reason the ejectors should shew better proof than the ancient possessors, ere they be ousted from their tenures. And what better proof can there be, than more clear Scripture?

Shortly, then, if it shall be made to appear, that the Scriptures brought for a Lay-Presbytery are few, doubtful, litigious, full of diverse and uncertain senses, and such as many and much clearer places shall plainly shew to be otherwise meant by the Holy Ghost, than these new masters apply them; then it cannot be denied, that the Lay-Presbytery hath no true footing in the Word of God, and that the old form of administration in an imparity of Ministers ought only to be continued in the Church.

SECT. 11.

THE ELEVENTH GROUND:

If Christ had left this pretended Order of Government, it would have, ere this time, been agreed upon, what that Form is, and how to be managed.

ELEVENTHLY, I may well take it for granted, neither can it reasonably be denied, That, if the Order, which they say Christ and his Apostles did set for the government of his Church, which they call the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ, be but one, and that certain and undoubted; then, certainly, it must, and should, and would have been, ere this, agreed upon by the abettors of it, what and which it is.

For, it cannot without impiety be conceived, or said without blasphemy, that the Son of God should erect such a kingdom upon earth, as, having lain hid for no less than sixteen hundred years, cannot yet be fully known and accorded upon: so that the subjects may be convinced, both that it is his, and by what officers and what rules it must be managed.

If, then, it shall be made to appear, that the pretenders to the desired Discipline cannot yet, all this while, agree upon their verdict, for that kingdom of Christ, which they challenge; it will be manifest to every ingenuous reader, that their platforms of this their imagined kingdom, are but the chimerical devices and whimsies of men's brains, and worthy to be entertained accordingly.

VOL. X.

N

SECT. 12.

THE TWELFTH GROUND:

If this, which is challenged, be the Kingdom of Christ; then, those Churches, which want any essential part of it, are mainly defective; and that there is scarce any at all entire. TWELFTHLY, it must be yielded, That, if this, which they call for, be the Kingdom and Ordinance of Christ, then it ought to be erected and maintained in all congregations of Christians all the world over: and that where any essential part thereof is wanting, there the Kingdom of Christ is not entirely set up, but is still mainly defective.

If, therefore, it shall appear, that, even in most of those Churches which do most eagerly contend for the Discipline, there neither are nor ever were all those several offices, which are upon the list of this spiritual administration, it will irrefragably follow, that, either those Churches do not hold these offices necessary, which, having power in their hand, they have not yet erected; or else, that there are but very few Churches, if any, upon earth rightly constituted and governed: which to affirm, since it were grossly uncharitable, and highly derogatory from the just glory of God's kingdom under the Gospel, it will be consequent, that the device is so lately hatched, that it is not yet fledged; and that there is great reason, rather to distrust the plots of men, than to condemn the Churches of God.

SECT. 13.

THE THIRTEENTH GROUND:

True Christian Policy requires not any thing absurd or impossible to be done.

THIRTEENTHLY, I have reason to require it granted, That true Christian policy requires not any thing which is either impossible or absurd to be done.

If therefore it shall be pretended, that, upon the general grounds of Scripture, this sacred fabric of discipline raised by the wisdom of some holy and eminent reformers, conform to that of the first age of the Church, it is meet it should be made manifest, that there is some correspondence in the state of those first times, with the present; and of the condition of their Churches with ours: otherwise, if there be an apparent difference and disproportion betwixt them, it cannot sound

well, that one pattern should fit both. If then both the first planters, and the late reformers of the Church did that, which the necessity of the times would allow; this is no precedent for the same persons (if they were now living) and at their full liberty and power; neither can the Churches of those cantons or cities, which challenge a kind of freedom in a democratical state, be meet examples for those which are already established under a settled monarchy: if therefore it shall appear, that many foul and unavoidable inconveniences, and, if not impossibilities, yet unreasonable consequences will necessarily follow upon the obtrusion of a Presbyterian government upon a national Church otherwise settled, all wise Christians, who are members of such Churches, will apprehend great and just cause why they should refuse to submit, and yield approbation to any such novel ordinances.

SECT. 14.

THE FOURTEENTH GROUND:

New Pretences of Truths never before heard of, especially in Main Points, carry just Cause of Suspicion.

FOURTEENTHLY, it must be granted, That, those truths in Divinity, which are new and hitherto unheard of in the Church, (but especially in those points, which are, by the fautors of them, held main and essential) carry just causes of suspicion in their faces, and are not easily to be yielded unto.

And, surely, if, according to Tertullian's rule, quod primum verum, that "the first is true;" then, the latest is seldom so, where it agrees not with the first. After the teeming of so many ages, it is rarely seen, that a new and posthumous verity is any other than spurious.

It was the position, it seems, of Poza, the brain-sick Professor of Divinity, set up by the Jesuits at Madrid, that "It is free for any man, besides and against the judgment of the holy Fathers and Doctors, to make innovations in the doctrine of religion"."

And, for his warrant of contemning all ancient Fathers and Councils in respect of his own opinions, borrows the words in Ecclesiasticus, cited by the Council of Constantinople': Beatus, qui prædicat verbum inauditum; "Blessed is he, that preaches the word never before heard of;" impiously and ignorantly

• Liberum esse, præter et contra sanctorum Patrum et Doctorum sententiam, in religionis doctriná innovare. Alphons. Var. Toletan. de Stratagem. Jesuit. Concil. Constantinop. Act. 5. Ecclesiast. xxv. 9. μаkáρios ò кηρÚTTWY TÒV λόγον εἰς ἀκοὴν ὑπακούοντος.

marring the text, mistaking the sense, belying the author, slandering the Council; the misprision being no less ridiculous, than palpable: for, whereas the words are eis åkoǹv, in auditum: he turns them both into one adjective inauditum, and makes the sentence as monstrous as his own stupidity. Pope Hormisda, in his Epistle to the Priests and Deacons of Syria, turns it right, Qui prædicat verbum in aurem obedientis; “He, that preaches a word, to the obedient."

Far be it from any sober and orthodox Christian, to entertain so wild and wicked a thought. He hath learned, that the old way is the good way, and will walk therein accordingly; and, in so doing, finds rest to his soul. He, that preacheth this word, is no less happy, than he, that obediently hears it: neither shall a man find true rest to his soul, in a new and untrodden by-way.

If, therefore, it shall be made to appear, that this government by Lay-Presbyters, is that, which the Ancient and Succeeding Church of God never acknowledged, until this present age, I shall not need to persuade any wise and ingenuous Christian, if otherwise he have not lost the free liberty of his choice, that he hath just cause to suspect it for a mis-grounded novelty. For such it is.

SECT. 15.

THE FIFTEENTH GROUND:

To depart from the Judgment and Practice of the Universal Church of Christ ever since the Apostles' Times, and to betake ourselves to a New Invention, cannot but be, besides the danger, vehemently scandalous.

LASTLY, it must, upon all this, necessarily follow, That to depart from the judgment and practice of the Universal Church of Christ, ever since the Apostles' times; and abandon that ancient form, wherein we were and are legally and peaceably infeoffed, to betake ourselves to a new one, never, till this age, heard of in the whole Christian World; it cannot but be extremely scandalous, and savour too much of Schism.

How ill doth it become the mouth of a Christian Divine, which Parker hath let fall to this purpose! who dareth to challenge learned Casaubon, for proposing two means of deciding the modern controversies, Scriptures and Antiquity. What more easy trial can possibly be projected? Who, but a professed Novelist, can dislike it? Tà apxaîa, was the old

Jer. vi. 16.

Quòd duo кpiτýpia posuerit. Park. Polit. Eccles. l. ii. c. 5.

and sure rule of that Sacred Council: and it was Solomon's charge, Remove not the old land-marks; Prov. xxiii. 10.

If, therefore, it shall be made to appear, that Episcopacy, as it presupposeth an imparity of order and superiority of government, hath been a sound stake pitched in the hedge of God's Church, ever since the Apostles' times; and that Parity and Lay-Presbytery are but as new-sprung briars and brambles, lately woven into the new-plashed fence of the Church in a word, thus, if it be manifest, that the government of Bishops, in a meet and moderate imparity, in which we assert it, hath been peaceably continued in the Church, ever since the Apostolical Institution thereof; and that the government of LayPresbyters hath never been so much as mentioned, much less received in the Church, until this present age: I shall need no farther argument, to persuade all peaceable and wellminded Christians to adhere to that ancient form of administration, which, with so great authority, is derived unto us, from the first founders of the Gospel; and to leave the late supply of a Lay-Presbytery to those Churches, who would and cannot have better.