The Reason of Church-governement Urg'd against Prelaty/Book 1 Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
WE may returne now from this interposing difficulty thus remov'd, to affirme, that since Church-government is so strictly commanded in Gods Word, the first and greatest reason why we should submit thereto, is because God hath so commanded. But whether of these two, Prelaty or Presbytery can prove it selfe to be supported by this first and greatest reason, must be the next dispute. Wherein this position is to be first layd down as granted; that I may not follow a chase rather then an argument, that one of these two, and none other is of Gods ordaining, and if it be, that ordinance must be evident in the Gospell. For the imperfect and obscure institution of the Law, which the Apostles themselves doubt not oft-times to vilifie, cannot give rules to the compleat and glorious ministration of the Gospell, which lookes on the Law, as on a childe, not as on a tutor. And that the Prelates have no sure foundation in the Gospell, their own guiltinesse doth manifest: they would not else run questing up as high as Adam to fetch their originall, as tis said one of them lately did in publick. To which assertion, had I heard it, because I see they are so insatiable of antiquity, I should have gladly assented, and confest them yet more ancient. For Lucifer before Adam was the first prelat Angel, and both he, as is commonly thought, and our forefather Adam, as we all know, for aspiring above their orders, were miserably degraded. But others better advis'd are content to receive their beginning from Aaron and his sons, among whom B. Andrews of late yeares, and in these times the Primat of Armagh for their learning are reputed the best able to say what may be said in this opinion. The Primat in his discourse about the originall of Episcopacy newly revis'd begins thus. The ground of Episcopacy is fetcht partly from the pattern prescrib'd by God in the Old Testament, and partly from the imitation thereof brought in by the Apostles. Herein I must entreat to be excus'd of the desire I have to be satisfi'd, how for example the ground of Episcop. is fetch't partly from the example of the old Testament, by whom next, and by whose authority. Secondly, how the Church-government under the Gospell can be rightly call'd an imitation of that in the old Testament? for that the Gospell is the end and fulfilling of the Law, our liberty also from the bondage of the Law I plainly reade. How then the ripe age of the Gospell should be put to schoole againe, and learn to governe her selfe from the infancy of the Law, the stronger to imitate the weaker, the freeman to follow the captive, the learned to be lesson'd by the rude, will be a hard undertaking to evince from any of those principles which either art or inspiration hath written. If any thing done by the Apostles may be drawne howsoever to a likenesse of something Mosaicall, if it cannot be prov'd 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 availe the matter. The whole Judaick law is either politicall, and to take pattern by that, no Christian nation ever thought it selfe oblig'd in conscience; or morall, which containes in it the observation of whatsoever is substantially, and perpetually true and good, either in religion, or course of life. That which is thus morall, besides what we fetch from those unwritten lawes and Ideas which nature hath ingraven in us, the Gospell, as stands with her dignity most, lectures to us from her own authentick hand-writing and command, not copies out from the borrow'd manuscript of a subservient scrowl, by way of imitating. As well might she be said in her Sacrament of water to imitate the baptisme of Iohn. What though she retaine excommunication us'd in the Synagogue, retain the morality of the Sabbath, she does not therefore imitate the law her underling, but perfect her. All that was morally deliver'd from the law to the Gospell in the office of the Priests and Levites, was that there should be a ministery set a part to teach and discipline the Church, both which duties the Apostles thought good to commit to the Presbyters. And if any distinction of honour were to be made among them, they directed it should be to those not that only rule well, but especially to those that labour in the word and doctrine. 1 Tim. 5.By which we are taught that laborious teaching is the most honourable Prelaty that one Minister can have above another in the Gospell: if therefore the superiority of Bishopship be grounded on the Priesthood as part of the morall law, it cannot be said to be an imitation; for it were ridiculous that morality should imitate morality, which ever was the same thing. This very word of patterning or imitating excludes Episcopacy from the solid and grave Ethicall law, and betraies it to be a meere childe of ceremony, or likelier some misbegotten thing, that having pluckt the gay feathers of her obsolet bravery to hide her own deformed barenesse, now vaunts and glories in her stolne plumes. In the meane while what danger there is against the very life of the Gospell to make in any thing the typical law her pattern, and how impossible in that which touches the Priestly government, I shall use such light as I have receav'd, to lay open. It cannot be unknowne by what expressions the holy Apostle S. Paul spares not to explane to us the nature and condition of the law, calling those ordinances which were the chiefe and essentiall offices of the Priests, the elements and rudiments of the world both weake and beggarly. Now to breed, and bring up the children of the promise, the heirs of liberty and grace under such a kinde of government as is profest to be but an imitation of that ministery which engender'd to bondage the sons of Agar, how can this be but a foul injury and derogation, if not a cancelling of that birth-right and immunity which Christ hath purchas'd for us with his blood. For the ministration of the law consisting of carnall things, drew to it such a ministery as consisted of carnall respects, dignity, precedence, and the like. And such a ministery establish't in the Gospell, as is founded upon the points and termes of superiority, and nests it selfe in worldly honours, will draw to it, and we see it doth, such a religion as runnes back againe to the old pompe and glory of the flesh. For doubtlesse there is a certaine attraction and magnetick force betwixt the religion and the ministeriall forme thereof. If the religion be pure, spirituall, simple, and lowly, as the Gospel most truly is, such must the face of the ministery be. And in like manner if the forme of the Ministery be grounded in the worldly degrees of autority, honour, temporall jurisdiction, we see it with our eyes it will turne the inward power and purity of the Gospel into the outward carnality of the law; evaporating and exhaling the internall worship into empty conformities, and gay shewes. And what remains then but that wee should runne into as dangerous and deadly apostacy as our lamented neighbours the Papists, who by this very snare and pitfall of imitating the ceremonial law, fel into that irrecoverable superstition, as must needs make void the cov'nant of salvation to them that persist in this blindnesse.