;

the lop of that one shall draw the more abundance of sap to the other two, that they may thereby the better prosper. All prosperity, felicity and peace, we wish multiplied on each estate, as far as their own hearts' desire is ; but let men know that there is a God, whose eye beholdeth them in all their ways; a God, the usual and ordinary course of whose justice, is to return upon the head of malice the same devices which it contriveth against others. The foul practices which have been used for the overthrow of bishops, may perhaps wax bold in process of time to give the like assault even there, from whence at this present they are most seconded. Nor let it over-dismay them who suffer such things at the hands of this most unkind world, to see that heavenly estate and dignity thus conculcated, in regard whereof so many their predecessors were no less esteemed than if they had not been men, but angels amongst men. With former bishops it was as with Job in the days of that prosperity which at large he describeth, saying, "Unto me men gave ear, they waited and held their tongue at my counsel; after my words they replied not, I appointed out their way and did sit as chief, I dwelt as it had been a king in an army." At this day, the case is otherwise with them; and yet no otherwise than with the self-same Job at what time the alteration of his estate wrested these contrary speeches from him; " But now they that are younger than I mock at me, the children of fools, and offspring of slaves, creatures more base than the earth they tread on; such as if they did shew their heads, young and old, would shout at them and chase them through the street

Ep. 3.

with a cry, their song I am, I am a theme for them to talk on." An injury less grievous, if it were not offered by them whom Satan hath through his fraud and subtilty so far beguiled, as to make them imagine herein they do unto God a part of most faithful service. Whereas the Lord in truth, whom they serve herein is, as St. Cyprian telleth them, like Cyp. 1. i. not Christ (for he it is that doth appoint and protect bishops) but rather Christ's adversary and enemy of his church. A thousand five hundred years and upward the church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of bishops. Neither for so long hath Christianity been ever planted in any kingdom throughout the world but with this kind of government alone; which to have been ordained of God, I am for mine own part even as resolutely persuaded, as that any other kind

of government (in the world whatsoever is of God. In this realm of England, before Normans, yea before Saxons, there being Christians, the chief pastors of their souls were bishops. This order from about the first establishment of Christian religion, which was publicly begun through the virtuous disposition of King Lucius, not fully two hundred years after Christ, continued till the coming in of the Saxons; by whom paganism being every where else replanted, only one part of the island, whereinto the ancient, natural inhabitants the Britons were driven, retained constantly the faith of Christ; together with the same form of spiritual regiment, which their fathers had before received. Wherefore in the histories of the church we find very ancient mention made of our own bishops. At the council of Ariminum, about the year three hundred and fifty-nine, Britain had three of her bishops present. At the arrival of Augustine, the monk, whom Gregory sent hither to reclaim the Saxons from gentility about six hundred years after Christ, the Britons he found observers still of the self-same government by bishops over the rest of the clergy; under this form Christianity took root again, where it had been exiled. Under the self-same An. 1066. form it remained till the days of the Norman conqueror. By

Sulpit. Se
Beda Eccl.

ver. 1. ii.

Hist. 1. ii. c. 2.

him and his successors thereuntoa sworn, it hath from that time till now, by the space of five hundred years more, been upheld. O nation utterly without knowledge, without sense! We are not through error of mind deceived, but some wicked thing hath undoubtedly bewitched us, if we forsake that government, the use whereof universal experience hath for so many years approved, and betake ourselves unto a regiment neither appointed of God himself, as they who favour it pretend, nor till yesterday ever heard of among men. By the Jews, Festus was much complained of, as being a governor marvellous corrupt, and almost intolerable: such notwithstanding were they who came after him, that men which thought the public condition most afflicted under Festus, began to wish they had him again, and to esteem him a ruler commendable. Great things are hoped for at the hands of these new presidents, whom reformation would bring in: notwithstanding the time may come, when bishops, whose

a Alfred. Eboracensis Archiepiscopus Gulielmum, cognomento Nothum, spirantem adhuc minarum et cædis in populum, mitem reddidit: et religiosis pro conservanda repub. tuendaque ecclesiast. disc, sacramento astrinxit. Nabrig. 1. i. c. 1.

regiment doth now seem a yoke so heavy to bear, will be longed for again, even by them that are the readiest to have it taken off their necks. But in the hands of Divine Providence we leave the ordering of all such events, and come now to the question itself which is raised concerning bishops. For the better understanding whereof, we must beforehand set down what is meant, when in this question we name a bishop.

bishop is,

what his

name doth import, and

his office,

II. For whatsoever we bring from antiquity, by way of de- What a fence in this cause of bishops, it is cast off as impertinent matter; all is wiped away with an odd kind of shifting answer; That the bishops which now are, be not like unto them what doth which were. We therefore beseech all indifferent judges to belong to weigh sincerely with themselves how the case doth stand. If it should be at this day a controversy, whether kingly regi- a bishop. ment were lawful or no; peradventure in defence thereof, the long continuance which it hath had sithence the first beginning might be alleged; mention perhaps might be made what kings there were of old, even in Abraham's time, what sovereign princes both before and after. Suppose that herein some man, purposely bending his wit against sovereignty, should think to elude all such allegations by making ample discovery through a number of particularities; wherein the kings that are do differ from those that have been, and should therefore in the end conclude, that such ancient examples are no convenient proofs of that royalty which is now in use. Surely for decision of truth in this case there were no remedy, but only to shew the nature of sovereignty; to sever it from accidental properties; to make it clear that ancient and present regality are one and the same in substance, how great odds soever otherwise may seem to be between them. In like manner, whereas a question of late hath grown, whether ecclesiastical regiment by bishops be lawful in the church of Christ or no ; in which question, they that hold the negative, being pressed with that generally-received order, accordingly whereunto the most renowned lights of the Christian world have governed the same in every age as bishops; seeing their manner is to reply, that such bishops as those ancient were, ours are not; there is no remedy but to shew, that to be a bishop is now the self-same thing which it hath been; that one definition agreeth fully and truly as well to those elder, as to these latter bishops. Sundry dissimilitudes we grant

Acts XX. phil. i. 1.

there are, which notwithstanding are not such that they cause any equivocation in the name, whereby we should think a bishop in those times to have had a clean other definition than doth rightly agree unto bishops as they are now. Many things there are in the state of bishops, which the times have changed; many a parsonage at this day is larger than some ancient bishoprics were; many an ancient bishop poorer than at this day sundry under them in degree. The simple hereupon, lacking judgment and knowledge to discern between the nature of things which changeth not, and these outward variable accidents, are made believe that a bishop heretofore and now are things in their very nature so distinct that they cannot be judged the same. Yet to men that have any part of skill, what more evident and plain in bishops, than that augmentation or diminution in their precincts, allowances, privileges, and such like, do make a difference indeed; but no essential difference between one bishop and another? As for those things, in regard whereof we use properly to term them bishops; those things, whereby they essentially differ from other pastors; those things which the natural definition of a bishop must contain; what one of them is there more or less appliable unto bishops now than of old? The name bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians, with whom it signifieth, one which hath principal charge to guide and oversee others. The same word in ecclesiastical writings being applied unto church governors, at the first unto all, and not unto the chiefest only, grew in short time peculiar and proper to signify such episcopal authority alone, as the chiefest governors exercised over the rest; for with all names this is usual, that inasmuch as they are not given, till the things whereunto they are given have been sometime first observed; therefore generally, things are ancienter than the names whereby they are called.

Again, sith the first things that grow into general observation, and do thereby give men occasion to find name for them, are those which being in many subjects are thereby the easier,

• Οἱ παρ' Αθηναίων εἰς τὰς ὑπηκόους πόλεις ἐπισκέψασθαι τὰ παρ' ἑκάστοις πεμπόμενοι, ἐπίσκοποι καὶ φύλακες ἐκαλοῦντο, οὓς οἱ Λάκωνες ἁρμοστὰς ἔλεγον. Suid. Κατέστησεν · ἐφ' ἑκάστοις τῶν πάγων ἄρχοντα ἐπίσκοπόν τε καὶ περίπολον τῆς ἰδίας μοίρας. Dionys. Halicar. de Numa Pompilio, Antiq. lib. ii. Vult me Pompeius esse quem tota hæc Campania et maritima ora habeat 'Errioxorov, ad quem delectus et negotii summa referatur. Cic. ad Attic. lib. vii. Epist. 11.

And God brought them unto Adam, that Adam might see or consider what name it was meet he should give unto them. Gen ii. 19.

a

the oftener, and the more universally noted; it followeth, the names imposed to signify common qualities of operations are ancienter, than is the restraint of those names, to note an excellency of such qualities and operations in some one or few amongst others. For example, the name disciple being invented to signify generally a learner, it cannot choose but in that signification be more ancient than when it signifies, as it were by a kind of appropriation, those learners who, being taught of Christ, were in that respect termed disciples by an excellency. The like is to be seen in the name apostle, the use whereof to signify a messenger, must needs be more ancient than that use which restraineth it unto messengers sent concerning evangelical affairs; yea this use more ancient than that whereby the same word is yet restrained farther to signify only those whom our Saviour himself immediately did send. After the same manner the title or name of a bishop, having been used of old to signify both an ecclesiastical overseer in general, and more particularly also, a principal ecclesiastical overseer; it followeth, that this latter restrained signification is not so ancient as the former, being more common. Yet because the things themselves are always ancienter than their names; therefore that thing, which the restrained use of the word doth import, is likewise ancienter than the restraint of the word is; and consequently, that power of chief ecclesiastical overseers, which the term of a bishop doth import, was before the restrained use of the name which doth import it. Wherefore a lame and impotent kind of reasoning it is, when men go about to prove, that in the apostles' times there was no such thing as the restrained name of a bishop doth now signify; because in their writings there is found no restraint of that name, but only a general use, whereby it reacheth unto all spiritual governors and over

seers.

But, to let go the name, and come to the very nature of that thing which is thereby signified. In all kinds of regiment, whether ecclesiastical or civil, as there are sundry operations public, so likewise great inequality there is in the same operations, some being of principal respect, and therefore not fit to be dealt in by every one to whom public ac

So also the name deacon, a minister, appropriated to a certain order of ministers. The name likewise of a minister was common to divers degrees, which now is peculiarly among ourselves given only to pastors, and not, as anciently, to deacons also.