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

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

the

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

curb fchifmatics, whenas they know ye cherish and fide with papists, and are now as it were one party with them, and it is faid they help to petition for ye. Can we be

lieve that your government ftrains in good earnest at the petty gnats of fchifm, whenas we fee it makes nothing to fwallow the camel heresy of Rome, but that indeed your throats are of the right pharifaical ftrain? where are those fchifmatics, with whom the prelates hold fuch hot skirmifh fhow us your acts, thofe glorious annals which your courts of loathed memory lately deceafed have left us? Thofe fchifmatics I doubt me will be found the most of them such as whofe only fchifm was to have fpoken the truth against your high abominations and creulties in the church; this is the fchifm ye hate moft, the removal of your criminous hierarchy. A politic government of yours, and of a pleafant conceit, fet up to remove thofe as a pretended fchifm, that would remove you as a palpable herefy in government. If the fchifm would pardon ye that, fhe might go jagged in as many cuts and flashes as fhe pleafed for you. As for the rending of the church, we have many reasons to think it is not that which ye labour to prevent, fo much as the rending of your pontifical fleeves: that fchifm would be the foreft fchifm to you; that would be Brownism and Anabaptifm indeed. If we go down, fay you, (as if Adrian's wall were broken) a flood of fects will rufh in. What fects? What are their opinions? Give us the inventory: it will appear both by your former profecutions and your prefent inftances, that they are only fuch to fpeak of, as are offended with your lawless government, your ceremonies, your liturgy, an extract of the mass-book tranflated. But that they should be contemners of public prayer, and churches ufed without fuperftition I truft God will manifeft it ere long to be as false a flander, as your former flanders against the Scots. Noise it till ye be hoarfe, that a rabble of fects will come in; it will be answered ye, no rabble, fir prieft, but an unanimous multitude of good proteftants will then join to the church, which now, because of you, ftand feparated: This will be the dreadful confequence of your removal. As for thofe terrible names of fectaries and fchifmatics,

which ye have got together, we know your manner of fight, when the quiver of your arguments, which is ever thin, and weakly ftored, after the first brunt is quite empty, your courfe is to betake ye to your other quiver of flander, wherein lies your best archery. And whom you could not move by fophiftical arguing, them you think to confute by fcandalous mifnaming; thereby inciting the blinder fort of people to mislike and deride found doctrine and good christianity, under two or three vile and hateful terms. But if we could eafily endure and diffolve your doughtieft reasons in argument, we shall more eafily bear the worst of your unreasonableness in calumny and falfe report: especially being foretold by Chrift, that if he our mafter were by your predeceffors called Samaritan and Beelzebub, we must not think it strange if his best disciples in the reformation, as at firft by thofe of your tribe they were called Lollards and Huffites, fo now by you be termed Puritans and Brownifts. But my hope is, that the people of England will not fuffer themfelves to be juggled thus out of their faith and religion by a mift of names caft before their eyes, but will fearch wifely by the scriptures, and look quite through this fraudulent afperfion of a difgraceful name into the things themselves: knowing that the primitive chriftians in their times were accounted fuch as are now called Familifts and Adamites, or worse. And many on the prelatic fide, like the church of Sardis, have a name to live, and yet are dead; to be proteftants, and are indeed papifts in most of their principles. Thus perfuaded, this your old fallacy we thall foon unmask, and quickly apprehend how you prevent schiẩm, and who are your fchifmatics. But what if ye prevent and hinder all good means of preventing fchifm? That way which the apoftles ufed, was to call a council: from which, by any thing that can be learned from the fifteenth of the Acts, no faithful chriftian was debarred, to whom knowledge and piety might give entrance. Of fuch a council as this every parochial confiftory is a right homogeneous and conftituting part, being in itfelf, as it were, a little fynod, and towards a general affembly moving upon her own bafis in an even and firm progreffion, as thofe fmaller fquares in battle unite in one great cube, the main phalanx, an emblem of truth and steadfastness. Whereas,