suppose any man so utterly insensate, as to say, "By the joint confession of Reformed Divines, the Reformed Churches of this age have never contradicted Episcopacy?" This were, indeed, a paradox fit for none but a "self-confounded man:" fasten it upon those, that are fit for dark rooms and hellebore. "Just such another is the next," you say: such another, indeed: as truly affirmed, and as unjustly excepted to: That Episcopal Government hath continued in this island, since the first plantation of the Gospel, to this present day, without contradiction'. What talk you, of " taking in the manner," and "salving of credit," as if you had your adversary at a great advantage? Πάντα μία κόνις, as the Greek proverb is; and, as we are wont to say, "Here is great cry, and little wool:" for, whereas the proposition may bear this double sense, "the Continuance of Episcopacy in this island hath had no contradiction," or "There hath been no contradiction to the right of the Continuance of it in this island," at the choice of the propounder; I am ready to make it good in both senses: neither are you able justly to oppose it in either. I am sure those instances, which you bring, out of Wickliffe, Lambert, Richardus de Mediavilla, Occam, Walter Mapes, Robert Langland, in your next Section, will shrink in the wetting; and come far short of your undertaking. BUT, Brethren, I must sadly tell you, that, in your next and last exception, you have exceeded yourselves in malice. What loud and hideous outcries have you made against me, both in your "Answer" and "Vindication," for a safe and innocent passage in myRemonstrance' ! Speaking of the continuance and derivation of Episcopacy from the Primitive Times, I had said, Certainly, except all histories, all authors fail us, nothing can be more plain than this truth.' Now comes your charitable veracity, and in your "Answer," seconded now again by your "Vindication," reports the words thus: "Except all histories, all authors fail us, nothing can be more certain than this truth;" and thereupon cry out "Os durum!" and descant fearfully upon the word, "Nothing more certain! What, is it not more certain, that there is a God? Is it not more certain, that Christ is God and man? Must this be an Article of our Creed, &c? Nothing more certain! Oh, that men should not only forget themselves, but God also; and, in their zeal for their own honour, utter words bordering upon Blasphemy. Thus you whether like sober and honest men, let the reader judge; who, casting back his eye upon that passage of my Remonstrance, shall well find, that I have used no such word at all, as you have thus insolently and injuriously played upon. My phrase * Page 21. AUTHOR. Page 632 of this vol. EDITOR. was only, nothing can be more plain:' you falsify it, "nothing more certain ;" and run strange and uncharitable descant upon it such, as whereof I think your friends will be ashamed. And, when I, not urging the great difference of this expression, was willing to pass it over, with intimating only the ordinary' use of this manner of speech, in our hourly discourse,' wherein we would be loth to be called to an account of our Creed;' yet still, as eager and unsatisfied, in this your "Vindication," you redouble the charge upon me: "We cry out," you say "of such a shamelessness, as dares equal this opinion of his of Episcopal Government to an Article of our Creed:" when as here was no mention, no thought either of "certainty," or of "Creed;" but only a harmless affirmation of the clear evidence of this truth. But I will not stir this puddle any more: only beseeching my reader, by this one passage to judge of the spirit of these men: so set upon detraction and contradiction, that, rather than they will want colours of exception, they will devise them out of their own brains, and fasten them where they would disgrace. Lest this place should not yield you sufficient ground of so foul a crimination, you fly back to Episcopacy by Divine Right*, and thence will fetch a clearer conviction: where the author sath, he, for his part, is so confident of the Divine Institution of the Majority of Bishops above Presbyters, that' he dare boldly say, there are weighty points of faith, which have not so strong ev dence in Scripture.' He said it; and made it good, by instances, in the same place. Why do you snarl at the speech, and not confute the proofs? Try your skill in that one particular, The Bapti zation of Infants; which, I am deceived, if the Church holds not a weighty point of faith. Let us, if you please, enter into serious contestation. Shew me more clear evidence of Scripture, for this holy and universally received position and practice of Baptizing Infants, than I can produce for the Majority of Bishops above Pres. byters. Till then, give me leave to return your own prayer; "God give the men less confidence or more truth" and, let me add, more charity; for, truly, in whether of these two latter you are more defective, it is not easy to judge. In the mean time, you have as much failed, in clearing yourselves from those just imputations, which are laid upon you; as you have over-reached, in the unjust bespattering of your staunch and innocent adversary. AND now forbear, if you can, Readers, to smile in the parting, at the grave counsel of our wise Smectymnuus; who, after he hath tired his reader with a tedious volume, in answer to my short 'De fence,' adviseth me very sadly, that my "words" may be "less in number." Yet, howsoever his weary loquacity may, in this causeless expro Episc. by D. R. Part ii. p. 47. AUTHOR. See p. 562 of this vol. EDITOR. bration, deserve to move your mirth; I shall resolve to make good use of his counsel. Est olitor sæpe opportuna locutus. In the sequel, my words, which were never yet taxed for an offensive superfluity, shall be very few; and such as, to your greater wonder, I shall be beholden for, to my kind adversaries. The rereward of my late Defence' was backed by the sound testimony of Dr. Abraham Scultetus, the famous Professor of Hei delberg, and the great oracle in his time of the Palatinate; who, in both the tenets, of Episcopacy by Divine Right, and the Unwarrantableness of Lay-Presbytery, agrees so fully with me, as I do with myself: the grounds whereof, I dare confidently say, are such, as no wit of man can overthrow or weaken. Now what say my Smectymnuans to this?"For brevity sake, we will content ourselves with what that learned Rivet spake, when these two Treatises of Scultetus were shewed to him, by a great prelate amongst us, and his judgment required: Hæc omnia jamdudum sunt protrita et profligata; all these have been long since overworn, and beaten out, and baffled." In good time, Brethren! And why should not I take leave to return the same answer to you, in this your tedious velitation of Episcopacy? There is not one new point in this your over-swoln and unwieldy bulk. No hay-cock hath been oftener shaken abroad, and tossed up and down in the wind, than every argument of yours hath been agitated by more able pens than mine: Hæc omnia jamdudum sunt protrita et profligata. Why should I abuse my good hours; and spend my last age, devoted to better thoughts, in an unprofitable babbling? You may, perhaps, expect to meet with fitter matches, that have more leisure. The cause is not mine alone; but common to this whole Church, to the whole Hierarchy, to all the Fathers of the Church throughout the world, to all the dutiful Sons of those Fathers wheresoever. You may not hope, that so many learned and eminent Divines, who find themselves equally interested in this quarrel, can suffer either so just a cause unseconded, or so high insolence unchastised. For myself, I remember the story, that Plutarch tells of the contestation between Crassus and Deiotarus *; men, well-stricken in age, and yet attempting several exploits, not so proper for their grey hairs. "What," said Crassus to Deiotarus, "dost thou begin to build a city, now in the latter end of the day?" "And, truly," said Deiotarus to him again, "I think it somewhat with the latest for you to think of conquering the Parthians." Some witty lookers-on will, perhaps, apply both these to me. It is the city of God, the Evangelical Jerusalem, which some factious hands have miserably demolished: is it for shaking and wrinkled hands to build up again, now in the very setting and shutting-in of the day? They are dangerous and not inexpert Parthians, who shoot out their arrows, even bitter invectives, against the Sacred and Aposto • Plutarch in Vità Crassi. lical government of the Church; and such, as know how to fight fleeing are these fit for the vanquishing of a decrepit leader? Shortly, then, since I see that our Smectymnuans have vowed, like as some impetuous scolds are wont to do, to have the s word; and have set up a resolution, by taking advantage of their multitude, to tire out their better employed Adversary, with mere length of discourse; and to do that by bulk of body, which by clean strength they cannot; I have determined to take off my hand from this remaining controversy of Episcopacy (wherein I have said enough already, without the return of answer; and, indeed, anticipated all those thread-bare objections, which are here again regested to the weary reader,) and to turn off my combined opposites to matches more meet for their age and quality with this profession, notwithstanding, that, if I shall find, which I hope I never shall, this just and holy cause, whether out of insensibleness or cautious reservedness, neglected by more able defenders, I shall borrow so much time from my better thoughts, as to bestow some strictures, where I may not afford a large confutation. I have ever held μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακὸν: which as it holds in whatsoever matter of discourse, so especially in this so beaten subject of Episcopacy; wherein since I find it impossible for my Adversaries to fall upon any but former notions, oft urged, oft answered, "For brevity sake we will content ourselves with what that learned Rivet spake of the two treatises of Scultetus, Hæc omnia jam dudum sunt protrita et profligata:" with this yet for a conclusion, that if, in this their wordy and wearisome volume, they shall meet with any one argument, which they dare avow for new, they shall expect their answer by the next post. |