) that place of Phil. 1. 1. will not do you much service in this Question.

In the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, the Apostle directeth and admonisheth them as Bishops, particularly concerning Ordination of Ministers, that they do it advisedly, and ordain none but such as are meetly qualified for the Service of the Church; which Directi∣ons and Admonitions His Majesty believeth for the substance to belong to all Bishops of after-times as well as unto them: But His Majesty seeth no necessity why in those Epistles there should be any particular directions given concerning the Ordination of Bi∣shops, at least unless it could be made appear that they were to ordain some such in those places, nor perhaps if that could be made to appear, inasmuch as in those Epistles there is not the least signification of any difference at all between Presbyters and Deacons in the manner of their Ordination, both being to be performed by the Bishop, and by Imposition of Hands, and so both comprehended under that general Rule (Lay hands suddenly on no man) but only, and that very little, and scarce considerable (as to the making of distinct Offices) in the qualification of their persons.

The Ordination therefore of Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons, being to be performed in the same manner, and the same Qualifications after a sort, saving such differences as the importance of their several Offices make, (which is more in the degree than in the things) being required in both, it had been sufficient if in those Epistles there had been direction given concerning the Ordination and Qualification of but one sort of Church-Officers only; as in the Epistle to Titus we see there are of Presbyters only, and no mention made of Deacons in the whole Epistle; whence it may be as well con∣cluded, That there was to be no other standing Officer in the Church of Crete but Presbyters only, because Saint Paul giveth no directions to Titus concerning any other, as it can be concluded, That there were to be no other Officers in the Church of Ephe∣sus but Presbyters and Deacons only, because Saint Paul giveth no direction to Timothy concerning any other.

As to the Ages succeeding the Apostles.* 1.43

Concerning the Judgment of Ecclesiastical Writers about the Divine Right of Epis∣copacy, His Majesty conceiveth the difference to be more in their Expressions than in their Meaning, some calling it Divine, others Apostolical, and some (but not many) Ecclesiastical. But that the Superiority of Bishops above Presbyters began in the Apo∣stles times, and had its foundation in the Institution either of Christ himself or of his Apostles, His Majesty hath not heard (Aerius exceped) that any till these latter Ages have denied.

For that which you touch upon concerning the word Infallible, His Majesty sup∣poseth you knew His meaning, and He delighteth not to contend about words.

As for the Catalogues, some uncertainties in a few (a frailty which all human Histories are subject to) His Majesty taketh to be insufficient to discredit all. Differences there are in Historiographers, in reciting the Succession of the Babylonian, Persian, and Mace∣donian Kings, and of the Saxon Kings in England. And we find far more inextricable intricacies in the Fasti Consulares, the Catalogues of the Roman Consuls (notwith∣standing their great care in keeping of the publick Records, and the exactness of the Roman Histories) than are to be found in Epistcopal Catalogues, those especially of the chiefest Cities, as Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, &c. Yet as all men believe there were Kings in those Countries, and Consuls in Rome in those times; so (as you might well foresee would be answered) the discrediting of the Catalogues of Bishops in respect of some uncertainties, (although His Majesty doubteth not but many of the differences you instance in may be fairly reconciled) tendeth rather to the con∣firming of the thing it self.

That which you say in Answer hereunto, that the Ecclesiastical Writers called them Bi∣shops in compliance to the Language of their own Times, after the names of Presbyters and Bishops were distinguished, but that they were not indeed Bishops in the proper sense now in Question; His Majesty, who believeth the distinction of those names to have be∣gun presently after the Apostles times (if not rather whilst some of them were living) doth consequently believe, that as they were called, so they were indeed Bishops in that proper sense. It appeareth by Ignatius his Epistles every where, how wide the diffe∣rence was in his time between a Bishop and a mere Presbyter. If Hierom only, and some a little ancienter than he, had applied the name Bishop to persons that lived some Ages before them, there might have been the more colour to have attributed it to such

a compliance as you speak of; but that they received both the Name and the truth of their relations from unquestionable Testimonies and Records, His Majesty thinketh it may be made good by many instances. For example, to instance in one only, Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna, who is thought to be the Angel of that Church in the Revelations; Ignatius, who was contemporary with him, wrote one Epistle to him, and sends salutation to him in another, as Bishop of Smyrna. Many years after, Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in France, (whose Writings were never yet called in question by any) not only affirms him to have been constituted Bishop of Smyrna by the Apostles, but saith, That he himself when he was a Boy had seen him a very old man. Tertullian next, a very ancient Writer, affirmeth That he was Bishop of Smyrna, there placed by Saint John. After cometh Eusebius, who in his Ecclesiastical History not only Historically reporteth of his being Bishop there, as he doth of other Bishops; but citeth also for it the Testi∣monies both of Ignatius and Irenaeus (which, by the way, giveth good credit to Ig∣natius his Epistles too.) Then Hierom also and others, lastly, attest the same. And it cannot be doubted but Eusebius and Hierom had in their times the like certain Testimonies and Grounds for sundry others, whom they report to have been Bishops; which Testimonies and Records are not all come to our hands.

For the Testimonies of Clemens and Ignatius, His Majesty saith, First, That tho it be not reasonable that the Testimony of one single Epistle should be so made the adequate measure of Clemens his Opinion, as to exclude all other proof from his Example, or other∣wise; yet His Majesty, since Clemens was first named by you, and the weight of the main cause lieth not much upon it, is content also for that matter to refer Himself to that Epistle. Secondly, That His Majesty could not but use some earnestness of expression in the cause of Ignatius against some who have rejected the whole Volume of his Epistles, but upon such Arguments as have more lessened the Reputation of their own Learning, than the Authority of those Epistles, in the opinion of moderate and judicious men: And yet Blondellus, a very Learned man, tho he reject those Epistles, confesseth not∣withstanding the Ancient Fathers gave full Credence thereunto.

The Apostles, you say, did not ordain themselves Bishops of any particular places; and yet the Bishops of some particular places are reported in the Catalogues to have been Suc∣oessors to such or such of the Apostles, and even the Names of such Apostles are entred into the Catalogues. To this His Majesty saith, That the Apostles were formerly Bishops by virtue of their Mission from Christ, as hath been already declared, but did neither or∣dain themselves, nor could be ordained of others, Bishops of such or such particular Ci∣ties: Although His Majesty knoweth not but that they might, without prejudice to their Apostleship, and by mutual consent, make choice of their several quarters wherein to exercise that Function, as well as Saint Peter and Saint Paul by consent went, the one to the Circumcision, the other to the Gentiles. But such apportionments did not intitle them to be properly called Bishops of those places, unless any of them by such agreement did fixedly reside in some City; of which there is not in the History of the Church any clear unquestionable Example. If James the Lord's Brother (who was certainly Bishop of Jerusalem) were not one of the twelve Apostles, as the more general opini∣on is that he was not; yet did the Churches of succeeding times, for the greater ho∣nour of their Sees, and the memory of so great Benefactors, enter in the Head of the Lists or Catalogues of their Bishops, the Names of such of the Apostles as had ei∣ther first planted the Faith, or placed Bishops, or made any long abode and continuance, or ended their days among them: yet doth not the true Title of being Successors to the Apostles thereby accrue to the Bishops of those places more than to other Bishops, but all Bishops are equally Successors to the Apostles in two other respects; the one, for that they derive their Ordination by a continued Line of Succession from the Apo∣stles; the other, for that they succeed into the same Apostolical Power and Function, which the Apostles as ordinary Pastors had.

Your motion, to reduce this whole Dispute to Scripture alone, were the more reaso∣nable, if the matter in question were properly a Point of Faith: And yet even in points of Faith (as the Doctrine of the Trinity, the Canon of Scripture, and sundry other) the uniform judgment of the Church hath been ever held of very considerable regard. But being a matter of Fact, as before was said, which the Scriptures do not deliver entirely and perspicuously in any one place together, but obscurely and by parts, so that the understanding thereof dependeth merely upon conjectural Interpretations and uncertain probabilities, nor assure any certain distinguishing Characters whereby to discern what therein is extraordinary, what prudential, and what of necessary and perpetual Obligation, there seemeth to His Majesty to be a necessity of admitting

the subsequent Judgment and Practice of the Christian Churches into the Trial.

As to the Three Questions proposed by His Majesty.

His Majesty resteth very much unsatisfied,* 1.44 that you have now again wholly declined the answering of those three Questions so clearly proposed by Him, which your selves also consess to be of great importance, upon this only pretence, That the whole Volume of Ecclesiastical Policy is contained in them: Whereas His Majesty did neither expect nor require from you any large or Polemical Discourse concerning those Questions; but yet did conceive you were (in order to His Satisfaction in your own Undertaking) in some sort obliged to have declared in few words what your Judgment was therein, with the grounds thereof, that so His Majesty might have taken the same into His fur∣ther Consideration, than which nothing could have more conduced to the informing of His Judgment, and the satisfaction of His Conscience: which His Majesty also fur∣ther conceives you might have done with the tenth part of that pains you have hither∣to bestowed to other purposes, and therein have given full as much satisfaction to His desires as he expected, and in all likelihood better satisfaction to His Judgment, than He yet findeth, or can hope to find from you, so long as you hold off from declaring your Opinions concerning those Questions. For certainly until one of these three things can be clearly evidenced unto His Majesty, (viz.) Either that there is no cer∣tain Form of Church-Government at all prescribed in the Word; or if there be, that the Civil Power may change the same as they see cause; or if it be unchangeable, that it was not Episcopal, but some other; His Majesty thinks himself excuseable in the judgment of all reasonable men, if He cannot as yet be induced to give his Assent to the utter Abolition of that Government in the Church which He found here setled to His hands, which hath continued all over the Christian World from the times of the Apostles until this last Age, and in this Realm ever since the first plantation of Christianity, as well since the Reformation as before, which hath been confirmed by so many Acts of Parliament, approved as consonant to the holy Word of God in the Ar∣ticles of our Religion, and by all the Ministers of the Church of England, as well by their personal Subscriptions as otherwise, so attested and declared, and which Himself in His Judgment and Conscience hath for so many years been, and yet is, perswaded to be at least of Apostolical Institution and Practice. Truly, His Majesty cannot but won∣der what should be the reason of your great shiness and unwillingness to discover your minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence: and for a final conclusion of this whole Dispute (which His Majesty thinketh fit to shut up with this Paper) He must plainly tell you, That your endeavours to have given Him satisfaction in the Questions proposed would have added much, in His opinion, to the reputation of your Ingenuity in the whole undertaking; it being not probable you should work much upon His Judgment, whilst you are fearful to declare your own; nor possible to re∣lieve His Conscience, but by a free discharge of yours.

Nevertheless, His Majesty liketh well of your Prayer in the close of your Paper, and thinketh you should do very well to joyn therewith your utmost possible endea∣vours towards the settling of Truth and a happy Peace in this unsettled Church and Kingdom.

THE END.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Acts xiv. 23.
• * 1.2

  Acts vi. 6.
• * 1.3

  1 Cor. xvi. 1.
• * 1.4

  1 Cor. xiv.
• * 1.5

  1 Cor. v. 3. iii Joh. 9, 10.
• * 1.6

  1 Tim. v. 22.
• * 1.7

  Tit. i. 5.
• * 1.8

  Rev. ii. iii.
• * 1.9

  1 Tim. v. 19.
• * 1.10

  Tit. iii. 10.
• * 1.11

  Tit. i. 5, 7.
• * 1.12

  Acts xx. 17, 18.
• * 1.13

  1 Pet. v. 1, 2.
• * 1.14

  by.
• * 1.15

  Exercit. 8. in Ignat. c. 3.
• a 1.16

  Act. xvii. 14.
• b 1.17

  15.
• c 1.18

  i Thes. iii. 1, 2.
• d 1.19

  Act. xviii. 5.
• e 1.20

  Act. xix. 22.
• f 1.21

  Act. xx. 4.
• g 1.22

  ver. 5, 6.
• h 1.23

  ver. 17.
• h 1.24

  i Tim. i. 3.
• i 1.25

  Heb. xiii. 23.
• * 1.26

  Phil. i. 1. Philem. ver. 1. Col. i. 1. Heb. xiii. 23. ii Tim. iv. 6, 10. 11, 12, 16.
• k 1.27

  Gal. i. 2.
• l 1.28

  Tit. iii. 12.
• m 1.29

  ii Cor. ii. 12.
• n 1.30

  ii Cor. v. 6.
• o 1.31

  ii Cor. viii 6.
• p 1.32

  ii Tim. iv. 10.
• * 1.33

  1. Reply, Sect. 1, 2,
• * 1.34

  2. Reply, Sect. 3. 4, 5.
• * 1.35

  3. Reply, Sect. 6.
• * 1.36

  4. Reply, Sect. 7.
• * 1.37

  5. Reply, Sect. 8.
• * 1.38

  6. Reply, Sect. 9.
• * 1.39

  7. Reply, Sect. 10.—15.
• * 1.40

  8. Reply, 16.
• * 1.41

  9. Reply, 17, 18.
• * 1.42

  10. Reply, 19, 28.
• * 1.43

  11. Reply, 23,—27.
• * 1.44

  12. Reply, 19, &c.