That it is dangerous and unworthy the gospel, to hold that church-government is to be patterned by the law, as bishop Andrews and the primate of Armagh maintain. W E may return now from this interpofing difficulty thus removed, to affirm, that fince church-government is fo ftrictly commanded in God's word, the first and greatest reason why we should submit thereto is, because God hath fo commanded. But whether of thefe two, prelaty, or prefbytery, can prove itfelf to be fupported by this first and greatest reafon, muft be the next difpute: wherein this pofition is to be first laid down, as granted; that I may not follow a chafe rather than an argument, that one of these two, and none other, is of God's ordaining; and if it be, that ordinance must be evident in the gospel. For the imperfect and obfcure inftitution of the law, which the apoftles themselves doubt not ofttimes to vilify, cannot give rules to the complete and glorious ministration of the gospel, which looks on the law as on a child, not as on a tutor. And that the prelates have no fure foundation in the gofpel, their own guiltinefs doth manifeft; they would not elfe run quefting up as high as Adam to fetch their original, as it is faid one of them lately did in public. To which affertion, had I heard it, because I fee they are so insatiable of antiquity, I fhould have gladly affented, and confeffed them yet more ancient for Lucifer, before Adam, was the first prelate angel; and both he, as is commonly thought, and our forefather Adam, as we all know, for afpiring above their orders, were miferably degraded. But others, better advised, are content to receive their beginning from Aaron and his fons, among whom bifhop Andrews of late years, and in these times the primate of Armagh, for their learning, are reputed the beft able to fay what may be faid in this opinion. The primate, in his difcourfe about the original of epifcopacy newly revifed, begins thus: "The ground of epifcopacy is fetched partly from the pattern prefcribed prefcribed by God in the Old Teftament, and partly from the imitation thereof brought in by the apoftles." Herein I muft entreat to be excufed of the defire I have to be fatisfied, how for example the ground of episcopacy is fetched partly from the example of the Old Teftament, by whom next, and by whofe authority. Secondly, how the church-government under the gofpel can be rightly called an imitation of that in the Old Teftament; for that the gospel is the end and fulfilling of the law, our liberty alfo from the bondage of the law, I plainly read. How then the ripe age of the gofpel fhould be put to school again, and learn to govern herself from the infancy of the law, the ftronger to imitate the weaker, the freeman to follow the captive, the learned to be leffoned by the rude, will be a hard undertaking to evince from any of those principles, which either art or infpiration hath written. If any thing done by the apoftles may be drawn howfoever to a likeness of fomething mofaical, if it cannot be proved that it was done of purpose in imitation, as having the right thereof grounded in nature, and not in ceremony or type, it will little avail the matter. The whole judaic law is either political, (and to take pattern by that, no chriftian nation ever thought itself obliged in confcience) or moral, which contains in it the obfervation of whatfoever is fubftantially and perpetually true and good, either in religion, or courfe of life. That which is thus moral, befides what we fetch from thofe unwritten laws and ideas which nature hath engraven in us, the gofpel, as ftands with her dignity moft, lectures to her from her own authentic handwriting and command, not copies out from the borrowed manufcript of a fubfervient scroll, by way of imitating: as well might she be faid in her facrament of water, to imitate the baptism of John. What though the retain excommunication used in the fynagogue, retain the morality of the fabbath? She does not therefore imitate the law her underling, but perfect her. All that was morally delivered from the law to the gofpel, in the office of the priests and Levites, was, that there fhould be a miniftry fet apart to teach and difcipline the church; both which duties the apostles thought good to commit to the prefbyters. And if any distinction diftinction of honour were to be made among them, they -directed it should be to thofe not that only rule well, but especially to those that labour in the word and doctrine. By which we are taught that laborious teaching is the most honourable prelaty that one minister can have above another in the gofpel; if, therefore the fuperiority of bishopship be grounded on the priesthood as a part of the moral law, it cannot be faid to be an imitation; for it were ridiculous that morality fhould imitate morality, which ever was the fame thing. This very word of patterning or imitating, excludes epifcopacy from the folid and grave ethical law, and betrays it to be a mere child of ceremony, or likelier fome mifbegotten thing, that having plucked the gay feathers of her obfolete bravery, to hide her own deformed barrenness, now vaunts and glories in her stolen plumes. In the mean while, what danger there is against the very life of the gofpel, to make in any thing the typical law her pattern, and how impoffible in that which touches the priestly government, I fhall use fuch light as I have received, to lay open. It cannot be unknown by what expreffions the holy apoftle St. Paul fpares not to explain to us the nature and condition of the law, calling those ordinances, which were the chief and effential offices of the priests, the elements and rudiments of the world, both weak and beggarly. Now to breed, and bring up the children of the promise, the heirs of liberty and grace, under fuch a kind of government as is profeffed to be but an imitation of that ministry, which engendered to bondage the fons of Agar; how can this be but a foul injury and derogation, if not a cancelling of that birthright and immunity, which Chrift hath purchased for us with his blood? For the miniftration of the law, confifting of carnal things, drew to it such a ministry as confifted of carnal refpects, dignity, precedence, and the like. And fuch a ministry established in the gospel, as is founded upon the points and terms of fuperiority, and nefts itself in worldly honours, will draw to it, and we fee it doth, fuch a religion as runs back again to the old pomp and glory of the flesh: for doubtless there is a certain attraction and magnetic force betwixt the religion and the minifterial form thereof. If the religion be pure, fpiritual, fimple, and lowly, as the gofpel most truly truly is, fuch muft the face of the ministry be. And in like manner, if the form of the miniftry be grounded in the worldly degrees of authority, honour, temporal jurifdiction, we fee with our eyes it will turn the inward power and purity of the gospel into the outward carnality of the law; evaporating and exhaling the internal worship into empty conformities, and gay shows. And what remains then, but that we fhould run into as dangerous and deadly apoftafy as our lamentable neighbours the papifts, who, by this very fnare and pitfall of imitating the ceremonial law, fell into that irrecoverable fuperftition, as muft needs make void the covenant of falvation to them that perfift in this blindness? CHA P. IV. That it is impoffible to make the priesthood of Aaron a pattern whereon to ground epifcopacy. THAT which was promised next is, to declare the impoffibility of grounding evangelic government in the imitation of the jewish priesthood; which will be done by confidering both the quality of the perfons, and the office itself. Aaron and his fons were the princes of their tribe, before they were fanctified to the priesthood: that perfonal eminence, which they held above the other Levites, they received not only from their office, but partly brought it into their office; and fo from that time forward the priests were not chofen out of the whole number of the Levites, as our bishops, but were born inheritors of the dignity. Therefore, unless we shall choose our prelates only out of the nobility, and let them run in a blood, there can be no poffible imitation of lording over their brethren in regard of their perfons altogether unlike. As for the office, which was a reprefentation of Chrift's own perfon more immediately in the high priest, and of his whole pricftly office in all the other, to the performance of which the Levites were but as fervitors and deacons, it was neceffary there fhould be a diftinction of dignity between two functions of fo great odds. odds. But there being no fuch difference among our minifters, unless it be in reference to the deacons, it is impoffible to found a prelaty upon the imitation of this priesthood: for wherein, or in what work, is the office of a prelate excellent above that of a paftor? In ordination, you will fay; but flatly againft fcripture: for there we know Timothy received ordination by the hands of the prefbytery, notwithstanding all the vain delufions that are used to evade that teftimony, and maintain an unwarrantable ufurpation. But wherefore fhould ordination be a caufe of fetting up a fuperior degree in the Church? Is not that whereby Chrift became our Saviour a higher and greater work, than that whereby he did ordain meffengers to preach and publish him our Saviour? Every minister sustains the person of Christ in his highest work of communicating to us the myfteries of our falvation, and hath the power of binding and abfolving; how fhould he need a higher dignity, to reprefent or execute that which is an inferiour work in Chrift? Why should the performance of ordination, which is a lower office, exalt a prelate, and not the feldom discharge of a higher and more noble office, which is preaching and adminiftering, much rather depress him? Verily, neither the nature nor the example of ordination doth any way require an imparity between the ordainer and the ordained; for what more natural than every like to produce his like, man to beget man, fire to propagate fire? And in examples of highest opinion the ordainer is inferiour to the ordained; for the pope is not made by the precedent pope, but by cardinals, who ordain and confecrate to a higher and greater office than their own. T CHA P. V. To the arguments of bishop Andrews and the Primate. It follows here to attend to certain objections in a little treatise lately printed among others of like fort at Oxford, and in the title faid to be out of the rude draughts of bishop |