tions, to the regard of any precife correfpondency? Seeing that the churchman's office is only to teach men the Chriftian faith, to exhort all, to encourage the good, to admonish the bad, privately the lefs offender, publicly the fcandalous and ftubborn; to cenfure and separate, from the communion of Chrift's flock, the contagious and incorrigible, to receive with joy and fatherly compaffion the penitent: all this muft be done, and more than this is beyond any church-authority. What is all this either here or there, to the temporal regiment of weal public, whether it be popular, princely, or monarchical? Where doth it entrench upon the temporal governor? where does it come in his walk? where doth it make inroad upon his jurifdiction? Indecd if the minifter's part be rightly difcharged, it renders him the people more conscionable, quiet, and easy to be governed; if otherwife, his life and doctrine will declare him. If, therefore, the conftitution of the church be already set down by divine prescript, as all fides confefs, then can the not be a handmaid to wait on civil commodities and refpects; and if the nature and limits of church-difcipline be fuch, as are either helpful to all political estates indifferently, or have no particular relation to any, then is there no neceffity, nor indeed poffibility, of linking the one with the other in a fpecial conformation.

Now for their fecond conclufion, "That no form of church-government is agreeable to monarchy, but that of bifhops," although it fall to pieces of itself by that which hath been faid; yet to give them play, front and rear, it shall be my task to prove that epifcopacy, with that authority which it challenges in England, is not only not agreeable, but tending to the deftruction of monarchy. While the primitive paftors of the church of God laboured faithfully in their miniftry, tending only their sheep, and not feeking, but avoiding all worldly matters as clogs, and indeed derogations and debasements to their high calling; little needed the princes and potentates of the earth, which way foever the gospel was fpread, to ftudy ways how to make a coherence between the church's polity and theirs: therefore, when Pilate heard once our Saviour Chrift profeffing that " his king

dom

dom was not of this world," he thought the man could not stand much in Cæfar's light, nor much endamage the Roman empire; for if the life of Chrift be hid to this world, much more is his fceptre unoperative, but in fpiritual things. And thus lived, for two or three ages, the fucceffors of the apoftles. But when, through Conftantine's lavish fuperftition, they forfook their first love, and fet themselves up two gods inftead, Mammon and their Belly; then taking advantage of the fpiritual power which they had on men's confciences, they began to caft a longing eye to get the body alfo, and bodily things. into their command: upon which their carnal defires, the fpirit daily quenching and dying in them, knew no way to keep themselves up from falling to nothing, but by bolstering and fupporting their inward rottennefs by a carnal and outward ftrength. For a while they rather privily fought opportunity, than haftily difclofed their project; but when Conftantine was dead, and three or four emperors more, their drift became notorious and offenfive to the whole world; for while Theodofius the younger reigned, thus writes Socrates the hiftorian, in his 7th book, chap. 11. "Now began an ill name to flick upon the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, who beyond their prieftly bounds now long ago had stepped into principality:" and this was fcarce eighty years fince their raifing from the meaneft worldly condition. Of courtesy now let any man tell me, if they draw to themselves a temporal ftrength and power out of Cæfar's dominion, is not Cæfar's empire thereby diminished? But this was. a ftolen bit, hitherto he was but a caterpillar fecretly gnawing at monarchy; the next time you fhall fee him a wolf, a lion, lifting his paw against his raifer, as Petrarch expreffed it, and finally an open enemy and fubverter of the Greek empire. Philippicus and Leo, with divers other emperors after them, not without the advice of their patriarchs, and at length of a whole eaftern council. of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, threw the. images out of churches as being decreed idolatrous.

Upon this goodly occafion, the bishop of Rome not. only feizes the city, and all the territory about, into his own hands, and makes himself lord thereof, which till

then

then was governed by a Greek magiftrate, but abfolves all Italy of their tribute and obedience due to the emperor, because he obeyed God's commandment in abolishing idolatry.

Mark, fir, here, how the pope came by St. Peter's patrimony, as he feigns it; not the donation of Confiantine, but idolatry and rebellion got it him. Ye need but read Sigonius, one of his own fect, to know the ftory at large. And now to fhroud himself against a ftorm from the Greek continent, and provide a champion to bear him out in these practices, he takes upon him by papal fentence to unthrone Chilpericus the rightful king of France, and gives the kingdom to Pepin, for no other cause, but that he feemed to him the more active man. If he were a friend herein to monarchy, I know not; but to the monarch I need not afk what he was.

Having thus made Pepin his faft friend, he calls him into Italy against Aiftulphus the Lombard, that warred upon him for his late ufurpation of Rome, as belonging to Ravenna which he had newly won. Pepin, not unobedient to the pope's call, paffing into Italy, frees him out of danger, and wins for him the whole exarchate of Ravenna; which though it had been almoft immediately before the hereditary poffeffion of that monarchy, which was his chief patron and benefactor, yet he takes and keeps it to himself as lawful prize, and given to St. Peter. What a dangerous fallacy is this, when a fpiritual man may snatch to himself any temporal dignity or dominion, under pretence of receiving it for the church's ufe? Thus he claims Naples, Sicily, England, and what not? To be short, under fhow of his zeal against the errours of the Greek church, he never ceafed baiting and goring the fucceffors of his beft lord Conftantine, what by his barking curfes and excommunications, what by his hin dering the western princes from aiding them against the Sarazens and Turks, unlefs when they humoured him; fo that it may be truly affirmed, he was the fubverfion and fall of that monarchy, which was the hoifting of him. This, befides Petrarch, whom I have cited, our Chaucer alfo hath obferved, and gives from hence a caution to England, to beware of her bishops in time, for VOL. I.

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that

that their ends and aims are no monarchy, than the pope's.

more friendly to

This he begins in the Ploughman fpeaking, Part ii.

Stanz. 28.

The emperor yafe the pope fometime
So high lordthip him about,
That at laft the filly kime,
The proud pope put him out;
So of this realm is no doubt,

But lords beware and them defend;
For now thefe folks be wonders stout,
The king and lords now this amend.

And in the next Stanza, which begins the third part of the tale, he argues that they ought not to be lords.

Mofes law forbode it tho

That priefts fhould no lordfhip welde,
Chrift's gospel biddeth also

That they thould no lordships held:
Ne Chrift's apofiles were never so bold
No fuch lordthips to hem embrace,

But fmeren her fheep and keep her fold.

Have

And fo forward. Whether the bishops of England have deserved thus to be feared by men fo wife as our Chaucer is efteemed; and how agreeable to our monarchy and monarchs their demeanour has been, he that is but meanly read in our chronicles needs not be inftructed. they not been as the Canaanites, and Philiftines, to this kingdom? what treafons, what revolts to the pope? what rebellions, and those the basest and most pretencelefs, have they not been chief in? What could monarchy think, when Becket durft challenge the custody of Rochefter-caftle, and the Tower of London, as appertaining to his fignory? To omit his other infolencies and affronts to regal majefty, until the lashes inflicted on the anointed body of the king, washed off the holy unction with his blood drawn by the polluted hands of bishops, abbots, and monks.

What good upholders of royalty were the bishops, when by their rebellious oppofition against king John, Normandy was loft, he himself depofed, and this king

dom

dom made over to the pope? When the bishop of Winchefter durft tell the nobles, the pillars of the realm, that there were no peers in England, as in France, but that, the king might do what he pleased. What could tyranny fay more? It would be pretty now, if I fhould infift upon the rendering up of Tournay by Woolfey's treason, the excommunications, curfings, and interdicts upon the whole land; for haply I fhall be cut off fhort by a reply, that these were the faults of men and their popish errours, not of epifcopacy, that hath now renounced the pope, and is a proteftant. Yes fure; as wife and famous men have fufpected and feared the proteftant epifcopacy in England, as thofe that have feared the papal.

You know, fir, what was the judgment of Padre Paolo, the great Venetian antagonist of the pope, for it is extant in the hands of many men, whereby he declares his fear, that when the hierarchy of England fhall light into the hands of bufy and audacious men, or fhall meet with princes tractable to the prelacy, then much mifchief is like to enfue. And can it be nearer hand, than when bishops fhall openly affirm that, no bishop no king? A trim paradox, and that ye may know where they have been a begging for it, I will fetch you the twin brother to it out of the Jesuits cell: they feeling the axe of God's reformation, hewing at the old and hollow trunk of pacy, and finding the Spaniard their fureft friend, and fafeft refuge, to footh him up in his dream of a fifth monarchy, and withal to uphold the decrepit papalty, have invented this fuperpolitic aphorifm, as one terms it, one pope and one king.

pa

Surely there is not any prince in chriftendom, who, hearing this rare fophiftry, can choose but fimile; and if we be not blind at home, we may as well perceive that this worthy motto, no bifhop no king, is of the same batch, and infanted out of the fame fears, a mere aguecake coagulated of a certain fever they have, presaging their time to be but fhort: and now like thofe that are finking, they catch round of that which is likelieft to hold them up; and would perfuade regal power, that if they dive, he muft after. But what greater debasement can there be to royal dignity, whofe towering and fted

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faft