BX 5176 .L4 Leighton, Alexander, 1568- 1649. An appeal to parliament 1 Digitized by tine Internet Arclnive in 2015 littps://arcliive.org/details/appealtoparliameOOIeig_0 /////////w.v f/l/fllfil7lt tN7T/s ('.Jfm<,'f/rv;- ll'li'l /.(iiii/i(il7n/if colta /n^'o. APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT : ZION'S PLEA AGAINST PRELACY. THE SUM WHEREOF IS DELIVERED IN A DECADE OF POSITIONS ; IN TIIK HANDLlNLi WHEREOF, THE LORD BISHOPS AM) THi;iI4 Al'Pr RTKNA VCKS ARE MANIFESTLY PROVED, BOTH BV DIVINE AND HUMAN LAWS, TO BE INTRUDERS UPON THE PRIVILEOES OP CIIP.IST, ol THE KING, AND OF THE COMMON WEAL, AND THEREFORE, UPON GOOD EVIDENCE GIVEN, SHE HEARTILY DESIRETH A JUDG- MENT AND EXECUTION. Is It aothins to you. all ye that pass by ' behold and see.- fic -Lament i. 1':. Those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over thetn, bring hither, and slay them before me." — ^.uke six. 07. Judicandos se potios, quamjudicaturos coftitent."— Origen. in Epist. ad Koiri Nec abnuendura, si det Imperium Deas.'"— Senec. in Thvest Act. 3. EDINBURGH: SOLD BY JOHN JOHNSTONE, HUNTER SQUARE : I oNTlON : R. GROOMBRIDOR, AND .1. NISBET AND CO. ; BEI.F.IST : W. .M'CO.MB. MDCCCXLII. .'.r)l\ni-RRH ; PRINTED RV THO.M.Ai- < OXST ABl. I'RfMTEB TO JIFR MAJFSTV. PREFACE. Having for .several years been engaged in an unsuc- cessful search for a copy of " Zion's Plea against Pre- lacy," I at last discovered one at the Sale of Principal Lke's Books in March last, which I succeeded in purchasing at 18s. lid.; and having consulted with several Ministers about the propriety of gettino- such a scarce Book reprinted, the following gentlemen have subscribed their names for five copies each, while many others have subscribed for one or more copies, — Rev. Dr. Dickson; Rev. Dr. CA.\nLisH ; Alexander Lee, Esq. ; Rev. Dr. J. Brown. " I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza- reth," Acts xxvi. 9. Believing that there are many as ignorant as the Apostle Paul once was, I have got 1000 copies of this Book printed, hoping God will bless the reading of it, and enable the reader to see that Prelacy is a plant which God hath not planted, but part of that wicked which is now re- vealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit PREFACE. of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming," 2 Thes. ii. 8. The godly Samuel Rutherford, in one of his letters, says, " Prelacy is the nest and the egg to hatch and bring forth Popery." " Doctor Leigh ton. Father to the Bishop of that name, for writing the above book in 1628, was, in 1 630, sentenced in the Star Chamber, to be publicly whipped, to have his ears cut out, his nostrils slit, his tongue bored, his cheeks burned, and after- wards to be banished ; all which, except the last part of the sentence, he endured with great patience and Christian submission; but the banishment he evited by sickness that was expected to have ended his days, but being, through interest, permitted to be taken out of prison during his sickness, he re- covered his health, and kept himself retired till God sent him better times." — Stevensoiis History of the Church of Scotland. As the Volume has extended to nearly thirty pages beyond the number calculated in the Prospectus, it has been found necessary to make a small addition to the price originally stated. JOHN LASVSOX, Portioner in Penicook. Xor. 10, 1842. S/c s-jr/r/,/ /'A///;'//, 7// ]iu//i,,'Ji/ l u/u /d i frchn, Vt si, I lulls lii'^y,//!/^ I'lulii-ii liivui Dn : ' Ike lottcfiuo rrcJiUs, \ntii ihcii- ti-iimpiy all SiiallTnoulder dovnclike Udearfomthe vaU. S/ //// ///}7//,7- fni/-lit/(iii IS- lyipitt, 1.1 Cfipiniii irvn7(iinui: cr/si// I h II /I IS in or //iiiin/i/i/s. fypiitm ml pmiip. I TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT. Right honourable and high Senatoks, Such hath been the care and industry of that Panacsean or cure-all Court of Parliament, that to give instructions to it were to teach an eagle to fly,* or a dolphin to swim ; yet such hath been the gracious disposition of the golden head, and loving affection of that silver body representa- tive, that they have bent their ears to the grievances of the lowest members, especially if they were grieved with the grievances either of Church or commonwealth. That great statesman Plato would have a Senate cheerfully and lov- ingly to entertain the motion of the meanest subject, for the good of the commonwealth. t A wise general of a field despiseth not the advice of the meanest soldier in matters of greatest weight. The Grecians used to lay their desperately diseased by the highway side, that every pas- senger might deliver what he knew or heard to be goo(l for such a disease; — sin and judgment (the diseases of our state,) are not hid, but open to the eye of every passenger. As the great Physician said of nature distempered, that it is all but one sickness, so our disframed aniii\ and n( \d< llrsli. A;;ainNt this hierarchy we dii not I'omiiii ncc, lnit iviiow our suit for the recovery of the keys of Christ, anil the veil of his sp(juso — in the prosecution whereof, we entreat the helj) of all tlint love the Lord. First, agree with God, by rei'oruiini( at home ; and then, look upon them, as they arc clearly convinced, to be enemies to God and the State, and so hate them with a perfect hatred — be not ashamed of Christ and his Word ; that is, of standing for the privileges of his king- dom — no, not among an adulterous and sinful generation ; that is, when Christ's enemies arc in their ruff, lest Christ be ashamed of you. As for their swelling pride, fear it not. There are more with us than ai:ainst us: yea, it is enough, that the Lord of Hosts is against them. We may say truly of them, as an ancient said of the Prelates of his time, omnibus terror}, amantur a nullo — they are a terror to all, and loved by none, except by such as stand too nigh them in a contiguity of profit. Popery, or profaneness ; these indeed cannot see, because they will not see. As for their traditions, whereby they support themselves, they are branches of the same root, condemned by the Word, councils, fathers — by all ancient and modern ortho- dox writers — yea, and by the positions of the Papists. But it is enough, (as D. Whittaker observeth,) iiuod a Vhristo damnantur,'^' that they are condemned by Christ. The matter is of no less weight than the kingdom of Christ, in the suppressing or advancing whereof standeth the ruin or reviving of our kingdoms, and therefore we commend it to your serious consideration. We have endeavoured to clear Christ's title, and the truth of the positions from the Word especially; as for other testimonies, let them have their own weight, by that entire word, as the Psalmist speaketh, and for it we do contend, Ps. xix. 8 ; for it bath in itself T riva,i(paX('ia\i, Luc. i. 4. That infallible certainty, which * Controv. I. q. (j, p. 483. 8 EPISTLE TO THE READER. is SeoVveum; y.i auT-^T/ffro;, by divine inspiration, and only of itself to be believed ; though in regard of our danger we have used freedom of speech, we neither hate their persons nor envy their pomp, but we wish their conversion, and safety of the State. If, instead of entertainment, or of a legal trial, they turn again to tear this treatise, and trouble the maintainers of it, let them take heed, for by this truth here maintained, they shall one day be judged ; if they should also go about to incense the King's Majesty with a prejudicate opinion of this just APPEAL, we hope it shall plead for itself, four infirmities excused.) That in uprightness of conscience we could not do him better service ; yea, we are confident if all that love the Lord (especially men of place) will do their part, we shall have our King as an angel of God in this particular ; though Rome must fall by the sword, yet the word must both instruct princes, that Babel can no otherwise be healed, and also unarm them for her ruin. We thought the volume should have been far less than it is, and therefore we made no chapters nor index ; but con- sidering the subject, it required both longer time and a greater volume ; — another edition may come forth in better order. Censure not a part before ye have perused the whole, because divers parts of the same matter have their divers places in several positions ; — part not with a good title though it be encumbered ; — labour hard, by prayer and practice, that God may have his honour, the King his right, and the enemies of both their desert — and the Lord will dwell among us. It is not our intent iu this Treatise to dispute at large every particular propounded and proved ; for the subject would not suffer it, the volume would have been too large, and the truth of di\ ers particulars is already vindicated by whole volumes from all gainsayers. But if any li-st to be contentious in contradicting any point assert- ed and proved, either directly or by consequence, we shall be ready at all times, by God's assistance, further to make it good. A DECADE OF GRIEVANCES, I'RESENTED AND PROVED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT, AGAINST THE HIERARCHY, OR GOVERNMENT OF THE LORD BISHOPS AND THEIR DEPENDENT OFFICES, BY A MULTITUDE OF SUCH AS ARE SENSIBLE OF THE RUIN OF RELIGION, THE SINKING OF THE STATE, AND OF THF. PLOTS AND INSULTATIONS OF ENEMIES AGAINST BOTH. Right Honourable and Higli Senators, you are not unac- quainted, bow tbe aft'rigbting and tunnoiliiig troubles of the heart speak in the faces of all true hearted subjects, expressed often by their siglis and groans, and also vented by their patlietical complaints, Deut. xxxii. '■]:>, the mov- ing cause whereof is our calamity, partly already seized, and partly makiug liaste (as it is further tiireatoued) to seize upon us. But to our sliauio and confusion of faces, we must confess, that of the in'ovuking cause of this calamity, namely sin, we arc in.rhini;- .so sensible as we should be; or if wo complain of sin, yet we find not out that Ashtarolh or main national si;i, wliicli is the conjunct or immediate working cause of all tiie evil that is upon us. AVhcn a body politic is run all into one festered sore of sin and one benumbing bruise of judgment, then the univer- sal and painful distemper taketh away the discerning; faculty of the master sore that hath bred and fed all the rest, which indeed must either be sought out and removed, 10 zion's plea as the principal cause, or it will never prove a cure. Rom. i. 18. Though the wrath of God be revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, yet for some one capital sin especially, the Lord departeth from a state, and turneth it upside down. Hos. iv. 17, v. 12. This might be in- stanced in Israel joining himself unto his idols, which made the Lord unto him as a moth, and unto the house of Judah as rottenness. Judg. xx. This principle Israel understood, when he sought again and again, and found out the cause why he fell before Benjamin. The same course took Joshua in humbling himself to find out Achan and the excom- municate thing. He might have found out, and also re- moved many other sins, yet if he had not found out the thing of the curse, he might have mourned his heart out before he had prevailed with the Lord against the enemy. How to find out our Achan, or golden wedge and Baby- lonish garment, hoc opus, Sfc. ; for it is not obvious to every man ; yea this spirit is neither found out nor cast out but by fasting and prayer. Yet woful experience, the common schoolmaster, hath formerly discovered to the chariots and horsemen of Israel, and now doth discover this very same to be the very chief cause of our calamity that we pitch upon. AVe do not seclude our own sins, nor other's sins — for many sins, and many indictments are against us ; but this is the master sin (as we conceive) — and that upon this ground, that the capital sin of a nation is not the highest sin, abounding in the highest measure, (against which there is any law established ;) but that is the main and master sin which is established by a law. And this is that framing of mischief by a law that the prophet speaketh of, Ps. xciv. 20, Hos. v. 11, called in another place, the commandment of man establishing sin. Now give us leave (Right Honourable) to demand, what sin is established by a law in this conmionweal but the hier- archy and their accoutrements ? And therefore we verily believe, by the grievances following, olfer to demonstrate that the hierarchy, and their household stuff, is the capital sin and main cause why all this evil is come upon us. I. First, may it please your Honours to take notice, that the calling of the hierarchy, their dependent oflSces AGAINST PRELACY. 11 and ceremonies, wliereby they subsist, are all unlawful and Antichristian. II. The hierarchical government cannot consist in a nation with soundness of doctrine, sincerity of God's wor- ship, holiness of life, the glorious power of Christ's govern- ment, nor with the prosperity and safety of the common- wealth. III. The present hierarchy are not ashamed, to bear the multitude in hand, that their calling is jure divino. But they dare not but confess, when they are put to it, that their calling is a part of the King's prerogative. So that they put upon God what he abhorreth, and will hold of the King when they can do no other. IV. They abuse many ways that power from the King, by changing, adding, and taking away at their pleasure, to the grievous vexation of the subject, the dislionouring of his Majesty, and the making of the laws of none eflect. V. The privileges of the laws and the hierarchical government cannot consist together. VI. The loyalty of obedience to the King's Majesty and his laws, cannot possibly stand with the obedience to the hierarchy. VII. All the unparalleled changes, bloody troubles, devastations, desolations, persecutions of the truth, from foreigners or domestics, since the year of our Lord 600, arising in this kingdom, and all the good interrupted or hindered, hath had one or more of the hierarchy as prin- cipal causes of them. VIII. All the fearful evils of sin and judgment, for the present reigning among us, and threatened against us, (to omit the black desolation of our sister churches,) we con- ceive to be the birth of the womb and the nurslings of the breasts of the hierarchy. IX. If the hierarchy be not removed, and the sceptre of Christ's government, viz. discipline, advanced to its place, there can be no healing of our sore, no taking up of our controversy with God ; yea, our desolations, by his rarest judgments, are like to be the astonishment of all nations. X. Lastly, Right Honourable, if you strike at this root of the hierarchy, removing that Ashtaroth or grand idol, ]2 zion's plea and erect the purity of Christ's ordinances, we are confident tliat there shall be a ceasing from exorbitant sins, a re- moval of judgment, a recovery of God's favour, a repairing of the breaches of the Church and Commonwealth, a re- deeming of the honour of the State, a dashing of Babel's brats against the stones. Yea, this shall remove the wicked from the throne, strike terror and astonishment to the hearts of all foreign and domestic foes. In a word, God will go forth with us, and smite our enemies ; yea, a glori- ous prosperity shall rest upon Zion, King, State, and Commonwealth. Thus, having laid down a decade of evils, arising, as so many corroding ulcers, out of the body of the hierarchy, we come to some proof of the particulars, as they lie in order, and that as punctually and briefly as we can. FIRST POSITION PROVED. 1. And first, to the first, viz. That the hierarchy, their dependent oflices and ceremonies, are Antichristian. — For making way for the proof of this point, we are to consider with the learned, both ancient and modern, what state of government Christ hath appointed in his Church, and what kind of governors he hath chosen to govern the same. For the former, they tell us from the word, that the Church, in respect of her policy and outward government appointed her bv Christ, is not a monarchy like uuto the kingdoms and dominions of temporal princes, as that of the Assyrians, Persians, or the like, in and over which certain men, as princes, have and exercise sovereign authority, but in regard of the choice of governors by common consent, it is a free commonalty,* and, in respect of the governors so chosen and governing according to God's appointment, it is an aristocracy, as Athens, Venice, or the like. As this is the judgment of the learned, so it is clear from the prescript of Christ, Matt, xviii. 17, and from the continued practice of the government of Christ's Church, till (as the learned * Viret. Dial. 20, 21. Danae. Lubertus, Junius, Chamierus, Sutcliv. AVhittak. AGAINST PRELACY. 13 truly affirm) it came to be oppressed with tyranny. As for the latter, viz. the governors, they were, and should be, such bishops as God onlains, together with ruling elders ; which bishops, as the Scripture proclaimeth, and the orthodox learned believe, are no other than ministers, or teaching elders — witness 1 Tim. iii. 1, compared with Tit. i. 3, 7, (Acts xx.) — which truth is not only maintained by the orthodox ancients, as Augustin, Hierome, and Am- brose, but also by Papists, as Hug-Cardinal- Anselmo, Lum- bard-Cusan-Johan., Parisiens.,* and others, who hold this distinction to be but jure positivo, and that it is not of God's appointment, both canon law and civil law do witness. Thence it was decreed and maintained by ancient councilst from the Word, Acts xv. that all ministers should liave voices in council, both deliberative and decisive. Carthag. Can. 34, 3.5, alleging also Nice Calcedon and others. Gentilet. exam. Concil. Trident, p. 216. Lastly, the most learned of later times have given full evidence to the point ; witness D. Raynolds, in his letter to Sir Francis Knowles, wherein he proves sufficiently that God never made, nor doth the Scripture witness any sucli distinction, but that bishop and minister were all one — taxing and disproving D. Banc, for holding the contrary. The very same truth was concluded by D. Holland, the King's Professor in Oxford; at the act, July 9, ieO«. Quod episcoptis non sit ordo distinctus presbiteriatu, eotjiw superior jure divino : — that a bishop is no distinct order from a minister, nor superior to him by Divine institution. The self same did Cranmer and Latimer testify to Henry the VIII. (Bbs. Book.) It is true that some servile and shameless Papists, to flatter the Pope, as some of us, to flatter Prelates, do aver the superiority of bishops, taxing the ancients that hold the contrary, of heresy, with jErius ; instance one Michael Medina, cited by Bellamiin. (De sacroi. horn. orig. lib. i. c. 5.) But the whole current of Divine and human testimonies are against them. Having laid this foundation, to come punctually to the proof. It is sufficient proof of the unlawfulness of their calling, • Lib. 4, dist. 24. t Gratian. dist. 95. Duaren. de sacris Ecc. Minist. c. 7, sec. 9, B 14 zion's plea that it is not from above, as the warrant of both ordinances and ministry must be ; Matt. xxi. 24, 25 : otherwise the Lord threateneth to destroy them ; Matt. xv. 1 3, where- by, " the plant not of God's planting," may be understood all persons, callings, and traditions not appointed and approved of by God — for so the ancients expound it. The calling of Aaron, a type of Christ, is not only thus approved, Heb. V. 4, but also Christ himself putteth his calling upon this point of trial : " I come in my father's name, and ye receive me not ; if another shall come in his own name, him will ye receive ;" (John v. 43, Aug. Ep. 80.) which words sundry of the Fathers apply to the coming of Anti- christ, for he and his come indeed in their own name. 2. Where the Spirit recounteth by name all the sorts of ministry, ordinary and extraordinary, of his own appoint- ment, Eph. iv. 11, there is not one word of such a lording ministry, which the Spirit would not have concealed, but undoubtedly set them out with all their titles and preroga^ lives, if there had been any such superior offices of his ap- pointment and approving. Is it a like thing that God, who appointed the temple and tabernacle, should be so punctual in every particular of his service under the law, and that he would conceal his more especial officers, and their offices, under the Gospel ? would he remember the bars of the ark and pass by the pillars of his Church ? would he appoint the least pins of the house and forget the master builders ? would he there mention the snuffers of the lights and here pass by the great lights themselves ? or, would he there remember the besoms and ashpans, and here not once mention bishops and archbishops — this were ra /xixicx. o^av ki to. iLtyaXa ra^u^av — to look to small things and overlook the great things. Is it true that a silly ignorant woman tells us in the Gospel, that when the Messiah cometh he would tell us all things ? John iv. 25. And yet he speaketh never one word of his special offices. — Sure these cannot agree. 3. From the same place of the Ephesians, it will appear that such bishops and their dependencies are superfluous ; therefore they should have no place in God's house. The AGAINST PRELACY. 15 consequence is clear, because there is a necessary use of every thing that hath any use in God's house. Nihil tarn necessarium quchn cognoscere quid sihi sit necessarium* — there is nothing so necessary, saith a Father, as to know what is necessary or of use. Now that there is no use of them, it is cleared thus : Those officers without which the Church of God is fully built up and brought to complete perfection of unity, are not of any use in God's house. But without the function of lord bishopSj archbishops, &c., the Church of God is fully built up and brought to complete perfection of unity, witness Ephes. iv. 11-13. Therefore, lord bishops, archbishops, &c., are of no use in God's Church. The learned have used the same argument against the Pope, the Church of God being built up and perfected without him ; therefore, he should not be. The argument is every way as good against these bishops, and every such officer in God's house, without the which his house is complete, as against the Pope ; for it cannot be said of those bishops, as our Lord said of the ass. The Lord hath need of them. Matt. xxi. 3. The same argument holds against the ceremonies : yea as a knob, a wen, or any superfluous bunch of flesh, being no member, doth not only overburden the body, but also disfigur - eth the feature, yea killeth the body at length, except it be cut — so these bishops be the knobs, and wens, and bunches of Popish flesh which beareth down, deformeth, and kill- eth the body of the Church, that there is no cure, as we conceive, but cutting off". If any object that there be necessary ofiicers in God's house, as deacons and elders, which are not named in that forequoted place of the Ephe- sians, it may be easily answered, that the apostle there only intends to make a perfect enumeration of such as labour in tlie word, for the perfecting of his Church. Further, if men may add ministries to those whom God hath appointed, then may they take away such ministries as God hath appointed, for both of these belong to one and the self-same authority. * Ambros. ad verell. 16 z ion's plea But men may not take away such ministries as Grod hath appointed ; therefore, they must not add such as he hath not appointed. As we have hitherto proved in general the calling of the bishops to be unlawful, so we come now to prove directly their calling and their dependencies to be Antichristian. 1 . These governors are justly called Antichristian who are assistant to the Pope in his universal government. But bishops, archbishops, chancellors, &c., are assistants to the Pope in his universal government. Therefore, bishops, archbishops, chancellors, &c., are justly called Antichristian. The major proposition* is D. Downams ; for the minor, lei their practice speak. For after the same manner, and by the same ministers, do they lord it, and tyrannise over dioceses and provinces in his Majesty's dominions, as other Popish prelates do in other dominions. By the same rea- son, that one is over a diocess, another over a province, the third may be over all. 2. They arrogate to themselves solely and wholly the ordination of ministers. In these two, D. WiUet putteth a main difference be- twixt Protestants and Papists. First, saith he, that their bishops are over ministers as princes of the clergy ; second, they take the right of consecrating or giving of orders wholly and solely to themselves, t Let all men speak if our bishops do not this to an hair, and are they not by consequence Antichristian bishops ? For the further proof of this point, we could bring a full jury of judicious, learned, and godly witnesses. M. Wickliffe, a man well in seeing the mystery of ini- quity, reckoned lord bishops for one of the twelve disciples of Antichrist. :j: For the which Pighius writes a treatise against him. affirming this to be the main controversy betwixt the Waldeuses, Wickliffe, and him. The same doctrine was maintained by John Husse and Hierome of Prague. • Def. p. 13. + Synop. cont. 43. + Art. 10. AGAINST PRELACY. 17 Luther called this lordship plain tyranny/ averring further, that diocesan bishops were constituted by the very authority of Satan. M. BuUinger calls the superiority of bishops no better than tyranny,t affirming truly that the Apostles themselves exercised no such tyranny. To this may be joined, M. Hooper, M. Lambert, M. Bradford, glorious martyrs. M. Bale in the Revel., speaking of the brood of Antichrist, counteth the lord bishops Antichristian usurpers: — the offices, saith he, of diocesan bishops are usurped offices, and not appointed by the Holy Ghost, nor once mentioned in the Scriptures. Now, if any patron of the Prelacy post of all these tes- timonies X to the Prelacy in the time of Popery : — 1 . Let them know that overlording Prelacy, sitting in the temple of God, is Popish Prelacy ; 2. The whole current of fore- quoted testimonies, striketh at all diocesan, provincial, or oecumenical Prelacy, as an usurped office, because not ap- pointed by the Holy Ghost. The extent of the challenge must be as large as the reason of the challenge. If they be not from the Holy Ghost, they are usurped offices. But for the further clearing of this, let M. Gualter be heard, who taxing and disproving the usurped offices of lord bishops in Popery, he applieth it to ours, who " though they glory in the name of the Gospel, and would be counted reformers of the Church, by thrusting out Popish bishop.^ and monks out of their usurped possessions, yet do they not restore the Church's due, taken tyrannously from her, but at their pleasure administer the same things which in times past the monks and bishops did."§ Cyprian holds the very title of an archbishop or superior bishop, in whom- soever, a presumptuous thing. Lastly, the Papists bring in the maintainers of Prelacy for a share, as supporters of their usurped primacy. John, xxi. 17. The Protestants, saith the Rhemists, otherwise denying the pre-eminence of Peter, yet, to uphold the archbishops, they avouch it against the Puritans. Hence appeareth the truth of that assertion, when the Prelacy * Tom. ii. p. 326. f Decad. ix. sec. 47. t In Re. c. i. c. xvii. 3. § In Act. 1. 18 zion's plea disputeth against the Puritans, they use the Popish argu- ments, but when they dispute against the Pope they nse Puritan's arguments ; and thus they use the truth as Moses used the rod, Exod. iv. 3, whilst it was a rod, Moses could hold it in his hand, but when it became a serpent he fled from it, — so they can use the rod out of Zion, the Word of Truth, against the open adversary, though implicitly they beat themselves therewith ; but when the truth beginneth to sting, they cannot endure it ; and were it not that the cunning Jesuit loves not to touch this string too much, though now and then he doth — lest by thieves reckoning upon this point true men should come to their goods — we are persuaded they should beat the Prelates out of their ti'enches, and themselves out of the field ; but they know that they both stand and fall upon the same ground, and a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. 3. They engross that name unto themselves which is due to all good ministers, which, as the learned observe, is a perverting of the language of the Holy Ghost,* yea a point of profane or heathenish boldness ; from this, saith Beza, began the devil to lay the foundation of tyranny in the Church of God.t In the forehead of this name began that mystery of iniquity to be engraven, namely, that un- known name papa ; the various etymology whereof we will not now insist on. 4. They lord it over God's heritage, 1 Pet. v. 1, with an intolerable tyranny directly condemned by that unchange- able canon of our Saviour, Christ — the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them, &c., but ye shall not be so : but let the greatest among you be as the least, Luke xxii. 24-26, Matt. xx. 25. In which words three things be condemned in ministers, superiority, lordly rule, and titles of lordship. The Jesuits confess that that affected superiority is condemned in the disciples ; yea, the very thoughts, say they, of superiority. Now, all these things, forbidden by our Saviour, concur in making up that misshapen monster of the hierarchy. * Cal. in Ep. ad Tit. c. i. ». 1. f 1° Phillip, i. v. 7. AGAINST PRELACY. 19 This interdiction of superiority is renewed by the apostle Peter, (upon whom his Lord foreknew that that Man of Sin would build his forged and usurped superiority,) neither as being lords over God's heritage, &c., 1 Pet. v. .3. In which place the former ambitious or tyrannous lordship is not only forbidden, as the Prelates would have it, but all manner of superiority, as the scope of the Spirit, context, and very words prove. In a word, their evasions from the true meaning of these places are the very same with the forgeries of the Jesuits, wherein they cross both themselves and the truth. As for that power given by Christ to the Church, Matt, xviii. 1 8, they have nothing to do with it, as is clear from the text and by the exposition of both an- cient and modern writers ; yea, by some of their own, as Bcllarm. applieth it to the Pope, so they to themselves, but against all ground and reason. 5. They will not with Christ put their calling upon trial of the word, John vi., but by the contrary put the ana- thema upon such as dare presume to call their calling into question.* 6. They have the same titles, power, pre-eminence, offices, and courts, that the Papal Prelacy had, setting only the supremacy of the Pope aside,t ergo, Antichristian ; witness that act of Henry VIII. assigning them all what- soever they had of the Pope, the supremacy reserved to himself ; for which our Prelates have given the name of Pojje and Papissa to our princes. J At una via prohibi- tum, &c. — that which is forbidden one way ought not to be admitted another way. 7. And lastly. They arrogate to themselves (we may well say blasphemously) these titles which are only proper to Christ, namely, the Chief Shepherd or Archbishop, Great Shepherd or Archleader, Acts i. 4, Heb. xiii. 20, Acts iii. 1 5 ; which titles the Apostles durst not take unto them- selves, ergo, Antichristian. As for their defence from counterfeit Clement, or Paganish Archtlamins, it is stufi" not worthy your Honours' audience. To conclude the proof of this position, let John the Baptist speak, John i. 20, 25, * Canon. 8. t 25. Eiiisdem, cap. IS. * Bancroft. Spotswod. 20 zion's plea 26, where having denied himself to the Pharisees to be either Christ, Elias, or that Prophet, hath this reply, Why baptizest thou then ? inferring that he must either confirm his calling to be of God, or not to meddle with the ordi- nance ; neither had the argument been good if John the Baptist might have been of some other function than of God's appointment, and therefore he confirmeth his extra- ordinary calling from the Word, — thus it is clear as the sun shines, that their calling is Antichristian. For to the kingdom of Christ it belongeth not, as we have showed ; to the civil kingdom it cannot belong, for it will be counted ecclesiastical ; to a strange Paganish or Mahometan government it cannot be referred, because it is begun and maintained among those that profess Christ, and under a colour of Christ's government it must sit in the temple of God ; and since it is not of God, to what body or regiment doth it belong but to that government, whereof the son of perdition is the head ? Let us then, as hath been said, receive with the gospel such government as Christ hath appointed in his gospel, then have we fully and completely whatsoever belongeth to the kingdom of the gospel, without any lord bishops and their officers, which could not be true if the hierarchy belongeth to the kingdom of Christ. As for the ceremonies, as none can deny them, so themselves do grant them to be Popish, which it pleased them to retain upon as good grounds as themselves do stand. Finally, this position is impregnably proved by the learned.* I have been the more succinct in the proof of this evil, because the learned have been so large in it ; yet it is the ground of all the rest, and enough to cashier them. As for their arguments, objections, and answers, they are the very same with the Papists, and are the same way dissolved ; only we will discover one snare, wherein they take a multitude of deluded people. What, say they, will you have no order in the Church ; shall all be alike ? Shall we not have governors and some head powers amongst ministers, to remove schism, and to keep peace in the * Pref. com. book ; Mr. Cart. Rep. to D. Whit. ; Rep. to D. D. by M. Banes ; Dioce. trial, Park, Polit., Buc, and others. AGAINST PRELACY. 21 Church ? And for this they press Hierome his words, — Let some head be ordained for removal of schism. For answer, 1 . Shall man be wiser than God ? or shall the way and device of foolish men bring more peace to God's house than the way of the all-wise God ? 2. Grant that this course would bring in a Laodicean peace to the Church (because the Devil will be quiet when his officers bear sway), yet it is an execrable peace, and, as one saith, worse than many contentions that are without truth. 3. If there be such necessity of one lord bishop over a diocess, and one metropolitan over a whole province, for the keeping of peace and unity in the Church or Churches of one nation, is there not the like necessity for keeping of peace and unity, and avoiding of schism in the whole Church, that there should be one archbishop over the Churches of Christendom ? 4. And, lastly, to answer the point directly, we plead quod non sit verum, they make people believe a lie, that by this ecclesiastical monarchy of the Church, it is kept in order, peace, and unity, and that thereby schism is avoided, the contrary whereof is true. For this hath been the main cause of discord and disunion of the Church, yea the fountain and well-spring of most horrible schism and damnable heresy, as is to be seen at large in the decretals, and is witnessed by many of the learned worthies, and fully proved by too much woful experience, both of times past, and of our present condition. We will shut up the point with that pregnant and pertinent testimony of Mus- culus. " If Hierome," saith he, " had seen as much as they that succeeded him, he would never have concluded that one amongst the ministry should have been above the rest, because it was not brought iu by God to take away schism, as was pretended, but brought in by Satan to waste and to destroy the former ministry that fed the flock." With which we may join that evidence of learned Whit- takers.* " Episcopacy," saith he, " was invented by men * Loc. Con. C. de Minist. ve. b. 22 zion's plea as a remedy against sin, which remedy many wise and holy men have judged to be worse than the disease itself, and so it hath proved by woful experience." But of this particular more afterward. SECOND POSITION PROVED. Second Position, viz : — That this Antichristian govern- ment cannot consist with soundness of doctrine, &c. It is too manifest from reason and experience ; for, 1. Can that government which is opposite to the gos- pel of Christ — as it hath been proved — endure the sound doctrine of the gospel ? No more than darkness can endure light, or sore eyes can endure the sun. As a polished glass, and pure water, representeth the filth and deformity of the face, so the purity and power of the Word of God maketh the monk- ish deformity of the hierarchy so to reflect upon itself, that she will needs break the glass, and trouble the water that representeth her, and therefore she loves to fish in troubled waters. A reverend worthy as any lived in our time, being demanded an argument, aO utili, to confirm the government of Christ in his Church, made answer, " that this our nation, under the government of Antichrist for some fifty-three years, had abounded with heresies and schisms, to the eating out of the heart of the Word, where our neighbour nation, governed by the sceptre of Christ for the space of forty and odd years, was clear of all schisms and heresies." We will deliver it in the author's own words: — Epigramma pro Presbitkrio contra Episoopatum. Scotos lustra decern rexit sacer ordo senatus, .A.bsque nota haereseos, schismatis absque nota. Et delaeta feras extersit vestigia dirae, Cui nomen triplix senio dinumerat. Anglia praesulibus recta est septennia septem, Hseresibusque frequens, schismatibusque frequens, Atque impressa ferae servat vestigia dira, Cui nomen triplex senio dinumerat. Et dubitamus adhuc sacrum auctorare senatum, Exauctorato praesulis imperio. AGAINST PRELACY. 23 Christ's sacred sceptre fifty years had sway'd The Scots, without rent, schism, or heresy. No relic there of that foul beast display 'd, Whose numeral name is with three sixes made — But England, govern 'd fifty years and three By Prelates, swarms with heresies and schisms ; The great beast's relics, hateful solecisms In God's true worship, by her are retain'd, The number of whose name, (as hath been said,) Three sixes make 666, is by them thus maintain'd — Why put we not imperious Prelates down. And set Christ's sacred senate in its room ? 2. As for laws and government, how can the govern- ment of an usurping enemy consist with the laws and government of a lawful and native King ? 3. For holiness of life, nothing so odious nor so much persecuted as that by the hierarchy, and that both by mockery and real persecution ; so that he that abstaineth from the common course of the world, maketh his life a prey, and he that walketh with God is too precise. 4. By breaking the bar of discipline, they set open the gate of impiety. As for their pretended discipline, the remedy is worse than the disease ; for by it the godly are vexed, and the wicked strengthened. .5. And lastly, for the safety of the State, how should the State be safe where" Christ is jostled out of his government, and his enemies reign in his stead ? It is the true obser- vation of a worthy patriot, ubi silent leges Christi, &c. — where the laws of Christ bear not sway, the laws of the land can do no good. A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. When Christ standeth at the door and knocketh, and Antichrist beareth sway within, the Lord will turn his rejoicing to do them good unto a rejoicing to do them evil. May it please your Honours to take further notice, that this government is against the safety of the State in these particulars. 1. It supporteth the hopes of the Pope of Rome for his re-entry ; for so long as his officers and household furni- ture reraaineth, so long will he plead possession. And hence hath been the treasons and overturning plots by the Popes against the royal persons of our Princes, and stand- ing of our State, for the space of sixty-eight years. 24 zion's plea 2. This strengtheneth the hands, and warmeth the hearts of the Papists amongst us, ready upon all occasions to take part with the Pope and his ministers. 3. This being the storehouse of superstitions trinkets, as ceremonies, fasts, feasts, and such like, these be meat and drink to strengthen the Papists, and cordials to com- fort them. 4. The hierarchy do disgrace — to the Papists' great joy — the sincere sort of people, which are the walls of the land. As for the Papists and hierarchy, they agree pretty well ; for the former do council, and the latter executeth such designs against God's people ; witness Dolman's "Watch- word, the qmdlibets, Spalato his second manifesto, Doct. Gary's Apology, and the Prelate's practice. 5. They nullify the laws which are the sovereign safe- guard of the common weal, as shall be farther manifested. 6. And, lastly, they beat the watchmen from the walls, or veil them so upon the walls, that how can the city be safe ? In the next place, we come to prove the position by ex- perience. And 1. For unsoundness of doctrine, our ordinary practice proclaimeth it. Witness our school commencements, ser- mons in Court, city, and country, — aTjusing the Word, and reviling his Majesty's best subjects; also printed books by authority, and that from no small ones, being the very streams of Popery, Arminianism, and such Pela- gian stuff, with the particulars whereof — being so many and manifest — we need not trouble your Honours. 2. As for the pollution of God's worship, and profane- ness of life, they cry to the very heavens. It is true that the door of the ordinances, not being close shut, but upon the hinges, Christ cometh in to many ; but what is this to the universal profaneness, which is a pattern to all other nations, and the shame of our own ; and although Christ stand yet at the door, when he hath sealed his own, he will be gone. As for the glory of Christ's government, there is none at all. To conclude the point of safety by an instance from the contrary, be pleased to take notice of the Netherlands, AGAINST PRELACY. 26 which could never have been rid of the Spanish tyranny, nor stood so long in prosperity safely, if they had not cashier- ed the bishops.* As for Geneva, let Bodine speak, (no Puritan sure,) yet he commendeth them much, not for wealth and greatness, but for virtue, peace, and godliness, which he ascribeth to the power of discipline, whereunto they attained by abandoning bishops ; showing further the divine force of discipline, in bridling the lusts and counter- manding the vices of men, which all the laws and judg- ments of men were not able to eflect. And so we come to the third point to be proved. THIRD POSITION PROVED. They bear the multitude in hand, that they are jure divino, yet they are forced to confess that their calling is a part of the King's prerogative. It is truly affirmed in that supplication, anno 1609, that the Prelates have no warrant, either for the nature of their offices, or quality of their proceedings from the Lord Jesus ; neither was it maintained by any of their faction till they grew weary of holding in capite. and then they turned their tenure into soccage, quitting themselves of knight's service. In this plea D. Dowuam showed himself more rash than wise to appear. For he is not only cast over the bar by the Book of God, by the jury of the learned, by the most judicious judges and laws of the land, but also by the verdict of his fellow bishops, and his own con- fes.sion. So that, in scanning of this particular, it shall evidently appear, that their calling is opposite to God's truth, — to our sovereign Lord the King, they cross his wholesome laws with foreign jurisdictions, — and they are at contradictory opposition amongst themselves. + 1. For the first, they oppose the truth of God in affirm- ing, without shame or fear, that their calling is jure divino, when it is nothing less, since there is not one jot of all the Word of God for it, as hath been proved, but as much against it as against any one thing, which the chiefest of them * Method. Hist. f D. Bridg. Defenc. of Eccl. government, p. 319 and 320 ; B. Whit. Def. in pief. et alibi. C 26 zion's plea cannot choose but confess, and so in this they have con- fessed the truth until of later times ; yea, their master- piece and many arguments evinceth this, which they take from the continuation of their calling from 300 years after Christ, and not before Avhich, as they cannot prove ; so the challenge proveth clearly that they are not of God, but opjiosite to his truth ; yea, a learned man, and a better bishop than any now, tells us plainly, that from the year fiOT, the Church began to be ruled by bishops, which government, saith he, was especially devised and invented by the monks, Bale scrip. Brit. Cent. i. 37, which indeed is true ; for till this age, every particular church was governed by the bishops, elders, and deacons of the same ; witness the authors of the Cent. Mag. Cent. 6, 7, CoL 591 ; and although some before this were titular bishops, yet their superiority the Church would not bear ; witness our English Synod an. 674, Synod Harford. 2. They are opposite to the King and his laws, in affirm- ing their calling to be jure divino, because by his laws they are said to be a part of his prerogative, from whom all their power intensive and extensive is conveyed to them, though this cannot warrant them ; witness the petition to the Queen, and judicious Beza, in his Epistle to Grindol Bisho}) of London, which is worthy the reading. But to the point. The rescript of Edward VI. cited by Sanders, runneth on this manner, — " Edward, Dei gratia, &c., to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. Since from the King all power and jurisdiction proceedeth, &c., we give thee jjower within thy diocoss, to give orders, &c., by these presents, to endure at our pleasure."* So, in the first year of the said Edward VI. it is enacted, that they should exercise no jurisdiction in their diocess, nor send out writs but in the King's name, and under the King's seal, which statute was abrogated in the first year of Queen Mary, and re-established by Queen Elizabeth, and in the first year of King James, — so that by the con- tinued transgression of this law, your Honours know that they and their offices are all over head and ears in a Prce- • De schism. Anglic, lib. 2, p. 227. AGAINST PRELACY. 27 tmmire ; of which a bishop in Edward VI. 's time was convicted, and submitted himself to the King's mercy. 3. They are divided amongst themselves in this parti- cular point. D. Downam, not knowing how to shift the matter, pitched at last upon this, that it is jure Ajjostolico, but not juris dicini.^ M. Francis Mason, in his great book upon this subiect,+ dedicated to the Archbishop, and pub- lished by authority, affirmeth plainly and peremptorily, that they derive their Episcopal authority from the Pope. 5; The .same doth the supplicants aver to the King, p. 9, whence yom- Honours may be pleased to observe, how this establislieth foreign power, contrary to that Act of Parliament, 1 Elizabeth, c. 1. Doctor Bilson,Bishopof Win - chester, affirmeth otherwise, terming it plaiuly principis proirogatitam, the King's prerogative.^ In the main- tenance whereof, his very heart squandereth, " If there be any fault," saith he, " let it be laid upon the Magis- trate, and not upon the bishops."|( Where we may observe, what a cup of cold comfort they afford kings for maintain- ing of them. For further testimony of truth, we might cite a cloud of learned witnesses, both in the divine and human laws, as Husse, Luther, WicklifFe, Zuinglius, Latimer, Cranmer, Reformatio letjum Eccl. tit. de divin. ojfic. D. Faulke and Whitaker, in their answers to the Papists, using the same arguments for the hierarchy. It is the scope of Sir Edward Coke, in his report de jure Ecc, to prove that the function of the lord bisliops and their jurisdiction exercised is from the King's prerogative, who may and doth grant to lord bishops that ecclesiastical power which they now exercise, and also may take it from them at his pleasure.1T The self same truth, both by ancient and later Prelates, is a\ ouched ; witness the judgment of the clergy in the days of Henry VIII. expressed in a treatise, intituled The Institution of a Christian Man. This was the judgment of the State in the time of King Edward VI. and Elizabeth.** To this also giveth witness Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Hooper,+t * Def. of his Sermon. f Refut. p. 9-2. * Lib. 2. c. 7, j). llti, 119, «-20, and c. 12, iliid. j Bilson de Gub. Ecel. c. 1.5, p. 402. II P. m. m Fol. 8. ■ Prefac. p. 2. +t P. 1 r.i ZION S PLEA yea D. Downani himself could not deny it, being pressed by that statute of a Parliament held at Carlisle,' 26 Ed- ward 1. Hence, first, the untruth of the said Doctor's assertion may evidently appear. That Episcopal -govern- ment IS perpetually necessary, not only for the well-beiny whole reformed churches. But we see the 1 rela.es require subscription to all the aforesaid books; yea, est vexation enough should be wanting to God's people tl^y have hatched out of their own brains an hundred Ld fifty laws, called the Canons, as we may think in apish .mitation of the Psalms of David, whereunto, though they exact not subscription, yet they tie men strictly, and afflict thcji. -n.'.v, usly, both in purse and person, for not obeyin AGAINST PRELACY. 39 by that High Court of Parliament, anno 1610. For this very particular as followeth. 1. Whereas the temporal sword was never in the Pre- lates' power till the 2(1 of Henry IV., and then usurped by them without the consent of the Commons, — for say they were truly ecclesiastical, yet it is against the laws of God and of the land, that they should meddle with civil juris- diction, — therefore is an act past against it, and the oath ex officio brought in at the same time. 2. That statute 1 Elizab. c. 1, giving power to the Queen to constitute and make a commission in causes ecclesiasti- cal is found inconvenient, because abusing that power given to one or more they wrong the subject. 3. Whereas, by virtue of the statute, power only eccle- siastical is granted ; yet, by letters patent from the King, unsoundly grounded on the words of the statute, they fine, imprison, &c., which is a great grief and a wrong to the subject. 4. Where upon deprivation by the ordinary jurisdiction an appeal lieth, the words of the commission exclude it ; for here is no traverse nor writ of error after judgment. .5. They bind men not only to appear from time to time, but also to perform what the Court sliall appoint. G. Whereas the canons would charge body, goods, and lands of the subject, the house enacted against it, except it should be confirmed by act of Parliament. These evils and grievances were seriously pondered by that honourable assembly, and provided against by the foresaid acts, but the Remora. Prelates^ and logs of their laying, so blocked up the way, that the said acts could not pass ; and rather than they would suffer the plague-sore of their oppressing pride to be burst by the maturating cataplasms of wholesome laws, they made a shift to break the King and State into pieces, as they did indeed, to the no small grief of all good subjects, to the vexation, yea almost killing of the two witnesses. Rev. xi. 7, the indem- nifying and dishonouring of the State ; for since that time what hath prospered with us, or with those whom we have aided ? These acts your Honours know to be law itself, though 40 zion's plea killed in the shell by the foot of pride ; and therefore we humbly entreat justice upon these legicides or law-killers. Now come we to the latter piece of evidence in the be- half of this lawful resistance, namely, the case avouched under the hand of learned counsel, as followeth in his own words : — The case is, whether the High Commission of the North have power to send a pursuivant to arrest the body of any man, and how far forth the sheriff or other of his Majesty's officers be bound to assist them, and whether each several bishop, having a several commission, may, calling to him three or more commissioners, execute the 'commission. This learning is not to be rubbed upon too boldly ; yet. in my opinion, the High Commission hath not sufficient warrant to send a pursuivant to arrest, because the statute of Magna Charta 5, 30, nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur, forbids, as I conceive, such arrests. It was Simson's case, 42 Eliz., in which arrest the constable in assisting the pursuivant was slain, and the offender had his clergy, whereas if the arrest had been lawful, it had been murder, vide 42, Ass. p. 5, and 24 Edw. III. Commissions Br. 3, where a commission was granted to divers to arrest the bodies of A. B. &c., who were slandered for felony ; it was ruled to be against the law, and by the common law the body of any man was free from imprisonment, but onlv at the suit of the King. 2. The sheriff is wise enough to inform himself what is fit to do. 3. I conceive if a commission be directed to twenty or thirty of them at the least, and they sue a duplicate or several commissions, three of them cannot sit in one place, and three in another, by virtue of the commission, without adjourning the commission to time and place, as one com- mission, and not to execute it as several commissions. F. C. You see how m clearing of this case the smell of a goat maketh this honest counsellor somewhat aguish ; but such is his ingenuity, and truth is so strong, that the case in our conceit is well cleared. To proceed, the people also, being enforced to wait upon AGAINST PRELACY. 41 them, become accessory to their sin of disobedience. If that clau.se of the statute be objected, where the Kiiifj granteth tliem authority in as ample manner as they had in the Pope's time, it may be answered in the first place, That that proclaimeth to the world their being to be Anti- christian, and their power to be foreign, for they remain the same, for matter and form, that they did before — supremacy only changed. 2. Besides that general nul- lum tempus occurrit Regi, it is a law case, that general words cannot carry away any part of the right of the Crown ; and such are these words, without any special warrant to lead them. 3. The grant is only to rule over their inferior brethren — meaning the ministry; which rule, by the way, is directly against God's statutes ; how- soever with the laity — as they call them — by this statute they have nothing to do. It was truly averred by a prime judge of the land, that that which binds all should be as- sented to of all, or by the representative body of all ; but what private men do the Prelates call to their convocation house ? or what voice or assistance have they to or in the consultations or canons of the Prelates ? The Prelacy, taking this to consideration, procured a statute, ] Edw. VI., enabling them, as they conceive, to keep their Courts, and exercise jurisdiction ; but first, that was to be done in the King's name, and not in their own. Further, all such jurisdiction is annexed to the Crown, 1 Eliz. 1, forbidding all exercise of spiritual power and jurisdiction without a special warrant from the Crown ; and all that do the contrary are declared to be intruders. The last instance — though we might abound — is from the oaths urged by the Prelates, especially that oath ex officio. By the law of the land, they are forbidden to put any to their oath, except in cases matrimonial and testamentary ; witness the learned and judicious lawyers of the land. "' As to the oath ex officio, whereby both ministers and people are vexed and ensnared, what can be said that hath not been said against it ? Heaven and earth are against it ; it is against the law of God ; the law of the nature ; * Crompton. 182; Fitz. de natura brev. p. 141; Regist. p. SH ; Rastal. prob. 5. 42 zion's plea the common law ; the canon law, councils, and imperial statutes. Though the vileness of it, and the evils ensuing are sufficiently known to your Honours, and to all of understanding, yet we make bold, under favour, to detect the evils of it, for our own and others' information. First, then, by that royal law of God, it is quite cashiered; Jer. iv. 2; Job xxix. 16; thou .shalt swear in judgment, &c. that is, advisedly. And how should a man do that when he kuoweth not what he sweareth ? Neither can he swear in righteousness, because he is forced to be- tray others ; which rather than an honest man should do — as a Father witnesseth— he should lose his life. Further, the matter is not of weight, nor of quality, for it should be criminal; not of necessity, for it may be otherwise cleared ; nor maketh this oatli the end of strife, and therefore it cannot be taken in judgment, &c. A worthy gentleman being pressed with an oath against him- self in another case, made answer by a pretty dilemma, If the thing supposed to be done be a sin, then must I not accuse myself; and if it be no sin, there is no ground of an oath. 2. It is against the law of nature registered in the civil law, nemo tenetur prodere seipsum; if a man must not betray another, much less himself. 3. The canon law from the civil law taketh so much light, as to see and commend the equity of the aforesaid maxim ; witness Gratian the canonist in the oath of Six- tus IV. 4. As for the concourse of nations, they utterly abhor this oath and avoid it, only such excepted as live under the beast, groaning under the burden of this bloody oath; neither do most of the Popish subject themselves to it ; witness the State of Venice, and the rest of Italy, and others. A bloody oath the learned truly call it ! 5. Without an accuser (saith Trajan) there is no place for an accusation ; for that is an evil example, (saith he,) and not heard of in our age.* 6. How injurious it is to the laws of the land and A pud Plin. lib. 10, Epist. 90. AGAINST PRELACY. liberty of the subjects, Mr. Fuller bath fully discovered in the defence of his clients. The beginning of it amongst us, was from a statute of Hen. IV.'"' for vexing and punish- ing of the Lolards, so called, being the true Christians in- deed, the urging -whereof is by a statute of Hen. Vin.,t justly marked in the forehead thus : — An examination upon captious interrogatories, &c. Of the continuance of the oath, the Lord Verulam, late Chancellor of England, did utterly dislike. " It is contrary," saith he, " to the laws of the land, and custom of the kingdom, that any man should be forced to accuse himself, especially being urged without the grounds of accusation, declared in ipso causae initio^ in the very entrance of the cause, according to the canon ;| non est a questionilus inchoandum, they must not begin the plea with questions." This was the complaint of that holy martyr M. Lambert — he grieved to see them call for a book upon his first appearance, as though a man should no sooner speak than swear. Further, tlieaforesaid nobleman averreth, that by the laws of the land, a man is not bound to accuse himself in cases of treason. " Questions and torments," saith he, " be put and inflicted upon some persons, rather for safeguard of the King or state, than discovery of tlie crime. In other capital cases, no oath is offered to the delinquent, nor yet permitted to him. As for criminal causes, not capital, or in cases of conscience and equity, de- pending in the Star Chamber and Court of Chancery, there is an oath required, but how ? by laying of a bill of com- plaint, wherein a legal accusation is framed against the party, beyond the which the plaintiff cannot go, nor the defendant shall be urged. But first to give an oath, and then to examine ujjon flying fame or secret witnesses, carryeth no show of the civil law, — it is flatly rejjugnant to the common law." And thus far that nobleman. " In a particular inquisition," saith Canitius, " articles should be given to the defeudant to be inquired of, and the names and evidences of the witnesses against him, permitting him to make reply for himself."§ * 2 Henry IV., c. 1,5. f 25 Henry VIIL, c. 14. + Lib. 4, Tit. Leg. 3. § In speciali inquisitione, &c. Sum. .)ur. Canon, lib. 4, Titui. 44. zion's plea 7- The imperial statutes are clear against it ; ho man i- boui;d to give evidence against himself.* 8. For Councils and Fathers they are copious. " Christ," saith a Father,t " dealt not so with Judas ; for, not being accused, he did not cast him out." And with that woman in the Gospel, Christ did take a legal course. Where are thine accusers ? Yea, a heathen judge took this legal course with Paul, — when thine accusers are come, I will hear thee.+ No example for it in Scripture, but that of Caiaphas, adjuring Christ in the name of the living God ; upon which Beza showeth us how tyrannous and unjust such an adjuration is.§ From all this, it is more than manifest, that the taking of these oaths, and more particularly of this oath ex officio, cannot possibly stand with obedience to the laws ; yea, though it be gilded and sugared with these daubing and deceiving terms, so far as it is agreeable to the law ; for it is altogether (as hath been shown) repugnant to the law to offer it, or to take it. It hath so often been cast over the bar of the common law, that we think they should now be ashamed to offer it. To conclude, we may answer, being pressed with it, as the ministers of Affrick did in the like case — numquid bruta irrationalia putet 'is nos, &c. — What, do you think us to be savage and unreasonable creatures, that we should swear to a paper, not knowing what it containeth ? And .so much for this point. SEVENTH POSITION PROVED. Now we come to the seventh grievance, where we endea- vour to prove. That of all the evils inflicted, and of all the good hindered since anno 600, one or more of the hier- archy have been a principal cause. The proof of this point must be by induction of parti- cular instances, selected from the histories of the kingdom, wherein we may be the briefer, because we know your Honours (by your own industry and experience) to be better acquainted with your own histories than we can make you. * Cod. lib. 4. t Consil. Bracha. Gens. 2. Canon 8. Ambr. 1 Cor. c. v. .Tohn viii. % ^'^^^ xxiii. Matth. xxvi. 43. § Victor, de persequ. Vandal. AGAINST PRELACY. 4.5 To begin with Augustine, of whom the Papist.s boast that he is the father of our religion, called by the Lovanists our English Apostle. Of his fatherhood or religion we have little cause to boast, nam hwret lateri Iwthalls arundo; the •splinters of his plantation stick yet in our sides. He may be called indeed with Gregory his M. Pater Ceremoniarum^ the Father of Ceremonies ; which being sown by him, like evil weeds, they grow up with increase, and could never to this time be rooted up. Histories relate, how upon his arrival he erected his master's colours, namely, the banner of the cross, and, having seated himself, would needs put his Popish rites upon the Britains and Scots, (for at that time they were free from Romish ceremonies ;) but not prevailing with them, (though the business was backed with a legion of feigned miracles,) he insinuates himself another way, by procuring a Synod, wherein his Pope-like pride being offensive to all, was checked and rejected of all, by which (his choler being raised and inflamed with desire of revenge) he threatened them with the devouring sword of the Pagan, and he was as good as his word — nam accersit ad cwdetn Athclfridum'- — he called that Pagan King of Northumberland to the bloody massacre of God's ministers, and poor harmless and unarmed people ; so it was uot a prophecy, as some would colour it, but a bloody project, sorting very well with Rome's new foundation in England. Sani/uinc smictorum dorolornensis ecclesia pri- matiam ohthnut,-\- "the Church of Canterbury," saith one, " obtained her j)rimacy, by slie]ot the overthrow of the best -deserving statesmen, yea of the King and State itself. Instance his practice against the life and honour of that well-deserving worthy, Hubert, Earl of Kent, and Lord Chief Justice of England, the very swijrd and safeguard of his Prince, as one calleth him, both against foreign and domestic foes ; yet, because he could not endure the pride and treachery of the Prelates, ])y false and forged criminations they brought him under the King's displeasure, by reason whereof he suffered many grievous things, and was often in danger of his life ; but the good hand of God was with him in extraordinary deliverances. And at last, being rid out of the way into Wales, that the Prelates miirht the more freely work, they, and others their confederates, put the King upon such evil courses, as had almost undone himself and the state of the kingdom. Concerning the aforesaid Peter of Winchester, one Roger Bacon moved a pretty question to the King, — What things do seamen most fear ? Storms and quick- sands, said the King, or such like. No, saith Bacon, but Petrus lie Rupilus, for they are the rocks indeed that make shipwreck of the State. Edward the First, also, and his government, wanted not his share of hard Tueasure from the Prelates, for, besides that univcisal uiicdience which Robert Winchelsey, Arch- bishop of Canterbury, yielded to the Pope's edict against AGAINST PRELACY. 51 contribution to the King in Iiis wars, he stood out with the King upon his own terms of reconciliation, persuading ab- solute obedience to the Pope, and not to the King. Also, after much intolerable tyranny exercised over the King's people, and denying to call the King his lord in his letters, he plotted treason with sundry of the nobles against the King's person, intending to put him besides the Crown, and to cast him in prison ; whereof, when he was accused from the King's own mouth, and could not deny it, he fell on his face with tears, begging pardon from the King. In Edward the Second's time, the favourites had most of the domineering power in their hands, yet we read that the Bishop of Coventry was a great favourer and abettor of Gaveston. As for Edward the Third, having great wars in hand, and standing in need of aid, he ca^ed a Parliament at York, whereunto John Stratfoi-d, Archbisliop of Canter- bury, denied to come, neither would he sufler any of his bishops to make their appearance, and all for fear that he should not be suffered to erect his cross ; by which Popish, peevish trick, and rebellious part, the King was frustrated of his ends, and the State thereby endangered. It is true that this Edward was indeed (as he was called) Malleim Ronianorum. Yet in his latt«r days, that proud Courtney made little account of him ; and so disdainfully aflVonted his brother, Duke of Lancaster, and the Earl of Northum- berland, (who took the defence of John Wickliffe,) that he enraged the mad people against the said noblemen, so that they avenged themselves upon their houses and house- hold stuff. « Thus your Honours may see in what account the branches of the Blood-royal are with bloody and rebellious Prelates, who will neither sjjare them, (if they maintain the gospel,) nor spare that good commodity which should save our souls. Richard II. was no better served by the saucy Bishop of Norwich in levying soldiers, at the charge of the subjects, to fight the Pope's battles, contrary to the King's com- mand. He was sent for by the King, but be refused to obey, affirming that going on and action were more neces- 52 zion's plea sary than to go speak with the King, it might be, U, small purpose. To go on with Henry IV., supported and put on by these men to dethrone his master, a brave Prince but much abused. ' They laid hold on the occasion the rather, because he hearkened somewhat to V*lckliffe, and was not for Rome's tootL They first stirred up a rebellion in Ireland, which the Kmg went m person to suppress ; but, before his re- turn, they had stolen away the hearts of his subjects, and set them upon his subject, the Earl of Derby, neither weighmg the glorious memory of the grandfather, nor the unrepayable desert of the princely father ; but, thirsting for the blood of the saints, they advanced the said Earl to the crown, that by this they might both rid the King out of the way, and hav^ a King for ever obliged to patronise their bloody designs against God's people. And this they did efl^-ect ; for after tlie death of Richard, they incited the King and prevailed with him to enact that bloody inquisi- tion oath, which became the very shambles and butcherimr house of God's people. Thus the supreme magistrate— who should have been the breath of his people— was, for the maintenance of an earthly Crown, brought to bathe in the blood of his best people. This he would never have done, were it not for pleasing of cruel Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his crew who vowed and sware that he would not leave one slip of professors in this land. As some of the same descent, to their little laud, have said little less of the Puritans— as they call them— the aforesaid Arundel and his shavelings the King feared more than God and his Word ; and therefore It is an heavy yoke for Kings to be yoked with them. He saw no way, in his carnal apprehension, to make the Crown stick to him and his, but by sacrificing the blood of God's people to the persecutors of the saints. But for all this his own makers thought to have marred him ; for Richard, Archbishop of York, waged war against him, and thought to have taken both Crown and life from him ; but he missed of his purpose, and so left his head in pawn. AGAINST PRELACY. 53 From the time of Henry IV., the Prelates, thus fleshed in the butchery of God's people, went on to a greater height of tyranny, adding drunkenness to thirst. They prevailed with Henry V. to make an unjust and mischievous statute, under pretence of treason, against the servants of the Most High, whom they called heretics. That statute, in regard of the frame, may be called mon- strous, and bloody in respect of the end. The preface of the statute standeth only upon treason ; the body of the statute runneth all on heresy.* Who list to look the statute may at the first view discern the head or root discording with the \nn\y, ami tlie Inanches of the body opposing one another, as (irdiuary wicked decrees consist of nonsense and scU'-conl'usion ; for so the wise God takcth the foolish in their own policy. To go no further,f witness our late nonsense canons, to say no more of them. But to the said statute a little further, the pur- port and end whereof was to ensnare and calumniate the professors of truth ; for it is a commun maxim amongst Romish forgers, to make the profession of the true faith, which they call heresy, and treason to be convertible terms. That the Prelates were the prime movers, yea the insti- gators and procurers of this statute, it is clear from the matter, manner, preface, and end of the said statute ; for neither could they instance any such aj)pearance of treason, nor did the King fear any such treason ; but only their hatred of Lolardy, as they called it, and fear of the truth prevailing was the ground of it, and the thing itself a toad engendered in the bishops' brains ; witness that clause in the body of the statute, " At the instance and request of the Ordinary," &c. But what commodity or comfort had these two Kings from those suggested and enforced cruelties by these fiery bishojjs ? Surely the evil overcame the sup- posed good ; for they, by these sinister means endeavour- ing to make the Crown fast upon the heads of them and theirs, provoked the Lord in his blood-revenging judgment to take off their successors with fish-hooks. As for themselves, it may well be said of them — espe- * 2 Henr. V. c. 7. f Anno 1003. 54 zion's plea cially of Henry IV.— that the storms of their trouble-, and fires of fears, were hotter and greater in life and death than the fires and fryings of the saints wherein they were consumed to ashes. This may be a good caveat to all Christian Princes, not to fasten their crowns, nor to fix their tents by the cords of the Prelates' counsels; for it is remarkable, and ob- served by sundry, that never a King counselled, nor State swayed by them, could stand or continue long in good temper or esteem. Astronomers observe, and experience proves, that when Orion setteth with the sun, and the Hyades rise with him — though it be in the beginning of May — such nipping frosts, sharp hail, and tempestuous storms arise, that the season seems to be changed, and that because these stars be of a tempestuous nature, — changing the air, and weaken- ing the sweet and powerful influence of the sun, which, till he be rid of their opposition, cannot manifest his viiroui', — just so the malignant and tempestuous power of the Pre- lacy doth so impede and intercept the sweet influence of a princely temperature and disposition, that do what he can, all is like to be undone, till he leave Taurus or the house of the horned beast ; which being forsaken, all distempers vanish, and his gracious clemency moves sweetly in the ffemini of the Church and commonwealth. Yea, we can hardly number how many States and Kings, besides our own nation, they have brought either very low, or to utter ruin. To go on, then, with Henry VI., left an infant, under the age of one year, upon whose harmless head, God, in his customary justice, laid the temporal judgment of the parent's guilt. His very infancy that scarlet Cardinal Bishop of Winchester besprinkled with the blood of Christ's Martyrs ; yea, the more blood they drank the more they thirsted, as appears by the hot and cruel persecution in that Henry's reign. But something lay in their way, viz. that good Duke of Gloucester, the King's uncle, the very sword and shield of the King and State, whom they must of necessity have removed. The Bishop of Winchester intended to have murdered AGAINST PRELACy. 55 liiin in the City of London, but that not taking effect, a Parliament was called at Bury, where they aimed at his head, and so they had it ; but what was the cause ? Surely nothing, (for all Sir Thomas Moore's cogging,) but only this, he was a just man and a good patriot, hating the Prelates' haugiitiness and deceiving villanies, loving the truth, and maintaining equity. Where, first, may it please your Honours to observe the mettle of the Prelates, in fetching off so quickly and so easily, not the head of a Catiline or Seianus, of a Spencer or Gaviston, but of a high and nigh Prince of the blood, sucli an one as well might be called pater patrice, the father of the country. Secondly, all men may hence observe that piety and honesty hath been, is, and shall be, matter enough for the bisiiops to make the best fall, if they can find opportunity. But to the point — this worthy man being removed, the bishops went on with their fiery persecutions, till the Lord sent the spirit of division upon the nation, stirring up these bloody intestine wars betwixt the house of York and Lancaster, whereof the like hath scarce been heard in any nation. To omit the particulars, as how many Princes of the blood, nobles, knights, gentlemen, fell in that quarrel, in one battle at Ferry Briggs were slain, as men say, 30,(10(1, besides men of note. Thus the Lord in his justice made them instruments of his revenge one upon another ; and who but the persecuting Prelates brought all this evil upon the land, viz. the blood of God's people, as the ])r(ivijking cause, the butchering one of another, the ruin of the King and his race, and the shaking of the State in pieces ! That tlie Prelates' hands were far in this King's miscarriage, and bloody broils ensuing, it is manifest by their never ceasing desire till the good Duke of Gloucester, the King's protector indeed, was cut off. For it is their genuine dis- position to endure no trusty friend to God, the King, or the State. By this botli King atid State were open to those long enduring and incomparable evils, tumultuous rebellions, raised by Cade and others. 5C zion's plea In which troubles, oue thing is remarkable as the \ finger of God, that notwithstanding this intestine blood-l. in great abundance gave fit opportunity for foreign in\ a- sion, yet that all-wise and just God restrained all foreiguc_ i - from jjarting of them, till they had fully wrought the Lord's revenge in slaughtering one another. Hence let a nation addicted to idolatry and other sins observe, that the Lord will make one of them devour another for a Ion" time before he give them up to a foreign enemy (Zech. i. 6',) and such a course the Lord seenieth to keep with us. But to hasten with the point — from the beginning of that bloody time, till the two houses of York and Lancaster were united, "there was half an hour silence in Heaven," (Revel, viii. 1,) — that is, some small peace in the Church, partly through the obscurity of professors, and partly by the enemy's working one upon another, notwithstanding the Prelates were still doing as they found occasion ; instance the murdering of Peacock, Bishop of Chichester, as it is recorded, after his recantation. Now, to Henry YIL, in whose time the Lord had no sooner given rest to the State, than they began to make war upon the saints, making the King himself an instru- ment to subvert the faith of a poor priest, by his awful presence and mandatory persuasions, with whom the most learned of their clergy could not prevail. Immediately upon this, they carried the miserably seduced man to the fire and burned him. Was not this a fearful evil against God and the State, against the soul of the King, against both the soul and body of the party seduced ? Was not this King, for all his great parts, much vassalled in the honour of his Majesty, that he could not save (as we may think he promised) his supposed convert ? With their fiery and bloody courses they went on, to the exceeding great trouble of the King and kingdom, as histories discover at large. And howsoever that King heaped up much treasure, yet, quickly after his death, it melted as snow before the sun. We go on with Henry VIII., the former part of whose time they made an Aceldama, or Field of Blood. How he and all his subjects were abused and overrun AGAINST PRKLACY. 57 by the Prelates, as Gardiner, Bonner, and Wolsey, it is so obvious to every one, and so fully laid down in a bill of complaint, called " The Beggar's Petition," that it is not necessary to bo insisted upon. There it is made plain that they were too strong against the King in Parliament, that no good laws could pass against the wicked of the land, nor no wicked law against the poor Gospelers could be stopped. Winchester got the King to sit at the arraignment of iioly Lambert, which he only did to humour these bloody beasts, and to serve his own ends. To be brief, they made him exceedingly to transgress, serving themselves with him, disturbing his peace, inward and outward, causing him undeservedly to cut off his l)cst friends and trustiest servants, instance Cromwoll, because they served God and him against the Prelates' pride and tyranny. As for Queen Mary, who set all in a flame, she had the fuel from them, that fed her distempered disposition against God's 2)eople. What honours and possession she lost, and how troublesome her state and burdensome her life was to her, it is more than evident. But what was all this to our bishops ? some may say ; these were Popish bishops. For answer : — First, Their doings have so far proved the point. 2d, Ours are no other for order, as we Lave proved, than Popish bishops. They are garments cut out of the very same cloth ; a pair of shears, as we say, went but between them, only diverse hands have cut them out. And to say that our lord bishops, with all their essential and integral parts whereof they consist, are not P<)j)isli bishops, is a contra- diction in adjecto. They are installed after the same manner, created with the most of the same ceremonies, they are trimmed up in the same trappings, they have the like attendants, the like arms and observancy, they usurp the same power and jurisdiction, and exercise the like tyranny over ministers and people. But for further proof of the point concerning their par- ticulars, be pleased. Right Honourable, to take a view of their proceedings. 58 zion's plea To begin with Edward the Sixth, a gracious plant, whereof our soil was unworthy, who, like another Josias, setting himself with all his strength about reformation, did abhor and forbid that any mass should be permitted to his own sister. Further, he was desirous not to leave a hoof of the Romish Beast in his kingdom, as he was taught by some of tiie sinfcrer sort. But, as he wanted instruments to effect this good, so he was mightily opposed in all his good designs, especially by the Prelates, which caused him, out of a godly zeal in the very anguish of his heart, to pour out his soul in tears. Their suggestion of false fears to the King, and the seeking of their own unlawful standing, brought forth that revived .spawn of the Beast, kneeling in receiving of the Sacrament, for llie greater reverence thereto, whereby the Papists li.ad contentment. And certainly for this, and such like courses, the Lord took him away in wrath to this nation, that he might make the furnace of his indignation seven times hotter against it, whereby he opened the eyes of some good men, who, with remorse of heart, confessed that sin of theirs against God, against the King, against holy men, (resisting Rom''.< Rellques,) and against themselves. To come at last to Queen Elizabeth, of happy memoi who having settled her estate, and subverted the profess iu.i of Popery, came in the end to listen to a full reformation whereunto she was moved, as we are credibly informed, by the Lord Protector of Scotland, called the good Reg(■ll^ As she honoured him very much, and held his w. : and actions to be of great weight (whatsoever the mon- ; Papists affirm to the contrary,) so she gave good respect : these particulars, which he laid down to her for grounds : — " 1 . The invaluable benefit of a faithful and free ministrv. " 2. The excellence of the purity of God's ordinance, \ ' . " 3. The honour and happiness that would attend li". Crown and State, upon the establishment of Christ's go- vernment. " 4. And lastly, though the least in esteem, yet of no small moment to 'the good of her State, she might employ the Prelates' over-fattening pastures to many good and AGAINST PRELACY. 59 profitable uses, leaving the ministry enough for their hon- ourable maintenance. As for their glorious and lordly pomp which was pretended much to honour a nation, it did not so indeed, for it jostled out God's honour, which should be dearer to Princes than their crowns and lives. And, grant that it were some compliment of true honour, yet the sav- ing of one soul by the preaching of a powerful minister, was of more worth than all the pomp and glory of the world." To this effect was his speech, which the Queen pondered well. But, when the Prelates understood what an office he was .about, they murmured exceedingly, and, in revenge of that motion, he had unjust aspersions cast upon him, and hath to this day by st)me of their train. At a Parliament held in the thirteenth year of her Ma- jesty's reign, some Prelates and others were sent from the Convocation House to exhibit to her a subsidy, according to custom ; her Majesty spoke very graciously concerning the good of Christ's Church, affirming that she had heard of many things in the Church needful to be reformed, which, if she could but come to understand, she would not give sleep to her eyes till she set upon reformation, and would never give over till she had done it indeed ; and if they, being the eyes, would not reveal the truth, let the blame and blood be upon them. But what was their answer to so worthy a motion ? — even such as suited with their own ends, seeking more than their own, and not that which is Christ's ; like false glasses they presented lier Majesty with an omnia hmw. And thus they proved the bane of reformation, frustrating the desires of a Princess worthy of so great a work. After that, in process of time, they caused a subtle in- sinuation of the disgrace of discipline to be suggested to the Queen, affirming, if discipline were set on foot, that every silly fellow, or Sir John, in a parish church, might at his pleasure rail on the Queen, and also exconmiuuicate her. Which, by the bishops' leave, is a very calumny, as if the government of Christ should not both know and use Kings better, than the government of Antichrist. But envy never spoke well. In the mean time, they neglected zion's plea no opportunity to persecute such godly ministers as would not conform, and, from citing, vexing, suspending, and casting them out of their freeholds, they fell to pack with some atheistical Judges, setting them so against the good men, that they did not only scoff them, belie them, and re- vile them, but also arraign them and condemn them ; which, when the Queen heard, it grieved her soul ; for she was so far from having that high injury put upon God's ministers, that she signified her mind in Parliament to the contrary, namely, that she would not have them vexed for non-confor- mity. Whatever was mentioned in Parliament for the keep- ing of the first table, the Prelates ever crossed it ; witness that motion for the sanctifying of the Sabbath, in the 37 Elizabeth, the passing whereof they hindered. So they set themselves against that course of Sabbath keeping and reformation of abuses, undertaken by the Magistracy of the City of London, till at length, (to their blame be it spoken,) partly through their own indisposition to the business, and partly through the violence of the Prelates opposing, so high, necessary, and acceptable a duty was quite given over. Since which time, we may observe, that the Lord hath smitten us in city and country seven times more in all conditions and aflfairs, so that things have prospered worse than ever they did before. The like necessity was laid upon the city in the reign of Richard the Second, to take the punishment of filthiness upon them, (being rather increased than curbed or re- strained by the clergy's courses,) at which reformation they also grumbled. What shall we say of the attempts of some of them (whereof some are dead, and some were lately alive) against his late JIajesty's succession to this crown, upon conceived fears and jealousy of Church reformation ; witness the invectives of some in sermons and other writings ; the disgraceful speeches, and affronting passages, and opposing practices of others against his royal person, insomuch thai when they heard he was proclaimed King of England, they tore their hair, being unable to resist, and without all hope of pardon. Yet the King (out of his gracious clemency, with much ado,andafter muchimportunatemediation) wascontent AGAINST PRELACY. 61 to pardon it; yea, we make bold, under your Honours' favour, to put this query, — Whether any of the Prelates, for the time being, did effect his succession ? Let them speak in conscience. Come we further to consider the late King's disposition at his first entry. For anything we could perceive, he was well affected to the Anti-episcopal government, (with which he was trained up from his cradle, and which by word and writ he had maintained,) and promised to preserve at his coming out of Scotland. His good thoughts also to such reverend men as these, scornfully called Disci- plinarians, were lively expressed in his Basilicon Doron. Yea, can it stand with natural reason, that a King should graciously pardon his professed foes, and not aifect his dearest friends, by whom (as by secondary means) he was kept and preserved from his very infancy ? But for all this, so soon as they had him here, and had calmed the stormy fears of Prelate-splitting against the rock of his displeasure, they began to show him all the glory of the world, and to forge false accusations against the brethren, as though they had been the troublers of Israel, whereby (it might be) his mind was somewhat ex- asperated, — yet not so, nor with such intent that the ministers should be oppressed, as they were indeed, without any judgment ; witness his own course of reasoning with the non-conforming ministers, seconded with command- ment given, to deal with them by reason and dispute, and not with rigour. But how the Prelates obeyed, let the evil and base usage, the suspending, silencing, thrusting out of their livings, so many hundred ministers, bear wit- ness to the world. It is worthy your Honours' observa- tion, that in anno 1G04 and 1605, four hundred ministers were silenced, suspended, or thrust out, by virtue of those wicked Canons, which were not concluded by the convoca- tion, (for D. Rud opposed them byan oration,) but they were the Popish after-birth of Bishop Bancroft, then Bishop of London, hatched, as it is verily thought, in the brains of his guests the Seminaries. This was not unlike that prac- tice of Trent, in pressing of the Interim upon the German ministers and other Protestants, for refusal whereof they were F 62 zion's plea removed, and many were banished. Yet Harman, Bishop of Colen,* would rather renounce his Bishop's See, than be an agent in it who may stand up as a witness against our Prelates. But what followed on this silencing of our ministers ? even that master-piece of Rome, the Gunpowder Plot, brought to the very period of accomplishment. As God might in justice have punished the former evil with the latter, (for our Kings and State have often smarted for the Prelates' plaguy courses,) so, if you will be pleased to look further into the conjunction of these evils, you may find them both to be poisonable fruits of the same tree of death ; yea, happily it may probably appear, upon good enquiry, that he that was the main agent in the former had his finger in the latter. 1. For the better clearing whereof, may your Honours be pleased to enquire, whether Bishop Bancroft retained not Watson the priest for his own private plots, whom he suffered to divulge dangerous books against the State and right of the Crown ? 2. Also, whether the said bishop had not intelligence with the Pope's Nuncio in Venice and the Low Countries ? And whether Blackwell, the arch-priest, before his appre- hension, was not by the said bishop protected ? 3. What was the cause he posted on the silencing of so many ministers, to the number of four hundred, (as hath been shown,) immediately before the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason ? After which discovery he wrote to the other bishops, that they should not hold that course of silencing many at once, but that they should be silenced by one and one ; for it seems if that grand business of Hell had taken effect, the blame should have been laid on the harm- less host of God's ministers, as though it had been done by Puritans in revenge. 4. Let it be enquired whether one of the Pope's special intelligencers confessed, to a seeming malecontent, that if the powder plot had taken effect. Bishop Bancroft should have been Pope, and Father Bluet Cardinal of England ? * Sleydam Comment. AGAINST PRELACY. 63 5. Whether Bishop Bancroft and others, his accomplices, had not correspondence with the King of Spain ? 6. It is not unworthy the enquiry, what became of Bluet after the discovery of the powder treason? It is certain that with Bishop Bancroft he was, but what be- came of him nobody knows. 7. Whether Bishop Bancroft's intimate confederates were not special maintainers of the Prelacy, opposers of the Gospel and good ministers of God, yea, and no good friends to the State ? 8. And, lastly, may your Honours be pleased to enquire, •whether some of our present Prelates use not Jesuits, in the habit of gallants, as their familiars? and whether, looking for a change, some of them aim not to be head, or at least to be as nigh the head as they can, that they may do their master the more service ? 1. For evidence of this, let their Popish positions and practices, and maintaining of them in others, (of which we can give too many instances,) speak in the first place. 2. Their cruel persecution of the ministers doth evidence the same. 3. And, lastly, their breathing out of threatnings against conscionable, though conforming ministers ; and these they mean to make good, (because they cannot endure the Gospel,) except the Lord make you to the same a place of refuge and defence, they mean to root it out. If they be left to the Prelates' mercy, the woful event will show it to be no slander. For 1. as has been shown, they cannot subsist with the continuance of a faithful ministry. 2. They will provide for themselves in their kind. 3. They can do the Pope no greater service, and the kingdom of Christ no greater injury, than in this parti- cular. If their places disposed them not for the Pope, they would never disarm the kingdom of the State's best forces, and the Pope's greatest adversaries. It is true that there be some Prelates rampant, and some Prelates couchant, but your Honours know they be all the Pope's Prelates. They have divers kinds of teeth, but all their teeth bite. 64 zion's plea In a word, as hath been shown, the members must do for the head, and in this they do but their kind. Therefore, if you would save both them and us, alter the property from lord bishops to ministers, — so shall you spoil the Pope, preserve the State, and you shall have the honour through the world that they are your converts. But to go on a little further with this disease of the Pre- lates' evil, especially against the ministry. Besides the injury done to souls, it would make a heart of stone to relent, to hear related the insolences, scofferies, outrages, revilings, and barbarous cruelties, by them and theirs put upon the faithful ministers of God, and their poor families. Though many suiferers in this business be with God, yet there be some alive that can both relate and witness the injuries done to themselves and others — by breaking into their houses — by dragging themselves, wives, and families to prison, and that without any warrant at all — the casting of them and theirs out of doors, giving them scarce a rag of their own clothes to cover their children's nakedness. We humbly entreat your Honours not to pass by those crying injuries, which you will the rather observe and be sensible of, if you take a view of the fearful bypast sequels of those evils. At his late Majesty's entry, the Lord (foreknowing how little should be done for him, and how much against him) sent an admonitory pursuing plague, for heat and continu- ance rarely matched, speaking to the eye of King and State, that there was some special plague to be removed — and what other, and greater, and more worthy the care of a King and State, than Romish idols in God's worship, and antichristian government ? which evils increasing, (though the Lord removed the plague,) yet he hath smitten us seven times more, in bodies, states, and names, namely, in the distemper of the elements, in the change of seasons, in the languishing, groaning, and dying of the creatures, under the burthen of our sins. And, above all temporal punishments, in taking away our Henry, that paragon of Princes, who should have been, and would have been, (if our sins had not hindered,) Malleus Epxscoporum ; which work, no doubt with Rome's AGAINST PRELACY. 6-5 ruin in England, our great Charles will accomplish, if his army of Princes, namely, you great Senators, act your part. Now, to draw to an end of their bypast mischiefs, let the subjects take notice, what high indignity they ofFereil to his late Majesty, by whose persuasions, when some ministers had conformed, they used the said ministers (only for preaching the Gospel) seven times worse than before, notwithstanding the King's command to the con- trary. Not unlike for cruelty, for we parallel not at all, to the burning of that priest persuaded by Henry the Seventh, formerly spoken of. Since this grievance then is made good by undeniable proofs, give us leave, Right Honourable, by way of duty, and by deserved retortion, to apologise for ourselves from the aspersion of the Prelates and their children, in their venomous sermons, railings, and writings, — we are, say they, seditious, tumultuous, factious, disobedient, rebellious, in a word, the troublers of Israel ; and they would gladly we were cut off, because we trouble them. But give us leave, in homely phrase, to set the saddle on the right horse, and to tell them, they and their father's house are troublers of Israel. Let them never tell us of tyrannizing over the magistrates, by depriving them of their rights by excommunication, &c. ; let them not object to us M. Udall and M. Cartwright, &c. as seditious fellows or traitors ; if they had been such, our late King would never have written his letters to Queen Elizabeth on their behalf, as he verily did ; let them direct their speeches to the Bishops of London, Ely, Winchester, interdictors of the King and the whole realm, — Anselme against Rufus, — Beckett vexing Henry the Second, — Langton casting away King and State, — Arundel unkinging Richard the Second, In plain terms, these men were the traitors — and yet no Presbyterian brethren, but lord bishops, whose brethren and successors our Prelates are. The Bishop of Hereford, preaching at Oxford on the text, — " Oh, my head! Oh, ray head acheth!" (as the vulgar Latin hath it, 2 Kings, iv. 19) applied it thus peremptorily against Edward II. — " That the King's head must of necessity be taken off." 66 zion's plea He might better have recollected, that that which made the head ache should have been taken off, and then he had hit himself. And so much for the proof of this point, in the latter part whereof we have been sparing of particular names in the passages of our proofs, because we love not to stigma- tise any particular person, dead or alive, since it is the evils of their callings, and not persons, which we oppose. EIGHTH POSITION PROVED. All the fearful evils of sin and judgment, for the present reigning amongst us, and threatened against us, &c. are from the Hierarchy, &c. Evils, as they divide themselves, are evils of sin, or evils of judgment. Though all evils of sin be against God, for it is the transgression of the law, yet sin is either 'rum — for that is verified, says he, " That they make the commandments of God of none eflect by the traditions of men." We might bring a cloud of witnesses for this particulai-, but we will only allege M. Bucer for a closer, in his Censure of the English Liturgj', (p. 458,) — Con- * Seneca. AGAINST PRFLACY. 75 $entaveum est ut in externis otnnibus rehus ut in cii/tu ministrorum, &c. It is fit and convenient that in all outward things and actions of God's worship, as in ministerial garments, we should accommodate ourselves to the simplicity of Christ's appointment and Apostles' practice, imo testari debemus omnibus, nil nobis esse commune cum Eomanensibus Anti- christis. Yea, we should witness to all men, that we will have no communion with the relics of the Romish Anti- christ ; hut our teachers should teach, and we should hear, only that which Christ hath commanded. — Matth. x. and John X. To proceed, for further satisfaction, give us leave, Right Honourable, to lay down those bases or grounds of argu- ments, which we entreat your Honours to take into consi- deration, offering ourselves, with all modesty, to maintain the same against all gainsayers. 1 . The ceremonies are will-worship. 2. They are significant and teaching ceremonies of man's invention, stated in God's worship. 3. They are an addition to the Word, flatly against tlie rule of the Word. 4. They are all man's inventions, and have been filthy Popish idols, impossible to be cleansed, but must be idols still in God's worship. o. Being man's invention, they make a conformity be- tween us and idolaters in God's worship. Cu They are occasions of evil ; appearances of evil. In a word, they are the very strange fire and garments, spotted with the flesh, by their own interpretation of these Scripture phrases, (Lev. x. 1, Jude 23;) yea, by the cur- rent of all interpreters, they cannot, or they do not deny, but that by these places are condemned all devices of men, stated in God's worsiiip. But because this tax may seem too general, may it please your Honours to give us leave to deal with the grand cere- mony of the cross, whose vileness, being discovered, may make us, like the worst of all, branches of the same root. In our proceeding, for our better information, we will observe this method : 1. The place and esteem of the 76 zion's plea cross among us. 2. The ground of it. .3. The evil effects of it. And, 4. the arguments against it. For the first of these, namely, the place and esteem. It may be said of us, in some sense, as Bellarmine saith of them- selves, — Suaves odores etiam Cruel offcrimtis in JEcclesia,* we offer too many sweet odours to it, in that it hath any place in worship with us. Now that it hath a high place and honourable name in the Lord's ordinances, the daily use of it, the Canon for the use it, and the testimony of our writers verify ; the Canon calleth it an honourable badge.t Mr. Hooker calleth it a sacred or holy sign, attributing great virtue to it, affirming no means to be more powerful to preserve a man from deserved shame, and to stir up devotion, than by this signing of the forehead with the sign of the cross. J Yea, he citeth Cyprian, that the cross doth purify the forehead. But what can speak more emphati- cally for it than the very words used in baptism, which giveth it the virtue of a sacrament ? The learned Mr. Parker, the crucifier of tliis cross, (Crux crucis^) proveth it, according to the tenor of the words, not only to be significative, but also efi'ective.§ They make it a sacrament in effect, as the Papists make confirmation. By baptism they bring the infant into their Church, and by confirmation make it a soldier of the Church ; so we do the same with baptism and the cross. Further, by making it a sign to assure the baptised of the strengthening grace of the spirit against the assaults of Satan, especially against shame in persecution, do they not make it a sacrament ? 2. For the ground of it. Though some with Valentinus have been so shameless as to cite scripture for it, as Isa. xlix. 22, Jer. iv. G, Ezek. ix. 4, Ephes. i. 13, Apoc. vii. 3, yet the really learned of them dare not ; for the Popish Canons tell so much, — Que enim Scriptura saluti/era crucis signaculo Jideles docuit insignirl ?\\ — What place of the saving word hath taught that the faithful should be signed with the sign of the cross ? If they appeal to the * Lib. 1. de Eccl. cap. 13. t Canon 30. + De Polit. lib. 5, cap. 65, fol. 160. Part I., pp. 33, 91, 129, 160. || Gmtian. Decret. Part. 1, Dist. 11, cap. 15. AGAINST PRKLACV. Fathers, as the 30th Canon doth, enjoining the use of it as thoy used it, surely it is a wonder they blush not, since they kii(i\v very well that the Fathers have not been fouler in any one particular than in this. As, for a test, Hierome will have a man to guard his forehead with the sign of the cross in all his passages."' Neither wanteth he now sundry among us to defend this absurd opinion. So Ambrose calletli the sign of the cross the perfection of things.t Augustine holdeth nothing in either sacrament to be rightly done without it.J Mr. Perkins discourses largely of tliis.§ The very truth is, it had its first beginnings from Valentin the heretic, as learned Fulke collected from Ireneus, and so Epiphanius.jl Further, D. Fulke slioweth how the Devil did sow the seed of idolatry by the cross in Valentinus ; Montanus nursed it, and got it credit in civil and religious uses ;^ but Tertullian was the first of the orthodox who writ any thing of it, who was foully tainted with Moutanism. "'* As for England, it had no cross at all, till Augustine the monk brought in his silver cross.tt 3. For the evil effects of it. 1. It maketh the most ac- count more of it than of baptism itself. 2. Some refuse to be witnesses unless it be used. 3. Some have left the ministry or parish where it hath not been used. 4: Some have been rebaptised, because they were baptised without it. ;{::}: i Now we come to the arguments against it, wbcrein we desire to be as brief as we can. And, first, from the ground spoken of. 1 . That which had no good beginning, nor ever any good use in God's worship, should not be appointed for a sign of grace ; but the cross in baptism had no good begin- ning, nor ever any good use in God's worship, as hath been shown : £r(/o it should not be appointed for a sign of grace in God's worship. As the minor of this argument is only controverted, so • Epist. ad Demetr. Et ad Eustach. f De Sacram. lib. 3, cap. '2, + Tract. 1 1 8, in Joh. § Problem 184. || In Annot. in Luk. 24. lib. 1, cap. 1. 5[ Motiv. 46. Argu. Brist. p. 124. '* De Coron. Mil. c. 3, 4. tt Bed. in Hist. lib. l,c. 2. ++ Park. 1. part. p. 94. zion's plea we desire the maintainers of the cross to show ns some good beginning or good use of it, if they can. 2. Every sign or seal of an evidence, without the coun- sel of the lord or owner, and every military badge, without the appointment of the grand commander, is counterfeit. But the sign of the cross in baptism, is such a sign or military badge. Ergo it is counterfeit. For the major, reason cleareth it. Neither can that distinction of a sign significative and exhibitive make any evasion. For 1. The distinction hath no ground from the word. 2. They give the cross no small part of exhibition, witness the words. 3. We must not add a sign significa/- tive or explicative in God's worship, take what terms they will ; for this is God's prerogative. This proposition is also proved very learnedly by D. Fulke. '•' That many speak," saith he, " of the sign of the cross, it is true, but they speak liesides the Book of God, and therefore their reasons are to be rejected. For men must not compare, or join the cross with the King's stamp ; for he appointed no such whereby his servants might be known, but only baptism."* Yea, Bellarmine acknow- ledgeth as much. " No man," saith he, " can bring in or determine anything in a law or commonweal, but he that is the author of the law, and head of the commonweal ;"t which he instanceth in the legal ceremonies. But did God, the author of his own law, and appointor of his own worship, bring in or determine this sign ? No, sure. Which serveth also for proof of the minor ; for they call it the sign of the cross in baptism, — they make it a military badge, — and, lastly, it wanteth God's detennination, and therefore, as a counterfeit, to be abandoned. The third argument followeth. 3. Every image or similitude, for a religious use, is for- bidden by the second commandment. But the sign of the cross in baptism is a similitude for religious use. Ergo it is forbidden by the second commandment. • Rejoinder, Artie. 1, p. 144. -I- Nemo potest. &c. de Sacr. lib. l,c. 21. AGAINST PRELACY. 79 With this ciiarge D. Morton is so puzzled, that he denieth any likeness or image to be forbidden by the second coinniandment, but an outward resemblance of the Godhead. Which divinity so learned a man would never have vented, but that he was at a stand ; for as the answer is against the latitude of the commandment, so it is against the current of the learned ;* yea, it establisheth a great part of Popish imagery — for sundry Papists hold it a foolish thing to make any images for representation of the Godhead, t But to the point. All superstitious rites or men's inventions are forbidden by the second command- ment ; witness Ursinus, Calvin, Zanch.."}: i. That which is man's invention, and hath been an idol in God's worship, must still be an idol in God's worship, and therefore to be abolished. But the cross in baptism is man's invention, and hath been an idol in God's worship. Erffo it must be an idol still in God's worship, and by consequence to be abolished. We prove the major by induction. Every idol in heathenish worship was still an idol in the worship of God; as the altar of Damascus, 2. King, 16. Was not the idol of Baal (called the idol of jealousy in God's house) an idol still ? Ezek. viii. 3. The posts and thresholds of Baal, set up by God's thres- holds and posts, were still the very same, Ezek. xliii. 8. The idols among Jacob's family should still have been idols in God's worship, though it were true worship, Gen. xxxv. 2, and therefore Jacob will have them utterly abolished. So groves were things very lawful, (instance Abraham's, Gen. xxi. 33,) yet becoming idolatrous, (as 2. Kings, xvii. 10, Jerem. xvii. 2, Isa. Ivii. 5, Hosea, iv. 13,) they are forbidden, Deut. xvi. 2 1 ; and so of all the rest, Deut. vii. 5. Yea, things appointed by God for a time, if they become idols, or polluted with idolatrous worship, they must be done away ; witness the brazen serpent, and the name Baali, 2 Kings, xviii. 4, Hosea, ii. 16, 17. Now let our opponents give an instance, besides the * Bucer. Virel. Fulk, Andrews, &c.. f Durand. lib. 2. Dist. 9. Quest. 2. + Catech. 9, 95. Inst. lib. 2, c. !!, sect. 17. De Red. lib. 1, c. 14. 80 zion's plea matter in hand, as the law of logic requireth, and we will quit them all the rest. As for the minor, namely, that the cross is man's inven- tion, and hath been an idol, we think no Protestant will deny ; witness their ascribing of divine virtue to it ; yea, they adore it. " The venerable sign of the cross," saith Swares,* " in worthy to be adored, though in a transient matter or action, because the figure and signification is the same, though the matter be divers." " Every figure or shape of the cross, whether permanent or transient, is to be adored," saith Vasques.t Yea, this aerial cross was the very mother of material crosses, to which they creep, offer incense, pray, adore, and so make it both mediator of intercession and redemption, contrary to their own coined distinction, as D. Rejniolds well ob- serveth from the words of their Breviary. J And so much for this argument. The common answer to such arguments as this, is from the thirtieth Canon, " Papists," say they, " abused it foully, but we use it better." For answer. 1. This is not to answer, for we have proved, that it is not to be used at all. " It is a common excuse of corrupt practice," saith one of their own, " to use means abused by others in God's worship, to a better end ; yea, it is a resolution too plausible to worldly wisdom."§ 2. For use, is there not, in a word, as much attributed to it by us, if not more, as by the Papists ? Are not, by the Prelates, the proper offices of baptism ascribed to the cross, as teaching and strengthening? Gen. xii. 17, Exod. xii. 1 3, Luke xxii. 1 .9 ; which be chief parts of the nature of a sacrament, as Scripture commentators, and the consent of the churches do testify. || To conclude the argument in a word ; the Prelates' cross is the same specie, or in figure. It is the same also for * Venerabilo sigiium crucis in 3. parte Aquin. torn. 1, Dist. 56, sect. 3. t De Ador. lib. 3, disp. 2, c. 2, quaecunque crucis figura, &c. + De Lib. Apochr. Prelect. 241. § D. Jackson. || August de Doctr. Christian, lib. 3, c. 15. Calvin, in Lev. iv. 22. Mart, in 1 K. in 8. Beza Epist. 8. Franc. Flanders. AGAINST PRELACY. 81 the especial signification, namely, to be a sign of Clirist, and the efficacy of his death. " So that," as one saith, " he retaineth entirely his old idol's office." — " It made way," saitii Beza, " to that horrible sin of liyperdulia." The last argument followeth well upon this, namely. It is the badge of the beast ; which is manifest, 1 . by the Papists challciigiiig it t(i be the s])ocial mark and badge of their idolatnms uorshiji; witness Stapleton, Bellarmine. Another callcth it tlie i liaractrr "f tlieir glory. " The cross," saith one, " is a notable sign whereby to know a Catholic."* " How can we hold up our heads," saith one, " for sliame of the beast's mark, which our ears hear by them thus extolled ? or with what forehead can we say that the cross is not the boast's mark ?"+ 2. That it is a mark of a beast, it is clear, from these places of the Revela- tions, chapters xiii. 17, and xiv. 9, and v. 1 1, and xv. 2.| And that first by the exposition of the learned, namely, D. Willet, M. Napier, Bullinger.§ Yea, all our orthodox writers confess that our ceremonies are a part of the mark of the beast, of which ceremonies the cross is the special. As M. Fox, Jo. de Vado. Dr. Abbot calls all the priests' garments, whereby they are distinguished from the rest of the church, a special part of the character of the beast, and how much more the cross ?|| 2. As this is the exposition of tlie learned, so this trutli may be from the places demonstrated thus, to omit other particulars : — That mark which is put upon men by the second beast, and is the mark of the number of his name, and is put upon all who use traffic or trade, is the mark of the beast. But the cross in baptism is put upon men by the second l)east. Rev. xiii. 18, it is the mark of the number of liis name, and must be upon all that traffic or trade, Rev. xiii. Ifi, 17. Ergo the cross is the mark of the beast. The argument is M. Napier's in eflect, the last part of • Prompt. Catholic, p. 26. 27. + De Sacra, lib. 2, c. 3, part 20. Epist. Apologet. sect. 7, p. 54. + Park, p. 136. § In Synops. - stract, pag. 58. iion's plea their city, but tlic citizens' valour;* but as tiicir un- sound oi^inion, and Plato his defence are refutwl by Aris- totle ae very jircsumptuous, dangerous, and bloociy to a commonwealth, so the want of the walls of discipline laycth a Church open to all manner of mischief and dan- ger, both from foreign and domestic foes. But in thw they differ from the Jjacedemonians ; they stood upon the worth and valour of their citizens ; but the Prelates do not only unmantle the walls, but also cashier the very best forces, as though they meant to destroy and rase the foun- dation of the city of God. The utility and necessity of discipline cannot enough be expressed. It is a special note of the Church, though not constituting a Church, vet flowing properly from the essence of a Church. It is most necessary for the external subsistence or well-being of the Church ; it is also a very necessary means for the obtaining of the greatest good of the Church. They themselves confess that some form of government is necessary, (as Bishops Whitgift, Bancroft, Bilson, Dow- nam,) for they hold it, as Keckerman speaketh, a cyclopical, or confused multitude, ibsi: i&ev idivoc dy-x;, — where none govern, and none obey. What government is then like to the government of Christ ! This is the guard that keepeth out errors of doctrine, and corruptions of manner ; this is the scythe that cutt^th do-rni sin ; this maketh the tallest rebel in sin to stoop ; this strengtheneth the hands, and comforteth the hearts of God's people ; this maketh a sweet harmony and concinne order in the Church and commonwealth, as appeareth by that commonwealth of Geneva, formerly instanced, ad- mired by all nations that look upon it with a single eye. By the contrary, where this is altogether wanting, or a bare empty cask, or mere show and shadow of it re- maineth, there is nothing but the chaos of confusion, or, to speak with the spirit, there is nothing but wretchedness, that is, ignorance of our own misery, beggarliness, blind- ness, and nakedness, Rev. iii. ]? ; but we will not know * Lib 7, de Opt. Rep. AGAINST PRELACY. S9 it, nay, our Prelates will not have us to know it. This golden sceptre they cannot endure, for it crosseth the Pope's leaden sceptre, by which they rule all and domineer over all, — we mean Antichristian discipline, which the greatest champions of Rome both highly conmiend, and in it exceedingly insult over the Puritans, as they call them, and all the Reformed Churches ; witness Stapleton and Scultingius :* — " This forty years," say they, " the Eng- lish bishops have retained the discipline of the Catholics, maugre the Puritans' hearts." What impiety, injustice, and tyranny is this, to waste the vineyard of the Lord, to silence, suspend, depose, and imprison the keepers and dressers of the same ; to break down the walls and hedges of it ; to rear up an Antichristian fort in it, and to plant Popish Canons upon it ? Is this to defend Zion, or is it not to mix the English See with fire to consume Zion ? Is this to make glad the hearts, and to strengthen the weak knees of God's people ? Rev. iii. 2 ; or is it not rather to fill the bosoms of the Philistines with triumphant joy, and to fill with shame (so far as they can) the faces of all Reformed Churches ? By this all men may know whose servants these great lords be. Before we shut up the discourse of the sinning against this commandment, it shall not be amiss to lay the finger upon an old sore of theirs, newly festered, namely, the barring the printing of all books from the press, which might enlighten the people with love of the truth of Christ's government, and the purity of his ordinances, and might make them hate their Antichristian calling, and impure devices in God's worship. In this they deal with us, as the Rectors of the Jesuits do in their Societies, who strictly interdict both young and old the reading or having of Protestant books, which made their convert Spalato to say, or rather to dissemble, that this was the prime and principal cause of his suspecting of the Popish religion.t The Prelates do not only oppose such books as oppose * Triplicat. Arti. Whita. c. 19. Hierarch. AnachryB. lib. 2, p. 45. + Consil. profec. 90 zion's plea their tyranny and trumpery, interdicting and menacing people from the reading of them, but they also imprison, banish, yea, and kill the authors of them. If anything by God's good hand pass the press, either at home or abroad, which crosseth their tenor, or speaketh home for the tenor of Christ, it must either go through purgatory or through the fire, such is their cxpurgatory trial. Instance D. Whitaker's work, otherwise published after his death than in his life ; also Mr. Sprint's Ca.ssander, Spalato's sum of his 9th book concerning ministers' main- tenance. Not to be tedious, be pleased to view Bucanus' institutions, translated into English, and printed in London anno 1616, the year after that they were printed in Geneva; in this they make him speak (not through the fault of the translator, but by a coining and clipping authority) the things he never spake indeed. They invert the order, they take away both questions and answers, they turn affirmatives into negatives, and negatives into affirmatives, a number of instances we can give, but let a taste suffice. The question of the marriage of the innocent party divorced, is quite left out. I)e conju(/o, quest. 1 3. So a great part of the question of the orders of ministers, quest. 25. Also the question of the sign of the cross in baptism, quest, de Baptis. quest. 19, and many others. What the leaving out of the most part of the answer to the ((uestion of Naboth's denying Ahab his vineyard meaneth, quest. 7 5, we leave to your Honours' judgment ; but now they are grown to a further height — for as they wonlc^ never suffer the wall of discipline to be built, so now they are like to ruin the city of the Word itself, by reserving of the presses, for the setting forth and ti-imming up their own projects and Arminianism, the very gatehouse of Popery ; but as for the counter-pleas or preservatives against such poisonable drugs, they will suffer none to pass, yea, though there be no matter of controversy, yet it is controversy to them if it be the truth. And so much for this commandment, against which we desire your Honours to observe what a world of sins arise from the Prelacy. AGAINST PRELACY. As for the third commandment — to pass by their own ordinary oaths, (which they account but petty ones,) and also the bloody oatlis of their swaggering servants, and the roaring speeches of their jovial chaplains, being a wondrous evil precedent to all about them — how doth their profane carriage, the ruffian-like revelling behaviour of their chap- lains, (mocking of ministers, reproving swearing, and other sins,) set an edge upon the sin of swearing, when swearers know how such reprovers shall be dealt with ? Again, how is the name of God profaned by that illegal extorted oath ex officio ? by the battologies and tautologies, lenton curses, and adjurations of the service- book and litany ; besides the fearful roaring, racking, and torturing of the word in their Cathedral Churches ? To the fourth commandment, (besides their exemplary })rofaning of the Lord's day by themselves and families,) it is a lamentable case to hear and .see how in their com- mencements, by school disputes, in their .sermons and dis- courses, the morality of the f>abliath is brougiit in question, and to the great dishonour of Cod, and grief of his people, they maintain the non-morality of it ; and not only so, but they oppose themselves to the i-eformation and keeping of it ; witness their hand against the magistracy of the City of Lonilon in that business. And for that flying book of toleration for profaning of the Sabbath, the desire of the mousti-ously profane, and the procurement of some Prelate, concurred to the begetting of it, and bringing it to be authorised. l^astly, they take off the leaders of God's families in the sanctifying of the Sabbath ; and so much, as briefly as we coidd, for the sins of the first table, taking footing and butting upon the Prelates. Now, to come to the sins of the second table. First, they sin with a high hand against the King's Majesty, and tliat first in respect of his soul's good ; they speak evil to him of the truth of God, and of the servants of the truth, whereby a King's heart may be let loose from the fear of his God, and given over to supine negligeuce, deluding pleasures, and an evil conceit of the precious truth, and of his best and loving friends and subjects. Just according 02 zion's plea to that speech of the Prophet, " They that make the King glad with their wickedness, and the Princes with their lies," Hosea, vii. 3. Of which place the foregoing words explain the meaning, according to the scope of the Spirit, and the current of interpreters, namely, by their corrupt lives and false suggestions, they corrupt the King, forestalling his judgment against the good and goodness. Hence one well observe th, " that the sins of Prelates cor- rupting Princes, liindereth the good of the subjects,"* so that we force not the text. For the further proof of this, with what false suggestions did the Prelates abuse their ingenuous and royal Queen Elizabeth, against the true offices and officers of the Court of Heaven upon earth ? How was the late King pressed, as a cart under sheaves, to blanch and abandon the ordinances, to disgrace and dis- countenance his chariots and horsemen, in which lay more strength than in all his councils and forces ? How was he pressed to the putting down of lectures ? To give an instance of these evil offices, we have heard that the King, upon occasion given, enquired of the Venetian Extraordinary Ambassadors, what means the people in their territories, and other isles of Italy, had for their souls ? They made answer to this effect, — that their Liturgy and Book of Homilies (proportioned in number to the Sabbaths of the year) were read in their Churches. " Alas !" said the King, " that is poor stuff." To which a Prelate (being by) replied, — " That it shoidd be better for his Majesty's State, and the state of his kingdoms, if there were more Homilies, and less preaching. For there was more love," said he, " among subjects themselves, more loyalty to their Prince, more prosperity to the State, when it was so, than since the time that nothing would serve but preaching." At which speech the King looked hard upon him, and said no more. If the learned judges, and learned counsellors at law, and all understanding statesmen, do hold and profess it a prin- ciple of State, that suggestors and instigators of a King to * Peccata Praelatorum. Steph. in locum. AGAINST PRELACY. f)3 cut the cords of his own laws, are worthy of condign punish- ment in the highest degree, wliat are these men worthy, that incite the King to neglect or reject the command- ments of his God ? To that purpose another of them, as we are informed, told the same King, " That all the Church should never be at rest, till such two worthy ministers (whose names we spare) were hanged up, one in the South, another in the Xorth." Secondly, they ai'e against the honour of the King. For as it was a stain to the good Kings of Judah, (notwith- standing all their careful reformation and maintenance of true religion,) that they took not away the high places ; instance Amaziah and Jehoshaphat, which high places Hezekiali and Josiah renjoved, to the great honour of their names, ] Kings, xxii. 43, 2 Kings, xiv. 4, xviii. 14, xxiii. 25 ; so these men wonderfully eclipse, if not deface, the honour of our Sovereign, not only in stating the altar of Damascus, that is their own or Popish ceremonies, with the altar of God's ordinances, but in sufl'ering Baal-peor to show his face openly, which must of necessity make the wrath of God break in upon us. " It is the King's honour," saith Solomon, " to search out a matter from the bottom," Prov. xxv. 2, as the word signifieth, which is to be understood in things concerning God's glory, his own honour, and the good of the State ; but they vail our Sovereign in the first of these, which indeed should be the perspective to the rest, to bring them home in their due quantities ; how then should his honour truly flourish ? Thirdly, they transgress highly against his royal crown and dignity, as hath been shown, in the maintenance of foreign jurisdiction. Fourthly, they are against his prerogative royal, not only maintaining their calling to be jurfi divino, but also in keeping courts in their own name. Fifthly, they weaken the strength of the King's state ; for as the hovering of the Israelites' minds after Saul's house, weakened the pillars of the house of David, though anointed and established by the Lord, so the hovering of our English Romanists, aftef Rome's primacy, doth distract zion's plea and enervate dangerously the strength of his JIajesty's .state. And who be the main poles of the tent of their hope, but the Prelacy? encouraging them further by suppressing and disgracing Rome's chiefest adversaries, under the name of the Puritans, so that which is the weakening of his friends, is the strengthening of his foes. And that thus they do, let their Canons, advertisements, visitation articles, their open clamours and calumnies from pulpits, comparing them with Jesuits, and, lastly, their daily proceeding against them in their courts, bear witness. Sixthly, They devour the King's wealth ; for as the wealth of the subject is the wealth of the King, so the im- poverishing and spoiling of the subject is the impoverish- ing and spoiling of the King. For exacting from the sub- ject : let first a query be made, whether they rake not out of the ministers viis et modis computatis computandis an £100,000 2^er annum? And as much more out of the people's purses for visita- tion fees, pleas, and jangling matters, besides the great sums they raise for probates of wills, ^\1lat a rabble of officers, as Chancellors, Commissaries, Archdeacons, and others keep they for the emptying of the people's purses, and filling of the land full of all manner of sin, as swear- ing, drunkenness, whoredom, pride, idleness, &c. ; witness their filthy and rotten speeches in disgrace of God's people, which we loathe to name ; as also their patronising of sin, and plaguing of professors in their Courts. A^^lat a num- berless number of moths, drones, and caterj^illars they keep in their Cathedral and Collegiate churches, we are not able to express. Some have summed them up to the number of 22,000, or thereabout; what a huge deal of means will so many sharks devour. Seventh, and lastly, they are against the safety of his Majesty's person, in maintaining the hopes of Popish traitors, who, upon all occasions, are ready to attempt and commit treason against him and the State; witness the many plots and deep treasons contrived against our Kings and State these sixty-eight years. As they sin against the King, so they sin against all his subjects ; as first against his ministers, from whom and whose families. AGAINST PHELACY. 95 against the laws of God and the land, they have taken both livelihood and life, for some have finished their lives in prison ; and some at this day, being poor and aged, have much ado to get bread to eat ; but, worse than all this, they stop their ministry, which is dearer to them than life and liberty. How bitterly and basely have they abused them in their Courts and palaces ; what numbers have they at several times silenced ? It is extant in record, that in anno 1604, about 271 ministers were questioned for not subscribing or non-con- forming, of which number about 70 were deprived of their livings, about 1 13 not suftered to preach, and about 94 under admonition ; all which cruelties are done upon them and theirs for not subscribing to a book, whereunto to sub- scribe is flat against the law, as hath been discovered. But in very deed their quarrel is against the preaching of the gospel, which cannot stand, as we have shown, with the standing of the hierarchy. For it is clear, both ag:ainst the statute, and the late King's mind in his con- ference at Hampton Court, that men once admitted should be ejected or cast out for not subscribing. Citing that of the poet : — " Turpius ojic-itur (]uam non admittitur ho8pes." 2. They sin exceedingly against the good estate and sanctimony of the King's household government, whereof the ministers ordinarily are men of their moulding, looking more for preferment than caring for the souls ; they feed them with some frothy stuff, as noble Prince Henry well observed, whereby not only much looseness, but also per- plexity, for want of means, assault them. For as profuse giving exhausteth the fountain, so except the fountain of princely liberality be ever sending some refreshing streams to moisten the dryness of their hot-livered servants, they fall quickly either into a consumption, or else into a dropsy of indirect courses, which cannot but reflect upon their King and master. Now, since his Majesty, by reason of his many employments, cannot help them as he would, out of his own means, with some of the Prelates' needless and 96 zion's plea hurtful abundance, he may supply his servants' wants, and do much good with the rest. But, to go on, they sin also against all his Majesty's subjects. And at first, in tyrannising over their souls and bodies in the courses of their unjust Courts ; which, as a noble man observeth, are opposite to all the Courts of the king- dom, by reason of the exercise of sole authority. The bishop citeth alone, accuseth alone, censureth and excom- municateth alone ; but, saith he. Kings and monarchs have their councils. All temporal Courts have more wherein their authority doth rest ; a-s the High Court of Parliament, King's Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery, Star- chamber, and all the rest. And so it is in foreign king- doms ; witness the Parliaments in France. But the Pre- late doth all himself, and that in matters of higher nature than the highest temporal affairs ; which is a thing, saith he, past all example, and for which they can render no reason. That Popish tyranny, indeed, whereby they exalt themselves above all that is called God, is the very ground of it, and best reason they can render. Out of their presumption, they dare cross, by their Courts, the highest Court of the kingdom, viz. the Par- liament, for which saucy courses, our Kings have secluded tlieni the Court of Parliament. Instance Edward I.,* who called a Parliament of his nobility and commons, seclud- ing the clergy both from Parliament and protection. 2. They sin against the subjects, in bereaving them of their faithful shepherds, in removing the dogs that should keep, and the watchmen that should watch the flocks ; so they are left a prey to the wolves and foxes, of which loss, implying danger, if the people were sensible, they would make more ado than Micah made for his idolatrous Levite. But they are now as men forgotten, and their cause is so little in request, that all the ministers almost give way, yet with bowing down between two burthens, what a pres- sure of serxntude they put upon honest and faithful minis- ters — their silent sorrows, and abrupt complaints, for * Anno 1295. AGAINST PRELACY. 97 service put upon them sore against their hearts, do tes- tify. As for such in the ministry as are their devoted servants, they rejoice in the flesh by making the peoples' burthens heavier. The Prelates set some as the Egyptian task-masters over the people, to see them do their vforli ; wherein, if the people fail never so little with the task-masters, they are punislied. Our ministers are used as the Romans used the vestal virgins — they are beaten if they keep not in the ^ Romish holy fire. As for the peoples' zeal, sincerity, holiness, and labour of love, The smoke out of the bottomless pit hath blasted them exceedingly. For as the strict keeping of the first table bindeth on the duties of the second table, so remissness or mixture in the first maketh us loose in the duties of the second ; and if they yield not to all, or be somewhat more strict in life and duties, what a hurrying to their courts, what a polling of their purses, and what a pondering with their execrations do they keep against them ? which, ac- cording to the Scriptures, Councils, and Fathers, should only be inflicted for criminal causes. As the Apostle speaketh concerning an heretic. Tit. iii. 10 — " After once or twice admonition, reject him :" Ob criminales iantum causas et valde graves — for great and weighty, yea hein- ous oflTences, saith the Council,* they shall be only excom- municated. They abuse also egregiously the writ de excommunicato capiendo^ which should run only upon criminal causes — as heresy, denying to come at church, incontinency, usury, simony, perjury, idolatry. But for any of those, they neither cite nor censure God's people, because they have no grounds, and therefore they are not liable to this writ. Yet what case God's people are in, by reason of this un- just proceeding, it is not unknown to your Honours. To make up the full cup of affliction — by warrants and commitments from the High Commission, people be cast into a black, melancholy Golgotha or filthy prison, erected * Concil. Aug. cap. 23. 98 zion's plea in the middle of the city, against the liberty of the same. This is like the lion's den, out of which very few are de- livered with their lives, except it be upon very ill terms ; witness the yet crying blood of two honest men within or about these three years, and a third had his deadly wound, besides the death of others in the other prisons. Instance these two worthy and famous men, sacrificed to the prison of the gatehouse, together with sundry worthies of the Scottish nation, whose blood, by their means, was dried up and drained out in the prison. This cruel course is absolutely against his Majesty's laws and the privilege of a subject ; for the statute for the Pre- lates' imprisoning and lawless oath took place in the height of Popery, as hath been shown, in the time of Henry IV. whereto the commons, as it is witnessed, never consented. For the further discovery of the e\nl of the Prelates' prisons, and their imprisoning, give us leave to commend to your view from the learned, the unhappy, yea hellish, beginning of it, when the mystery of iniquity was drawn to a head — then began the scarlet whore to put out the black flag of imprisonment against the people of God that would not receive the mark of the beast ; witness the col- lections of the learned. Eugenius primm post vacatio- nem Romamr sedis, &c.* " Eugenius 1. after the vacancy of the See of Rome for the space of four months, was made Pope ; who, not regarding ecclesiastical affairs, or the furtherance of the gospel, gave in charge, about the year of our Lord 656, that bishops should have their prisons, bereaving (say they,) the magistrate of the sword, not for the punishing of idolaters, adulterers, &c. of which there were great abundance, but to punish and pine heretics, (as they called them,) who would not hear and adore the throne of the beast." " Gregory I.," saith the author, " hath left a written testi- mony, what the judgment of the ancient canons is, of such bishops as will have men to fear them for their prisons : Their fatherhood should know," saith he, " that they should be pastores non-percttssores, feeders not strikers, nota pre- * Catolog. test, verit. p. 656. AGAINST PRELACY. 99 dicatio quce terheribus exigit fidem. It is a new kind of teaching, to make men believe witii blows ; but Eugenius and his successors," saith the author, " scorned and con- temned this divinity." Have not our Prelates conned their Father's lecture pretty well ? Yes, sure ; for who feel the smart of their prisons ? Not the idolater or vile person, yea not the pro- fessed Atheist, the canker-fretting Arminiau, or State-be- traying Jesuit — for with all of these they are hail fellow weU met ; but the grand transgressors, the Puritans, shall be sure of the veriest dog-hole in all the bishops' den, though the Jesuits had wont to have the rougher words. With these their prisons they so terrify God's people, that they often say, and swear, and do, they know not what. These are their Herculean arguments wherewith they con- clude all in Bocardo* that dare deny the dung of their Augean stable to be good gold for the altar of God ; but the law is clear, we need not inform your Honours, that none should be imprisoned, nisi per legale judicium parium, aut per legem terrwi — that is, upon a judicious process, by a legal trial, or by the law of the land. Neither doth that Act, from whence they would ground their commission, give any power, but rather a restraint to their imprisoning and fining ; for if it did, it should cross the law of the land ; yea, the power of the Commis- sion, so expounded, crosseth the statute itself,;}: as by judi- cious lawyers hath been learnedly observed. Besides, there is a statute flatly against it. Further, if they had such power, to what use serveth that writ de excommunicato capiendo"? So that it is more than evident their fining and imprisoning are altogether against the laws of the land, the tenor of the power by which they hold, and the course of their own proceedings. 4. They sin highly against the nobility and gentry ; for besides their sinning against their souls, in keeping out a powerful ministry, they intrude upon secular offices due to the nobility and gentry, and that against the law of • 2 Henr. IV. c. 15. Fox. + Magna Cart. c. 2.9 ; Edw. IV. c. 2 ; Edw. III. c. 3. + Fitz. nature. Br. pp. 51, 52 ; Edw. III. 15, c. 6. 100 zion's plea God, the nature of callings, the Canon law, and the law of nations. Hubert was Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancel- lor of England, and Lord Chief Justice, all at once. Instances there be too many, and that of our own times, contrary to the act of the Council at Oxford, holden by Stephen Langton, — ne clerici juristlictiones exerceant secu- lares, — that is, no clergyman should exercise any temporal function. Mathew Parisiensis maketh mention of the Pope's injunc- tion here in England, to take the great seal from a bishop, being Lord-keeper for the time. It is observed by one, " that it never went well with that State, where the clergy hath borne temporal offices, or where they are Counsellors of State." It is a disgraceful affront to the nobility, judges, and gentry, as though they were not worthy or fit for the places. The like may be said of ministers, being Justices of the Peace. That this their temporal jurisdiction is opposite to the law of God, it is manifest from these words, — " The Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, &c., but ye shall not do so," Luke xxii. 25, 26 ; JIatth. xx. 25, by the which places the Prelacy is so confounded, that they fall in with the Rhemists, by wrangling to wrest the meaning of the Spirit. These places, say the Prelates and Rhemists, forbid tjrrannous lordship and government, but not a just and upright government. In which cavil your Honours may justly wonder that men will be so shameless. For, first, we must consider, that our Saviour answereth his disciples to their question according to their desire. Now, could they be so impudent as to desire to play the tyrants ? no, sure. It is tyranny so to expound the place. But their desire was of a lawful pre-eminence in idoneo subjecto, in a subject capable of it, and tells them plainly they must have no such office. It is most true, as it is noted, that he barreth in his answer all ambitious Prelacy, being the greatest tyranny, which the disciples desired not; but further, he denies to them all temporal pre-eminence, lawful in itself, but not for AGAINST PRELACY. 101 them, as ho cleareth by the instance of the dominion of worldly rulers ; and the more to dissuade them from it, he presseth his own example, Luke xxii. 27, and thus he answers the (juestion. All orthodox expositors, both an- cient and modern, accord in this truth. Indiciittr minlttratio, interdicitur domination (^Bernard, de Consid. Lib. 2.) — The ministry commanded, but domin- ion forbidden. " We should be free," saith Hierome, " from secular affairs, that we may please Christ." — " It is not for a minister," saith Ambrose, " to have two offices." Father Latimer asketh the Prelates, if it were their offices to be courting it ? Sermon v. to Edward VI., in 1 Cor. vi. 4. " Non utrumque gladium Petro" saith Beza, " he gave not both the swords to Peter or any other Apostle," in annot. 1 Cor. vi. Bellarmine, the Cardinal, is expressly for this truth, commenting on our Saviour's words, Luke xii. 14, who made me a judge, &c. Admonet Episcopum ut nec index litium, nec arbiter facultatum sit, he warneth a bishop, neither to be judge in terrene controversies, nor a determiner of men's rights. — De Pontiji. lib. 5, cap. 10. To the same effect, upon the same place, Franciscus Turrianus speaketh prettily and pithily — Quid dicturi sunt Episcopi ad illud Christi, quis constituit me judicem? &c.* — When bishops take secular power upon them, what will they answer to that of Christ, who made me a judge or divider amongst you ? In doing so he saith, — Seipsos ex summis minimos faciunt — they make themselves to become the least. Not unlike to that of the Corinthians — " Set them to judge, who are least esteemed in the Church," 1 Cor. vi. 4. Neither, hence, can it be collected, as the Papist would force it, that the spirituality (as they call it) or the ministry is in place above the magistracy, but that only the object of their calling is higher, and therefore their taking upon them a temporal judicature is an abasing of the ministry. To the same purpose, the foresaid author applieth the parable of the trees choosing a King, — " The trees went * Lib. 8. constit. Apost. c. 46. 102 zion's plea forth on a time to anoint a King over them, and they said unto the olive tree, reign thou over us, ' &c. In Episco- pos plane convenit. " It hitteth the bishops' right," saith he, " for they leave the sweet enlightening, enliven- ing word, and betake themselves to reign in the judgment- seats of secular affairs, and so they become not olives, fig- trees, and vines, but very brambles ; for why, as the Apostle, Acts vi. 2, should they leave the word to serve at tables ? and if, as the Spirit speaketh, no man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier, 2 Tim. ii. 4, — Erffo, Episcopi qui lites, sive res seculares, &c. — A bishop, therefore, that taketh upon him the judgment of secular things, showeth plainly that he warreth not for God, and so he cannot please him." The Canon law condemns expressly ytttsyHr-oX cp^ovHhag, — secular cares in the ministers. For this truth also counsels are current, ne officxum haheant, &c. Let not any minister have the office of a secular governor. Con- sil. Toilet. As for the laws of nations ; as the callings are of a distinct nature, so all nations have ordinarily had a care to keep them distinct. Fabius JMaximus is commended for opposing the choosing of jEmilius Regulus to be Consul, because he was a Quirinal Priest ; but it is objected, that good Princes do put that dignity upon them. Junius answereth. Though they were good, they did not well.* Secondly, the greatest monarch cannot put things to- gether that God hath distinguished. 3. As good Princes, out of good affection, without judg- ment, as the foresaid judicious man observes, put this authority upon them, so other good Princes, for the tyranny, pride, and oppression that thereupon ensued, took it quite away from them, upon the evil ground and sinful effects of civil jurisdiction in the Prelacy.t Petrus Ferrariencis is bold to call the misplacers of this power, Stultos Cwsares, foolish Emperors. J * Etsi pii : non pie fecerunt de Pontif. lib. 5, c. 4, note 12, 13. t Niceph. Ub. 14, c. 39. J Catolog. test, verit. page 856. AGAINST PRELACY. 103 1. Some may further object the antiquity of this mixed government, or third state, aa they call it. For answer. 1. Custom aggravates sin. 2. This temporal dignity of theirs, from our Kings, to be Barons, and to have place in Parliament, &c. is, as the learned witnesseth, not much above 400 years' standing.* The author of the abstract is of that mind, that Henry the Second was the first that put this dignity upon the Pre- lates, to sit in Parliament and the Star Chamber,t taking his ground from Math. Paris. Sicut cceteri Barones delent interesse, &c.J — " Bishops and archbishops, as they have their possessions, so shall they have their baronies from the King, and sit in courts of judgment, as other barons, till it come to matter of life or member." There is no recital here of former grants, as apparently there would have been, if there had been any such. A certain writer of the Ecclesiastical History, shows sundry instances of Parliamentary laws, without either presence or consent of the Prelates ;§ yea, King Edward the First, as we have shown, excluso clero, as one saith, thrusting out the Prelates, enacted laws with his barons and commons. In the reign of Philip de Vallois, the French King, it was enacted, That no priest, or ecclesiastical person, should be deputed to assist at the Parliament, or where the affairs of State should be determined or treated. The reason is penned also — Because they should wait upon their spiritual functions. By all this, wherein we could have been much larger, your Honours may consider what wrong this amphibian brood doth to the ofiice of the ministry, what indignity to yourselves, what hurt to the Church, King, and State. The words of a glorious martyr are like to be too truly verified of us : — " Woe to that kingdom where they are either of the Council or of the Parliament ; yea, their counsel," saith he, " is as profitable to King or State, as the fox to geese, or the wolves to sheep." || * Willett. Svnop. contr. 5, pp. 242. f Page 216. + Edit. Tiguri. anno 1589, p. 97. § P. 167, Et sequent. || Tindall in his Treatise of Obedience of a Christian Man, p. 1 52. 104 zion's plea 2. Further, they possess too much of that whereof the nobility hath too little — for nobility, without means, is as colours without arms ; for which cause Henry the Fifth determined in Parliament to have taken some part of the Prelates' means, and given to the nobility. But cunning Arundel found a trick to turn him off, setting his martial spirits upon the w^rs of France, where- unto the clergy contributed very largely, to keep their coats undivided. To draw to an end of ripping up this endless sinning, they sin more particularly against their officers and instru- ments, by whom they are served and upholden, as chancel- lors, archdeacons, officials, church-wardens, and parish clerks. Of all those, or of any one of them, is there any ground from God's word, or institution from Christ ? yea, are they not all the chips of that old block Antichrist ? Were it not a saucy part for any subject whomsoever, to thrust out the officers of the King's house or State, esta- blished by the ancient laws of the land, without consulting with the King, or without any order from him ? Yes, sure ; for common sense would condemn it. How much more impudent boldness is it, to thrust out the officers of God's house, appointed expressly in his word, and to foist in such as serve, for nothing but to maintain the king- dom of Antichrist, and to bring sin and judgment upon a nation ? For further clearing of the evil condition of their offices, give us leave to present you with a short view of the particulars. 1. For chancellors, archdeacons, and officials, let us speak to them under the name of officials, for they are all subordinate in evil offices to the Prelates. If the officials' place and case be naught, so must the superior places and ca^es of such be to whom and which they are deputed. Now, for the woful condition of officials, let them hear what Petrus Blecenses, a learned and devout man, about the year 1150, speaketh. In an epistle to a certain official, whom he desired to pull as a brand out of the fire, he writeth thus, — Ej:eas Bal/ilon, et Ur Chaldeorum : — " Get thee out," saith he, " out of Babylon, or Ur of the AGAINST PRELACY. 105 Chaldeans," meaning his place. Ministerium enim est damnatissimw mllicationis : — " It is an office," saith he, " of a most damnable stewardship." Verbum non est a nomine officii, sed a verho officio, — " The word," saith he, " is not from the noun officium, or a place of some useful charge, but from officio, to hurt or offend." And hence he maketh such verses as the time would afford ; yea, they may well serve, for the place is worse than the verses. Nam genus est hominum, quod dicitur offici-perda Officio est verbum crudele nimis, et acerbum Dictio plena malis, hinc dicitur officialis. A kind of inofficious men there be, Derived from a sharp and cruel stem, Officio, to hurt ; so hence we see The word official is a wicked name. Vice Episcopi oves tondet, emunffit et excoriat, sic Bpiscopi longa manubona aliena dirimunt, Sfc. Dissimul- ant peccata ; Ergo relinque officiate officium Ministerium damnationis. " Being vice-bishops," saith he, " they shear and squeeze, yea, and pull the skin off the people ; give over, therefore, that official office, being a service rejected of God." Yea, let all bishops, archdeacons, and officials hear what Johannes Sarisburiensis, of the same time, saith of them and their places, — Peccata populi commedunt et vestiuntur, — They eat and are clothed with the sins of the people. As for chancellors, they are the after-birth of the Pre- lates' lordship, wherein they have overtopt all other earls and barons, for none but Kings, Princes, and Universities have their chancellors. Further, for Churchwardens : they sin most against them, and cause them to sin most of any of the people; they make them the instruments of much sin. If they be wick- ed men, then it is their meat and drink to insnare a faithful minister, and to afflict God's people ; but if they be good men, they must either shift their dwellings, to shun that unlawful and hurtful office, to the undoing, it may be, of their calling and family, or they must lie in prison, or, * In Policrato suo, lib. 5, c. 16. 106 zion's plea which is worst of all, undergo the office with a reluctancy in conscience, being enslaved to Antichristian governors ; howsoever, they do no more hurt to God's people. We speak what we know ; several of God's people have felt heavy pangs of conscience for it upon their deathbeds. If the calling were of God, good men would hold it (being lawfully called) rather an honour than a burden to their conscience, nam res bona neminem lonum scandalizat, — a good thing gives offence to no good men ; but by the office they become in very deed the counterfeits of God's officers, and the Pope's promoters. They swear and do they know not what, yea, they infringe the laws of the land, being made instruments to afflict God's people ; by gerving of foreign jurisdiction, they sin against the King's JIajesty. All these are more than manifest, by their serving of the sinful courses of Prelacy, in all which they are instruments and accessories. The greatness of their sin will appear by a view of the particulars wherein they serve, being directly against the same laws which the Prelates transgress. Moreover, they sin against the parish clerks, who are the right eye of their spiteful Courts, for their office, what are they ? — be it with reverence spoken — a very crew of holy-water dishclouts. 'There are, no doubt, honest men amongst them, and the more pity they should serve sin, but for the greater part, they are tliorns in the eyes and pricks in the sides of God's ministers and good people. These are the knights of the Cross, the keepers of the Pope's wardrobe, the lords of misrule, and, in a word, the great masters of revels ; as for pursuivants and summoners, they make them nothing but the servants of sin. These Prelates sin also against all the wicked of the land, of whose wickedness and profaneness they are the very tent and tabernacle, and by opposing aU good means, they strengthen the hands of the wicked. Lastly, they sin against themselves, their own souls and consciences especially. 1. For worldly pomp and wealth, they enter upon an unlawful calling. AGAINST PRELACY. 107 1. They cause others to sin. 3. They bring the blood of many good men and their families upon their heads. 4. They hazard, if not lose, all comfort in time of their greatest need, when they come to give up their accounts. Some dying like Nabal, their hearts being dead before they are dead ; some never casting about for any comfort ; some crying out they have made a bad exchange. One in terror of conscience told his wife, " that he would not endure one of those pangs which he had suffered for that woful calling for a world ; and therefore charged her not to reserve any thing of the revenue of the bishoprick, but to give it to the poor ; for if she put any of it into her stock, it would bring a curse upon it, and consume it." We could further relate what horrible plights they have put good men into upon their death-beds, by forcing them to conform, crying out that to save their means in their service, they had tipt their tongues, or bitten God's people, for which they smarted. Others, within a few days after their subscription, upon more serious conference with their own consciences, discovering their error, have languished to the death. — Humble Supplicat. p. 41. " Yea, we doubt not," says the same autlior, " that when it shall please the Lord to honour his Churches with the free liberty of his ordinances, that the subscribers and conformers will then cry out with the Bishops of Asia — Nos non nostra mlun- tate Bed necessitate aducti suhscripsimus, non animo, sed verhis tantum consensimus : * we subscribed not willingly, but upon constraint, not with heart, but with hand, them that coined distinction will not hold, to subscribe against the mind, but not against the conscience." But so much may suffice to have said of our sins, whereof we have shown at large them to be the special cause. Now we come to our judgments, whereof we affirm also them to be the cause according to that rule — " whatsoever is the cause of a cause, is also the cause of the effect pro- ceeding from that cause." Judgments are either spiritual or temporal ; spiritual, as * EvagT. Hist. lib. 3, cap. 9. 108 zion's plea the departing of God's presence, and that insensibly, we not lamenting after him as we should. 2. A breaking of the staff or power of the means ; for all the plenty we enjoy, yet the right arm and right eye, that is the convincing and controlling power of the vision, is cut off. 3. A decay of graces. 4. A benumbed, senseless, and groundless security, from the spirit of slumber which is upon us. 5. Fearful cowardice and hardness of heart, so that we cannot mourn. 6. Self-love, in every one seeking his own, and none that which is the Lord Jesus Christ's. 7 . A withdrawing of the right hand of fellowship. And, lastly, a bold contempt of God's judgments. Whence are all these, but from the Prelates keeping Christ at the door? They abandon him, and will not suffer him to dwell with us. They vassal us so at their pleasure, that God taketh no pleasure in us. They will have what they will, and we must give God no more than they will. ■The ministers are in bonds, and the word in bonds ; there are none to cut the cords of their tyranny, and to set Christ at liberty. How should the men or means be powerful among us? How should we thrive in grace, when the enemies of grace and God's glory command us? How should we be enlarged in our hearts, when they keep us strait in our bowels towards Christ ? How should we be stout in our own cause, when we dare not be seen in Christ's cause ? And how should we love God and one another, when we hate not with a perfect hatred them that are his greatest enemies ? Many more great and fearful spiritual judgments over- flowing this land, we might relate, if time would give us leave; as punishing sin with sin, which indeed is the greatest punishment that ever God inflicted on his people. " Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy turning back shall reprove thee : know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord," Jer. ii. 19. And surely it must be so, because this sin of AGAINST PRELACY. 10.0 the hierarchy is the only sin of the land maintained by a law, whose authority is pressed upon people, who, either without conscience or against conscience, embrace it ; and, therefore, just it is with God to punish this high and capital sin, with other sins of a high nature. Now we come to temporal judgments, whereof, to our shame, we are more sensible than of the spiritual ; and yet in very deed less sensible than we should be. It is too true of us, that " evil men understand not judgment," Prov. xxviii. 5 ; that is to say, in the true nature of it, in the sting of it, and in the causes of it. The reason is well implied in the same place — because " we seek not the Lord in it;" we attend not what he speaketh in judgment, and what he would have us to do by it; for, if we sought the Lord, as it is there, we should understand. But, to pass the scoffers of God's judgments, even we, who profess our- selves to be more sensible, make a deceiving sense our judge in this enquiry ; if the smart be not on ourselves immedi- ately, we understand not the judgment as we ought. Wise David was of another mould — " All thy judg- ments," saith he, " were before me," 2 Sam. xxii. 23. It is an astonishment to think on our stupidity ; the Lord may cry to the heavens and earth to hear, for we will not hear nor understand. The earth shaketh and trembleth ; the foundations of the heavens move and shake above our heads, and all because of the wrath of the Lord. The very heathen centurion, and they who watched Christ, when they heard the cry, and saw the earthquake, were terrified at the judgments of God, Matt, xxvii. o*. The prophet Habakkuk tells us, when " he heard the voice, (viz. of God's judgments,) rottenness entered into his bones, and he trembled in himself, that he might be safe in the day of the Lord," — iii. 16. The mighty God hath spoken, yea, and roared to the ear, and discovered to the eye, all the judgments written in his book. Yea, all these have been, or are in some measure upon us ; judgments on our persons, states, names, families, callings, and what not. K 110 zion's plea Are not the " foundations," (DintWI) as the prophet speaketh, " cast down ?" (Ps. xi. 13,) where the word sig- nifieth the grounds of laws, ecclesiastical or temporal, of council of war, of State government, of making and manag- ing war, defensive or offensive, of trading and trafficking ; in a word, the foundations of all our frames and attempts, — for all these the word carrieth — are shaken in pieces at home and abroad. It is true that this truth, from the pulpits and towers of State, is daily discovered ; but who in his place laboureth as he should to understand it and avert it ? Now, who are the great engineers in undermining of our foundations ? Directly the Prelates, and our sins, wrought out of the saltpetre and sulphur of these fiery minerals, are the mines and gunpowder to blow us all up. No tongue of man can express what hurt that blast from the Tower would have done, if God in mercy had not prevented it. Yet the i)l()wing up of all the towers and castles in the land, could not so shake and ruin the foundations of Church and State as they have done. For the former, how great and fearful soever it were, could be but an evil of punishment, but the latter is both an evil of sin and punishment, and therefore must be more hurtful. That had been immediately from his own hand, but they have partly brought us, and are like further to bring us, into the hands of God's scorpion scourges ; for if we have not Christ to reign over us, the rod of his wrath must rule us. But, briefly to the proof of the assertion, let us take a short survey of our particular judgments. Whence are the strange consuming sicknesses, and bodily inabilities to per- form and hold out in services — the atrophies, or waxing less of the members, (Lev. xxvi. 16,) — the pining away of our lives and spirits insensibly ? but either from the keep- ing back of the food of the soul, or from their mixing it with the soul-killing poison of their own precepts and ceremonies. Whence is the sickness of the head, of which we cry out so much, "Oh! my head, my head!" (2 Kings, iv. 19,) but from the malignant and contagious spirits of the rotten AGAINST PRELACY. Ill and naughty heart of the Prelacy ; and from the noisome and corrupting vapours of such bad stomachs as overcharge the head ? How cometh the breath of our State to be infected, but by the tainting breath of Antichrist ; so that we cannot run, yea, nor walk with God freely, as we ought to do ? How cometh the fruit of our bodies to prove so evil ^ but from the Prelates' vassaling of them — to our shame and sin be it sj)oken, that are parents — to the mark of the beast, as cross and confirmation, &c., against which the Lord threatened fearful judgments in his book of the Revel- ation, chap. xiv. 9, 10, 11, which places we desire might be well considered, and our proof thence against the cross. If the parents of Moses would rather expose the infant to the immediate providence of God, without any mediate means able to preserve life, and themselves to the hazard of Pharaoh's wrath, than to admit or commit the least sin, in committing their child to the wrath of a tyrant, which was to the child but a temjjoral danger, what should we not do, rather than to expose our children to a spiritual danger ? Further, if our children prove scholars, at the first entry to the University, they must be matriculated with an un- lawful oath, and be uustled up in Popish practices, or no proceeding for them. Why do we sow, and the enemies reap ? Lev. xxvi. 1 6 : Deut. xxviii. 33. Why eat they what we labour for ? but because that the Prelates make the laud to labour of sin, and our labours in God's service are so slight, so vain, superstitious, and fruit- less to God, and so pleasing to the man of sin, that it is just our labour should be so fruitless to ourselves and so profitable to our enemies. Why breaketh out the fearful wrath of God and plague sores among us, but because of Baal-peor his ushering ceremonies, and our gangrenes of heresies ? all having life and breath from the Prelacy. Why hath our earth been as iron, and the heavens as brass, but from the brazen statutes and brazen serpents of the Prelacy? 112 zion's plea Why have strange fires, as from unknown causes, broke out and consumed us, and waters overflowed us, but be- cause of that strange fire in God's worship among us, and the waters of Nilus, mixed with the pure wine of God's ordinances, let in, and kept in by the Popish profane crew that depend upon them ? Whence hath been the groaning of the brute and sense- less creatures amongst us, under murrains and wastings, but from our sins arising from the beast ? Why, under abundance of fire and food, is there such extreme dearth and want of the one, and no proportionable price upon the other ? but because the warming and actuating heat of God's ordinances, notwithstanding of the plenty, is so weakened aud quenched, and the staff of that bread so broken or bruised by the Prelates, that we eat and are not fed — we have much fire, yet we are not warmed. ^Vhy be our attempts against our enemies so fruitless and ridiculous? Why is our peace our war, and our war our shame ? Why fall we and fly we with such high dishonour be- for our enemies ? Why are our formerly feared seamen and manly mer- chants taken by the dogs of Dunkirk, and used worse than dogs ; which, to think on, we think our English hearts should bleed with pity and indignation, even from our vassalage at home, to these enemies and adversaries of Clirist ? Why is the curse of Judas made good upon ns, namely, servants set over us ? Ps. cix. 6, Lam. v. 8, Deut. xxviii. 43. Sub dlgnitate Domini minus turpis est conditio servi. It is the less shame to be servant to a worthy master. Why are the strangers within us got up above us, as the spirit speaketh, namely, besides others, a sort of rude, barbarous, needless, and useless soldiers — without example in a free nation — who commanded and devoured in men's iiouses as if all were their own — abusing their families, re- viling themselves, and now and then killing his Majesty's subjects. Is not this a fearful and heavy judgment in a free State ? And yet just it is with God, because we will not have Christ to reign over us, but we are content to AGAINST PRELACY. 113 march under Autichristian leaders, who have quartered our colours with the colours of Rome. The Lord there- fore plagueth us with a sort of Romish Jesuited Irish brats, whose insolent outrages, together with the hellish roaring car- riage of those of our own nation, was the very finger of God. Why are we become the tail of contempt, and scorn of nations, where we were once the head of honour, and glory of the nations, but because the tail of the dragon hath laid U8 so low ? Lastly, to finish the point : Why doth the Lord's soul 80 loathe us that he will not smell the smell of our services, ordinary or extraordinary — Lev. xxvi. 30, 31 — but be- cause we burn incense to him of the Prelates' making, which is an abomination ? As a linsey-woolsey garment was not to be used, nor ploughing with an ox and an ass. so the Lord cannot endure a mixture in his service. But some will object, the Prelacy did bear sway when none of these plagues or judgments overwhelmed us ; but we had peace and plenty at home, with success and triumph abroad. For answer : 1. By way of concession, the very same objection in effect maketh that godless people to Paul in the Epistle to the Romans, chap. ii. 4 ; for Paul's answer implieth by anticipation or prevention so much, as if they should say thus — " We have prospered, and do prosper. What tell you us of sin or of judgment ?" — " Despisest thou," saith Paul, " the riches of his goodness, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth to repentance ?" As if he should say — " It is true, the bounty of God in all outward bless- ings — his patience in bearing with your sin — his long- animity in deferring to punish, is exceeding large and wonderful ;" for, by three emphatical words, the Apostle expresseth this concession — " ^gJi^orj;? avuyji fiaxoSufiiu." But is this the best use you make of it ? should it not rather work remorse in you ? To apply this, though we practised and prospered, (Dan. xi. 36',) as was said of Antachus, yet doth it argue that God is not displeased with us in this particular ? No ; no more than the Jews prospering when they baked cakes to the Queen of Heaven. Jer. xliv. 1 7. 114 zion's plea 2. That old proverb is verified in them, nemo repente Jit malus — nothing evil of itself comes to be monstrous evil but by degrees ; so it is with them. Satan at the first laying of the foundation of his Antichristian kingdom began to creep in by bare Antichristian titles of superiority, the evil where- of, nor the ensuing mischief, good men did not observe, yea Satan watched a long time for his opportunity of setting on of this Hydra's head ; for, till the time of Pope Silvester, about the year 320, Rome itself was without any Lordship at all, upon which Lordship followed that blasphemous Arianism, which afterward made all the Church of God to groan under it. With those Antichristian titles were joined worldly promotions ; which, with the swelling pride of superiority, brought the hierarchy to a full height, not only in Rome's dominions, but also here in Britain, of which that foresaid Monk Augustin was the first beginner. This mystery of iniquity that the Apostle speaks of, 2 Thes. ii. 7, had its beginning in Diotrephes, called by the Spirit (piXovPor'svuv, a love of primacy, 3 John, ix., " in whose person," saith Beza, " the Apostle condemns avarice and ambitious superiority, (avaritiam et ai/ibitionem, &c.) the very worst plagues of the ministry." This sprung up in lord bishops, and archbishops, and patriarchs, till that monster the Pope was fully formed ; who, as he had his rise from those wicked offices, so still he is upheld by them and maintained in his kingdom of darkness. As for cardinals, they are but a new invented toy, after Rome's quite departure from Christ, maintaining rather the pomp of Antichrist than his power. The Pope and Prelacy could not build Rome on the first day, but every one took his turn, as appears in Gregory I. and his pre- decessors. But Rome, by his successors being made a Babylon and receptacle of devils, made the hierarchy, their servants, more vile and cruel, if it were possible, than their masters ; witness their related practices in this nation. Now, to apply this to the answer of the question. At the beginning of the Reformation, our bishops did not see the evil of the things. Many of them were painful in labours, rich in works of mercy, and, in the end, some of these AGAINST PRELACY. sealed their repentance with their blood. Yea, further, in the beginning, the Lord was content to bear with some be- ginnings of reformation. In Queen Elizabeth's time, how- ever, they beat tiie servants of Christ, and interrupted the course of tlie gospel by the Antichristian power. Yet her Majesty and the State would not bear that they should be stickling with the State ; that by packing with Jesuits and Papists, they should countenance and maintain either old or new Popery ; that they should affront the nobility ; and, least of all, that ever they should see the grand idol of their mass established ; — but, upon every information made, she curbed their tyranny, and rebuked their vile- ness ; also, some well-afFected statesmen of the nobility, and others, were now and then knocking them over the shins, so that they could not exorcise the full power of their head ; but, as a learned man prophesied, so soon as the Queen was removed by death, wickeder men, more in- fected with Popery, would creep into their places ; who, being more lively members of the head than the former, would desire and endeavour more powerfully to be joined to the head, either by bringing the Church, over which they tyrannise, from the obedience of Christ to the tyranny of Antichrist, or by murdering and pining to death such iis would not yield to their slavish ordinances. The truth of this prediction speaks in their practices against the truth and true professors ; even just as they did in the time of King Edward and Queen Mary, so now thest^ look for their time, that if idolatry come to be more pub- lic, they would adhere to their head, and bring both the King's Crown and the Crown of Christ in subjection to the Pope's Mitre ; so that whosoever were King — the Lord preserve our King — he should be but Viceroy, as it were, to our Jesuited Prelates. The reason is, the members will never hold themselves fully enlivened and actuated till they be joined to their head ; nor their functions well discharged till they have done the very service whereunto by their head they are appointed. If it be objected, that some of them be quiet harmless men, give them ease and belly-timber and they will do no 116 zion's plea hurt ; yea some of them be of the better sort, and stand with the State, and for the privilege of the subject ; yea some of them suffer, as it is thought, for the State. To the first of these let Johannes Sarisburiensis an- swer — Nocent swpius^ et in eo dccmones imitantur quod tunc prodesse putantur cum nocere desistunt : — " They hurt for the most part, but in this they gain the commen- dation of devils ; they are thought to do good when thev cease to do evil." — In Polycrat. Lib. c. 24. Simia semper erit shnia — a monkey will ever be a monkey. Noisome beasts, cruel men, and offices of en- mity to the offices of Christ, upon every occasion they are ready to express their disposition, though it be not always in actu exercito, in the actual extent. For the second, you know that maxim, alittd est esse, et aliud apparere — it is one thing to seem, and another thing to be. If Sanballat and Tobiah put in for building of the wall, they will daub with untempered mortar, and it will prove a rotten piece of work. " It were far better," as Nehemiah saith, " that they should have no portion in the business they who cannot endure the walls of Zion to be built up, but are as many ways opposite as ever Tobiah and Sanballat were to the re-edifying of Jerusalem, shall never do good to the walls of the commonwealth ; they who cannot suffer Christ to have his right will never help the subjects to their right. As for the suffering of some, as it may be thought, for choosing the better part, may it not rather be because some would give more for the place, or because they might be more serviceable in the place in some Popish or Ar- niinian policy ? Non savis semper inter se convenit ursis, though Sam- son's foxes be tied tail to tail, yet they jointly set on fire, and burn up the barley-field. We speak not thus, as though we envied or would ex- tenuate any good that might be in any of them, for we heartily wish, that they were both friends to Christ and to the State indeed, but we intimate the truth of that sacred position, " a man cannot gather grapes of thorns, and figs of thistles;" of thorns and thistles, indeed they AGAINST PRELACY. 117 might prove cedars and palms, if they were transplanted, but, so long as they remain in that accursed field, as a reverend man said well, the best proves but a bramble. In our later and worse times we see few or none but brambles planted in that field. If there be a man of mis- chief, a mad railer on the State, a maintainer of Popery and Arminianism with some new frontispiece, affronting by his insolent carriage the great tribunal of the kingdom — this man shall be a Lord Bishop, and good enough too ; for it is matter of lamentation, howsoever many think otherwise, that a good man should be spoiled by the place. Henry VIII. most admired the life of that subject, who never was so low as to be a constable, nor never so high as to be a Justice of Peace, so we may say that he is the happiest churchman, cceteris paribus, that never was so low as to be a parish clerk, nor came never so high as to be a lord bishop. It is just with God that evil men should dwell in the palaces of Babel, partly that they may the more bewray their enmity against the kingdom of Christ, and partly that men may see and hate the evil of their places ; for, when they see plainly nothing but thorns and thistles to grow in the ground, they will proclaim it openly to be a cursed ground. Let us not, then, deceive ourselves with that Popish and foppi.sh argument of thriving, but let us rather be humbled for so long despising of his mercy ; nam tardi- tatem judlcii gravitate supplicii compensate — he payeth home for all together when he punisheth. Lastly, the more perspicuous discovery of a sin, joined with a long continuance of the same, bringetli the heavier and more fearful judgments in the end. And so much for this point, wherein we have not taken all this pains, (presuming on your Honours' patience,) to charge all sin and judgment upon the Prelates, to discharge ourselves, as guiltless, but ingenuously we charge ourselves not only with our own sins, but to be also accessory to theirs, in obeying of them. We acknowledge that God hath a special controversy with his people, (Hos. iv. 2,) which, if it were taken up, 118 zion's plea he would quickly dispatch his enemies ; but our point was to prove our sins and judgments to have their rise from the hierarchy, and them to be the capital sin, so in some measure we hope we have done. As for judgments threat- ened, a little of them in handling the next point. NINTH POSITION PROVED. If the hierarchy be not removed, and the sceptre of Christ's kingdom, viz. his own discipline, advanced to this place, there can be no healing of our sore, &c. If there were no more to prove this than the former point well proved, it were enough ; for if their calling and stand- ing be the cause of all the evil of our sin and judgment, as hath been proved, then no removal of them, no removal of sin and judgment, but rather an increase of both ; for it is the main national sin that keepeth up and maintaineth the controversy with God, and, if that cease not, God cannot in justice cease from punishing, till he have made an end. The point, then, is made good from the former position, which still must be our medium, or mean, for the proof of this. Your Honours may be very acute and sedulous in taking up and redressing of State grievances, in repairing wrongs, in censuring misdemeanours, in preventing the plots of the enemies, in searching out and punishing our domestic underminers, in providing forces against the ene- my, for ourselves and our allies, in taking course with the moths, hornets, and caterpillars of the State. All these are to be done, but the former is not to be left undone ; for, if all our own grievances could be remedied, and that which is God's greatest grievance should not be done away, what good should be got by it, but making a way to a heavier judgment ? For so God might go back to fetch a greater blow. It is held dangerous by some physicians to give physic when the sun is in any ruminant or homed sign, as they call it — instance Aries or Taurus ; howsoever, all the State medicines can do no good, so long as the State moves in the horned sign of the hierarchy, and the reason is, because the humour being moved and not removed, rageth more AGAINST PRELACY. 119 .fiercely. As God hath not blessed any Parliamentary endeavours, because, as we take it, (under correction) they went not this way to work, so it is likely he will not be with you now, if you go not this way to work, for God is more tender of his own honour than of all the States and Churches in the world. " Yea, he will abhor," as he saith, " his own excellency, and hate his palaces, if the thing displeasing to his majesty be not removed." — Amos, vi. 8. If you strike not at this root — give us leave, Right Honourable, to speak freely in God's cause— the Lord may answer your desires of peace, and endeavours of re- formation, as Jehu answered Jorani, asking him if he came in peace, " AVhat peace," saith he, " so long as the whore- doms of thy mother Jezabel, and her witchcrafts, are so many?" — 2 Kings ix. 22. So, what peace can we look for, so long as the sons of the woman Jezabel remain ? Their mother's name they nature indeed, for they are the " woe to the house," as the word is commonly taken, or, after a more proper significa- tion, they are the " scatterers of God's people." It may well be said of that ambitious brood, as Euripides said of the lying and vainglorious astrologians of his time, to (iavTixiv 'jrav (piAdTifibv -/.ay.ov, (Traged. Iphigenia) — all that kind is an ambitious evil of vainglory. It is true, that with the most, viz. atheists. Papists, Arminians, openly profane, ignorants, and Protestants at large, this truth will hardly find acceptance, yea, if gra<;e, mercy, and peace, and all should forsake us, they will not believe it, because they are enemies to Christ and his kingdom ; but all men of enlightened judgment and im- partial aff'ection, both see this truth, and fear, foreseeing the sequel. It is further true, that if all the ministers in England would aver the truth of this, the Prelates would thrust down every man from their places, and do them a worse turn, if they could, because their kingdom lies upon it. Bishop Cooper niaketh the abolishing of lord bishops the very overthrow of the Church.*^ It is true, indeed, of * M. C. adm. pp. 28, 29. 120 zion's plea the Romish Church, " but shall the lie of wretched man make the truth of God of none efiFect?" God forbid. We know, right noble Senators, that you believe this hierarchy to be the root of all our evil, then it will neces- sarily follow that it must be rooted out, or it will root us out. It is remarkable what God spoke by the mouth of that honourable protomartyr Mr. Rogers, " that when the Gospel should be re-established in England, if the kingdom of Antichrist were not utterly cashiered, and total reformation made in God's worship, that our persecutions should be greater, and our trial hotter, than in the days when he and others suffered." He spake to this effect, and so it is like to fall out, unless God prevent it ; for, if we remove not the Canaanites, it is just with God that the Canaanites should remove us. That thrice noble Essex, who died in Ireland, on his deathbed foresaw and proclaimed a fearful woe to England, because they turned all their religion into policy. It is too true, for this hath been and is the masterpiece of our worldly wisdom, as appeareth by our acts, to make policy ride religion, and to make religion serve policy on foot. But this is just to set the ass upon Christ, and not Christ upon the ass. That counsel of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, may well here be applied, " Break off thy sin (Hp^yinS) with righteousness," (Dan. iv. 27 ;) for the words are so in the original, where we must understand especially his bosom sins, pride, tyranny, and oppression : so this is the kingly sin which must be broken off, or else no peace to be obtained. If Jacob go up to Bethel to build an altar for God's worship (Gen. xxxv.) — if he will be free from the fear of his enemies, he will first remove all the idols out of his house. So will Joshua have the people do, for he telleth them plainly, they could not ser>'e that jealous God, nor prosper in any thing, unless they put away their idols. Israel was in a woful case, through subjection to the Philistines, and want of God's presence in the ark of his ordinances. AGAINST PRELACY. 121 la this case it is said they " lamented after the Lord," (I Sam. vii.) but Samuel told them that would not serve their turn, unless they put not only away their idols, but also Ashtaroth, their beloved idol, (1 Sam. vii. 3.) Where, by the way, it is to be wondered, that this people, given by God into the hands of the Philistines, should have the enemy's special idol for their minion idol. Now, that it was the Philistines' special idol, it is clear ; 1 Sam. xxxi. 1 0, where it is said, they put " Saul's armour in the house of Ashtaroth." What is to be said in this case? Unless the Lord smite the heart, no affliction giveth understanding. But, to compare ourselves with them, is it not matter of wonder in us, who have lain so long under Rome's slavery, — in whose blood she hath gone so deep — who, like the red dragon, (Rev. xii. 4,) standeth yet gaping, under great hopes to devour the distressed man-child, the glorious idols and masters of their ceremonies ? Let us then, b(jth for shame and fear, put away this Ashtaroth of the hie- rarchy ; it may very well be called Ashtaroth Carnaim, a two-horned idol, pushing both the Church and Common- wealth. What King or State found ever any good success, by toiling themselves with reforming of the Pope's impiety and tyranny, till they made utter extirpation of his idolatry and unlawful authority ? So, no reformation of the evils of the Prelacy, but by a total or absolute removal of tlieir unlawful authority. As we have great cause, with Israel, to lament after the Lord, (for his glory is dazzled,) and we desire to do it heartily ; so this idol of the hierarchy must be done away, or no discomfiting of the Philistines. The Lord of Hosts, since your last meeting, hath made that great Goliah to fall unexpectedly ; and surely we may say, with reverence reserved to the phrase, " it is wonderful in our eyes." As the sea is called mors omnium undarum, so he was the death of all our springs ; he was 122 zion's plea the Ganiahu, as Paracelsians call it, in whom, and from whom, all our malignant stars have their strength and motion. He was our Shebna, that the Spirit speaketh of, who was not only treasurer and steward of the house, to take in all, and dispose of all, but he was the great Pan- dora — all offices in him, all suits by him, and all the means to him and for him. Indeed, the word translated " trea- surer," is taken in the original by the learned to signify one who nourisheth or cherisheth, whereby they would intimate that wicked man's entertaining of secret plotting with the Assyrians and Egyptians, to betray the Church and State ; intending, in the meantime, to make a great hand for himself, and by the danger and destruction of the State, to provide for himself against all danger. It is manifest that our Shebna went beyond him in this, for he made Rome of England, setting all tilings to sale, and «)Id the fee-simple of England to Rome, that he might iiave the tenant-right. As in Athaliah were observed ambition of reigning, love of her idols, and desire of revenge, so the intolerable pride i)f that unparalleled evil, did evidently demonstrate, with other passages, that he aimed at the garland. As for his devotion to Babel, and the bitter fruits thereof, together with his desire to requite your animadversions upon his life, your Honours and the whole State should have felt it, if he had not fallen. Sejanus was never so ungrateful nor perfidious to his master as he was, nor never did the State that indignity :ind indemnity that he hath done to us, nor never trucked with foreigners to betray so many States as he hath done. When one of the Ancients of Rome saw the governors grow careless of the public good, and following of their private ;jain, he said, " Rome wanted nothing to undo it, but a chapman to buy it." What a dangerous case then were we in. who have Rome, the Emperor, Spain, and Austria, yea, and all the Babylonish crew in France, Italy, and Germany, as so many cowpsmen, laying their pates and purses together, to make purchase of us, especially having such a coopsmate as he, with so many Jesuited factors and brokers as would afford them a rich' pennyworth ! For all his graving of AGAINST PRELACY. 128 his habitation for himself, in the top of a rock, the Lord Iiath brought him down, and covered him. Humanists relate how the ancients had wont to hang a wolfs head upon the gates, to avoid and expel the en- chantment, or bewitching of their cities from contagious vapours, stirred up by enchanters. The truth of the evil or remedy we will not argue, but surely the sprinkling of the blood of the wolf, if we can follow the Lord in it, may be a means to save our King and us from these fear- ful and eminent judgments, that he, for our sins, might have hastened and hauled upon us by his Jesuited tricks, as masses, murders, poisons, treasons, venery, and veni- fices. The Lord smote but in time, for surely some great monster of that Egjrptian Nilus was come to the place of the birth ; for God never taketh off such an high and arch-enemy to his name, but upon the very pinnacle of some high exploit ; instance Shebna, Haman, Guise, De- main, Dancre, and Francis the Second of France ; we leave others to rake in his ashes, it is not our work — as his name rotteth, we wish his sin might die with him ; but give us leave, Right Honourable, to signify what we conceive : We fear the body of the Retort be too, too sound, and the materials too, too safe ; the Jesuits, and their Cousin-Pre- lates, with all the Dukified crew, will make a shrewd shift to lute the Limbeck with some new head, and then the work is not marred, but hindered for a time. To our matter then in hand, — The bishops are the bottom of the business, and that bottom is our bane. They tell us, indeed, that the High Commission hath no bottom ; but, as a counsellor answered, surely it had a bottom till they beat it out. There is no way, according to our position, to make good the work begun, but to beat the bottom out of the Prelacy, and then Rome's work, and Spain's market, is quite undone. To speak under correc- tion, if Parliaments had taken them in, as Elisha said to the «lders, and handled them roundly, namefy, cashiered their places, and rid God's Church of their tyranny, the wicked had never come to that height, nor, it may be, to such a desperate and uuhapjiy end. 124 zion's plea It was often agitated in the Council of Spain, whetlier they should bend all their forces, first against the Low Countries and then against England, or first against England and then against the Low Countries, since they were not able to deal with both at once ? It was carried and concluded that the latter was the better, and that upon this ground, that if they would take the river, they must first make themselves masters of the sea that flows into the river ; that is, if they would regain the Low Countries, they must first make these forces and means their own that maintaineth and upholdeth the Low Countries. So to apply, (for we may borrow wit of our enemies,) if you will deliver the King and State of corru])t and cor- rupting men, such as be abusers of the King's favour, profane belly-gods, time-servers, enemies to the Gospel, whether professed Papists, neutrals, or mongrels ; yea, if you mean to make Dagon fall in court or country, or to clear the air of those croaking plaguy frogs, and under- mining locusts, the Jesuits, then strike neither at great nor small, but at the hierarchy ; for it is the troubler of Israel, the censer of all strange fire, the fort of God's enemies, the strength of sin, and the magazine of all mischief. If you had, by your representative power, taken oflT that Hydra's head, it had been an heroic part, and worthy of so high a judicature, for so should the King have been de- livered from the snare, and his State from an unsupportable burden ; yea, sundry evil events, both at home and abroad, might have been prevented ; but frequent experience maketh good this position — if Baruck stand upon terms with his office, he loseth the honour of the day. If you had re- moved this evil-one from the throne, as your predecessors have done divers, though not so bad as he, and suffered this bitter root of the hierarchy to stand, and breed, out of it, as out of a Gorgon's head, more monsters should arise, and the last should be the worst. He was their creature at first, and became their creator at last. That it must be so, so long as thiy subsist, take a pregnant instance from the removal of his predecessor-idol, whose sins yet cry to the heavens, being managed out with the high bauds of two pandering Prelates. But as he was but a sulcellanean. AGAINST PHELACV. 125 and a very page in comparison of the man of the chair, .so of his favouriteship there was quickly a nullity. And what a jollity were the most in, that he was cast over the bar, and we should have a new favourite! but as corruptio unkis est generatio alterius, sic (/eneratio unius est corruptio totius, — as the corruption of one is the generation of another, so out of the ashes of that former evil arose another evil, that was like to consume us all to ashes. Little knew we what the Lord meant us in it. He justly plagued us with one, whose little finger was heavier than all the other's body. It may very well be applied to us, that Cedrenus writeth of a religious man, in the reign of Phocas the wicked Emperor ; the man did expostulate the matter with God, by way of complaint, why he would set such a wicked tyrant over his Christian people. It is said that he was answered by a voice, not seeing anything, (ilium deteriorem inveniri posse nullum at hunc meruisse Constantivopolitanorum vitia; — a worse than he was not to be found, and him they had, because by their sins they had deserved him. But let us know, that if the fountain of these bitter waters be not shut up, the Lord hath a worse than he, if worse may be, in store for us. Let us suppose, that by the virtue of your power you had taken him off, because either he or the State must fall, and you and yours lay all at stake for it ; yet if you smite not at the root of this tree, you and yours, and all we, are like to perish for it. It may well befall us that befell Henry the Third of France, who having cut off the Duke of Guise, who in- tended to cloister the King, and to take the crown to himself, his mother asked him what was become of Janvill, and whether or no he had made him sure ? He answered that he was escaped and gone. Then, replied the Queen, your life is gone. So notwithstanding if their patrons fall, yet if their places subsist, they will be our ruin ; and the rather for this, that ye letting them alone, he being removed, will proclaim to all the friends of God, that you seek only your own safety, suffering the Lord's honour to lie in the dust. Without all controversy, t^iese be the horns that scatter 126 Zion's PLEA Israel ; but you, Right Honourable, must, or should be the carpenters to saw off these horns, and to set up the horn of discipline, the Lord's own ordinance. Since God himself hath begun the work, and bath chalked out the way by removal of him that letted, it were great dishonour for you not to follow the Lord in his work. The Lord looketb, and is there none to help : He may justly wonder that there is none to uphold, Isaiah Ixiii. 5. Two things we desire to commend to your Honours, worthy your observation, the former is this : ^Vhen the Lord is compelled, by the magistrates' neglect, to take the matter of the execution of his enemies into his own hand, in the midst of that mercy of easing him and his people of some of his adversaries, he setteth a copy of his judgment. If magistrates in their place follow not their copy, the very forbearance of the Lord's enemies, through fear or favour, or desire of ease or hope of gain, becometh the bane of the forbearers ; for the just God ofttimes, by some of those that they spare, and whom they should have plucked up, plucketh them or theirs up without any pity. For instances we need not go any further than the age wherein we live. Have not some of our nobility and gentry, yea, some say our late King, perished by such as they should not have spared, — the Lord made this good in former times against his own people. The Lord telleth them in the 2d chapter of the Judges, that he would not break covenant with thera, but they must also look to keep covenant with him in this very particular that we have in hand, — " you shall make no league with the inhabitants of the land; you shall throw down their altars : but ye have not obeyed: why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you," (verses 2, 3, 4.) The gunpowder-plotters were consumed by a fire of their own making, intimating to us, that we should have ferreted out, and fired out (namely, by due course of law) the rest of that fiery crew, and all their strange fire ; that we should have broken all their altars and images into chalk- AGAINST PRELACY. 127 stones ; that we should have plucked up root and branch ; destroyed head and tail ; swept all away, and made a clean house ; — but we did not, nor have not yet obeyed, and will not the Lord say to us, why have ye done this ? Yes, he hath us in question, and hath made good the threatening upon us ; for now they are so far from being driven out, that they are like to drive us and ours out ; yea they, and their agents the Arminians, so gall our sides, and grieve our souls, that we know not how to bestow ourselves ; yea, we have all cause, with that people forenamed, to lift up our voice and weep, till we can weep no more. Another instance may be taken from that deadly blow, given by God's own hand to Balaam's priest, and Iiis idolatrous auditory, in the Blackfriars of London, where he caused the ruins of an house to cover and revenge that idolatry in blood and rubbish, which polluted the Sabbath, outstared the Heaven's holy duties, yea, aflronted God himself, without controlment of any man. As this was the very extraordinary finger of God, laying his enemies in the dust ; so it pointed out the duty of ministers and magistrates, that they should have followed the blow, doing execution with the word and with the sword. But as the execution of this judgment wrought nothing on the Papists but fretting, desire, and threatening of revenge on God's people, with a peremptory resolution to manage out ido- latry with a higher hand ; so it wrought nothing on us, but a gazing stupidity for the time- — for what man of place hath conceived what the Lord said to him in that execu- tion, or hath followed home the Lord in his work, by put- ting to his hand, to shake any pillar of Popery? yea, have not for the ruin of one houseful many liousefuls (yea townfuls) risen up since that time ? whom God in judg- ment may suffer to shake our Churches and houses, because we would not learn, when God was ready to guide our hand, to write by a precedent. It is further worth the noting, that as the French al- lotted them an house to that dismal work, contrary to the law of God and nations, and was never called to an ac- count for the dishonour done to God, the undoing of souls, and the loss of the King's subjects, so the French hath 128 zion's plea plagued and pestered us since worse than before, and that both in our States and religion ; for by that unequal match, which we lay not to heart as we should, they have set up Baal-peor in public amongst us, by the which, es-pecially, " we provoking God to anger, the plague of the Lord brake in upon us," Ps. cvi. 29 ; which, though it be re- moved, yet if we remove not that plague of the mass, the wrath of the Lord will never leave us till it hath quite consumed us. Let the last instance bo from the Prelacy, being the main subject of our treatise. It is clear that all our evils of sin and judgment are from them, and butt full upon them ; and therefore the Lord hath met with many of them in remarkable judgment, showing them and their I)laces to be the gangrene of the land ; yet for all this, what man of note or place hath lent the Lord an hand to the casting down of their strongholds ? and notwithstand- ing that men now with half an eye can see and say, that their standing — meaning their places — must be the ruin of the nation, yet the profane favour them, and the professor feareth them ; so that there is not a man of any place to come forth and say — " Come and see how zealous I will be for the kingdom of Christ against those his enemies that will not have him to reign over them which is a shrewd evidence, if we get no better heart to the business, that they shall plague us and ours seven times more. To conclude the point, it is a great fault in men of place, lx)th ministers and magistrates, that they would have God to do all the hard work by himself, and they would come and gather up the spoil ; but they who will reign with God, even in the glory of any good work, must do for him and suffer with him iu the doing of the work. The latter main remarkable thing is this. That all the tilings that we have looked for, effected, and relied upon, liath proved to us as broken reeds. For the better clearing of this observation, we will first give some instances of it, and then show the grounds, and lastly the use of it. To begin with our expectation and issue. Afler the f necessity fall into desolation before we be aware, if re- formation be not hastened in this particular. ]\Ir. Calvin showeth what enemies they are to the State that hinder discipline, and that from the desperate louJition they bring it to, — " Qui discipl'matn impediunt I xiremam desperationem" &c.* — They who hinder dis- ripline, bring the State at length to an extremely despe- rate point. Heathen writers observe, and so doth Peter Martyr upon the Kings, t — " That so long as the Romans ob- served strict discipline, with a comj^etent severity, so long fliey prospered and enlarged their dominions ; sed labente li^aplina — discipline decaying, the empire came to no- thing." How then can we choose but perish, who profess Christ, ■in«l yet reject the government of Christ ? Nicholas Orem, in his oration before Pope Urban V. -hnwcth this to be one of the forerunning signs of tlie ruin ■■t' Church and commonwealth when discipline perisheth. To draw to a conclusion of the proof. Hear and tremble at that which the Lord threateneth against the rejecting of this his ordinance,—" It will come to pass that I will spue thee out of my mouth," Rev. iii. 16. A loathsome people, mil a fearful and unreversiblc judgment. Tliis threatening intimateth that he cannot bear us — that he will cast us out into despicable places — and that lie will never look any more after us. What is the main cause of all these ? Even our keeping Christ out of doors, (Rev. iii. 20) that is — " we will not have him to reign over us." Give not then the people and State, our peace and wealth, our sheep and shepherds, our Crowns, laws, and Royal King — the King of his subjects, and father of his people — your own noble and generous families — your fair means and possessions, and God's glory, which is worth all — • Institut. lib. 4, c. 12. f In 2 Reg. c. 11, p. 27b'. 14C zion's plea give not tliose, we entreat you, as lost to the pit of deso- lation. Before we conclude this point, it shall be very material to answer one doubt that may arise, and is most objected from the difficulty of the business. We verily believe, that all well-affected to State or re- ligion, upon the perusal of this Decade, shall be really and fully possessed of the truth of this position, viz. the ab- solute necessity of the removal of the Prelacy ; " and that," as the prophet speaketh, " a wind to fan or cleanse," will not serve the turn, but it must be " a full or mighty wind," to root up and carry away the very foundation of their being, (Jer. iv. 11, 12.) " Ast opus egregium quis," &c. But who shall do this great work, and by what means may it l)e accomplished ? yea, who dare bell-the-cat ? or where is that Spirit that will dash the brains of that Baby- lonish Prelacy (we mean their place) against the stones ? or who hath that hand to bring those enemies of Christ, who will not have him to reign over them, before him and slay them ? We must confess here goeth the bear away ; for as evils are easier discovered than cured, so duties are sooner discerned than discharged. The difficulty of the duty, the seeming danger in the means, and want of valour to give the onset, weakeneth the force of the strongest reasons. But as thrice noble Xehemiah said to that false, belly-god, betraying priest, Shemaiah, " should such a man as I flee?" (Nehem. vi. 11.) — so should you encounter all discouragements and frighting alarms thus — should such men as we fear to do that for our King and country which is of more necessity than life itself? To come then to a direct answer ; and first, for the per- sons who must effect this, we say this evil must be remov- ed by the magistrate and minister, according to their several places and stations. The minister must remove the wicked by the sword of the Spirit, ^ iz. the Word ; and if that cannot move, the censure of discipline must be used, according to that of AGAINST PRELACY. 14:7 I '.ml — Tov ffovjigoi/ — " Put away from among yourselves that \i iclced one ; and this must be done," saith the Apostle, without partiality, preferring none before another," 1 Cov. V. 13. By virtue of the same power were Ily- lucneus and Alexander " delivered up to Satan, that they inii^ht learn not to blaspheme," 1 Timoth. i. 20. But in this the best may lay their hand upon their mouth, and cliarge themselves with the sin of concealing this main ]i:i! t of God's counsel. As for the worst — " The prophets )ii ophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means ; J 11(1 my people love to have it so : but what will we do in the end thereof?" Jer. v. 31. Yea, for our parts, we i\uinot tell how the very best will answer it; for, besides the Scripture, the Fathers tell us,* that disriprma est Dei C'/stos, retinae idiuii Jidei, &c. — It is God's keeper, the !ioii(l of faith, the wholesome guide of a happy way. Of which another — Disciplinw jugo omnis insolcntia dmnnanda :f — By the yoke of discipline is all insolence suppressed. This being commanded in the Word, as hath been shown, Matth. xviii. 1 8 — having authority and ratification from above, Matth. xvi. 1 G — being a main principle of re- ligion, Heb. vi. 2 — being the practice both under the law and under the gospel in all Reformed Churches ; " this being taken away," saith Gualter, " nihil nisi con/usio et ava^x''^-" — There is nothing but confusion and anarchy. Must ministers not meddle with it, nor with the ene- mies of it ? God forbid ; for this were, for fear of men, to omit a main part of God's counsel. This is to cross divine precept ; it is against the threatenings of God's ven- geance, and against the practice of the saints ; witness these places which we commend to the perusing of minis- ters — Deut. xviii. 18, Matth. xxviii. 20, Jer. i. 17, where observe the fearful threatening, " least I consume you be- fore them ;" where he clearly intimateth, that vengeance is prepared against them who dare not faithfully and fully deliver their charge, for the fear of man's face, or any other cause. This made Paul assure himself of a woe " if * Cypr. + Bern. 148 zion's plea he preached not the gospel," 1 Cor. ix. 16 — yea, if he preached not all the gospel, for so was his practice : — '• I kept back nothing," as he would say, "neither for fear nor lucre," Acts, xx. 22. So Micaiah would say nothing' to the King* but what the Lord had said to him, and ail that he would say, whatsoever should come of it. We know what fig-leaf defences are made in this be- half. As so, they may leave their ministry — they may preach the most and profitablest truths — they may sa\ c some souls — and, by striking on this string, they shouM do no good. All these doth learned and right-down Mr. Parker an- swer in his policy : thus to argue is to " be wise above that which is written." God needeth to no man's ministry with any disadvantage of sin ; and what promise hath the miDi-- try without fidelity. " This," as the learned observe, i- to offer a lame sacrifice," condemned Levit. xxii. 20, wLi i v the word doth intimate the playing the thief with t!, sacrifice. " This is," as one saith,t " to hide a part of the taL u jrroditurio silent'io ; by a betraying silence, which tl • Lord threateneth fearfully," Matth. xxv. " Yea, tin Lord," as that author observeth, " exposeth them often ti the hatred of such as they have pleased by their proditoii- ous silence." The same in effect doth the Lord speak by his t " n mouth in that quoted place of Jeremiah, i. 17, — " I « ill confound thee or, as the original beareth it, ^nnw — " 1 will cause thee to fear ;" as if the Lord should say : — II thou wilt betray my cause for fear of man, thou shalt be u coward indeed; for it standeth not with my honour t - bear thee out. This fear was a stain in the face of all Melancthons excellences, and what exigents it put him to, they who read know. Nemo mockstior quidem, sed nemo timidior,"i saith Zanchie of him — None more modest, I confess, but none more fearful. It is a sure maxim, no way to be safe, but to be zealously faithful. * 1 Reg. 2-2, 13, 14. t Gualt. Homil. 173, in Luc. 19. + In Epist. ad Bull. AGAINST PRELACY. 14!) Mr. Parker calleth this hookstering of the Word, in plain terms: — Flatjellare Christum, tit vita servetur" — a whipping of Christ that his life might be saved. Then, up ye men of God ! Nolite consentire tain scelosti voca- lulo. Endure not to keep silence, according to that charge given you by God : — " I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never keep silence, day nor night, and give him no rest till he establish," &c. Isa. Ixii. 6, 7. " In the name of the Lord, rise up in the gap, make up the breach, for so did not the false prophets," Ezek. xiii. 5. In the like case, Moses would not, for the greatest appearance of advantage, leave so much as one hoof, Exod. x. 26 — Daniel would not budge one hairsbreadth, Dan. vi. 11 — John the Baptist struck at the root, (JIark vi. 18,) and Christ himself went on with his work notwithstanding of the threatenings of Herod the Fox, Luke xiii. 32, 33. Down, then, with the colours of the dragon ! Trample the sceptre of the IMan of Sin in the dust ! Advance the standard of Christ, and say, you do not prevail, " your labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." Non minus mercedis vobis deletur lavantihus Ethiopem, &c. — You shall be as well paid for trimming of a blackamoor bishop as though you made him white as snow. Thus, as the minister must do his part with the spiritual sword, so the magistrate must do his part in removing this evil with the sword of justice ; and with this more particu- larly you, the great Council of State, or High Court of Parliament, stand charged ; which truth, give us leave to demonstrate to your Honours three several ways : 1. From precept. 2. From practice or precedent. 3. From impregnable reason. For the first, is that place of the Proverbs — "Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." " Take away the wicked from before the King, and his throne shall be established in righteousness." Prov. xxv. 4. 5. Here we are to understand what is meant by the dross, 150 ZION'S PLEA namely, evil men, and evil officers ; and who worse than the Prelates and their places ? They are, as Trithemius citeth it from Arnulphus, "Jowo um mallei" — the very hammers to beat the good and goodness to powder ; they eat sin and they are clothed with sin, as we have shown. In a word, they make up a very mass of sin. 2. Here is to be considered the dangerous nature of this dross ; it overlayeth, corrupteth, fretteth, and consumeth the silver excellency of a King, State, and Religion ; and what else do the Prelates, as we have shown at large? That phrase of the Spirit fitteth just their dealing with our King and State ; they have made " our silver to become dross, and our wine they have mixed with water," Isaiah, i. 22 ; for the latter of these L.D. or D.L. made it literally good, as we hear, in the sacrament lately in his chapel. Our King, council, nobles, ministers, and all sort of people are wofully corrupted by that Komish dross. 3. Hence we plainly see that except this dross be taken away, there is no establishing of the throne in righteous- ness. So that this must be done, all reasonable men will grant; but what magistrate should do it, whether the supreme or others, (if by the supreme it be not done) there still riseth a doubt. For the clearing whereof, as well as we can, give us leave a little. It is the King's honour indeed with David, Hezekiah, and -Josiah, to purge the house of the Lord ; and to purge out these Pymayale Chemarims, (the very dross of his throne,) with the fiery zeal-consuming love of God's house, were a duty worthy of so kingly a dignity. The philosopher out of nature and experience showeth us, that ivdai/xovla, or happiness of a kingdom, consisteth in the well ordering of these three things, namely, to toXi/jlixov, TO dr/.aeriy.ov, ro /isarsu/xa * — that is, in matters of war ; in matters of justice ; and matters of the ministry, and of God's worship. For the ordering of the last of these there is an unalter- able platform in the Word, in the which business kings must neither add, diminish, or take away, but if any thing be not according to this rule, with the foresaid kings, he must re- * Arist. Politic, Mb. 7. AGAINST PRELACY. 151 move it ; because he is vindex utrxusque tabulw^ and God will require it at his hands. The truth of this, David cleareth in his last will and testament to his son. " I go the way (saith he) of all the earth : be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man." But how should he strengthen himself I " Keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, commandments, and judgments," 1 Kings, ii. 2, 3 ; that is, such worship, such conversation, and such execution of justice, as the Lord commandeth; for all these he calleth his testimonies. Out of which one of the learned well observeth, that " he sendeth him not to councils, fathers, (or as we may say) to prelates or nihbins, but to the Word of God to be his guide ; as it is written (saith he) in the Law of Moses, Dent. xxix. 9, Josh. i. 7."* Yea, the Fathers also bear witness of this truth ; hn m^i ruv SeiMv xT dyluv ryjg Tiarsca; f^varri^itiiv f^rfii ro royjv anxi Mean Tu^adi doa'^ai y^dipiiiv.f In matters of faith or mysteries of religion, men nmst not institute any thing without the autiiority of the sacred word. Augustine, upon these words of the 2d Psalm, 10, 11 : "Be wise therefore, O ye Kings : be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear," &c., commenteth very prettily. " Qmmudo Reyes serviunt, ^-c. Nisi ea quae contra Jussa Do7nini sunt Re- li.>.;/4/;s, or delinquency, as ho calleth it, — etsi esset opti- III inn, SfC. hoc non tentaeit quod fortasse putaret inveteratos liKiiiuium errores dlfficultcr emlU posse:* though total re- toiiiiation was the best, saith the author, and he knew it to lie so, yet he durst not attempt it, because he thought tliat the people would hardly be brought from their in- veterate errors. It is just so with us; for how many good motions of reformation, in sundry of our Kings, have miscarried, threugh fears arising from the perfidy and rebellion of the I'relacy, we have partly shown, and might further I iihuge ourselves, but that your Honours know them well enough. Undermining Prelates and domineering favourites, have cast our bravest Kings into many cold sweats. Henry III., as wise and well-governing a Prince as any we had, after that he was rid of evil spirits, being in danger of drowning upon Thames, he was somewhat transported with fear, and being come on shore, Mont- ford bade him be of good cheer, now the danger was past ; the King replied, that he was more afraid of him than of drowning or any other danger. And, of all the fears, and cares, and desperate straits of this King, who were the prime cause, but the proud Prelates ? Yea, a tragical instance of our late King might serve for proof enough, if there were no more. If ever Prince deserved the name of the " Bishops' King," and " Father of Favourites," that did ho; but how was he requited of both ? Surely, for the reverence that we owe to Kings, we are ashamed to say how grossly they abused him, in life and in death ; yea, he found himself so deluded to his face, and all things going headlong to wreck, that he groaned in his soul to be rid of his burden, and, if he had had as mettled men about him as sometimes he had, who would have broke the snare and delivered his soul, we should Pet. Mart. 1.5G zion's plea have seen that he would have owned the fact, and thanked them too. Yea, with grief in heart, to come to the very days wherein we now live — have not the Prelates and their late champion so hedged in our new sovereign, that he could scarce look but at their appointment, to the no email dishonour of his iMajesty, the undoing of the State, and the wounding of the hearts of all his loyal and loving subjects. Hence you see, great Senators, what need Kings have of such a Council of State as will deliver their souls from the snare of the hunter. The late Lord Yerulam gives a very pretty moral upon that fiction of the contention of the inferior gods with Jupiter, wherein it was feigned they were too hard for him, till Briareus came in, and made them know they were but rebel gods. He compareth the House of Com- mons to Briareus' hands, whose office and place is to vin- dicate the sovereign power, the good of State government, and the glory of God's worship, from pollution, ruin, and indignity. Your Honours are the very hands which must, or should, work our deliverance, in religion. King, and State. Let flatterers, and enemies to King, State, and religion, say what they will, you must be to them that which Antigonus said of Zeno the great philosopher, ges- torum Beyist heatrum — the very theatre of the King's actions ; or, as the philosopher saith of the hand — it is the instrument of instruments : so must you be eyes, ad dis- cernenda Regia pericida, to discern the present danger of the King, and hands to him and to us, to deliver all out of danger. The ancients give for a hierogl;yph of a wise Senate and able Council, a little fish going before the great whale, discovering shallows and other dangers, and showing the way by the motion of itself. This li^-ing, the whale is safe, but being dead, he knoweth not what to do ; so must you provide for the establishing of the throne, the rectify- ing of government, or he may split upon the rocks of malicious counsel, or sink in the quicksands of base flat- teries, and at your hands his miscarriage wiU be required. This course have stout and wise Councillors taken for AGAINST PRELACY. 157 the deliverance both of Kings and States, as we may roud at large, both in sacred and profane histories. The Council of State delivered Joash from the bloody tyranny of Atlia.liah, God's worship from idolatry, and the kingdom from destruction; where, if any object that Athaliah was a usurper, and that Joash was kept besides the Crown, we answer, it is as great a mischief to a State, if not greater, for a good King to be manacled and swayed by the wicked in his throne, as to be beside his throne. As it is an evident token of God's wrath, to be without counsel, as the Spirit witnesscth of his own people ; " a nation void of counsels," (Deut. xxxii. 28,) — that is, never a whit of counsel at all amongst them ; so, wicked coun- sellors, as the same Spirit speaketh, are the very " chair of deceit," (Prov. xii. 5,) to carry Kings and kingdoms head- long to (lestruction. ^V'e read of Uzziah's proud attempt, whose heart being lifted up with prosperity, and forgetting that God had wrought all his works for him, he will burn incense upon the altar of the Lord. But Azariah and the valiant men of the Lord withstood him, showing from the law, that " it pertained not to him," 2 Chrou. xxvi. 11, 17, &c. Yea, though he was wroth, because he might think his good intent might carry him out, yet they would not suffer him — verse 19. Why then should ye, great Council of State, and our valiant men of God, suffer the ministers of Antichrist to offer strange fire on the altar of the Lord, which will cause the fire of God's indignation, if it be not removed, to con- sume us all. That passage of the Philistine Princes is very remark- able : — They, seeing David with his Hebrews marching on with the King, (1 Sam. xxix.) fall to expostulate the matter with the King—" What do these Hebrews here ?" The King apologised David's fidelity to the Princes, from that good and faithful deportment that he had found in him, ever since the time of his being with him ; but with this the Princes were not satisfied, but were wroth, saying to the King, " send this fellow back to his place," &c. They render a reason — that he would be " an adversary to them ; for o 158 ;ion's plea wherewith should lie obtain favour of his master — should it not be with the heads of these men ? " — 1 Sam. xxix. In this same passage there are many useful and observ- able things. First, that God's people in their straits should beware how they cast themselves upon the enemies of God ; for that may bring them into greater straits. 2. As a learned author saith well — Politia non mala, &c. It was not an evil policy among the Philistines, ut Bex admoneretur, imo Hlere reprehendt'retiir a suh, ut non semper posset quicquid vellet"^ — to admonish the King, saith he, yea, and freely to reprove him, especially in mat- ter of no less weight than the saving or leesing of himself and his subjects, for Kings may not always do what they please : as if, saith the said author, they should further enlarge themselves to the King, by way of expostulation, — " Is this to guide your affairs by counsel — to take a man to battle with you, and give him a chief commander's place, who hath been a heavy enemy to you and yours ? The shedding of our blood hath won him the hearts of his people ; he hath a fair pull for the kingdom, and now you will put a prize in his hand, viz. all our lives, by which he may bring himself into greater favour with Saul than ever he was before. Believe it, that must not be ; you, who are worth all us — we, and ours, and all lie at stake ; we must not lease you and the kingdom, by preferring your fancy or groundless alFection, before sound reason." 3. The grounds of their opposition were very good ; for what wise man could think tliat a man obliged by so many bonds to his country, and of such fair hopes to the Crown, would bathe in the blood of bis brethren, and vassal the (.^rown to an uncircumcised enemy, of whose cruelty they had often tasted — which, if he could not do, then of neces- sity he must betray them ; and, in very deed, if the Lord had not brought David strangely off, he had never been in a greater strait. As for the King's reply upon the experi- ence of David's good behaviour, it might easily be answered — that, as there is nothing liker sanctity than hypocrisy. Pet. Mart. AGAINST PRELACY. 159 so there is nothing liker fidelity than whited treason under trust. For application, nam fas est et ah hoste docer i — for we may learn of our enemies ; is not our King and State in as great danger as Achish and his kingdom was ? Yea. sure, and greater. Love you not your sovereign and your country as dearly well as the Philistine Princes did their King and country ? Ye cannot choose but to love both better — then be as faithfully free with him as they were with Achish. Why should the Prelacy be Domini fac totum, that is, Don Jo oil, or grand commanders in Church and State policy ? Since, 1 . They oppose with tooth and nail every thing that is good. 2. They have had their hand, as has been proved, in all the great evils tliat hath befallen the Church and State. 3. Never any good thing prospered that they put their hand to. 4. The King and State stood never in need, but they always deceived them. 5. And lastly, as the Princes said, if opportunity serve, they will make peace with their head, if it be with the loss of all our heads, if they continue their places. That which Tully objecteth to Verres, is the ordinary practice of the Prelacy : Considem sumn dcseruit, et renit ad Syllam — he forsook his consul, saith he, and went to Sylla ; so, if the Pope come to wind his horn a little higher here amongst us, the horns of the beast will push down King and Council, and all, to make way for their master. If once the Pope, with Jehu, cry " Who is on my side ?" then all his train will be too too ready to fling God's house out at windows. For evidence whereof, take their present actions, as a scantling of their future attempts ; if you look not to them, they may well serve us as a Grecian bishop of Muchla, in the province of Tegea, served his country. The city was beleaguered by Mahumet son to Amurathes ; he sent one of his nobles to Asanes, a brave commander and governor of the city, soliciting him, partly by promises and partly by threatenings, to give ujj the city ; who answered, that IGO ZION S PLEA the place was strong enough, and mantled with a threefold wall, besides other muniments, and store of ammunition ; therefore, it were a shame to give a place of that strength for lost : if the great Turk were resolved to assault, tiiey were resolved to maintain their honour by death or by life. But the bishop, knowing that they could not long hold out, for want of victuals, sent a privy messenger to the Turk, showing him what strait they were in, and that he might have the place as cheap as he could desire it.* By this means the city was betrayed ; wherefore the author blazeth him in the margin of the history for the traitor bishop. But this is but a petty matter to that which some of our own have done, who have betrayed whole kingdoms, be- sides their stirring up the subjects to rebellion. Besides the foresaid instances from Scripture, what abund- ance of examples have we in human histories, of grave Councils prevailing with their Princes, to the great good of King and State. It is written of Antonius Pius, the Roman Emperor, that he debated with his council a business of great weight, so that he would have it according to his will ; but Scffivola, the great lawyer and faithful counseller, with others of the like fidelity, would have it according to his weal, and so indeed thoy carried it — " I see masters," quoth the Emperor, " it must be as you will have it." Yielding this reason — "• ^qxtius est ut ego tot taliumque amicorum Coninlium seqiuir ; quam ut tot talesque cimici mcam unius tolunta- tem sequantur :" f — It is fitter, saith he, that I should follow the counsel of so many and so faithful friends, than that so many such should follow my will, being but one. The like is related of Louis the Twelfth of France, who thanked his Council much, for their faithful and constant resolution. But to go no further, have not your ancestore both kept sundry Kings, for a great while out of the pit of destruction, and pulled some as brands out of the fire. Instance Henry the Third, whose history you know, who after he came to himself was as good a King as the best. It is related of * Leonici Calcondolae de rebus Turcicis citatus a .Toseph Scaliger, p. 263. Proditor Episcopus. + Dimis. Halic, lib. 2. AGAINST PKELACY. 161 him, that he would often say, that had his subjects followed his will, both he and they had perished ; but he thanked God, that if he knew not how to rule, yet they knew how to obey. Consider those things, and the Lord give you understand- ing. Let not men have just cause to say to tiie body re- presentative of the State : what is become of the activity, right-down fidelity, and love, of English Parliaments to their Princes ? Let it not be said of you, as God upbraid- eth that proud, but cowardly people the Jews. That " ye are not valiant for the truth," Jer. ix. 3. Or as another prophet hath it, that "will not contend for the truth," Isaiah, lix. 4. ; that is, passeth by without regard, or removing the arch-enemies of the truth. Give us leave to speak ; ye know how ye went away at the last rising, hanging down your heads, yea some with tears in your eyes, as though ye had been led in triumph after the Duke's chariot ; auetter, that they are no more afraid of that terrible tribunal, than the frogs were of the log that Jupiter is feigned to let fall amongst them. Yea, as the Hungarian goeth not ordinari- ly with his weapon, nor is not reputed a gentleman till he have killed a Turk ; so among that crew he is not a fellow in grain, till he have braved the Parliament. But let them know whom they deride ; and as the Belgic mice's teeth, or rather the noble Britons' blades, freed this lion, though now too forgetful of his deliverer, so cut you the cords, for that is better than to unloose them ; set free the Lion of State and Religion, and you shall be more precious to God, and better metal to the State, than the gold whereof the Philistines' mice were made, which they sent home in the ark. Yea, your device shall be this, conspicuously glorious to all the •world, engraven in golden characters, about the neck of King and Church: — -Hie Scnatiis est metlirus kujtis Leonh. This parliament hath cured this lion of the king's evil. A second instance of practice may be taken from the North Britons or Scots, our neighbour nation, who did vindicate the liberty of the Church and State to so high an allay, that in every particular it was without parallel ; so that the last King gave this testimony of it, " that it was as pure a Church, if not purer, as any since the time of Christ ; and therefore he' thanked God that it was his lot to live in it." And how came they to the excellency of that purity, but by taking away the dross ? namely, the Prelacy, with all the train of the trumjiery, so that they left not one hoof of the Beast. But who did this ? even the Council of State. But by what authority, command, or concurrence from the supreme magistrate ? surely by AGAINST PRELACY. 16.5 none at all, but rather against the stem and cruel opposi- tion of three Popish Princes, all reigning over them with an high hand ; namely, Francis and Mary, King and Queen of France and Scotland, and Queen-Mother, Regent for the time, sister to the house of Guise. These three Princes were devoted soul and body to the Pope, and the two women were as resolute and politic for achieving of their malicious ends, as any of their sex ; besides, they had all the power and counsel of the house of Guise, who swayed all France, to further their attempts. They sent great forces into Scotland, with a number of the fiercest spirits, shrewdest pates, and best soldiers, that were amongst them, that with fire and sword they might destroy those reformers, with their posterity, and root out the Gospel. We will trouble you but with one instance. One Labrosse, a great counsellor and soldier, thought it was fittest to destroy all the nobility, and to billet some thousands of French horse upon tlicir incans; aud as for the commonalty, to make vassal.s and slaves of them ; his letters directed into France to this purpose were inter- cepted, which stirred up the State to stand for reformation, as much as for their lives. To these fierce designs the bishops were fire and bellows ; witness one of them in these bloody broils, who railed and cursed the soldiere, because they did not burn, rob, slay, and ravish all right down before them.* Especially he was vexed, that they did not murder one William Matlan, a brave gentleman, and so good a scholar, that he was too hard for all the learning of Sorbon ; therefore the bishop would have the soldiers to cut his throat, and that should be an unanswer- able argument; but the Lord (juenched all their fiery jov hoj, (Rom. i. 1.) separated, or set apart for the gospel of God, they would not meddle with the authority of Kings. " Buce virgoB sunt ; altera Regum gentium ; altera Discipalorum Christi. Virga Begum^ virga Dominationis ; virga Dis- cipalorum Ckrittti, directionis." — There be two rods, saith Rupertus, (in Matth. x.,) one of the Kings of the earth, another, of the Disciples of Christ ; the former is a rod of princely superiority, the latter a rod of direction : the one is over the body ; the other over the soul. 2. As we have proved, they have no such authority as they do usurp over either souls, bodies, or goods of men ; and therefore they may be justly called — Regis, Legis, et grcgis, excidium: — The very undoing of King, and Law, and people. 3. Say authority were granted in things incompatible, it were no authority at all. " Virga duminationis non est concessa Ministris Etangelii pacts" (saith the foresaid Author,) — that rod of princely dominion, is not given to the ministers of the gospel of peace. The same argument, our Saviour (whom they now and then call master) useth, to avoid the division of the brethrens' inheritance : — " JIan, who made me a judge or a divider over AGAINST PKELACY. 211 you ?" Luke, xii. 14. As if Christ would say — I have no calling to it ; and who can give them a calling to do what they do ? We may use to them the words of Bernhard — " Quid fines alienos inmditis ? quid falcem mstrum in alienam messam extendi tis?"* — Why do ye invade others offices, and cast your sickle in other's corn. " Cur major t>is esse Domino," &c. — Why will ye be greater than your master, who answered the brother in matter of division — who made me a judge, &c. : then it behoveth you all, ac- cording to your places, to vindicate the King, and kingly authority, the law, and the subject, yea, and the gospel, which is more than all, from abuse and tyranny. 3. And lastly, some will object, if we cast ofi' their bands, and oppose their tyranny, we shall be called tumultuous — they will cry a confederacy — people will forsake us — we shall lose our ministry or place of government, our court- countenance, our credit — we may be banished, or impri- soned ; and so our places shall want us, where we might have done much good ? For answer, First, you must make a count what it may cost you. Nullum periculum mncitur sine periculo — No danger is overcome without danger. And resolve upon self-denial, if you follow Christ. The fearful are neither good soldiers, nor good logicians : — as God said to the prophet, " though they say a confederacy, say not ye a confederacy," (Isa. viii. 12;) fish not too far before the net. Sit vestri cura operis et Dei cura eeentus — Do ye the work, and leave ye the success to God. May ye not rather reason, that honour and success shall attend you and yours ? Is not God plentiful in promises of assistance in the work, and a blessing upon the work ? " Behold !" saith the Lord of Babel, " I am against thee, O ! destroying mountain, which destroyest all the earth," Jer. li. 25. " Sanctify the Lord of Hosts, and let him be your fear and your dread : and he shall be to you for a sanctuary," Isa. viii. 13, 14. But say that the evil, which you fear, should come upon ' De consid., lib. i.,f. 6. 212 zion's plea you and us— as indeed it nii^Lt, because we have so long stood off with God, and feared man more than him — yet why should your places of magistracy or ministry be re- deemed with the least detriment «r dishonour to God ? " Is not Thyatira," being, as one saith, " a type of the Church, high in Popery, from Wickliffe to Luther^ tlireatened for suffering of Jezebel ?"* that is — Quod Romam ferrent-r- that they suffered Rome. As one saith.t — " Jezebel, no doubt, was reproved, but she was not roundly dealt with ; she should not have been suffered at all." But we take not up our arms at all against the brood of Jezebel. Turpe Ckristiano? pastores non in prelio leones, sed potiu* servos esse: — " It is shame," saith one, " for ministers, or men of place, not to show themselves like lions, but as harts in the battle." What it is to be a lion, Solomon telleth us : — " He turneth not away for any," Prov. xxx. 30. As for your places, liberty, peace, and pains in the Lord's harvest, God will say thus : — " If I be hungry, I would not tell thee," (Ps. 1. 12.) — that is, what need I to thee, or any thing thou canst do ? I am all-sufficient, &c. Men's places and pains must serve God's appointment ; but God's ap- pointment must not serve man's policy. If you stand not up for God, you are fair to lose your places, and your comfort too. Pure obedience, without going to the right hand, or to the left, is the fruit of true love to God's com- mandment. " Hath the Lord," saith Samuel, " so great pleasure in sacrifice as in obeying of his voice," 1 Sam. XV. 12. We know that earthly Kings hold it their greatest glory to be precisely obeyed in their peremptory com- mands, though they may be many times different, or di- rectly opposite to the rules of State ; and men of no mean (juality, devoted to those connnands, hold it their greatest honour punctually to obey, though it be with danger of their head ; instance that man, who, upon the command of Henry VIII. threw down the fort in France ; for which the Council thought him worthy of death. • Park, lib. !, c. 39. t Apot. 2, -20. AGAINST PRELACY. 213 A like instance we have in the Duke de Medina, General of the Spanish Armada, in 1588. He was commanded by the King not to land his forces in England before the Prince of Pamic and his forces were come to join with him ; which he precisely obeying, when he miglit have landed, it was conceived by the Council of Spain that that neglect overthrew their attempt. The Duke being called to an account, did ingenuously confess, that, in his judgment, he might not only have landed safely, but done some great and honourable service against the English ; but the King's command was of more weight with him than gain or loss, yea, or life itself ; for which the King commended him highly, affirming, that he had honoured him more in his punctual obedience, in a thing good to the eye of judgment, than he had gained him a kingdom by a contrary course. If it be thus with obedience to Kings, that may, and do err, though their intention be good, how strictly, without altering or diminishing, should we obey the all-wise God, whose commandments, both for matter and manner, are exceeding just ? To conclude the point in the words of one of the ancients against usurped authority :* — State fortes^ state securi, oportet enim, ut constanter, &c. — Stand fast, and be strong ; be secure in standing for the Lord ; keep the Churches of Christ as ye have received them from the Apostles. £t nihil sibi in nobis hwc tentatio diaholicce usurpationis ascribat — Let not that tentation of devilish usurpation find any place in us ; or let the serious or sin- cere exhortation of a reverend patriot and champion of Christ his kingdom prevail with you. Medici Ecclesia Anglicanw omnes pro viribus esse debemus ; prof ana Episcoporum usurpatione, imo et scroitia eajam vulnera- tur : qui iffitur medicain marium adhibere cessant, aut desipiunt nescientes, aut salutem Ecdesim perjidi produnt — We should all be physicians to the Church of England ; by the cruelty and profane usurpation of bishops it is sore wounded ; they then that are negligent to put to their " healing hand, are either unwise, or perfidiously they be - • Greg. lib. 4, Ep. 36. 214 ZIOX'S PLEA tray the safety of the Church. Ponder tlie words well, we pray you.* THIRD MEAN OF REMOVAL. The third mean of removal of this evil is conceived by some to be a Council called ; wherein the authority of the Prelacy, their superiority, their offices, and substituted officers, their liturgy, and maintenance may be thoroughly examined, and judged accordingly. But before we come to the particular application of this medicine, it shall not be amiss to give a taste of the pra'cnijn'ita, or generals of a Council, for the better clearing of the particular. The Papacy and Prelacy are at strong opposition now and then among themselves, about the necessity, authority, and calling of a Council ; yet both join in opposition against the Presbyterians, or Reformers, as they call them ; and this may appear in divers particulars. First, they charge the Presbyterians with disliking of Councils ; and again, they brawl and keep a wondering, if at any time they call for a Council, How can these hang together? That they do both these, let the hierarchy and their soldiers bear witness against themselves. For the first, we dislike of nothing more, eaith one of them,t than that divers disciplinarians have no Councils — as though they could not endure Councils. The untruth of this is manifested by the current of the learned, the practice of all Reformed Churches, and the confession of their own writers. Bogerman against Grotius testifieth, from Junius and others, what love and good liking the Reformed bear to Councils. So D. Morton, citing Calvin, J — Quod nullum certius sit remedium — There is no better remedy than a Council. So Saravia of Beza,§ — De necessitate Synod- orum facile Bezw consentio — As for the necessity of Synods, I willingly agree with Beza. Concilia coguntur ut re/ormentur Ecclesiw ad formam optimam, qiiam Christus et Apostoli, &c.|| — " Councils are to be called," * M. Park, lib. 1, c. 39, p. 1-28. + Sutcliv. Tract, de Disciplin. c. .9, p. 140. + Apolog. p. -2, lib. 4. § De triplic. Ep. p. 91, q. 3. II De vera Ecclesiie reformat. Regula 10. AGAINST PRELACY. 215 saith Zanchie, " that Churches may be reformed, both iu discipline and ceremonies, to that form which Christ and his Apostles have left — that all new doctrine, worship, and ceremonies may be done away." To this purpose he citeth that promise or prophecy from God's own mouth, Isa. i. 25, — " I will purge thy dross," &c. And so he citeth Jer. vi. 1 6, — " Stand in the way," &c. Wliere we see the Reformed make Councils, the means to purge the Churches, and to find out the good way. It is true we do not with the Papist, or some of the misled ancients, extol Councils, or equal them to the Scrip- ture ; as Gregory esteemed of the four general Councils as of the four Evangelists ; but we answer as Augustin did Maximinus the heretic, willing to hear nothing but Coun- cils,* — Nec ego Nycenam nee tu Ariminensem Synodum, &c. — Let us not contend by Synods, but by the autho- rity of Scripture. There have been divers wicked Councils, both under th» law and the gospel. Four hundred false prophets were assembled under Ahab to condemn Micaiah, 1 Kings, xxii. The High Priest, and the Pharisees, " gathered a Coun- cil " against Christ, John, xi. 47. Yea, when Councils began to be corrupt, Gregore Nazianzen said, — '' He never did see a good end of any of them."t Neither cite we these as Calvin speaketh for us,J — Quod Concilia minoris facimus, vel quod Concilia metui- tnus : — Out of any disesteem of Councils, or that we fear Councils, but that Councils, being subject to err, we be- lieve them so far, as they are ordered and guided. Per lydeum lapidem, et non per lesbiam Regulam humaniju- dicii — (as Zanchie speaketh) by the touchstone of the Word, and not by the leaden rule of man's corrupt judg- ment ; and therefore, saith Junius, — Ees Conciliis non de- bent determinari,§ — Things must not be determined by Councils without the guidance of the Word. In the next place, the hierarchy, forgetful of their former * Lib. 3, ad versus maxim, f Epist. 2.5, ad proeap. J Instit. lib. 4, c. 9. § Animadvers. in Bellarm. p. 429. 216 zion's plea cliallenge, cryeth out on Reformers for desiring a Council ; witness D. Bridges his reply to one desiring trial, and re- formation of things by a Council : — " Is not this," saith he, " to take away the authority of bishops and arch- bishops, Ijy whom, as by a compendious way, things may be determined ?"* The same (juarrel picketh D. Whitgift to Mr. Cart- wright, desiring a Council : — " The calling of a Council," saith he, " is a way full of grievous and intolerable con- sequences."f The same song do the Papists sing to all Protestants desir- ing a Council. Junius citeth Bellarmine thus, upbraiding the Lutherans : — Efflagitant Liitherani Concilium, &c.J — the Lutherans would gladly have a Council ; but D. Morton showeth us how Bellarmine and his fellows ex- eludunt necessitatem Concdii : — they do abandon the ne- cessity of a Council. But upon what ground? Upon the very same ground in eflect with the hierarchy. Via maxime compendiaria extinguendi kcereses, non per Con- cilia, sed per sedem Apostolicam:§ — The most compendi- ous way, say they, to quench heresies, is not by Coun- cils, but by the power of the Apostolic See ; witness Bellarmine and Coster. To the same effect Perierius — Friistra sit per plura, quod fieri potest per panciora : || — It is labour lost, to do a thing by greater pains, when it may be done by lesser. Observe how the Hierarchy and Papacy jump together, in the same positions and grounds ; for as D. Morton further witnesseth of the Papacy, that they exclude councils — Ut cathedrw papalis prerogativam adferant, — that they may establish the prerogative of the Pope's chair; the same doth the hierarchy witness themselves, that they may establish the indisputable prerogative of an Archbishop, or Pope minorite. As in this they are like one to another, so they are both like to the great enemies of the State, or bankrupt politicians ; who, lest they should be called to an account, are ever beating on this jVfachiavelian principle. In statu Monarckico expedit rara esse commitia, — in a monarchical * Lib. IS, p. 12.'?57. t Tract. 5, c. 3. + Controv. 4. § Apol. p. 2, hb. 4, c. 1. II In Esod. 10. AGAINST PRFXACY. 217 state, parliaments should be very rare; which is both against reason and the safety of the state, especially if the wicked find place about the tlirone, whom the power of a parlia- ment should and must remove ; since this high court is set in the middle, between the King and State, yet partaking of both, that they may redress the grievances of both ; just so, the intrusion and violent keeping of possession by the Prelacy, cannot endure a Council. But to come to the application of the particular, cause them to join issue with us, and put the cause upon the trial of a lawful Council ; nbi causa cum causa, et res cum re, et ratio cum ratione comparetur — where cause with cause, and matter with matter, and ground with ground may be compared and determined. But in calling of this Council, the hierarchy must be con- tent to part with their Romish principle, namely, no metro- politan, no council. It is D. Bilson's position in more words delivered, c. 6, p. 453, &c. Saravia, the Prelates' convert, but like a cake not turned, pleadetli thus for Mammon : that the assemblies of the Presbyterians are not synods, but conventicles, because he readeth not of any synod without an archbishop.* It is the very plea of Bellarraine for the Pope. Quomodo concocabuntur Concilia absque uno, in quo omnes ? &c.t — How shall Councils be called, without one in whom all the rest shall consist ? Or, how can bishops be assembled without a head ? Si nullus Metropolitanus in quallhet Provincia ; null- usque pastor in tota JScclesia, &c. % — If there be no metro- politan in every province, and no universal pastor in the whole Church, how can a Council be called or kept ? The argument for the one is every way as good as for the other ; if a provincial or particular council cannot be kept without a metropolitan, then a general cannot be kept without a Pope. But the untruth of this papal and hie- rarchical assertion appeareth many ways. 1 . It is against that place of Scripture, which both they and we, and all that profess Christ, allege for the war- rantable calling of a Council. " Where two or three are * De triplic. Ep. q. 3, p. 90. f De Concil. c. 12. + Lib. 4, p. 1 14. T 218 zion's plea j^athered together in my name, there will I he in the midst of them," Matth. xviii. 20. " Yea, I say unto you, if two of you shall agree upon earth in anything," &c., (verse 19 ;) which phrase is taken from eiififoovrietijei, — that symphony or harmony that is in song ; ubi communi consensu, non ali- cuius imperio — where it is signified to us, that by the com- mon consent, and not by the imperious edict of any, a Council is to be gathered — as one saith very well. And if by the name of Christ they understand authority given from Christ — by the very same, the metropolitan authority is rejected ; which is proved, as we have shown, and con- fessed by all the ingenious, to be but a human institution. Tola Hierarcliia instituta est, tit in Ecclesia unitas, et tranquillitas servetur,* saith Duarenus the civilian, and a great friend to Prelates' privileges ; the whole hierarchy was ordained, that the unity and tranquillity of the Church might be kept : but what Lord-keepers they have been, and are to the Church, we have partly shown 'you, for we cannot tell you all. But for the point, that they are of man's positive authority, let their own speak, as D. Field, Sutcliv. D. Bilson, &c. 2. Was there any metropolitan in that Apostolical Conn- ecil, Acts, XV. ? Where if they answer, that the Prelates succeeded the Apostles, as some do, then they cross their own confession, that a metropolitan is a mere human in- stitution. But they know well enough, and are forced to confess, that there was no metropolitan for the space of 300 years after Christ — and will they say there were no councils ? and if there were, they must be null in their judgment, for want of a metropolitan. Fkleles per Asiam convenielant ac nuper natas Doctrinas.f &c. ; the faith- ful ones, saith Eusebius, assembled them through all Asia, rooting out new doctrines, and all things repugnant to the word — in these no metropolitan. The same author witnesseth, that Constantine, coming to the crown, by a decree, re-established the liberty of calling synods, or chris- tian societies together, which were formerly suppressed by the tyranny of the dragon. So that ye see the frequency * Distinct 18. t Lib. 5, c. 16. AGAINST PRELACY. 219 of synods before any metropolitan. Yea, a synod was kept at Antioch, as D. Reynolds witnesseth, against the mind of a metropolitan. 3. What say they to all synods that have been kept by Reformed Churches since the time of Reformation? surely, they dare not say, they are no synods. Yea, they will be found to be the synods indeed. For all the synods kept in Britain by Prelates, upon trial, by the golden rule of God's word, shall prove but pseudo-si/nods ; or, as Nazianzen speaketh, to be diai)yi-/.ri ruv xaxuv 5, di a,vdy.ueis tuiv Kanuv — the fixing of evil, not the dissolving of evil. Take for instance, to go no further, that provincial synod, holden anno IfJOS, the first year of King James, which was all that was holden from anno 1 597, which a learned worthy calleth Flagellum piorum, et pandoram illam e cujus pixide* &c. — the scourge of the godly, and the box out of which a multitude of mischiefs have overflowed the Church of England. But in these Reformed synods, were there any Prelates ? For the closer of this controversy let a learned cardinal speak — Ejus aut/ioritas non ita pendet a congregante, % &c. The authority of a synod, saith Cusan, dependeth not so on a metropolitan, or Pope, that it is null without them, for then the eight general councils had been null, because they were not by a Pope. But what is the reason the Pope, or metropolitan petty Pope, will bear such a sway in council, or they will have no council at all ? D. Whitaker giveth Bellarmine the reason — Cerium est reum nolle convocare Concilium, a quo judicetur : — a malefactor will never call an assize, ex- cept he may be judge himself. But, as Junius citeth Augustin — is it any reason, — ut unus judex sit, et accus- ator ? — that one should be both judge and accuser ? Itno ut quispiam de alio judicare vellet, et nollet se judicari ? 1^. yea, that he will judge others, and not be judged himself. Judge ye then with Luther, cited by Junius — Expeti- mus Ckristianorum liberum Concilium,^ &c. — We de- sire a free Council, as Christians should have. For of their * Park de Folic, lib. 3, c. 26. + De concord. cathoL, lib. 2, c. 2.'). i .32 q. § Controv. 4. 220 zion's plea Councils under the Prelates, we may say, as Luther said of the Popes — Quod porrit/itur panis in mucrone gladii, at propius acce/lentes manuhrio ferimur -•* — They hold us out bread on the point of a sword, but when we come nigh they beat us with the hilt. Be pleased, then, to let us have a Council, in the name of Christ, that is, with authority from the Word, which they reject, (Deut. iv. 2, Malachi, ii. 7, Rev. xii. 18,) as M. Calvin well observcth, that add or diminish from the word; and then we doubt not, by the help of God, but the Prelates shall not only be in danger of a Council, but they shall be quite extinct by a council. For the evidence of this hope, let them but appear to these particulars : — 1. What Council, called and guided by the warrant of the Word, can choose but condemn the unlawful calling of the hierarchy, not having one jot of warrant from the word, yea, directly condemned by the word ; for matter, incompatible with the ministry ; for ground, antichristian authority, conferred only by our Kings for want of better information, who are not able, nor any human power, to change the nature of it ; and lastly, for manner, merely popish and histrionical, as we could show from the cere- monies used, but they are not worth the time. 2. What Council will approve that feudatory liege-vas- salage of ministers, with their oath of homage, oi hominium, aj3 some call it, that is, man-service ? whereby they en- tangle and tie themselves to military service — Tenentur militari:f — they tie themselves to serve in war, saith Spalato. Tollentes libertatem et nuinera pn-vphan antes, saith that learned and much honoured Didoclavius, undo- ing the liberty of the Church, and profaning the function of tlie ministry. What council will approve of their lordly and super- eminent titles, of Lord, Earl, and Grace, and, of the most honourable Oixler of the Garter ? Or will they tliink it right, that they should take place of all the nobility, and some of all the officers of State save the Lord Chancellor, * Lib. de Concil. t Lib. i., c. 7, n. 9, Ecclesiae. :f Altar. Damasc., p. 11. AGAINST PHELACY. 22) as the Archbishop of York ? Some take place of the Lord Chancellor too, as the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is worth the observing, when the bishops were inhi- bited the parliament by Edward III., that proud Prelate John Striiitford, came to the door, and pressed to be in, affirming that he was " the grand Peer of the land, and next unto the King's person, to have his voice ; and so," saith he, "I challenge the right of my Church, and entrance into the house."* Lastly, in this particular .of honour, will a Council think it fit that the orphans of the nobility and gentry, being feudatories to the bishops, should, as vassals, do homage, or knight's service to them, though they hold other lands in capite of the crown? Our antiquaryt showeth us, how the Earl of Glo'ster held the Manor of Tunbridge off the Bishop of Canterbury, on condition, that he should be the bishop his marshal at his instalment. So the Earl of Warwick was marshal, at that great and sumptuou.-* in-, stalment of George Nevell, Archbishop of York. J 3. IIow can they hold up their face in Council, to make good that power conferred on them, or abused by them in the high commission. Is it fit, that ministers, by virtue of a secular power, should take upon them to censure men in the matters of the service of tlieir God, and other points of faith ? and not only so, but also to excommunicate, fine, imprison, break up their doors and closets, take away their goods, &c., contrary to the law of God, the laws of the land, and the privilege of the subject, an we have proved at large? Or would a Council ever agree to put two swords into the hands of madmen, or suffer them to rack the King's subjects upon that damnable oath of inquisition? Yea, they infringe the power of the commission itself ; by virtue whereof, as they are to enquire for heresies and errors among other things, so are they not to condemn that for heresy or error, which is not determined so to be by canonical scrip- tures ; witness that act of the 1 Elizabeth, c. L 4. What godly Council will admit of their distinction.- of degrees of ar6hbishops, bishops, deans, priests, and dea- * Godwin, de Presul., p. 157. t Camden. + Godwin. 222 zion's plea CODS, not only contrary to God's Word, but also rejected by all orthodox ancient and modern writers, except a very few of their own grain. Plures gradus seu ordines min- tstrorum non leglmus In sacris Uteris, quam quos Apostolus in epist. ad Ephes. expressit : — " We read not," saitb Zanchie,* " of more degrees or orders of ministers in holy writ, than the Apostle hath expressed in Ephes. iv. 11." What Council could endure their Court canons, and multiplicity of Popish officers, both in ecclesiastical and lay functions, as they do distinguish. With the number, variety, and iniquity of their Courts, we mean not to trouble you, since they are too well known — only, be pleased to take a view of that Court of Faults, (or Facul- ties, as they term it,) whereby the Archbishop hath power, under his seal, from himself, or his Commis.sioner of the said Court, to give and to grant licenses, dispensations, and rescripts, in all and every cause wherein the Bishop of Rome did give and grant the same. And this mischief is established also by a law,t but how lawfully, let heaven and earth judge ; for by this means, as a learned worthy replieth, | " we have the Archbishop surrogated in place of the Pope, oidy the King's supremacy reserved." " This beastly Romish Court," saith another ancient worthy,§ " had its ground from the Canon law, in which that filthy merchandise of lawless dispensations is exercised to the undoing of the Church." The monition to the Parliament coraplaineth, and that justly, (p. 3,) that in this Court, as at Rome, all things are to be sold. This Romish market, as one saith prettily, — nec modum, nec funditm, nec Jinem, nec pudorem habet, — hath neither measure, nor bottom, nor end, nor shame ; for they dispense not only with human laws, but also with divine, as non-residency, plurality, and simony, &c. The which dispensations are legum vulnem — the wounds of the laws, the robbing of purses, and the bane of souls. As for their officers, we have already laid them out in their colours, only a word or two more to churchwardens and sidesmen, because sundry very honest men wrong both • In 4 Precept, p. 732. f 25 Henr. VIII., RasUl. R. 22. 4: Cartw. Rep. i., p. 87. § De Discipl. fol. 22. AGAINST PRELACY. 223 themselves and others, by this ensnaring and enslaving office. They are sworn not to suffer any man to preach, unless he come with the Prelates' license ; to present such as come not duly to devised service, (or divine, as they falsely call it,) though there be no more than that Egyp- tian garlic, yet that they must not leave to hear a sermon ; they must also present to the Prelates' Courts all such as will not kneel at the Sacrament, nor have their children crossed and bishoped, nor their wives churched, nor will not join with the litany and unholy ceremonies, nor will not observe festival days and other rites, yea, if good and holy men be under the unjust censure of the Prelates, they must bar them from the Sacrament, suffering unworthy wicked men to be admitted to tlie Sacrament by the min- isters at their pleasure ; " whom," saith L). Mucket, "if they present not to the ordinary — nefarie sunt perjuri-r- they are wickedly forsworn.'"* Yea. further, their painful and holy pastors and teachers they must unnaturally and perfidiously expose, by presentment, to the tyranny of the Prelates, if they punctually obey not those impure and plaguy canons ; and say they conld buy out their oath, which is unlawful to do — yet this is their untoward work. They are, as we have said, the counterfeits of God's true officers, viz. elders and deacons, whom they keep out of place by serving of the tyranny of the hierarchy, who cannot endure to hear of God's true officers indeed. In a word, they minister matter of filthy lucre to the harpies of the Prelates' Courts, yea, they grieve and wrong God's people, and do the worse sort no good. We wisli, for their good, that they might see their service weighed at the beam of the Word, (which indeed is, or should be, the true scale of a Council,) and then they would hate their service, and love themselves the worse ; yea, we are verily per- suaded, that never a true honest man would undertake the service, were it not for fear of the Prelates, which strongly argueth, that, being an office in God's house, it is counter- feit, and stark nought. 6. And, lastly, dare they bring their liturgy aud cero- ♦ De Polit. p. 344. 224 zion's plea monies into the true scale of a Council, both these and their patrons sliall be found light as vanity itself. First, for the liturgy : — AVe have shown you, though briefly, the paltry pedigree of it,. and could, if time would serve, anatomise it, intus et in cute — from the bowels to the skin, as we say ; but that is done in a treatise by itself. What an apish imitation of the Levitical priest is in the minister's going into the chancel, praying with his face turned from the people, as though there were some dissen- sion between him and the people ! As the priest under the law went into the sanctuary, (Lev. xvi. Luke i.) the people being without, so the rubric prescribeth the minister to put a partition between him and the people, where he may as well curse as bless ; he may speak what he will in a tongue known or unknown, for the people know not : from that same practice Bellarmine defendeth prayer in an unknown tongue."' As for the litany, well naturing the name of a " laborious service" (XtiTavirnvni) in the dust and dirt, (for so Homer and others use the name,) it is borrowed from the practice of the heathens, as Causabon observeth,t out of Dionysius Habicarnass., and is in very deed nothing but an impure mass of conjuring and charming battologies, whereby the name of God is highly profaned, his house and worship abused, God's people by it abandoned the sanctuary, and the profane love no worship so well as it. Polybius useth a pretty phrase to display the nature of it, ij.a.yyavi'jtiy t^o; rous^Eous, — with a multitude of enticeing flattering speeches, to say no worse, to allure the gods. But, not to trouble your ears with the particular blasphemies of it, is it not matter of wonder that they pray to be delivered from lightning, hail, tempest, &c., yet not one word of that which is prescribed in the litany of Edward VI. viz. to be delivered from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, which is worse than all the fire and lightning that can befall us ? But they know well enough that that prayer striketh at the root of their being, and therefore they have cut it off by their expurgatorious index ; and instead of this, they * De Verb. lib. ii., cap. 1 6. t Exercit. p. 327. AGAXKST PRELACY. 225 press the ministers to pray for their Lordships, which, in effect, is to pray for the establishing of Antichrist, and keeping Christ still out of liis kingdom. Thence it is that it stitketh on the stomachs of good men, and putteth thcin divers times to a stand ; but com- pelled prayers, as we speak, do neither party good. Yet, for all this Romish stuff, every minister is strictly tied hy the Canons, to say or sing all the whole service, not omitting auytliinir, ndtwitlistanding of sermons, or any other motive to the ( (intrui y, and that upon pain of " sus- pension, excommunicatiou, and deprivation,"* as he shall double or triple the offence, so that we see the breaking of the bread of life must give way to the drawing of the waters of Nilus. To come from the enacting of the service to the rites and ceremonies contained in the service-book, they are as strictly enjoined, upon the same penalties as the saying of the service is — witness the said Canons in that behalf — which is not only contrary to the law of God, but also to the laws of the land, establishing, as we have shown, that service-book of Edward YI. which expressly thus speaketh concerning the coromonies : — " As for kneeling, the sign of the cross, tlio lit'tinir u]i of the hand, and smiting of the breast, and gestuics ni tli(> Ukc nature, it shall be left free to every one to do as lie ])U';ises;" so that you see, by the pressure of these latter Prelates, it is worse with us than it was in the Ijcginning of the Reformation. In the proof of the first position, we have shown these ceremonies to be trinkets out of the Pope's cook-room, and have laid im- pregnable positions against them ; but, that their impiety in persecuting for such stuff may appear, for that is their only argument, and that all may see how tbese things should be liked by a Council, let us lay tliem out yet a little in their colours, and that as briefly as may be. They are directly against the Word of God, against the positions of the Fathers, the Acts of the Councils, the cur- rent of the modern orthodox, the truth of undeniable prin- ciples, and against the laws of the land. A touch of each * Canon, xiv. 38. 226 zion's plea of these, though we might be large, because we desire to keep within bounds. — For the first : — All addition in God's worship, as well as taking away, is directly forbidden in God's Word, both in the Old and New Testaments ; witness those places, Deut. xii. 32, Rev. xxii. 18. But these ceremonies are an addition, in God's worship, to the Word, as they do not deny. Ergo^ they are directly forbidden by the "Word. Basil, upon the foresaid places of Deuteronomy, giveth an excellent reason of the major proposition (^avega £jtV- rw(r/5 OTffrEwj, &c.) of the argument : — Injidelitatis argu- mentum et signum superhi / certisshnum, si quis eorum qum scripta sunt aliqutd telit rej/cere, aut iterim que non scripta sunt introducere — It is an argument of infidelity, saith he, '- and an undoubted evidence of great pride, if any man reject any thing that is written, or bring in that which is not written. As for D. Morton, his distinction t of addition corrupting and perfecting, he hath both the word of the distinction and the illustration of it, by way of simile, from Bellarmine, in defence of all the rubbish of Rome;+ to whom they must be beholden for their answers and arguments, as we have shown, when they are put to a stand by force of the truth ; but the distinction is corrupt, and taxeth the Scriptures with imperfection, if any thing can be added to the perfecting of them ; yea, as one ob- serveth, § it is petitio principii, or a begging of the question in hoc ipso contrarium quod divinae legi additur, — in the very same it is against the Word in that it is added to the Word. Scriptura sacra divinitus perfecta, &c. — eoque nec contra ipsam, nec prceter ipsam, \\ &c. — the Word is di- vinely perfect, and therefore neither any thing against it or besides it may be added, saith Junius ; the same we might say of that distinction of essential and accidental addition — the Pope and Prelates will add to the Word that it may be kept, and God will have nothing added that it may be kept ; are not then they and their additions Anti- christian ? * Serm. de Fidei Confess, f Defence of the Ceremonies, p. 29. + De Pontif. lib. iv. c. 17. § Til en. |1 De Pont. lib. iv.c. 17,not. 10. AGAINST PRELACY. 227 As for the Fathers, they make the Word the trial of all traditions. Besides Basil, whom we have quoted, and others, Cypri- an is very exact ; unde est ista tradit/o* &c. — whence is that tradition, saith he, is it from Christ his evangelical authority, or the Apostles' appointment ? Then is it to be done, because God will have that done which is written, as God said to Joshua, " the book of the law will not depart from thy mouth;" where he flatly condemneth all un- written traditions. Augustin, speaking of the indulgence of God toward his people, under the New Testament — Levi jtigo nos sub- didit,f — he hath put us under a light yoke, saith he. Now, if the legal ceremonies being removed, men might institute others, then, as the same P'ather saith, Tolera- hiUor esset conditio Judeorum," &c.J — The state of the Jews was better, than ours, because they were under God's ordinances; we are under man's presumptions, as he ealleth them. The ceremonies of the law, as the learned often observe, were not taken away that men might sub- stitute others. Nam si iis sulatis, &c.§^ — If these being taken away, saith D. \\'hitaker, others might be brought in, where were the benefit of freedom by Christ ? A^e- cording to that speech, — " Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage," Gal. v. 1. Mr. Calvin ealleth the recalling of ceremonies, not a bringing again of the vail and burial of Christ, — Sed fetida potius stercora, &c. — They bring rather in stink- ing dunghills; quibus ohruta est sincera fides et reli- (fio:\\ — by which sincere faith and religion are overlaid; and they who take or give liberty to use them — much more they who enforce them — give more to a Pope than God did grant to his own law ; yea, the Prelacy take more upon them than they will grant to God ; for by their canons, they strictly enjoin the punctual observing of all the Service-book, with every rite and ceremony therein contained, and without addition or diminution, * Epist. ad Pamp. f Epiat. 118. JEpist. 119. § De pontif. q. 7, c. 3. li In Act. 13. 228 zion's plea both for matter and form, suh nomine poenw, on no small penalty, canon 14. Yet they will add at their pleasure in God's worship. As for Councils, they argue strongly against all men's devices in God's worship from the negative, viz. that they are not approved by the Word ; so the Bracarenses de- creed against milk in the Sacrament, and the Antisidio- renses against mulse or metheglin in it ; upon this ground, that they had no warrant from Christ his institution. Cessat ergo lac, quia evidens exemplum etangelicce veri- tatis illud offer ri non sinit* — Let milk be no more in the Sacrament, because the instance of that evangelical truth will not suffer it. Yea, as the learned obser\-e,t the very sacraments should be condemned by the second command- ment, under the name image, if Christ had not instituted tliem. For the current of the modern orthodox, we could also be large, but we must give but a taste. Besides Junius, and others already cited, Beza ob- serveth, as we have formerly shown, an argument a com- paratis from the second of the Colossians. — " If the rites of the law, God his own ordinances, be taken away, be- cause they were shadows of Christ to come, what impu- dency is it to substitute in their place men's superstitions ?" Mr. Calvin calleth these human inventions, Laqueot ad strangulandas animas, — Snares to strangle the souls of men. Adulterant cultum Dei, et Deum ipsum, qui unicus legislator est, suo jure spoUant, — They corrupt the worship of God, and spoil God of his right, who is the only law -giver. (Inst. 1. 4,, c. 10, s. 1.) Besides all this cloud of witnesses against the cere- monies, they are opposite also to impregnable positions of truth. It standeth not with the nature of true ceremonies, that the.se should have any place in God's worship ; for a cere- mony, as the learned observe, as well Popish as orthodox, is a sacred action or ordinance, " having its excellency," as Bellarmine witnesseth, " from no other ground but in that it is appointed to the worship of God.";}: He instanceth * Brae. 3, c. 1. f Park, decruce, part I, p. 62. % De cleric, c. 13. AGAINST PRELACY. 229 from kneeling at the Sacrament. To the same effect speaketh Junius : — In jure politico reip. sui sunt im- perati, et solennes ritus ; ceremonicB vera proprie, nan nisi sacra; observationes in cultu divino appellantur :* — Politic government liatli power to appoint its own rites ; but ceremonies, properly, are sacred observations in divine worship. Since so it is, what mortal man should dare to take upon him to appoint ceremonies or sacred ordinances in God's worship ? We wish from our souls that men would possess them- selves of that difference between ceremonies and civil cir- cumstances of order ; the want of which observation breadeth much disorder. 1. Civil circumstances in God's worship have their ground from nature ; as there must be a place to teach in, a cup for the communion, and so of the like ; but so have not ceremonies, but from God his own institution. 2. These circumstances of order and comeliness may be used in civil as well as in sacred things : but so may not ceremonies ; witness the Prelates' coursing of a minister for wiping his nose on the surplice. A second position, crossed by the ceremonies, is this, — That all necessary ceremonies, under the gospel, are con- tained in the New Testament. The first argument for proof of this position may be taken from the nature of a ceremony, discovered in the first position to be a matter of faith ; ergo, it must be con- tained in the gospel. 2. We may prove it by induction. As Christ instituted the sacraments, so the ceremonies in the sacraments ; as breaking of bread, distribution of it ; and of the cup (though now removed by that idola- trous gesture of kneeling :) Et sic de cceteris, — and so of the rest. Erffo, &c. If this induction be not good, give us in- stance against it, extra propositum. For the truth of this position, Chemnicius speaketh ex- pressly : — Quos ritus Christus addi voluit eosdem insti- * De Polit. Mo8. c. 7. 230 zion's plea tuit : — What ceremonies Christ woulil have in the gospel, he appointed the same. 3. We may prove it also a comparatis, by comparing the gospel with the law. All necessary ceremonies under the law, were contained in the law, Exod. xxiv. &c. Ergo, all necessary ceremonies under the gospel, are contained in the gospel ; otherwise the law should be more perfect than the gospel, which none will affirm. 4. And lastly, we use this argument a distunctis. Either the gospel must contain all necessary ceremonies of God's worship, or Christ hath left to the Churches power to appoint ceremonies : but Christ hath left no power to the Churches to appoint ceremonies. Eryo, the gospel contains all necessary ceremonies in God's worship. The proof of the minor is thus : — All that Christ hath left to the Churches' appointment, is to order things by Christ himself a]ipointed, 1 Cor. xiv. 40. But to apj)oint new ceremonies, is not to order things by Christ himself appointed. Ergo, he left it not to the Churches' appointment. For the last particular, that these ceremonies stand in opposition to the laws, it is clear, as we have shown from that Liturgy of Edward VI. to the which the law re- quireth subscription, and the book leaveth the things arbi- trary. By this which hath been said, it may appear to your Honours, how the Prelates, and their appurtenances, shall never be able to stand in a Council ; which, being guided by the AVord, cannot brook that which is enmity to Christ and the State. In these things we have been the larger, " that all may see how they invade," as Mr. Calvin saith, " the liberties of Christ, bereaving his servants of the same." 2. " How their tyranny," as the same author saith, " exceedeth the laws of other tyrants, because they tyran- nise over the conscience." 3. To show how by these courses of their traditions, they do not only " transgress the commandments of God," but " they make void." as the Spirit speaketh, " the wor- AGAINST PRELACY. 231 ship of God, by the commandments of men," (Matth. xv. 3, 9 ;) namely, in regard of the power of it, and the honour due to it. Let the Prelates' disesteem of God's ordinance witness this ; not only in preferring the lea,st and vilest patch of their liturgy to preaching, (as their Canons witness,) but also by their phrase of speech in their Canons, where they scarce, or do not at all, esteem preaching to be a part of divine worship ; witness the nineteenth Canon, where, in the time of divine service or preaching, say they, — where, observe, they make the word divine a main difference, to distinguish their liturgy from preaching. Yea, one of their proctors, in plain terms, affirmeth preaching to be no part of divine worship.* 4. And lastly, that we may all awake to be sensible of the fearful evil that is toward us, except we purge the Lord his house and worship of this superstition, and the patrons of it ; witness Isa. xxix. 14, — " Therefore, behold 1 will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people ; a marvellous work, and a wonder ; for the wisdom of the wise men shall perish, and the understanding of prudent men shall be hid." Where, be pleased to observe the matter of judgment, namely, the perishing of wisdom and understanding from the wise men ; that is, from the governors in Church and commonwealth, who should be light to others ; " and if the light that is in men be darkness, how great is that darkness," Matth. vi. 23. Observe, also, the manner ; it shall be a marvellous work. And, lastly, the degree of it, expressed in the ingemi- natiou, or doubling of the words, a marvellous work ; a wonder ; as if a man could not wonder enough. Certainly, we are far overcome in this judgment ; " we have all knowledge," as the Apostle speaketh ; but that wisdom and prudence, that applicative power, that should actuate and order this knowledge in the proper .sphere of his activity, is perished from our wise men. Wisdom In * liowsou ser. in l\a\. 118, p. 78. 232 zion's plea ' the heart of knowledge, from whose due teraperatare com- eth the beauty and strength of a State. Zeal of the Lord's honour is as the actual heat, coming from the heart, enlivening and actuating all the members of the body politic ; consuming the superfluous humours of benumbing or deadening sin ; dispelling the vapours of deluding errors, and abandoning all the unnatural heat of superstition and idolatry. But the want of this working wisdom hath brought ns to a lethargy or epilepsy. All men wonder and stand amazed at your supine negli- gence in hastening to quench the fire that hath almost con- sumed us. They cry out, where are ye ? what are ye doing ? what is become of that spirit of valour and true love to the Ijord's honour, and your country's deliverance ? They that are acquainted wth the council of God, conceive this to be the cause, that the spirit of wisdom is almost perished. It is with us, in some measure, as it was with Ephraim, — " Ephraim is oppressed, and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the commandment," Hosea, v. 1 1. So, because we have willingly obeyed the Prelates' com- mandment, we are oppressed within and without, and judgment is as a snare to us ; yea, if these commandments be not countermanded, the Lord will look on, till they beat us to powder. If there be any spirit, therefore, of wisdom left in you, stir up the gift that is in yon ; and, if you mean to live, abandon both them and their commandments. And so | much for this Mean of calling of a Council. s THE FOURTH MEAN. 1 Now, we come to the Fourth Mean. The case may so stand, that a General Council cannot be had ; as Beza writ- eth to Caesar or Charles the Fifth. It were a happy thing by a council to reform what is amiss, and so to pacify God ; but as the same author, — " If through the iniquity of time, and height of disorder, it be not possible to have a council, yet reformation must not cease for in all the reformations of the Reformed Churches, we do not read that they had any national council, till they had ca.shiered the hierarchy. AGAINST PKBLACV. the very bane of councils, as we could show by divers in- stances in our own island, and otherwhere ; but we cannot enlarge everything. The Mean then of removal is " to gather yourselves to- gether in serious humiliation and reformation before the Lord," Zejjhaniah ii. 2, in knitting your hearts together in the band of love, every one lending his helping hand (a<;- cording to his place) to the breaking down of 13abel. We mean not to insist in the discovery of this powerful prevailing duty of humiliation, because the theory hatli been excellently taught and writ of by our learned divines ; and some of God's people have plied the practice of it ; we will therefore only give a touch of the general, with some brief direction for our particular. As holy and valiant Ezra, with his people, being in danger of the enemy, used this as a special remedy, namely, " to humble themselves before God, to seek a right way for themselves, their children, and substance," (Ezra, viii. 21, &c. ;) so it standeth us upon it, to do for us and oui>, And what we have, for all is like to be lost; but, if in seek- ing of the Lord, we would have P^zra's success, of whom " the Lord was entreated," (verse 23,) we must, with Joshua, remove that thing of the curse, namely, the Prelacy, from having any power over it ; for woful esperi-i ence hath taught us, that the Prelates' finger is like ths harpy's claw, it spoilcth everything it conieth in. An able pastor, some two years gone in ^Vugust, in a general fast in London, pleading for reformation, under Joshua's removal of the " excommunicate thing," (Joshua, vii. 12,) told us in plain terms, that the main thing wa« that damnable hierarchy, who made no matter of the sink- ing of the Church and State, so they might swim in their honours and pleasures. As Jehosaphiit was sharply rebuked, and much crossed, for "helping of the wicked," (2 C'linm. xix. 2,) so in hav- ing them to be helpers or ringleaders in this duty, is to bring a curse, and not a blessing ujwn it. How can they do good in humiliation, that arc enemies both to it and reformation ? witness their persecuting of God's people for gathering themselves together ; or, as another prophet hath 234 z ion's plea it, for " speaking one to another," (Malachi, iii. 26,) that is, joining their strength together, to prevail with the Lord, which is a practice warranted from the Word, the practice of the saints, and the custom of the Churches, as is fully proved in a particular treatise. In the reformation of the State of Scotland, the nobles, and others of the Congregation, were put to great straits, by the overtopping power of Queen-mother and her French forces ; but having with them a mighty man of God, who could stand up in the gap, and tell the nobles and others of their particulars in the controversy with God, every man humbled and reformed himself, so that the Lord was en- treated, and at length they were rid of the Prelacy, and all their excommunicate things ; yea, great fear fell upon the Queen, and Prelates, and all their Popish forces, by the frequent and fervent humiliations of God's people, in so much, that the Queen confessed that she feared more the prayer and fasting of Mr. Knox and his assistants, than an army of twenty thousand men. We have heard, that some seven years ago, two faithful ministers were committed to a strong castle upon a rock, where their fervency was such with God, that the captain's lady, being a Papist, sued for their enlargement ; for she said she was afraid they should shake the foundation of the castle by their prayers. Our God is the very same. Oh ! that we had but such hearts. We are persuaded, that if your Honours would but clear this service of the leprosy of the Prelates, and cause ministers and pe iple go roundly to work, charging the ministry, as they would answer it before the Lord, to deal plainly in this particular of the Prelacy^ and with self-re- formation to strike neither at great nor small so much as at that, the Prelates' hearts would fail them, their knees should smite one against another, and, as the sound of rams' horns shook the walls of Jericho, so this one piece of humiliation, being of a right bore, and well plied, would shake the Prelacy all in pieces ; yea, by this means some of them happily might give over their hold, and make their peace with God. But God's people, withal, must labour to be of one AGAINST PRELACY. 235 mind, and of one heart, and by entering covenant with God against those his enemies,, and all that is enmity to God, resolve to hold them at staves' end, till God give the victory. THE FIFTH MEAN. The fifth convenient Mean to take them off, will be the removal of their surfeiting and soul-starving means, which maketh them adventure upon their own bane, and maketh them the bane of the nation. One of the ancients discovereth well the cause of the break-neck-ha.ste to be bishops, — Propter dapes, vestiium, Comitatum, Ike. Ciipiunt esse Episcop'u et Ecclesiarum Prelati ; ut Ecdesiw Dei magis prwsint, quam prosint :* — for delicious fare, gorgeous apparel, and pompous train, they seek to be bishops and Prelates over Churches, thatthey may rather rule over the Church than benefit the Church. As the Devil said of Job calumniously, " Doth he fear God for nothing ?" so it may be truly said of the Prelates, do they serve the man of sin for nothing ? the flesh-pots of Egypt maketh them such devoted enemies to the govern- ment of the Spirit. We have shown from the pen of one of their own house, how their great revenues have undone King, States, and religion ; yea, we have for this the Astipulation of Rome's champion-cardinal, namely, Bellarmine, who, pleading for Constantine's supposed donation of the Lateran Palace, and other emoluments, confesseth, that the spiritual wealth decreased as the temporal wealth increased, lid. 2, c. 17, de Pontif. As by the munificence of Princes this poison was poured into the Church, so from the accumulative bounty of other Princes, the ambition and avarice of Prelates grew intolerable and insatiable, till at length superstition over- topped religion, and a lording tyranny suppressed the power of the ministry, and vassalled temporal authority. The cutting of the large trains of their bishopricks out of other men's cloth, maketh all the nations where they ♦ Ariiulph. p. 7. 23G zion's plea reign to go tattered aud torn, both in soul and state ; yea, and some they make to go stark naked. It is well observed by one, that if Henry the Eighth had taken the bishopricks all in pieces, after the suppression of the abbeys, and made every man's burden proportionable to his portage, it had been more honourable to the ministry, and more profitable to the .State ; but leaving them laden with too much temporal honour and revenue ; as men overgrown with -flesh and fat, they become unwieldy, dis- honourable, and unsupportable burdens to the State. Is it fit that one should have the provender of so many labouring oxen, for lying like a dog in the manger, hindering the pastor to feed, and the hunger-starved souls to eat ? Yea, they muzzle up the mouths of the oxen, and tie up the tongues of the faithful labourers, both from treading out the corn, and eating of the corn. Is it fit or possible that one man should rule over so many places so many miles distant from his person, ad though he were a metaphysical entity, or of such an infinite being, that lie had spirit enough for them all ? but what man is sufficient for one flock ? For a speedy redress, then, of those evils, we entreat your Honours to remove this fuel, and the fire shall cease ; take away the carrion, and the kites will be gone. We need not tell you agr.in, what need the State hath of these means, and how well they might be employed, only this, we are bold to commend unto you, thai as our nation,, to our shame, is grown the ape and monster of all strange fashions, so if you will bring the Prelates in such a cut, that their clothes may sit close to their bodies, it will be the only best fashion that ever came into the land ; yea, so that sin of strange fashions should fall with others. THE SIXTH MEAN. The Sixth and last ^lean of removal is, the continuance of a Parliament, till the tenets of the hierarchy be tried by God and the country, that is, by the laws of God and the land. The King's royal word, the confirmation of the laws, and AGAINST PRELACY. 237 giving of subsidies, imply a necessity of redress of griev- ances, wLicli cannot stand with the dissolving of a par- liament, till reformation be effected ; but if the common adversaries should enforce a dissolution, because all refor- mation, if they be well searched, intrencheth upon them, can it stand with the wisdom, valour, and fidelity of you, the great Masters of State, to quit the ship, upon the tem- pestuous hard-blowing of a Babylonish euroclydon ? No, sure ; for as Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers — " Except ye abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved," Acts, xxvii. 31 ; so, except ye keep the ship, till ye have beaten the Dunkirkers of state, neither King, you, nor we can be saved. Your Honours know, that every dissolution of a parlia- ment without real reformation, is against right reason and record. Is it not the right of the State to be disburdened of caterpillars, moths, and cankerworms ; and of such lions and bears as devour religion and state policy ? What rea- son is it, that the state assembled from all parts of the king- dom, should waste time and means, and when they pitch upon the point, they should be blown up with the Romish breath of the enemy ? so that, as Joab said to David, con- cerning Absalom — " Let them live, and if we all die, it matters not." Lastly, for record, there is an ancient one, the sight whereof your Honours may command, though we cannot, the tenor whereof is this, — that this court should continue sitting, so long as there were any matters belonging to this high court to be determined ; and for the more exact effecting of this, it was openly published by proclamation, some convenient time before their rising, that the subjects should appear, if they had any more matter of grievance determinable in that court. This was confirmed, as we are informed, by William the Conqueror, notwithstanding that he came to the crown by the sword. Then, stand your ground, and quit yourselves like men in this matter of reformation, wherein, as we have shown, you must begin, at the head, or ye cannot prosper. As we may say with David, there is but a little "between 238 zion's plea our life and death ;" so it shall become you, with the same prophet, " to make haste, and not to delay the keeping of God's commandment in this particular," Ps. cxix. 60. As the same prophet vowed, that he would not come " into the tabernacle of his house, nor go up to his bed that is, he would give himself no rest, or take no other thing to his thought, " till he had found out a place for the Lord ;" so should ye not take any privacy, so much to your thoughts at home or abroad in your bed, or in the fields, as the making way for the Lord's dwelling among us, which can- not be done but by the removal of his enemies. We have made bold to be the larger, because the matter is weighty, and we desired to prove as punctually as we could. ■ We might have been larger if the time and state would have permitted ; but we know your Honours are persuad- ed of these things, or as Paul said to Agrippa, " we know you believe." The pondering and maintenance whereof we humbly entreat at your hands. We do acknowledge that it is an inveterate evil, and by custom and continuance hath much prevailed, as tyrannous laws use to do. Yea, like the idol of St. Rumball, "' with their gins and pins they have made it so heavy, that men think it not poisable, with all the strength of the state ; but pull out their shifty pin of pomp and revenues, and then they are easily removed from their place. Si nullum tempus occurrit Rc.gi — if there be no prescription to the King, it standeth with lesser reason, that any prescription of time should prejudice the right of the King of Heaven. It is most true, ardmi prima eia est, &c. — the entrance will be somewhat hard, but the beginning is more than half. The way is very steep, but the glory of the action is of force enough to effect it. Remember that gracious and encouraging speech of God, concerning Zerubbabel's finishing of that great work. " Who art thou, 0 ! great mountain, before Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain ; and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting, and crying grace, grace * See the Emblems in the Perambul. of Kent, p. 232, Edit. 1596: AGAINST PRELACY. unto it," Zach. iv. 7. " If your hands begin it," as it fol- loweth tlicre, " your hands shall finish it ; and they shall know that the Lord of Hosts hath sent you," (verse 5.) But what need of all those arguments, let this one plead for all — aut hoc, a'ut nihil — either this or nothing. The neglect of this one thing, together with that main mean of true humiliation, niaketh us more and more ado ; for as it weakeneth us and strengtheneth the enemy, so it enarmeth the Lord in zeal daily, to give us more and more matter of humiliation ; witness his heavy hand in sinking that hopeful plant, the Prince of Bohemia, just at that time when this work was a-finishing. As all the enemies of Zion will rejoice at it, so it is more matter of mourning to us than we are aware of ; yea, it may be, we may mourn more for it many years hence. Alas ! why was he smitten but for our sins ? which blasteth in the very bud all the hopes of Zion's deliverance. The Lord smite the hearts of his Princely parents, our royal Sovereign, of you, the state representative, and the hearts of us all, to lay it to heart as we should ; for if we make not a right use of it, he hath a heavier rod for all and every one of us, he will never leave smiting till we smite tliat which smiteth at his honour ; if we love sin better than our first-born, he ^'ill not only .smite our first-born, that is our darling, whatsoever it be, but he will at length consume us. With heavy hearts and mournful eyes we speak it, the like ominous thing hath not befallen our King and State since the much like lamentable casting away of the two sons and one daughter of Henry the First, whose ship, by the carelessness of the skipper, was split upon a rock ; where, of one hundred and fifty persons, one only was saved, by laying hold on the mast, and was brought to land the next day after. This loss proved after the ground of great trouble to the State, of the demolishing of many fair houses and noble families, and of the effusion of rivers of blood. The Pope's or Prelates' penmen would make the King's harshness to the clergy a special cause of this, but our histories witness, that he suflered more of the hierarchy than was fitting for a King ; witness that monstrous proud 240 zion's plea affront offered him by tliat tottering Prelate, RudolpL of Canterbury, iu forbidding the King's marriage with the Duke of Lorraine's daughter, because another than be was to join tiieni. Yea, further, at Barlcley, at the Queen's coronation, he malapertly asked the King, who set the crown upon his head ? The King replied, " he remembered not well, neither was it material."- — ^The Prelate, in a great rage, told him, " that whosoever did it, he had done more than could be justified ; and, therefore," saith he to the King, " you shall either leave off the crown, or I shall leave off saying of mass." — The King, without change of countenance, said no more, but " if 1 have it not by right, do with it as you please." Whereupon he stepped toward the King, and began to untie the button, to take the crown off the King's head, but the nobility and others waxing wroth at the impudence of that saucy shaveling, caused him, by crying out on him, to leave off his attempt, with shame enough.* Is it not a wonder that Kings and Queens should either affect or endure such a viperous generation ? Some would make us believe, that the King, being struck with some panic terrors, repented his rough usage of that surly crew, but we are of that mind, thai. Kings, Queens, and others, have greater cause to repent that they either main- tain them, or have anything to do with them at all ; for so long as they are the unhappy husbandmen of the vine- yard, there is not a slip of any good like to grow in it ; but either they spoil it, or the Lord plucketh it up, that it may not be spoiled ; witness, besides other instances, the present doleful instance of our losing the rarest jewel of his age. As we all desire in the bond of duty, and the bowels of compassion, to condole in soul, with that mournful King and Queen, so let us all desire the Lord to put it into their and our hearts, to join reformation with humiliation, and that in particular they may hate this hierarchy, and their infectious liturgy, with a perfect hatred, for they shall never prosper by correspondence with them. As for the King's admirable deliverance, we may say * Antiquit. at Britannic, p. 124. AGAINST PHEI.ACY. 241 " though the one hand ol' the Lord was over him, yet tlie other was under him;" and we wish his song may ho of mercy and of judgment, and that lie may prochiini to ail the world, by amendment, that his greatest loss hath proved his greatest gain. To make an end of our present subject. We wish your Honours might prevail witii the Prelates by fair means, to cast off that overcliarging calling. If they would go by precedent, that i.s not wanting : Gregory Nazianzen re- jected this calling to stay contention ; here in England, mino 722, John of Beverley, schoolmaster to Bede, forsook his Prelacy, for the contention raised by the monks and others about the ceremonies, and betook himself to Bever- ley, where he preached the word constantly, till his death, and thus he became a Ijishop indeed. If they object that these men forsook their places occasionally upon the coi- ruptions of contentious people, and not for the unlawfulness of their calling ; we answer, first, that by reason of the Popish ceremonies, and their tyrannous government, there is now as much mischief and contention as was then : and who is in the fault, but they who do and press such things, which, if they would reliuipiish, these things should cease? But, to answer more directly, let them take Hierax for a precedent, without exception, who forsook the Prelacy, as Isidore witnesseth, merely for the unlawfulness of the calling.* Which calling was not then come to that height of unlawfulness, by many degrees, that now it is. If they will not thus be persuaded, from the practice of the living, we could ity relation bring them evidence from the dead. Monac/ufs I'/irf/is Eiiit:ri'il the burden, who, after his death, as they say, appcaroil to his friend, speaking to him thus : — Si I'plxnijiiii: fni.^xciii j/i '-)ix.^.'niA — if I ha lear they are like ]ileuritic patient.s, who cannot spit, whom nothing but incision will cure — we mean of their callings, not of their persons, to Epist. 2-2;!. + Casar. Histeib. lUustr. Miracl. lib. ii., cup. 29. x 242 ZION S PLEA AGAINST PKELACV \\ liim\ we have no quarrel, but wish them better than they either wish to us or to themselves. One of their desperate mountebanks, out of the pulpit, could find no cure for us, their supposed enemies, but pricking in the bladder, but we have not so learned Christ. To conclude, we desire to say no more to your Honours, but up and do it, for the Lord hath bidden you. Your privileges, both from divine and human laws, are both impregnable and irresistible ; then give us lea^ e to desire your Honours to do no more than heaven and earth, King, Church, and State, you and yours, require at your hands. So, remembering once more that higii commission and safe conduct of your God, with which, in all duty, we conclude : — " The Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not, I will help thee," Isaiah, xli. 13. Miignum iter ascendis, sed dat tibi gloria vires. Non est e terris mollis ad astra via. High must you soar, but glorv gives thee wings, No low attempt a star-like glory brings. THE ENIi. EDINBURGH : PRINTED BV THOMAS CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO HER .MAJESTi'. » I