fo did he likewife' our words to be put into us without our premeditation*; not only thofe cautious words to be used before gentiles and tyrants, but much more thofe filial words, of which we have fo frequent ufe in our accefs with freedom of fpeech to the throne of grace. Which to lay afide for other outward dictates of men, were to injure him and his perfect gift, who is the fpirit, and the giver of our ability to pray; as if his miniftration were incomplete, and that to whom he gave affections, he did not alfo afford utterance to make his gift of prayer a perfect gift; to them etpecially, whofe office in the church is to pray publicly..

And although the gift were only natural, yet voluntary prayers are lefs fubject to formal and fuperficial tempers than fet forms: for in thofe, at least for words and matter, he who prays muft confult firft with his heart, which in likelihood may ftir up his affections; in these, having both words and matter ready made to his lips, which is enough to make up the outward act of prayer, his affections grow lazy, and come not up eafily at the call of words not their own; the prayer alfo having lefs intercourse and fympathy with a heart wherein it was not conceived, faves itfelf the labour of fo long a journey downward, and flying up in hafte on the fpecious wings of formality, if it fall not back again headlong, inftead of a prayer which was expected, prefents God with a fet of ftale and empty words.

No doubt but "oftentation and formality" may taint the best duties; we are not therefore to leave duties for no duties, and to turn prayer into a kind of lurry. Cannot unpremeditated babblings be rebuked, and reftrained in whom we find they are, but the fpirit of God muft be forbidden in all men? But it is the custom of bad men and hypocrites, to take advantage at the leaft abuse of good things, that under that covert they may remove the goodnets of thofe things, rather than the abuse. And how unknowingly, how weakly is the ufing of fet

The promise of the Spirit's affiftance, here alluded to, was extraordinary, and belonged only to the firft age; fo that the author's argument is in this part inconclusive,

forms

forms attributed here to "conftancy," as if it were con ftancy in the cuckoo to be always in the fame liturgy.

in

Much lefs can it be lawful than an Englished mats-book, compofed, for aught we know, by men neither learned, nor godly, fhould juftle out, or at any time deprive us the exercife of that heavenly gift, which God by fpecial promife pours out daily upon his church, that is to fav, the fpirit of prayer. Whereof to help thofe many firmities, which he reckons up, "rudenels, impertinency, flatnefs," and the like, we have a remedy of God's finding out, which is not liturgy, but his own free spirit. Though we know not what to pray as we ought, yet he with fighs unutterable by any words, much lefs by a ftinted liturgy, dwelling in us makes interceffion for us, according to the mind and will of God, both in private and in the performance of all ecclefiaftical duties. For it is his promife alfo, that where two or three gathered together in his name fhall agree to ask him any thing, it hall be granted; for he is there in the midt of them. If then ancient churches, to remedy the infirmities of prayer, or rather the infections of Arian and Pelagian herefies, neglecting that ordained and promifed help of the fpirit, betook them almoft four hundred years after Chrift to liturgy, (their own invention,) we are not to imitate them; nor to diftruft God in the removal of that truant help to our devotion, which by him never was appointed. And what is faid of liturgy, is faid alfo of directory, if it be impofed: although to forbid the fervice-book there be much more reaton, as being of ittelf fuperftitious, offenfive, and indeed, though Englifhed, yet fill the mafs-book; and public places ought to be provided of fuch as need not the help of liturgies or directories continually, but are fupported with minifterial gifts anfwerable to their calling.

Laftly, that the common-prayer book was rejected because it "prayed fo oft for him," he had no reason to object for what large and laborious prayes were made for him in the pulpits, if he never heard, it is doubtful they were never heard in Heaven. We might now have expected, that his own following prayer thould

D 4

add

add much credit to fet forms; but on the contrary we find the fame imperfections in it, as in moft before, which he lays here upon extemporal. Nor doth he afk of God to be directed whether liturgies be lawful, but prefumes, and in a manner would perfuade him, that they be fo; praying, "that the church and he may never want them. What could be prayed worse extempore? unlefs he mean by wanting, that they may never need them.

XVII. Of the differences in point of Church-Government.

THE government of church by bishops hath been fo fully proved from the fcriptures to be vicious and ufurped, that whether out of piety or policy maintained, it is not much material; for piety grounded upon errour can no more justify king Charles, than it did queen Mary, in the fight of God or man. This however muft not be let pafs without a ferious obfervation; God having fo difpofed the author in this chapter as to confefs and discover more of mystery and combination between tyranny and falfe religion, than from any other hand would have been credible. Here we may fee the very dark roots of them both turned up, and how they twine and interweave one another in the earth, though above ground fhooting up in two feveral branches. We may have learnt both from facred hiftory, and times of reformation, that the kings of this world have both ever hated and inftinctively feared the church of God. Whether it be for that their doctrine feems much to favour two things to them fo dreadful, liberty and equality; or because they are the children of that kingdom, which, as ancient prophecies have foretold, fhall in the end break to pieces and diffolve all their great power and dominion. And thofe kings and potentates who have ftrove most to rid themselves of this fear, by cutting off or fuppreffing the true church, have drawn upon themselves the occafion of their own ruin, while they thought with moft policy to prevent it. Thus Pharaoh, when once he began to fear and wax jealous of the Ifraelites, left

they

they fhould multiply and fight against him, and that his
fear ftirred him up to afflict and keep them under, as the
only remedy of what he feared, foon found that the evil
which before flept, came fuddenly upon him, by the pre-
pofterous way he took to prevent it. Paffing by
examples between, and not shutting wilfully our eyes, we
may fee the like story brought to pafs in our own land.
This king, more than any before him, except perhaps
his father, from his firft entrance to the crown, harbour-
ing in his mind a strange fear and fufpicion of men moft
religious, and their doctrine, which in his own language
he here acknowledges, terming it "the feditious exor-
bitancy" of minifters tongues, and doubting "left they," as
he not chriftianly expreffes it, "fhould with the keys of
Heaven let out peace and loyalty from the people's
hearts;" though they never preached or attempted aught
that might juftly raife in him fuch thoughts f, he could
not reft, or think himself fecure, fo long as they remained
in any of his three kingdoms unrooted out.
But out-
wardly profeffing the fame religion with them, he could
not presently use violence as Pharaoh did, and that courfe
had with others before but ill fucceeded. He choofes
therefore a more myftical way, a newer method of anti-
christian fraud, to the church more dangerous; and like
to Balak the fon of Zippor, against a nation of prophets
thinks it beft to hire other esteemed prophets, and to
undermine and wear out the true church by a falfe eccle-
fiaftical policy. To this drift he found the government
of bithops moft ferviceable; an order in the church, as
by men firft corrupted, fo mutually corrupting them who
receive it, both in judgment and manners. He, by con-
ferring bifhoprics and great livings on whom he thought
moft pliant to his will, against the known canons and
univerfal practice of the ancient church, whereby thofe
elections were the people's right, fought, as he confeffes,
to have "greatest influence upon Churchmen." They
on the other fide finding themfelves in a high dignity,,
neither founded by fcripture, nor allowed by reformation,

* The fecond edition has to shun it.
†The fecond edition has apprehenfions.

nor

nor fupported by any spiritual gift or grace of their own, knew it their best courfe to have dependence only upon him and wrought his fancy by degrees to that degenerate and unkingly perfuafion of "No bifhop, 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 moft weak and impotent, Thus when both intereft of tyranny and epifcopacy were incorporate into each other, the king, whofe principal fafety and establishment confifted in the righteous execution of his civil power, and not in bishops and their wicked counfels, fatally driven on, fet himself to the extirpating of thofe 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' houfe, hath been fhown already. The reatons, 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 tunult, faction, pride, and covetoufness, invented new models under the title of Chrift's government." Could any papift have fpoken more fcandalously * The fecond edition has in the Trentine ftory. againft