traitor to his country, yet, commenting the epiftles to Titus and the Philippians, acknowledges, from the clearness of the text, what Jerome and the church-rubric hath before acknowledged. He little dreamed then that the weeding-hook of reformation would after two ages pluck up his glorious poppy from infulting over the good corn. Though fince fome of our british prelates, seeing themselves preffed to produce fcripture, try all their cunning, if the New Teftament will not help them, to frame of their own heads, as it were with wax, a kind of mimic bishop limned out to the life of a dead priesthood: or else they would ftrain us out a certain figurative prelate, by wringing the collective allegory of thofe feven angels into feven fingle rochets. Howfoever, fince it thus appears that custom was the creator of prelaty, being less ancient than the government of prefbyters, it is an extreme folly to give them the hearing that tell us of bishops through so many ages: and if against their tedious muster of citations, fees, and fucceffions, it be replied that wagers and churchantiquities, fuch as are repugnant to the plain dictate of fcripture, are both alike the arguments of fools, they have their answer. We rather are to cite all thofe ages to an arraignment before the word of God, wherefore, and what pretending, how prefuming they durft alter that divine inftitution of prefbyters, which the apoftles, who were no various and inconftant men, furely had fet up in the churches; and why they choose to live by cuftom and catalogue, or, as St. Paul faith, by fight and visibility, rather than by faith? But, firft, I conclude, from their own mouths, that God's command in fcripture, which doubtlefs ought to be the first and greateft reafon of church-government, is wanting to prelaty. And certainly we have plenteous warrant in the doctrine of Chrift, to determine that the want of this reafon is of itself fufficient to confute all other pretences, that may be brought in favour it.

CHA P. VI.

That prelaty was not fet up for prevention of fchifm, as is pretended; or if it were, that it performs not what it was firft fet up for, but quite the contrary.

YET because it hath the outfide of a fpecious reason, and fpecious things we know are apteft to work with human lightness and frailty, even against the folideft truth that founds not plaufibly, let us think it worth the examining for the love of infirmer chriftians, of 'what importance this their fecond reafon may be. Tradition they fay hath taught them, that, for the prevention of growing fchifm, the bifhop was heaved above the prefbyter. And must tradition then ever thus to the world's end be the perpetual cankerworm to eat out God's commandments? Are his decrees fo inconfiderate and fo fickle, that when the ftatutes of Solon or Lycurgus fhall prove durably good to many ages, his, in forty years, fhall be found defective, ill-contrived, and for needful caufes to be altered? Our Saviour and his apoftles did not only forefee, but foretel and forewarn us to look for fchifm. Is it a thing to be imagined of God's wisdom, or at least of apoftolic prudence, to fet up fuch a government in the tenderness of the church, as fhould incline, or not be more able than any others to oppofe itself to fchifm? It was well known what a bold lurker fchifm was, even in the household of Chrift, between his own difciples and those of John the Baptift about fafting; and early in the Acts of the Apoftles the noife of fchifm had almost drowned the proclaiming of the gofpel; yet we read not in fcripture, that any thought was had of making prelates, no not in thofe places where diffenfion was most rife. If prelaty had been then efteemed a remedy against schifm, where was it more needful than in that great variance among the Corinthians, which St. Paul fo laboured to reconcile and whofe eye could have found the fitteft remedy fooner than his? And what could have made the remedy more available, than to have used it fpeedily? And

laftly,

laftly, what could have been more neceffary, than to have written it for our inftruction? Yet we fee he neither commended it to us, nor ufed it himself. For the fame divifion remaining there, or else bursting forth again more than twenty years after St. Paul's death, we find in Clement's epiftle, of venerable authority, written to the yet factious Corinthians, that they were ftill governed by prefbyters. And the fame of other churches out of Hermas, and divers other the scholars of the apoftles, by the late induftry of the learned Salmafius appears. Neither yet. did this worthy Clement, St. Paul's difciple, though writing to them to lay aside fchifm, in the leaft word advise them to change the prefbyterian government into prelaty. And therefore if God afterward gave or permitted this infurrection of epifcopacy, it is to be feared he did it in his wrath, as he gave the Ifraclites a king. With fo good a will doth he ufe to alter his own chofen government once established. For mark whether this rare device of man's brain, thus preferred before the ordinance of God, had better fuccefs than flethly wisdom, not counselling with God, is wont to have. So far was it from removing fchifm, that if fchifm parted the congregations before, now it rent and mangled, now it raged. Herefy begat herefy with a certain monftrous hafte of pregnancy in her birth, at once born and bringing forth. Contentions, before brotherly, were now hoftile. Men went to choose their bishop as they went to a pitched field, and the day of his election was like the facking of a city, fometimes ended with the blood of thoufands. Nor this among heretics only, but men of the same belief, yea confeffors; and that with fuch odious ambition, that Eufebius, in his eighth book, teftifies he abhorred to write. And the reason is not obscure, for the poor dignity, or rather burden, of a parochial prefbyter could not engage any great party, nor that to any deadly feud: but prelaty was a power of that extent and fway, that if her election were popular, it was feldom not the caufe of fome faction or broil in the church. But if her dignity came by favour of some prince, he was from that time his creature, and obnoxious to comply with his ends in ftate, were they right or wrong. So that, inftead of finding prelaty an impeacher

of fchifm or faction, the more I fearch, the more I grow into all perfuafion to think rather that faction and fhe, as with a spousal ring, are wedded together, never to be divorced. But here let every one behold the just and dreadful judgment of God meeting with the audacious pride of man, that durft offer to mend the ordinances of Heaven, God out of the ftrife of men brought forth by his apoftles to the church that beneficent and ever-distributing office of deacons, the ftewards and minifters of holy alms: man, out of the pretended care of peace and unity, being caught in the fnare of his impious boldness to correct the will of Chrift, brought forth to himself upon the church that irreconcilable fchifm of perdition and apoftafy, the roman antichrift; for that the exaltation of the pope arose out of the reason of prelaty, it cannot be denied. And as I noted before, that the pattern of the high priest pleaded for in the gospel (for take away the head priest, the reft are but a carcafe) fets up with better reafon a pope than an archbishop; for if prelaty must still rise and rife till it come to a primate, why should it stay there? when as the catholic government is not to follow the divifion of kingdoms, the temple beft reprefenting the universal church, and the high priest the univerfal head: fo I obferve here, that if to quiet fchifm there must be one head of prelaty in a land, or monarchy, rifing from a provincial to a national primacy, there may, upon better grounds of repreffing fchifm, be fet up one catholic head over the catholic church. For the peace and good of the church is not terminated in the schifmless eftate of one or two kingdoms, but fhould be provided for by the joint confultation of all reformed christendom: that all controverfy may end in the final pronounce or canon of one archprimate or proteftant pope. Although by this means, for aught I fee, all the diameters of fchifm may as well meet and be knit up in the centre of one grand falfehood. Now let all impartial men arbitrate what goodly inference these two main reafons of the prelates have, that by a natural league of confequence make more for the pope than for themselves; yea, to fay more home, are the very womb for a new fubantichrift to breed in, if it be not rather the old force and power of

the

the fame man of fin counterfeiting proteftant. It was not the prevention of schism, but it was fchifm itself and the hateful thirst of lording in the church, that first beftowed a being upon prelaty; this was the true cause, but the pretence is ftill the fame. The prelates, as they would have it thought, are the only mauls of fchifm. Forfooth if they be put down, a deluge of innumerable fects will follow; we fhall be all Brownifts, Familifts, Anabaptifts. For the word Puritan seems to be quafhed, and all that heretofore were counted fuch, are now Brownifts. And thus do they raife an evil report upon the expected reforming grace that God hath bid us hope for; like thofe faithlefs fpies, whofe carcafes fhall perish in the wildernefs of their own confufed ignorance, and never taste the good of reformation. Do they keep away schism? If to bring a numb and chill ftupidity of foul, an unactive blindness of mind, upon the people by their leaden doctrine, or no doctrine at all; if to perfecute all knowing and zealous chriftians by the violence of their courts, be to keep away fchifm, they keep fchifm away indeed: and by this kind of difcipline all Italy and Spain is as purely and politicly kept from fchifm as England hath been by them. With as good a plea might the dead-palfy boaft to a man, It is I that free you from stitches and pains, and the troublesome feeling of cold and heat, of wounds and strokes; if I were gone, all these would moleft you. The winter might as well vaunt itself against the spring, I deftroy all noisome and rank weeds, I keep down all peftilent vapours; yes, and all wholesome herbs, and all fresh dews, by your violent and hidebound froft: but when the gentle weft winds fhall open the fruitful bofom of the earth, thus overgirded by your imprisonment, then the flowers put forth and fpring, and then the fun shall scatter the mifts, and the manuring hand of the tiller fhall root up all that burdens the foil without thank to your bondage. But far worse than any frozen captivity is the bondage of prelates; for that other, if it keep down any thing which is good within the earth, fo doth it likewife that which is ill; but these let out freely the ill, and keep down the good, or elfe keep down the leffer ill, and let out the greateft. Be ashamed at last to tell the parliament, ye

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