Chapter 15

Pag. 49. You take a view of the tenth Chapter of the Animadversions, opposed to the thirteenth and fourteenth Paragraph of your Fiat Lax, wherein you pretend to set forth the various pleas of those that are at difference among us in matters of religion. These you there distribute into Independents, Presbyterians and Protestants. Here omitting the consideration of the two former, you apply your self to what was spoken about Prelate Protestants as you call them. You endeavour, say you, to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant, and also what I have said for him. I said in Fiat Lux, that it made not a little against our Protestants, that after the Prelate Protestancy was setled in England, they were forced for their own preservation against the Puritans to take up some of those principles again, which former Protestants had cast down for Popish, as is the authority of the visible Church, efficacy of ordination, difference between Clergy and Laity. Here first you deny that these principles are Popish; but Sir, there are some Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jewry. I have other things to do than to fill volumes with useless texts, which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first Reformers and Catholic Divines and Councils.

What acquaintance you have with the Jews, we have in part seen already, and shall have occasion hereafter to examine a little further. In the mean time you may be pleased to take notice that men who know what they say, are not easily affrighted from it by a shew of such Mormoes, as he in the Comedian was from his own house by his servant's pretence that it was haunted by Sprights, when there were none in it, but his own debauched companions. I denyed those opinions to be Popish, and should do so still, were I accused for so doing before a Roman Judge as corrupt and wicked as Pontius Pilate. For I can prove them to be more ancient than any part of Popery, in the sense explained in the Animadversions, and admitted generally by Protestants. We never esteem every thing Popish that Papists hold or believe. Some things in your profession belong to your Christianity, some things to your Popery. And I am perswaded you do not think this proposition, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, to be heretical, because those whom you account heretics do profess and believe it. Prove the principles you mention to be invented by your selves, without any foundation in the Scripture, or constant suffrage of the ancient Churches, and you prove them to be Popish, to be your own. If you cannot do so, though Papists profess them, yet they may be Christian. This is spoken as to the principles themselves, not to your explanation of them, which in sundry particulars is Popish, which were never owned by Prelate Protestants. You proceed, You challenge me to prove that these principles were ever denyed by our Prelate Protestants, and this you do wittily and like your self. You therefore bid me prove that those principles were ever denyed by our Prelate Protestants, because I say that our Prelate Protestants here in England, as soon as they became such, took up again those forenamed principles, which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond Seas before our Prelacy was set up had still rejected. When I say then that our Prelate Protestants affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denyed, you bid me prove that ever our Prelate Protestants ever denyed them. But whatever you can prove or cannot prove, you have made it very easie for any man to prove, that you have very little regard to truth and sobriety in what you aver, so that you may acquit your self from that which presseth you, and which according to the rules of them you cannot stand before. You tell us in the entrance of this discourse, that you said, that Prelate Protestants for their own preservation took up some of those principles again which former Protestants had cast down for Popish. And here expresly, that you said not that they took up the principles which themselves had cast down, but only those which other before them had so dealt withall. Now pray take a view of your own words, whereby you express your self in this matter. Chap. 3. S. 14. p. 189. ed. 2. Are they not these? The Prelate Protestant to defend himself against them (the Presbyterians and Independents) is forced to make use of those very principles, which himself afore time (not other Protestants but himself) when he (not others) first contended against Popery, destroyed. So that upon him falls most heavily even like Thunder and Lightning from Heaven, utterly to kill and cut him asunder, that great Oracle delivered by Saint Paul, If I build up again the things, I (not another) formerly destroyed, I make my self a prevaricator, an Impostor, a Reprobate. What think you of these words? Do you charge the Prelate Protestant with building up what others had pulled down, or what he had destroyed himself? Is your Rule out of Saint Paul applicable to him upon any other account, but that he himself was both the builder and destroyer? Sir, such miscarriages as these Protestants know to be mortal sins; and if without contrition for them you have celebrated any Sacrament of your Church, it cannot be avoided but that you have brought a great inconvenience on some of your Disciples. Besides suppose you had spoken as you now faign your self to have done, I desire to know who they are whom you intend when you say our Prelate Protestants so soon as they became such, as though they were first Protestants at large and destroyed those principles, which afterwards they built up when they became Prelate Protestants; seeing all men know that our Reformation was begun by Prelates themselves, and such as never disclaimed the principles by you instanced in.

But you tell me, I do not only reject what you object against Prelate Protestants, but also what you allege in their behalf. I do so indeed; though I laugh not at you or it, as you pretend; and so must any man do, who pleading for Protestancy has not a mind openly to prevaricate. For your plea for them is such, as if admitted, would not only overthrow your Prelacy which you pretend to assert, but also destroy your Protestancy which you will not deny but that you seek to oppose. No, it is no other, but what was contradicted in the very Council of Trent by the Spanish Prelates, as that which they conceived to have been an engine contrived for the ruin of Episcopacy under a pretence of establishing it; and which instead of asserting them to be Bishops in the Church, would have rendered them all Curates to the Pope. You would have us believe that Christ has appointed one Episcopal Monarch in his Church with plenitude of power to represent his own Person, which is the Pope, and from him all other Bishops to derive their power, being substituted by him, and to him to their work. And must not this needs be an acceptable defensative or plea to Prelate Protestants, which if it be admitted, they can be no longer supposed to be made Overseers of their flocks by the Holy Ghost, but by the Pope, which forfeits their Prelacy, and besides asserts his Supremacy, which destroys their Protestancy?

Upon this occasion, you proceed to touch upon somewhat of great importance concerning the Head of the Church, wherein you know a great part of the difference between yourself and those whom you oppose to consist. In your passage you mention the use of true logic, but I fear we shall find that in your discourse laudatur & alget. I should have been glad to have found you making what use you were able of that which you commend. It would I suppose have directed you to have stated plainly and clearly what it is that you assert, and what it is that you oppose, and to have given your arguments Catasceuastical of the one, and Anasceuastical of the other; but either you know not that way of procedure, or you considered how little advantage to your end you were like to obtain thereby. And therefore you make use only of that part of logic which teaches the nature and kinds of sophisms; in particular, that of confounding things which ought to be distinguished. However your discourse, such as it is, shall be examined, and that by the rules of that logic which yourself commend.

You say pag. 51. The Church says I must have a Bishop, or otherwise she will not have such a visible Head as she had at first. This, that you may enervate, you tell me, that the Church has still the same Head she had, which is Christ, who is present with his Church by his Spirit and his laws, and is Man God still as much as ever he was; and ever the same will be; and if I would have any other visible Bishop to be head, then it seems I would not have the same head, and so would have the same, and not the same.

This is but one part of my answer, and that very lamely and imperfectly reported. The reader if he please may see the whole of it, Ch. 10. p. 223, &c. and therewithal take a specimen of your ingenuity in this controversy. It were very sufficient to render your following exceptions against it useless to your purpose, merely to repeat what you seek to oppose; but because you shall not have any pretence, that any thing you have said is passed over undiscussed, I shall consider what you offer in way of exception to so much of my answer as you are pleased yourself to express, and as may be supposed, thought yourself qualified to deal withal. Thus then you proceed;

I cannot in reason be thought to speak otherwise, if we would use true logic, of the identity of the head, than I do of the identity of the body of the Church. This body is not numerically the same; for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world, and another generation come, who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind, though not numerically the same. So do I require that since Jesus Christ as man, the head immediate of other believing men, is departed hence to the glory of his Father, that the Church should still have a Head of the same kind, as visibly now present, as she had in the beginning; or else say I, she cannot be completely the same body, or a body of the same kind visible as she was. But this she has not, this she is not, except she have a visible Bishop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God. Christ our Lord is indeed still Man God, but his manhood is now separate; nor is he visibly present as man, which immediately headed his believers under God, on whose influence their nature depended. His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in itself, but in order to his Church also as it was before equally invisible, and in the like manner believed; but the nature delegate under God, and once ruling visibly among us by words and examples, is now utterly withdrawn. And if a nature of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exterior government, as at the first then was, then has not the Church the same head now, which she had then: qui habet aures audiendi audiat.

How you have secured your logic in this discourse, shall afterwards be considered; your divinity seems at the first view liable to just exceptions. For, 1. You suppose Christ in his human nature only to have been the Head of his Church, and therefore the absence of that, to necessitate the constitution of another. Now this supposition is openly false and dangerous to the whole being of Christianity. It is the Son of God who is the Head of the Church; who as he is man, so also is he over all God blessed for ever: And as God and man in one person, is that Head, and ever was since his incarnation, and ever will be to the end of the world. To deny this is to overthrow the foundation of the Church's faith, preservation and consolation, it being founded and built on this, that he was the Son of the living God (Matthew 16), and yet into this supposition alone, is your imaginary necessity of the substitution of another Head in his room resolved. 2. You plainly confess that the present Church has not the same head, that the Church had when our Lord Christ conversed with them in the days of his flesh. That, you say, was his human nature delegate under God, which being now removed and separate, another person so delegate under God, is substituted in his place. Which not only deprives the Church of its first Head, but also deposes the human nature of Christ from that office of headship to his Church, which you confess that for a while it enjoyed: leaving him nothing but what belongs to him as God, wherein alone you will allow him to be that to his Church which formerly he was. Confessing I say, the human nature of Christ to have been the head of the Church, and now denying it so to be, you do what lies in you to depose him from his office and throne, allowing his human nature as far as I can perceive to be of little other use than to be eaten by you in the Mass. 3. You make your intention yet more evident, by intimating that the human nature of Christ is now no more Head of the Church, than the present Church is made up of the same numerical members, that it was constituted of in the days of his flesh. What change you suppose in the Church the body, the same you suppose and assert in the head thereof. And as that change excludes those former members from being present members: so this excludes the former Head from being the present Head. Of old the Head of the Church was the human nature of Christ delegate under God; now that is removed, and another person in the same nature is so delegated to the same office. Now this is not a Head under Christ, but in distinction from him in the same place wherein he was, and so exclusive of him, which must needs be Antichrist, one pretending to be in his room and place to his exclusion, that is, one set up against him. And thus also what you seek to avoid does inevitably follow upon your discourse, namely that you would have the Church for the preservation of its oneness and sameness, to have the same head she had, which is not the same, unless you will say that the Pope is Christ: these are the principles that you proceed upon. First, you tell us, that the human nature of Christ delegate under God was the visible Head of the Church; Secondly, that this nature is now removed from us and ceases so to be, that is, not only to be visible, but the visible Head of the Church, and is no more so, than the present Church is made up of the same individual members as it was in the days of his flesh, which, as you well observe, it is not. Thirdly, that a nature of the same kind in another person is now delegate under God to the same office of a visible Head, with that power of external government which Christ had while he was that head. And is it not plain from hence, that you exclude the Lord Christ from being that head of his Church which he was in former days? And substituting another in his room and place, you at once depose him, and assign another head to the Church, and that in your attempt to prove that her head must still be the same, or she cannot be so. Farther, the human nature of Christ was personally united to the Son of God: and if that Head which you now fancy the Church to have, be not so united, it is not the same Head that that was: and so while you seek to establish not indeed a sameness in the Head of the Church, but a likeness in several Heads of it as to visibility, you evidently assert a change in the nature of that Head of the Church which we enquire after. In a word, Christ and the Pope are not the same; and therefore if it be necessary to maintain that the Church has the same Head that she had, to assert that in the room of Christ she has the Pope, you prove that she has the same head that she had, because she has one that is not the same she had: and so qui habet aures audiat. 4. You vainly imagine the whole Catholic Church any otherwise visible, than with the eyes of faith and understanding. It was never so, no not when Christ conversed with it in the earth; no not if you should suppose only his blessed Mother, his twelve Apostles, and some few more only to belong to it. For though all the members of it might be seen, and that at once by the bodily eyes of men, as might also the human nature of him who was the head of it, yet as he was Head of the Church, and in that his whole person wherein he was so, and is so, he was never visible to any, for no man has seen God at any time. And therefore you, substituting a Head in his room who in his whole person is visible, seeing he was not so, do change the Head of the Church as to its visibility also, (for one that is in his whole person visible, and another that is not so, are not alike visible) wherein you would principally place the identity of the Church. 5. Let us see whether your logic be any better than your divinity. The best argument that can be formed out of your discourse, is this. If the Church has not a head visibly present with her, as she had when Christ in his human nature was on the earth, she is not the same that she was; but according to their principles she has not a head now so visibly present with her; therefore she is not the same according to them. I desire to know how you prove your inference. It is built on this supposition, that the sameness of the Church depends upon the visibility of its Head, and not on the sameness of the Head itself; which is a fond conceit, and contrary to express Scripture (Ephesians 4:3, 4, 5, 6, 7), and not capable of the least countenance from reason. It may be you will say, that though your argument do not conclude that on our supposition the Church is not the same absolutely as it was, yet it does that it is not the same as to visibility. Whereunto I answer, 1. That there is no necessity that the Church should be always the same as to visibility, or always visible in the same manner, or always equally visible as to all concernments of it. 2. You mistake the whole nature of the visibility of the Church, supposing it to consist in its being seen with the bodily eyes of men: whereas it is only an affection of its public profession of the truth, whereunto its being seen in part or in whole by the eyes of any, or all men, does no way belong. 3. That the Church, as I said before, was indeed never absolutely visible in its Head and members: He who was the Head of it being never in his whole person visible to the eyes of men, and he is yet as he was of old visible to the eyes of faith, whereby we see him that is invisible. So that to be visible to the bodily eyes of men in its head and members, was never a property of the Church, much less such an one, as that thereon its sameness in all ages should depend. 6. You fail also in supposing that the numerical sameness of the Church as a body, depends absolutely on the sameness of its members: For while in succession it has all things the same that concur to its constitution, order, and existence, it may be still the same body corporate, though it consist not of the same individual persons or bodies natural: As the Kingdom of England is the same Kingdom that it was two hundred years ago, though there be not now one person living that then it was made up of. For though the matter be the same only specifically, yet the form being the same numerically, that denominates the body to be so. But that I may the better represent to you, the proper genius and design of your discourse, I shall briefly mind you of the principles which you oppose in it, and seek to evert by it, as also of those which you intend to compass your purpose by. Of the first sort are these; 1. That the Lord Christ God and man in one person is, and ever continues to be the only absolute monarchical Head of his own Church. I suppose it needless for me to confirm this principle by testimonies of Scripture, which it being a matter of pure revelation is the only way of confirmation that it is capable of. That he is the Head of his Church, is so frequently averred, that every one who has but read the New Testament will assent to it upon the bare repetition of the words, with the same faith whereby he assents to the writing itself whatever it be: and we shall afterwards see that the notion of a Head is absolutely exclusive of competition in the matter denoted by it. A Head properly is singly and absolutely so: and therefore the substitution of another head to the Church in the room of Christ, or with him, is perfectly exclusive of him from being so. 2. That Christ as God-man in his whole person was never visible to the fleshly eyes of men: and whereas, as such, he was Head of the Church, as the Head of the Church, he was never absolutely visible. His human nature was seen of old, which was but something of him; as he was, and is the Head of the Church, otherwise than by faith, no man has seen him at any time: and it changes the condition of the Church, to suppose that now it has a Head, who being a mere man, is in his whole person visible, so far as a man may be seen. 3. That the visibility of the Church consists in its public profession of the truth, and not in its being objected to the bodily eyes of men. It is a thing that faith may believe, it is a thing that reason may take notice of, consider and comprehend; the eyes of the body being of no use in this matter. When a Church professes the truth, it is the ground and pillar of it, a city on a hill; that is visible though no man see it, yes though no man observe or contemplate on any thing about it. Its own profession, not other men's observation constitutes it visible. Nor is there any thing more required to a Church's visibility, but its profession of the truth, to which all the outward advantages which it has or may have of appearing conspicuously or gloriously to the consideration of men, are purely accidental, which may be separated from it without any prejudice to its visibility. 4. That the sameness of the Church in all ages does not depend on its sameness in respect of degrees of visibility. That the Church be the same that it was, is required that it profess the same truth it did, whereby it becomes absolutely visible: but the degrees of this visibility, as to conspicuousness and notoriety, depending on things accidental to the being, and consequently visibility of Church, do no way affect as to any change. Now from hence it follows, 1. That the presence or absence of the human nature of Christ with, or from his Church on earth, does not belong to the visibility of it; so that the absence of it, does no way infer a necessity of substituting another visible head in his stead. Nor was the presence of his human nature with his Church any way necessary to the visibility of it; his conversation on the earth being wholly for other ends and purposes. 2. That the presence or absence of the human nature of Christ, not varying his headship, which under both considerations is still the same, the supposition of another Head is perfectly destructive of the whole headship of Christ; there being no vacancy possible to be imagined for that supply, but by the removal of Christ out of his place. For he being the Head of his Church as God and man, in his whole person invisible, and the visibility of the Church consisting solely in its own profession of the truth, the absence of his human nature from the earth, neither changes his own headship, nor prejudices the Church's visibility: so that either the one or the other of them should induce a necessity of the supply of another Head. Consider now what it is that you oppose to these things. You tell us, [illegible]. That Christ was the Head of the Church in his human nature delegated by and under God to that purpose. You mean he was so absolutely, and as man, exclusively to his divine nature. This your whole discourse with the inferences that you draw from this supposition abundantly manifests. If you can make this good, you may conclude what you please: I know no man that has any great cause to oppose himself to you, for you have taken away the very foundation of the being and [illegible] of the Church in your supposition. 2. You inform us, that Christ by his Ascension into heaven ceased to be that Head that he was, so that of necessity another must be substituted in his place and room; and this we must think to be the Pope. He is I confess absent from his Church here on earth, as to his bodily appearance among us; which as it was not necessary as to his headship, so he promised to supply the inconvenience which [illegible] disciples apprehended would ensue thereupon, so that they should have great cause to rejoice at it, as that wherein their great advantage would lie (John 16:7). That this should be by giving us a Pope at Rome in his stead, he has no way intimated. And to those who know what your Pope is, and what he has done in the world, you will hardly make it evident, that the great advantage which the Lord Christ promised to his disciples upon his absence, is made good to them by his supervisorship. 3. You would have the visibility of the Church depend on the visibility of its Head, as also its sameness in all ages. And no one, you are secure, who is now visible, pretends to be the Head of the Church, but the Pope alone, and therefore of necessity he it must be. But Sir, if the Lord Jesus Christ had had no other nature than that wherein he was visible to the eyes of men, he could never have been a meet Head for a Church dispersed throughout the whole world, nor have been able to discharge the duty annexed by God to that office. And if so, I hope you will not take it amiss, if on that supposition, I deem your Pope, of whom millions of Christians know nothing but by uncertain rumors, nor he of them, to be very unmeet for the discharge of it. And for the visibility of the Church, I have before declared wherein it does consist. Upon the whole matter, you do not only come short of proving the identity and oneness of the Church to depend upon one visible bishop as its monarchical Head, but also the principles whereby you attempt the confirmation of that absurd position, are of that nature that they exclude the headship of Christ, and infer no less change or alteration in the Church, than that which must needs ensue thereon, and the substitution of another in his room, which destroys the very essence and being of it.

Let us now consider what you further reply to that which was offered in the Animadversions to the purpose now discoursed of. Your ensuing words are,

And here by the way we may take notice what a fierce English Protestant you are, who labor so stoutly to evacuate my argument for Episcopacy, and leave none of your own behind you, nor acquaint the world with any, though you know far better, but would make us believe notwithstanding those far better reasons, for Prelacy, that Christ himself, as he is the immediate Head of invisible influence, so is he likewise the only and immediate Head of visible direction and government among us, without the interposition of any Person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth, which is against the tenor both of sacred Gospel and Saint Paul's Epistles, and all Antiquity, and the present Ecclesiastical Polity of England, and is the doctrine not of any English Protestant, but of the Presbyterian, Independent and Quaker.

How little cause you have to attempt an impeachment of my Protestancy, I hope I have in some measure evidenced to you, and shall yet farther make it manifest, as you give me occasion so to do. In the mean time as I told you before, that I would not plead the particular concernment of any party among Protestants, no more than you do that of any party among your selves, so I am sure enough that I have delivered nothing prejudicial to any of them, because I have kept my self to the defence of their Protestancy wherein they all agree. Nor have I given you an answer to any argument that tends in the least to the confirmation of such a Prelacy as by any sort of Protestants is admitted, but only shewed the emptiness and pernicious consequences of your Sophism, wherewith you plead in pretence for Prelacy, indeed for a Papal Supremacy, and that on such principles as are absolutely destructive of that Protestant Prelacy which you would be thought to give countenance to. And your ensuing discourse wherein you labor to justifie your reflection on me, is a pittiful piece of falsehood and Sophistry. For first, this double Head of the Catholick Church, one of influence, the other of direction and government, which you fancy some Protestants to admit of, is a thing that they declare against as injurious to the Lord Christ, and that which would render the Church biceps monstrum horrid and deformed. It is Christ himself, who as by his Spirit he exercises the office of an head by invisible influence, so by his Word that of visible direction and rule; he is I say the only Head of visible direction to his Church, though he be not a visible Head to that purpose, which that he should be, is to no purpose at all. 2. If by the interposition of any person under Christ, delegate in his stead, you understand any one single person delegated in his stead to oversee and rule the whole Catholick Church, such an one as you now plead for in your Epistle, it is intolerable arrogancy to intimate that he is designed either in the Gospel or Saint Paul's Epistles, or Antiquity; whereas you are not able to assign any place, or text, or word in them, directly or by fair consequence to justifie what you assert. And for the present Ecclesiastical policy of the Church of England, if you yet know it not, let me inform you, that the very foundations of it are laid in a direct contrary supposition; namely that there is no such single person delegated under Christ for the rule of the whole Catholick Church; which gives us a new evidence of your conscientious [illegible] in what you say and write. 3. If you intend, (that which is not at all to your purpose) persons to rule under Christ in the Church, presiding according to his direction and institution, in and over the particular churches whereunto they do relate, governing them in his name, by his authority, and according to his Word, I desire you to inform me, wherein I have said, or written, or intimated any thing that may give you the least countenance in your affirming that by me it is denied; or where it was ever denied by any Protestant whatever, Prelatical, Presbyterian, or Independent: neither does this concession of theirs in the least impeach the sole sovereign Monarchy of Christ, and single Headship over his Church to all ends and purposes. A Monarch may be, and is the sole supreme governor and political head of his Kingdom, though he appoint others to execute his Laws by virtue of authority derived from him, in the several Provinces, Shires and Parishes of it. And Christ is the only Head of his Church, though he have appointed others to preside and rule in his name, in those distributions of his Disciples whereinto they are cast by his appointment. But you proceed, Christ in their way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence, but of exterior derivation also and government to his Church. Ans. He is so, the supreme and only Head of the Church Catholick in the one way and other, though the means of conveying influences of grace, and of exterior rule be various. Then say you, is he such an Head to all believers or no? To all, the whole body in general, and every individual member thereof in particular? If he be so to all, you say, then no man is to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man: but why so I pray? Can no man govern in any sense or place but he must be a supreme Head? The King is immediate Head to all his subjects, he is King not only to the whole Kingdom, but to every individual person in his Kingdom; does it from there follow that they may not be governed by officers subordinate delegated under him to rule them by his authority according to his Laws? Or that if they may be so, that he is not the only immediate King and supreme Head to them all? The Apostle tells us expresly that the Head of every man is Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3), and that an head of rule, as the husband is the head of the wife (Ephesians 5:23), as well as he is an head of influence to the whole body, and every member of it in particular (1 Corinthians 12:12; Colossians 2:19). And it is a senseless thing to imagine, that this should in the least impeach his appointment of men to rule under him in his Church according to his Law; who are thereupon not heads, but in respect of him servants, and in respect to the particular churches wherein they serve him, rulers or guides, yes their servants for his sake; not Lords over the flocks, but ministers of their faith. By these are the flocks of Christ governed, as by shepherds appointed by him the great Bishop and Shepherd of their souls, according to the rules by him prescribed for the rule of the one, and obedience of the other. But if by governed by another man, you mean absolutely, supremely, at his will and pleasure, then we deny that any disciple of Christ is in the things of God, so to be governed by any man, and affirm that to assert it, is to cast down Jesus Christ from his Throne. But you say, if he be not immediate head to all, but ministers head the people, and Christ heads the ministers, this in effect is nothing but to make every minister a Bishop. Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have? All this while you heed no more the Laws of the Land, than constitutions of the Gospel. Answ. I have told you how Christ is the immediate Head to all, and yet how he has appointed others to preside in his Churches under him; and that this should infer an equality in all that are by him appointed to that work, is most senseless to imagine, nor did I in the least intimate any such thing, but only that therefore there was no need of any one supreme head of the whole Catholick Church, nor any place or room left for such an one without the deposition of Christ himself. Because the King is the only supreme Head of all his people, does it therefore follow that if he appoint Constables to rule in every parish, with that allotment of power which by his Laws he gives to them, and Justices of Peace to rule over them in an whole County, that therefore every Constable in effect is a Justice of Peace, or that there is a sameness in their office? Christ is the Head of every man that is in the Church, be he Bishop, or minister, or private man: and when the ministers are said to head the people, or the Bishops to head them, the expression is improper; an inferiour ministerial subordinate rule being expressed by the name of that which is supreme and absolute: or they head them not absolutely, but in some respect only, as every one of them dischargeth the authority over and towards them wherewith he is intrusted. This assertion of Christ's sole absolute Headship, and denial of any Monarchical state in the Church Catholick but what ariseth from there, does not as every child may see, concern the difference that is about the superiority of Bishops to ministers or Presbyters. For notwithstanding this, there are degrees in the ministry of the Church, and several orders of men are engaged therein, and whatever there are, there might have been more, had it seemed to our good Lord Christ to appoint them. And whatever order of men may be supposed to be instituted by him in his Church, he must be supposed to be the Head of them all, and they are all to serve him in the duties and offices that they have to discharge towards the Church and one another. This Headship of Christ is the thing that you are to oppose, and its exclusiveness to the substitution of an absolute Head over the whole Catholick Church in his place because of his bodily absence from the earth. But this you cast out of sight, and instead thereof, fall upon the equality of Bishops and ministers, which no way ensues thereon. Both Bishops and Presbyters agreeing well enough in the truth we assert and plead for: this, you say, is contrary to the Gospel and the Law of the Land. What is I pray? That Christ is the only absolute Head of the Catholick Church? No; but that Bishops and ministers are in effect all one. But what is that to your purpose? Will it advantage your cause what way ever that problem be determined? Was any occasion offered you to discourse upon that question? No, you perceive well enough your self, that this is nothing at all to your design, and therefore in your following discourse you double and sophisticate, making it evident that either you understand not your self what you say, or that you would not have others understand you, or that you confound all things with a design to deceive: for when you come to speak of the Gospel you attempt to prove the appointment of one supreme pastor to the whole Catholick Church, and by the Law of the Land, the superiority of Bishops over ministers, as though these things were the same, or had any relation one to another: whereas we have shewed the former in your sense to be destructive to the latter. Truth never put any man upon such subterfuges; and I hope the difficulties that you find your self perplexed withal, may direct you at length to find, that there is a deceit in your right hand. But let us hear your own words.

As for the Gospel, the Lord who had been visible governor and pastor of his flock on earth, when he was now to depart hence, as all the Apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care, so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock, publicly appoint one. And when he taught them, that he who was greatest among them should be as the least, he did not deny but suppose one greater; and taught in one and the same breath, both that he was over them, and for what he was over them, namely to feed, not to tyrannize; not to domineer and hurt, but to direct, comfort, and conduct his flock in all humility and tenderness, as a servant of all their spiritual necessities; and if a Bishop be otherwise affected, it is the fault of his person not his place.

And what is it that you would prove hereby? Is it that Bishops are above Ministers, which in the words immediately foregoing you asserted, and in those next ensuing confirm from the Law of the Land? Is there any tendency in your discourse towards any such purpose? No, do not you yourself know that what you seek to insinuate, namely the institution of one supreme Pastor of the whole Catholic Church, one of the Apostles to be above and ruler over all the rest of the Apostles, and the whole Church besides, is perfectly destructive of the Hierarchy of Bishops in England as established by Law; and also at once casting down the main if not only foundation that they plead for their station and order from the Gospel. For all Prelate Protestants as you call them, assert an equality in all the Apostles, and a superiority in them, to the 70 Disciples, from where by a parity of reason, they conclude the superiority of Bishops over Ministers to be continued in the Church. And are you not a fair Advocate for your cause, and well meet for the reproving of others for not consenting to them? But waving that which you little care for, and are not at all concerned in, let us see how you prove that which we know you greatly desire to give some countenance to; that is, an universal visible Pastor over the whole Catholic Church in the place and room of Christ himself. First, you tell us, that the Apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed Christ in his care. But to have one succeed another in his care, infers, that that other [illegible] take and exercise the care which formerly he had and exercised; which in this case is highly blasphemous once to imagine. I wish you would take more care of what you say in things of this nature, and not suffer the impetuousness of your interest to cast you upon expressions so [illegible] to the honor of Christ, and safety of his Church. And how do you prove that the Apostles had any such expectations as that which you mention? Our Savior gave them equal commission to teach all Nations, told them that as his Father had sent him, so he sent them; that he had chosen them twelve, but that one of them was a Devil: never that one of them should be Pope. Their institution, instruction, privileges, charge, calling, were all equal. How then should they come to have this expectation that one of them should be chosen to succeed Christ in his care, when they were all chosen to serve under him in the continuance of his care towards his Church? That which you obscurely intimate from where this expectation of yours might arise, is the contest that was among them about preeminence (Luke 22:24): there was a strife among them which of them should be the greatest. [illegible] you suppose was upon their persuasion that one should be chosen in particular to succeed the Lord Christ in his care, whereupon they fell into difference about the place. But 1. Is it not somewhat strange to yourself, how they should contest about a succession to Christ in his absence, who had not once thought that he would ever be absent from them, nor could bear the mention of it without great sorrow of heart when afterwards he began to acquaint them with it? 2. How should they come in your apprehension to quarrel about that which as you suppose and contend, was somewhile before determined? For this contest of yours, was somewhile after the promise of the Keys to Peter, and the saying of Christ that he would build his Church on the Rock. Were the Apostles, think you, as stupid as Protestants, that they could not see the Supremacy of Peter in those passages, but must yet fall at variance who should be Pope? 3. How does it appear that this strife of theirs who should be greatest, did not arise from their apprehension of an earthly Kingdom, a hope whereof according to the then current persuasion of the Judaical Church, to be erected by their master whom they believed in as the true Messiah, they were not delivered from, until after his Resurrection, when they were filled with the Spirit of the New Testament (Acts 1)? Certainly from that root sprang the ambitious desire of the Sons of Zebedee, after preeminence in his Kingdom; and the designing of the rest of them in this place from the manner of its management, by strife, seems to have had no better a spring. 4. The stop put by our Lord Jesus to the strife that was among them, makes it manifest that it arose from no such expectation as you imagine; or that at least if it did, yet your expectation was irregular, vain, and groundless. For, 1. He tells them that there should be no such greatness in his Church, as that which they contended about, being like to the sovereignty exercised by, and in the Nations of the earth, from which he that can show a difference in your Papal Rule, erit mihi magnus Apollo. 2. He tells them, that his Father had equally provided a Kingdom, that is heavenly and eternal, for all them that believed, which was the only greatness that they ought to look or enquire after. 3. That as to their privilege in his Kingdom, it should be equal to them all, for they should all sit on Thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel; so ascribing equal power, authority and dignity to them all; which utterly overthrows the figment of the supremacy of any one of them over the rest (Luke 22:30; Matthew 19:28). And 4. Yet further to prevent any such conceit as that which you suppose them to have had concerning the prelation of any one of them, he tells them that one was their Master, even Christ, and that all they were brethren (Matthew 23:8), so giving them to understand, that he had designed them to be perfectly and every way equal among themselves. So ill have you laid the foundation of your plea, as that it guides us to a full determination of the contrary to your pretence, and that given by our Savior himself, with many reasons persuading his Disciples of the equity of it, and to an acquiescency in it. And what you add, that he presently appointed one to the preeminence you imagine, is altogether inconsistent with what you would conclude from the strife about it. For the appointment you fancy, preceded this contention, and had it been real, and to any such purpose, would certainly have prevented it. Thus you do neither prove from the Gospel what you pretend to, namely that Bishops are above Ministers, so well do you plead your cause, nor what you intend, namely that the Pope is appointed over them all. Only you wisely add a caution about what a Bishop ought to be and do de jure, and what any one of them may do or be de facto; because it is impossible for any man to find the least difference between the domination which our Savior expressly condemns, and that which your Pope does exercise; although I know not whether you would think meet to have him divested of that authority on the pretence whereof he so domineers in the world.

Finding your self destitute of any countenance from the Gospel, you proceed to the Laws of the Land. To what purpose? To prove that Christ appointed one among his Apostles to preside with plenitude of power over all the rest of them, and consequently over the whole Catholick Church, succeeding him in his care? Certainly you will find little countenance in our Laws to this purpose. But let us hear your own words again. As for the Laws of the Land, say you, it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and authority of the whole Kingdom, not only that Bishops are our Ministers, but that the Kings Majesty is head of the Bishops also in the line of hierarchy, from whose hand they receive both their places and jurisdiction. This was established not only by one, but by several Parliament Acts, both in the reign of King Edward, and Queen Elizabeth. What will hence follow? That there is one universal Bishop appointed to succeed Christ in his care over the Church Catholick, the thing you attempted to prove in the words immediately foregoing? Do not the same Laws which assert the order you mention, exclude that which you would introduce? Or would you prove that Bishops by the Law of this Land have a jurisdiction superior to Ministers? Who ever went about to deny it? Or what will the remembrance of it advance your pretension? And yet neither is this fairly expressed by you. For as no Protestants assert the King to be in his power and office interposed between Christ and Bishops or Ministers, as to their ministerial office which is purely spiritual, so the power of supreme jurisdiction which they ascribe to him, is not as you falsly insinuate, granted to him, by the Laws of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth, but is an inseparable privilege of his imperial Crown, exercised by his Royal Predecessors, and asserted by them against the intrusions and usurpations of the Pope of Rome; only declared by those and other Laws. But I perceive you have another design in hand. You are entering upon a discourse wherein you compare your selves not only with Presbyterians and Independents, but Prelate Protestants also, in what you ascribe to Kings in Ecclesiastical affairs, preferring your selves before and above them all. What just cause you have so to do, we shall afterwards consider. Your confidence in it, at first view, presents itself to us. [illegible] whereas there was not in the Animadversions any occasion of it administered to you, and your self confess that your whole discourse about it is besides your purpose, pag. 66. yet waving almost every thing that was incumbent upon you to have insisted on, if you would not plainly have appeared vadimonium deseruisse, and to have given up your Fiat as indefensible, you divert into a long harangue about it. The Thesis you would by various flourishes give countenance to is this: That Papists in their deference to Kings, even in Ecclesiastical matters, and in their principles of their obedience to them, [illegible] Protestants of all sorts. That this is not to our present purpose, your self cannot but see and acknowledge. However your discourse such as it is, relating to one special head of difference between us, shall be a part considered by its self in our next Chapter.