nor fupported by any fpiritual gift or grace of their own, knew it their beft courfe to have dependence only upon him and wrought his fancy by degrees to that degenerate and unkingly perfuafion of "No bishop, no king." When as on the contrary all prelates in their own fubtle fenfe are of another mind; according to that of Pius the fourth remembered in the hiftory of Trent*, that bishops then grow to be moft vigorous and potent, when princes happen to be most weak and impotent. Thus when both intereft of tyranny and epifcopacy were incorporate into each other, the king, whofe principal safety and establishment confifted in the righteous execution of his civil power, and not in bifhops and their wicked counfels, fatally driven on, fet himself to the extirpating of those men whofe doctrine and defire of church-difcipline he fo feared would be the undoing of his monarchy, And because no temporal law could touch the innocence of their lives, he begins with the perfecution of their confciences, laying fcandals before them; and makes that the argument to inflict his unjuft penalties both on their bodies and eftates. In this war against the church, if he hath fped fo, as other haughty monarchs whom God heretofore hath hardened to the like enterprife, we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the author of our deliverance, to whom victory and power, majefty, honour and dominion belongs for ever.

In the meanwhile, from his own words we may perceive eafily, that the fpecial motives which he had to endear and deprave his judgment to the favouring and utmoft defending of epifcopacy, are fuch as here we reprefent them and how unwillingly, and with what mental refervation he condefcended against his intereft to remove it out of the peers' house, hath been shown already. The reafons, which he affirms wrought fo much upon his judgment, fhall be fo far answered as they be urged.

Scripture he reports, but diftinctly produces none; and next the "conftant practice of all chriftian churches, till of late years tumult, faction, pride, and covetousness, invented new models under the title of Chrift's government." Could any papist have spoken more fcandalously * The fecond edition has in the Trentine ftory.

againft

against all reformation? Well may the parliament and beft-affected people not now be troubled at his calumnies and reproaches, fince he binds them in the fame bundle with all other the reformed churches; who also may now further fee, befides their own bitter experience, what a cordial and well-meaning helper they had of him abroad, and how true to the proteftant caufe.

As for hiftories to prove bifhops, the Bible, if we mean not to run into errours, vanities, and uncertainties, must be our only hiftory. Which informs us that the apoftles were not properly bishops; next, that bithops were not fucceffors of apoftles, in the function of apoftleship and that if they were apoftles, they could not be precisely bishops; if bishops, they could not be apostles; this being univerfal, extraordinary, and immediate from God; that being an ordinary, fixed, and particular charge, the continual inspection over a certain flock. ̈ And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient churches afterward, may with as much reafon and charity be fuppofed as fudden in point of prelaty, as in other manifeft corruptions, yet that "no example fince the firft age for 1500 years can be produced of any fettled church, wherein were many minifters and congregations, which had not fome bishops above them;" the ecclefiaftical story, to which he appeals for want of fcripture, proves clearly to be a falfe and overconfident affertion. Sozomenus, who wrote above twelve hundred years ago, in his feventh book, relates from his own knowledge, that in the churches of Cyprus and Arabia (places near to Jerufalem, and with the first frequented by apostles) they had bishops in every village; and what could those be more than prefbyters? The like he tells of other nations; and that epifcopal churches in thofe days did not condemn them. I add, that many weftern churches, eminent for their faith and good works, and fettled above four hundred years ago in France, in Piemont and Bohemia, have both taught and practifed the fame doctrine, and not admitted of epifcopacy among them. And if we may believe what the papifts themfelves have written of these churches, which they call Waldenfes, I

*

find it in a book written almoft four hundred years fince, and fet forth in the Bohemian hiftory, that thofe churches in Piemont have held the fame doctrine and government, fince the time that Conftantine with his mifchievous donations poisoned Sylvefter and the whole church. Others affirm they have fo continued there fince the apofiles; and Theodorus Belvederenfis in his relation of them confeffeth, that thofe herefies, as he names them, were from the firft times of chriftianity in that place. For the reft I refer me to that famous teftimony of Jerome, who upon that very place which he cites here, the epiftle to Titus, declares openly that bifhop and prefbyter were one and the fame thing, till by the inftigation of Satan, partialities grew up in the church, and that bithops rather by custom than any ordainment of Chrift, were exalted above prefbyters. whofe interpretation we truft fhall be received before this intricate ftuff tattled here of Timothy and Titus, and I know not whom their fucceffors, far beyond courtelement, and as far beneath true edification. These are his "fair grounds both from fcripture-canons and ecclefiaftical examples ;" how undivine-like written, and how like a worldly gospeller that understands nothing of thefe matters, pofterity no doubt will be able to judge; and will but little regard what he calls apoftolical, who in his letter to the pope calls apoftolical the Roman religion.

Nor let him think to plead, that therefore, "it was not policy of state," or obftinacy in him which upheld epifcopacy, because the injuries and loffes which he fuftained by fo doing were to him "more confiderable than epifcopacy itfelf?" for all this might Pharaoh have had to fay in his excufe of detaining the Ifraelites, that his own and his kingdom's fafety, fo much endangered

*We have a very curious hiftory of these churches, written by Samuel Morland, efq. who went commiffioner extraordinary from O. Cromwell, for relief of the proteftants in the valleys of Piemont. It was published in folio, 1658.

+ The fecond edition has it thus, "who upon this very place which he only roves at here."

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by his denial, was to him more dear than all their building labours could be worth to Egypt. But whom God hardens, them alio he blinds.

He endeavours to make good epifcopacy not only in "religion, but from the nature of all civil government, where parity breeds confufion and faction." But of faction and confufion, to take no other than his own teftimony, where hath inore been ever bred than under the imparity of his own monarchical government? of which to make at this time louger difpute, and from civil conftitutions and human conceits to debate and question the convenience of divine ordinations, is neither wifdom nor fobriety and to confound Mofaic Priefthood with evangelic prefbytery againft exprefs inftitution, is as far from warrantable. As little to purpofe is it, that we should ftand polling the reformed churches, whether they equa lize in number "those of his three kingdoms;" of whom fo lately the far greater part, what they have long defired to do, have now quite thrown off epifcopacy.

Neither may we count it the language or religion of a proteftant, fo to vilify the best reformed churches (for none of them but Lutherans retain bishops) as to fear more the fcandalizing of papifts, becaufe more numerous, than of our proteftant brethren, because a handful. It will not be worth the while to fay what "Schifinatics or Heretics" have had no bishops: yet, left he should be taken for a great reader, he who prompted him, if he were a doctor, might have remembered the forementioned place in Sozomenus; which affirins, that befides the Cyprians and Arabians, who were counted orthodoxal, the Novations alfo, and Montanifts in Phrygia, had no other bishops than fuch as were in every village : and what prefbyter hath a narrower diocefe? As for the Aerians we know of no heretical opinion juftly fathered upon them, but that they held bifhops and prefbyters to be the fame. Which he in this place not obfcurely feems to hold a herety in all the reformed churches; with whom why the church of England defired conformity, he can find no reafon, with all his " charity, but the coming in of the Scots army;" fuch a high eftecin he had of the English!

He

He tempts the clergy to return back again to bishops, from the fear of "tenuity and contempt," and the affurance of better "thriving under the favour of princes;" against which temptations if the clergy cannot arm themfelves with their own fpiritual armour, they are indeed as poor a carcafs" as he terms them.

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Of fecular honours and great revenues added to the dignity of prelates, fince the fubject of that queftion is now removed, we need not spend time but this perhaps will never be unfeasonable to bear in mind out of Chryfoftom, that when minifters came to have lands, houfes, farms, coaches, horses, and the like lumber, then religion brought forth riches in the church, and the daughter devoured the mother.

But if his judgment in epifcopacy may be judged by the goodly choice he made of bifhops, we need not much amufe ourselves with the confideration of those evils, which, by his foretelling, will “neceffarily follow” their pulling down, until he prove that the apoftles, having no certain diocefe or appointed place of refidence, were properly "bifhops over thofe prefbyters whom they ordained, or churches they planted;" wherein ofttimes their labours were both joint and promifcuous: or that the apoftolic power muft "neceffarily defcend to bishops, the ufe and end" of either function being fo different. And how the church hath flourished under epifcopacy, let the multitude of their ancient and grofs errours teftify, and the words of fome learnedeft and most zealous bishops among them; Nazianzen in a devout paffion, wifhing prelaty had never been; Bazil terming them the flaves of flaves; Saint Martin, the enemies of faints, and confeffing that after he was made a bishop, he found much of that grace decay in him which he had before.

Concerning his "Coronation oath," what it was, and how far it bound him, already hath been spoken. This we may take for certain, that he was never fworn to his own particular confcience and reafon, but to our conditions as a free people, which required him to give us fuch laws as ourselves fhould* choofe. This the Scots

*The fecond edition has fhall choose..

could