And although Chrift and his apoftles, being to civil affairs but private men, contended not with magiftrates; yet when magistrates themselves, and efpecially parliaments, who have greateft right to difpofe of the civil fword, come to know religion, they ought in confcience to defend all those who receive it willingly, against the violence of any king or tyrant whatsoever. Neither is it therefore true, "that Chriftianity is planted or watered with Christian blood;" for there is a large difference between forcing men by the fword to turn prefbyterians, and defending those who willingly are fo, from a furious inroad of bloody bithops, armed with the militia of a king their pupil. And if "covetoufnefs and ambition be an argument that prefbytery hath not much of Chrift," it argues more ftrongly againft epifcopacy; which, from the time of her firft mounting to an order above the prefbyters, had no other parents than covetoufness and ambition. And thofe fects, fchifms, and herefies, which he fpeaks of, "if they get but strength and numbers," need no other pattern than epifcopacy and himself, to "fet up their ways by the like method of violence." Nor is there any thing that hath more marks of schism and fectarism than Englith epifcopacy; whether we look at apoftolic times, or at reformed churches; for "the univerfal way of church-government before," may as foon lead us into grofs errour, as their univerfally corrupted doctrine. And government, by reafon of ambition, was likelieft to be corrupted much the fooner of the two. However, nothing can be to us catholic or univerfal in religion, but what the Scripture teaches; whatsoever without Scripture pleads to be univerfal in the church, in being univerfal is but the more fchifmatical. Much lefs can particular laws and conftitutions impart to the church of England any power of confiftory or tribunal above other churches, to be the fole judge of what is fect or fchifm, as with much rigour, and without Scripture they took upon them. Yet thefe the king refolves here to defend and maintain to his laft, pretending, after all thofe conferences offered, or had with him, "not to fee more rational and religious motives than foldiers carry in their knapsacks ;" with one thus refolved, it was but folly to ftand difputing. He imagines his "own judicious zeal to be most concerned in his tuition of the church." So thought Saul when he prefumed to offer facrifice, for which he loft his kingdom; fo thought Uzziah when he went into the temple, but was thruft out with a leprofy for his opinioned zeal, which he thought judicious. It is not the part of a king, because he ought to defend the church, therefore to fet himself fupreme head over the church, or to meddle with ecclefial government, or to defend the church otherwife than the church would be defended; for fuch defence is bondage: nor to defend abuses, and stop all reformation under the name of "new moulds fancied and fashioned to private defigns." The holy things of church are in the power of other keys than were delivered to his keeping. Chriftian liberty, purchased with the death of our Redeemer, and established by the fending of his free spirit to inhabit in us, is not now to depend upon the doubtful confent of any earthly monarch; nor to be again fettered with a prefumptuous negative voice, tyrannical to the parliament, but much more tyrannical to the church of God; which was compelled to implore the aid of parliament, to remove his force and heavy hands from off our confciences, who therefore complains now of that moft'juft defenfive force, because only it removed his violence and perfecution. If this be a violation to his confcience, that it was hindered by the parliament from violating the more tender confciences of fo many thousand good Chriftians, let the ufurping confcience of all tyrants be ever so violated! He wonders, fox wonder! how we could so much "diftruft God's affiftance," as to call in the proteftant aid of our brethren in Scotland: why then did he, if his truft were in God and the juftice of his cause, not fcruple to folicit and invite earnestly the affiftance both of papists and of Irish rebels? If the Scots were by us at length fent home, they were not called to ftay here always; neither was it for the people's eate to feed fo many legions longer than their help was needful, "The government of their kirk we despised" not, but their impofing of that government upon us; not prefbytery, but archprefbytery, claffical, provincial, and diocefan prefbytery, claiming to itself a lordly power and fuperintendency both over flocks and pastors, over perfons and congregations no way their own. But thefe debates, in his judgment, would have been ended better "by the beft divines in Chriftendom in a full and free fynod." A most improbable way, and fuch as never yet was used, at leaft with good fuccefs, by any proteftant kingdom or ftate fince the reformation: every true church having wherewithal from Heaven, and the affifting fpirit of Chrift implored, to be complete and perfect within itself. And the whole nation is not eafily to be thought fo raw, and fo perpetually a novice, after all this light, as to need the help and direction of other nations, more than what they write in public of their opinion, in a matter fo familiar as church-government. In fine, he accufes Piety with the want of Loyalty, and Religion with the breach of Allegiance, as if God and he were one mafter, whofe commands were fo often contrary to the commands of God. He would perfuade the Scots, that their "chief intereft confifts in their fidelity to the crown." But true policy will teach them, to find a safer intereft in the common friendship of England, than in the ruins of one ejected family. XIV. Upon the Covenant. UPON this theme his difcourfe is long, his matter little but repetition, and therefore foon anfwered. First, after an abusive and ftrange apprehenfion of covenants, as if men "pawned their fouls" to them with whom they covenant, he digreffes to plead for bishops; first from the antiquity of their "poffeffion here, fince the firft plantation of christianity in this ifland;" next from "a univerfal prescription fince the Apoftles, till this laft century." But what avails the most primitive antiquity againft the plain fenfe of Scripture? which, if the laft century have beft followed, followed, it ought in our esteem to be the firft. And yet it hath been often proved by learned men, from the writings and epiftles of moft ancient chriftians, that epifcopacy crept not up into an order above the prefbyters, till many years after that the apostles were deceased. 99 He next "is unfatisfied with the covenant," not only for "fome paffages in it referring to himfelf," as he fuppofes, "with very dubious and dangerous limitations,' but for binding men "by oath and covenant" to the reformation of church-difcipline. First, thofe limitations were not more dangerous to him, than he to our liberty and religion; next, that which was there vowed, to caft out of the church an antichriftian hierarchy which God had not planted, but ambition and corruption had brought in, and foftered to the church's great damage and oppreffion, was no point of controversy to be argued without end, but a thing of clear moral neceffity to be forthwith done. Neither was the "covenant fuperfluous, though former engagements, both religious and legal, bound us before:" but was the practice of all churches heretofore intending reformation. All Ifrael, though bound enough before by the law of Mofes "to all neceffary duties;" yet with Afa their king entered into a new covenant at the beginning of a reformation and the Jews, after captivity, without confent demanded of that king who was their master, took folemn oath to walk in the commandments of God. All proteftant churches have done the like, notwithstanding former engagements to their feveral duties. And although his aim were to fow variance between the protestation and the covenant, to reconcile them is not difficult. The proteftation was but one step, extending only to the doctrine of the ehurch of England, as it was dif tinct from church difcipline; the covenant went further, as it pleased God to difpenfe his light and our encouragement by degrees, and comprehended church-government: Former with latter fteps, in the progrefs of welldoing, need not reconcilement. Nevertheless he breaks through to his conclufion," that all honeft and wife men ever thought themfelves fufficiently bound by former ties of religion;" leaving Afa, Ezra, and the whole church church of God, in fundry ages, to fhift for honesty and wifdom from fome other than his teftimony. And although after-contracts abfolve not till the former be made void, yet he first having done that, our duty returns back, which to him was neither moral nor eternal, but conditional. Willing to perfuade himself that many "good men" took the covenant, either unwarily or out of fear, he seems to have beftowed fome thoughts how thefe "good men," following his advice, may keep the covenant and not keep it. The firft evafion is, prefuming" that the chief end of covenanting in fuch men's intentions was to preferve religion in purity, and the kingdom's peace." But the covenant will more truly inform them, that purity of religion and the kingdom's peace was not then in ftate to be preserved, but to be reftored; and therefore binds then not to a prefervation of what was, but to a reformation of what was evil, what was traditional, and dangerous, whether novelty or antiquity, in church or ftate. To do this, clashes with "no former oath" lawfully fworn either to God or the king, and rightly understood. In general, he brands all "fuch confederations by league and covenant, as the common road ufed in all factious perturbations of state and church." This kind of language reflects, with the fame ignominy, upon all the proteftant reformations that have been fince Luther; and fo indeed doth his whole book, replenished throughout with hardly other words or arguments than papifts, and especially popifh kings, have ufed heretofore againft their proteftant fubjects; whom he would perfuade to every man his own pope, and to absolve himself of thofe ties," by the fuggeftion of falfe or equivocal interpretations too oft repeated to be now answered. be" The parliament, he faith, "made their covenant like manna, agreeable to every man's palate." This is another of his gloffes upon the covenant; he is content to let it be manna, but his drift is that men fhould loath it or at least expound it by their own "relish," and "latitude of fenfe;" wherein, left any one of the fimpler fort fhould fail to be his craftsmafter, he furnishes him with two |