An Advertisement to the Reader

Know, Reader, that whereas in one of those many angry pamphlets, which have been lately published, there is an intimation given of some disgraceful language that fell from Doctor Voetius, the learned professor of Utrecht, concerning the person of Doctor Hall, Bishop of Exeter; there has been serious inquisition made into the truth of that report; and that the said Doctor Voetius disavows (to the party that inquired of it) any such words of under-valuation, by him spoken, as it is testified under the hand of Sir William Boswell Knight, his Majesty's resident with the states. And, if, upon the sight of a displeasing title of a book (contrary to his own judgment) any learned divine should have passed a censure upon the work, there was small reason for the reporters to reflect upon the person of the author. Indeed, I am confident that many of our worthy brethren at home, who are differently minded concerning this tenet of the right of Episcopacy, if they would be pleased to inform themselves thoroughly of the state of the question, as it is defended by the author of that treatise, would find small cause of scruple in this opinion. For whereas there are three degrees of truths, and holy institutions (as they are commonly distinguished) — human, Apostolic, divine; the first from mere men; the second from men Apostolic; the third from God himself immediately — the author desires to go a midway in this difference; holding it too low to derive Episcopacy from a merely human and ecclesiastical ordinance; holding it too high to deduce it from an immediate command from God; and therefore pitching upon an Apostolic institution, rests there. But because those Apostles were divinely inspired and had the directions of God's Spirit for those things which they did for the common administration of the Church, therefore, and in that only name, is Episcopacy said to lay claim to a divine right; however also it cannot be gainsaid that the grounds were formerly laid by our Savior in a known inequality among his first agents. Now surely this truth has so little reason to displease them, that even learned Chamier himself can say: Res ipsa coepit tempore Apostolorum, vel potius ab ipsis profecta est. And why should that seem harsh in us, which sounds well in the mouths of less-interested divines? But because the very title of that book has raised more dust than the treatise itself, be pleased, readers, to see that this very question is in the very same terms determined by that eminent light of the Palatinate, Doctor Abraham Scultetus, whose tract to this purpose I have thought fit to annex.

Peruse it, and judge whether of those two writers have gone further in this determination. And if you shall not meet with convincing reasons to bring you home to this opinion, yet at least find cause enough to retain a charitable and favorable conceit of those, who are (as they think, upon good grounds) otherwise minded. And while it is on all parts agreed by wise and unprejudiced Christians, that the calling is thus ancient and sacred, let it not violate the peace of the Church to examine the original, whether ecclesiastical, Apostolic, or divine. Shortly, let all good men humbly submit to the ordinance, and heartily wish the reformation of any abuses.

And so many as are of this mind, peace be upon them, and the whole Israel of GOD.

Amen.