The HISTORY of tbe PuRITANS. VoL. H. K. Charles I. His majeil:y admits c;oncerning the ages after the apo!l:les, " that they 1 ~ " are but a human teltimony, and yet may be infallible in matter of fad, t/" " as we infallibly know that Arijlot!e was a greek philofopher, &c. he " avers the genuinenefs of thofe epiltles of lgnatius, which give teftimony " to the fi1periority of a bi(hop above a prefbyter; and though his majtf– " ty's royal progenitors had enlarged the power and privileges of bi(hops, ,., he _conceives the government to be fubflantially the fame." ~El~b/7· Eleven days after, the parliament's divines replied to the king's feconcl re;&: etvmes paper, in which they fay, that they can find no fuch partition of the Re!. Carol. apoftolical office in fcripture, as his majefiy mentions, (viz.) that the l'· 277· governing part fhould be committed to bifhops, the teaching and admimr tring the Jacraments to prefbyters; but that the whole work, per omnia, belongs to prefbyters, as appears from the two words ufed in the acls of the apqflles and St. P eter's epiflle, ITo'f'""fvetv, and 'E?Tto-~to?Telv, under the force of which words the bi(hops claim their whole right of government and jurifdiCl:ion; and when the apoltle Paul was taking leave of the ephe– .Jian prefbyters and bifhops, he commits the government of the church not to 'Timothy, who was then at his elbow, but to the preJbyters, un– der the name of biiliops, made by the holy ghofl:: from whence they conclude, that bilhops and prefbyters mufi: be only two names of the fame order. They ob[erve, that the obfcu rity of church hifiory in the times fucceeding the apoltles, made the catalogue makers take up their fuc– ceffion upon report; and 'tis a blemilh to their eviden.ce, that the nearer they come to the days of the apotlles, they are the more doubtful and contradictory. Thefe divines are therefore of opinion, that human tefl:i– mony on both fides ought to be difcharged, and the point in debate be determined only by fcripture. And here they take hold of his majefl:y's conceffion, that in fcripture the names of bifhops and prefbyters are not dill:inguil11ed; and that there is no mention but of two orders, bifhop> and deacons. They defired his majefty to 01ow them, where tl~e fcriptllre has affigned any particular work or duty to a bijhop that is not common to a presbyter, f(Jr they apprehend his majcfl:y's alferting that a bilhop is an eccleiiafl:ical governor, and a prefbyter an ordinary minilter, is without any demonfl:ration or evidence; a few clear palfages of fcrip– ture for the proof of this (fay they) would bring the point to an ilfue. They deny his majefiy's difiinction of epiftopi gregis & pajlorum, bifhop qf jheep andjbepherds, as being the point in quefiion, and affirmed without any evidence-that the office of teaching and governing was or– dinary in the apofl:les, becaufe continued in the church (we crave leave– to fay) is that great miltake which runs through the whole file of your. majefiy's d1fcourfe ; for though there is a fuccefiion in the work of teach– ing and gover·ning, there is no fucccffion in the commjffion or o!Jice, by · which
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