TO THE

KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,

OUR MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN LORD,

CHARLES,

BY THE GRACE OF GOD, OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND IRELAND, KING, DEFENDER of the faith, &c.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY:

WHEN, about a year ago, I presumed to tender to your Royal Hands some few short Propositions concerning Church-Government, I little thought, that either the public or my own diocesan occasions would have called on me for so large and speedy a pursuance of them, as now I am invited unto.

Episcopacy, since that time, hath suffered in the north, even to the height of patience; and I have met with some affronts, within my own jurisdiction.

All evils, especially those of Schism, are, as the plague, very catching; and do much mischief, both in their act and the spreading. It was, therefore, time for me to bend my best endeavours, both to the remedy of what had happened in mine own diocese, and prevention of what future mischief might ensue.

And, long I sat down, and waited for the undertaking of some abler pen: but, seeing such a silence in so needful a subject, as one, that might not be too long wanting, either to the vindication of the common cause or the safety of my own charge, I have thus boldly rushed forth into the press.

I cannot be so weakly inconsiderate, as to think that I could put my finger into this fire, and not be scorched. I do well know, never any man touched upon this quarrel, who was not branded with the deepest censure. Yet I do willingly sacrifice myself, herein,

to God and his Truth.

I confess my heart burns within me, to see a righteous cause thus martyred, through unjust prejudice; and to see some honest and well-minded Christians misled into a palpable error, under the pretence of zeal and piety, by the mere names of two or three late authors, not more learned and godly, than, in this point, grossly mistaken.

If your Majesty's great cares of State could part with so much leisure, as to peruse this short but faithful relation of the first ground and original of this unhappy division in the Church, it might please your Majesty to be informed, that, when Petrus Balma, the last Bishop of Geneva, was, by his mutining citizens, frighted and driven out of his place, and that Church was now left headless, Farell and Viret, two zealous preachers there, devised and set up a new platform of Church-Government, never before heard of in the Christian World. Themselves would supply the Bishop; and certain Burgesses of the City should supply his Assistant Clergy; and both these together would make up the body of an Ecclesiastical Senate or Consistory.

This strange bird, thus hatched by Farell and Viret, was afterwards brooded by two more famous successors: and all this, within the compass of our present age.

Now, had this form, being at first devised only out of need for a present shift, contained itself within the compass of the banks of the Leman Lake, it might have been there retained, with either the connivance or pity of the rest of the Christian World: but now, finding itself to grow in some places, through the fame of the abettors, into request and good success; it hath taken the boldness to put itself forth to the notice and approbation of some neighbour Churches.

And some there are, which I bless myself to see, that have taken such liking to it, that they have affected a voluntary conformity thereunto: and, being weary of that old Form of Administration, which hath, without contradiction, continued in the whole Christian Church, from the times of the blessed Apostles of Christ inclusively until this present age, are not only eager, out of their credulity, to erect this new frame; but dare venditate it to the world, after fifteen hundred years' deep silence, for the very Qrdinance and Kingdom of Christ: whereas, if any living man can shew any one Lay-Presbyter, that ever was in the Christian World, till Farell and Viret first created him, let me forfeit my reputation to shame, and my life to justice.

This is the true ground of this woeful quarrel. Wherein I cannot but heartily pity the misguidance of many well-meaning souls, of your Majesty's subjects, which are impetuously carried away in the throng, by the mere sway of names, and tyranny of an ignorant zeal; not being so much as suffered to know where they are, or on what ground they go: the fervent desire of whose reclamation, as of the settlement of others, whom the ill-condition of the time might cause to stagger, hath put my pen upon this envious, but necessary task.

Whereto also my zeal was the more stirred, by an information, which I received from the late meeting at Edinburgh in the eighth Session whereof it is reported, that one M. G. Grahame, Bishop of Orkney, had openly, before the whole body of the Assembly, renounced his Episcopal Function; and craved pardon for having accepted it, as if thereby he had committed some heinous

offence. This uncouth act of his was more than enough to inflame any dutiful son of the Church; and to occasion this my ensuing, most just, expostulation.

Only, I had need to crave pardon of your Majesty, for the boldness of this interpellation; that I have dared to move your Majesty to descend so low, as to take view of this, on my part so confidently undertaken, duel. Although, if the combatants be single, yet the cause is so common, as that the whole Church of God claims her interest in it.

But your Majesty's long-known goodness encourages me to this presumption. And, withal, I could not but have some due regard to that right and propriety, which your Majesty may justly challenge in all the labours of this kind, from whose pen soever; as being under God appointed the great Patron of all divine truths, the great Guardian and Protector of these parts of his Church upon earth; whose true, ancient, and apostolical government is here questioned; and whose deserved devotions and faithful prayers shall be continually poured out to the God of Heaven, for your Majesty's long and happy preservation; amongst which shall be duly paid the daily tribute of

Your Majesty's most humble,

loyal, and zealously devoted

subject and servant,

JOSEPH EXON.

EPISCOPACY BY DIVINE RIGHT.

INTRODUCTION.

SECT. 1.

An Expostulatory Entrance into the Question.

GOOD God! what is this, that I have lived to hear? That a Bishop, in a Christian Assembly, should renounce his Episcopal Function, and cry mercy for his now-abandoned calling!

Brother that was, whoever you be, I must have leave a while to contest seriously with you. The act was yours; the concernment, the whole Church's. You could not think so foul a deed could escape unquestioned. The world never heard of such a penance : you cannot blame us, if we receive it, both with wonder and expostulation; and tell you, it had been much better to have been unborn, than to live to give so heinous a scandal to God's Church, and so deep a wound to his holy truth and ordinance. If Tweed, that runs between us, were an ocean, it could not either drown or wash off our interest or your offence. However you may be applauded for the time, by some ignorant and partial abettors, wiser posterity shall blush for you, and censure you too justly for some kind of Apostacy. Sure I am, you have done that to yourself, which, if your Presbytery had done to you, would have been, in the construction of the great Council of Chalcedon, no other than sacrilege *.

For me, I am now breathing towards the end of my race. The goal is already in mine eye. Young men may speak, out of ambitious hopes, or passionate transportations: I, that am now setting foot over the threshold of the house of my age, what aim can have, but of the issue of my last account, whereto I am ready to

Concil. Chalced. of 150 Bishops. Can. 29. izloxorov się wproßutige Badμòr Φέρεν ἱεροσυλία ἰσι.

be the summoned before the Judge of Quick and Dead? Neither can you look, as is likely, to be long after me. Setting, therefore, that Awful Tribunal, to which we shall shortly be presented, before our eyes, let us reason the case in a modest earnestness.

I should be ashamed to find less zeal in myself for Holy Episcopacy, than you think you have shewed in disclaiming it. Say, therefore, I beseech you, before God and his elect angels, say what it is, (besides perhaps the fear of plundering a fair temporal estate by the furious multitude;) say what it can be, that induced you to this sinful, to this scandalous repentance: shew me true grounds, and take me with you. How weary should I be of this Rochet, if you can shew me, that Episcopacy is of any less than Divine Institution! The eminence of that calling, which you have given up, as too good for you, will not allow you (though perhaps you might) to plead ignorance. Win him by your powerful arguments, who is so far from being wedded to the love of this misconceived pomp, that he envies the sweet peace of his inferiors.

Let me tell you, it is your person, that aggravates your crime. For a sheep to stray, it is no wonder; but, for a shepherd, yea a guide and director of shepherds, (such God and the Church had made you), not to wander himself only, but to lead away his flock from the green pastures and comfortable waters of divine truth, to the dry and barren deserts of human inventions, it cannot be but as shameful as it is dangerous; both, in a high degree. That some poor seduced souls of your ignorant vulgar should condemn that calling, which they were never suffered to look at, but with prejudicate eyes; or, that some of your higher-spirited clergy, out of an ambition of this dignity, and anger of the repulse, should snarl at this denied honour; or, that some of your great ones, who, perhaps, do no less love the lands, than they envy and hate the preeminence of Bishops, should cry down that sacred function; could be no other than might, in times so conditioned, be expected, and by fore-expectation made the more tolerable: but, for a man held, once, worthy to be graced with the Chair of Episcopacy, to spurn down that once-honourable seat, and to make his very profession a sin, is so shameful an indignity, as the judicious of the succeeding ages will shake their heads at, and not mention without just indignation.

If you were guilty, to yourself, of any noted personal exorbitances, or of any insolencies, or offensive miscarriages in your illplaced government, such perhaps as have enraged your angry vulgar, these had been just matter of your humble penitence, and worthy of your most submiss deprecation: but, to repent you of a most lawful, honourable, holy, divine vocation, and thereby to cast mire in the faces of the Blessed Apostles, who received it from their God and Saviour, and by the guidance of his Spirit ordained it, is such an act, as can scarce be expiated with floods of overlatest tears.

Come, then, I beseech you, and let us, in the fear of God, reason sadly together: not in a vain affectation of victory, like some