unremembered, to the fhameful conviction of all their detractors.

Go on both hand in hand, O nations, never to be dif united; be the praife and the heroic fong of all pofterity; merit this, but feek only virtue, not to extend your limits; (for what needs to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of wretched men ?) but to fettle the pure worship of God in his church, and juftice in the state: then fhall the hardeft difficulties fmooth out themselves before ye; envy fhall fink to Hell, craft and malice be confounded, whether it be homebred mifchief or outlandifh cun-ning: yea, other nations will then covet to ferve ye, for lordship and victory are but the pages of justice and virtue. Commit fecurely to true wisdom the vanquishing and uncafing of craft and fubtlety, which are but her two runagates join your invincible might to do worthy and godlike deeds; and then he that feeks to break your union, a cleaving curfe be his inheritance to all generations.

Sir, you have now at length this queftion for the time, and as my memory would best serve ine in fuch a copious and vaft theme, fully handled, and you yourfelf may judge whether prelacy be the only church-government agreeable to monarchy. Seeing therefore the perilous and confused ftate into which we are fallen, and that to the certain knowledge of all men, through the irreligious pride and hateful tyranny of prelates, (as the innumerable and grievous complaints of every fhire cry out) if we will now refolve to fettle affairs either according to pure religion or found policy, we must first of all begin roundly to cashier and cut away from the public body the noifome and diseased tumour of prelacy, and come from fchifm to unity with our neighbour reformed fifter churches, which with the bleffing of peace and pure doctrine have now long time flourished; and doubtlefs with all hearty joy and gratulation will meet and welcome our Chriftian union with them, as they have been all this while grieved at our strangeness, and little better than feparation from them. And for the difcipline propounded, feeing that it hath been inevitably proved that the natural and fundamental caufes of political happiness in

all

all governments are the fame, and that this church-difcipline is taught in the word of God, and, as we fee, agrees according to with with all fuch ftates as have received it; we may infallibly affure ourselves that it will as well agree with monarchy, though all the tribe of Aphorifmers and Politicafters would perfuade us there be fecret and mysterious reasons against it. For upon the fettling hereof mark what nourishing and cordial reftorements to the ftate will follow, the minifters of the gofpel attending only to the work of falvation, every one within his limited charge; befides the diffufive bleffings of God upon all our actions, the king fhall fit without an old disturber, a daily incroacher and intruder; fhall rid his kingdom of a ftrong fequeftered and collateral power; a confronting mitre, whofe potent wealth and wakeful ambition he had juft caufe to hold in jealoufy: not to repeat the other prefent evils which only their removal will remove, and because things fimply pure are inconfiftent in the mass of nature, nor are the elements or humours in a man's body exactly homogeneal; and hence the best-founded commonwealths and leaft barbarous have aimed at a certain mixture and temperament, partaking the feveral virtues of each other state, that each part drawing to itself may keep up a steady and even uprightnefs in common.

There is no civil government that hath been known, no not the Spartan, not the Roman, though both for this refpect fo much praised by the wife Polybius, more divinely and harmoniously tuned, more equally balanced as it were by the hand and scale of juftice, than is the commonwealth of England; where, under a free and untutored monarch, the nobleft, worthieft, and moft prudent men, with full approbation and fuffrage of the people, have in their power the fupreme and final determination of highest affairs. Now if conformity of churchdifcipline to the civil be fo defired, there can be nothing more parallel, more uniform, than when under the fovereign prince, Chrift's vicegerent, ufing the fceptre of David, according to God's law, the godlieft, the wifeft, the learnedeft minifters in their feveral charges have the inftructing and difciplining of God's people, by whofe full and free election they are confecrated to that holy

and

and equal ariftocracy. And why should not the piety and confcience of Englishmen, as members of the church, be trufted in the election of paftors to functions that nothing concern a monarch, as well as their worldly wif doms are privileged as members of the state in fuffraging their knights and burgeffes to matters that concern him nearly? And if in weighing these feveral offices, their difference in time and quality be caft in, I know they will not turn the beam of equal judgment the moiety of a fcruple. We therefore having already a kind of apoftolical and ancient church election in our state, what a perverfenefs would it be in us of all others to retain forcibly a kind of imperious and fiately election in our church? And what a blindness to think that what is already evangelical, as it were by a happy chance in our polity, fhould be repugnant to that which is the fame by divine command in the miniftry? Thus then we see that our ecclefiaftical and political choices may consent and fort as well together without any rupture in the state, as Chriftians and freeholders. But as for honour, that ought indeed to be different and distinct, as either office looks a feveral way; the minifter whofe calling and end is fpiritual, ought to be honoured as a father and phyfician to the foul, (if he be found to be fo) with a fonlike and difciplelike reverence, which is indeed the dearest and moft affectionate honour, most to be defired by a wife man, and such as will eafily command a free and plentiful provifion of outward neceffaries, without his further care of this world.

The magiftrate, whofe charge is to fee to our perfons and eftates, is to be honoured with a more elaborate and perfonal courtship, with large falaries and ftipends, that he himself may abound in those things whereof his legal juftice and watchful care gives us the quiet enjoyment. And this diftinction of honour will bring forth a feemly and graceful uniformity over all the kingdom.

Then fhall the nobles poffefs all the dignities and offices of temporal honour to themselves, fole lords without the improper mixture of fcholaftic and pufillanimous upftarts; the parliament shall void her upper houfe of the fame annoyances; the common and civil laws fhall

be

be both fet free, the former from the control, the other from the mere vaffalage and copyhold of the clergy.

And whereas temporal laws rather punish men when they have tranfgreffed, than form them to be fuch as fhould tranfgrefs feldomeft, we may conceive great hopes, through the showers of divine benediction watering the unmolefted and watchful pains of the miniftry, that the whole inheritance of God will grow up fo ftraight and blameless, that the civil magiftrate may with far less teil and difficulty, and far more ease and delight, fteer the tall and goodly veffel of the commonwealth through all the gufts and tides of the world's mutability.

Here I might have ended, but that fome objection, which I have heard commonly flying about, prefs me to the endeavour of an answer. We must not run, they fay, into fudden extremes. This is a fallacious rule, unless understood only of the actions of virtue about things indifferent: for if it be found that thofe two extremes be vice and virtue, falfehood and truth, the greater extremity of virtue and fuperlative truth we run into, the more virtuous and the more wife we become; and he that, flying from degenerate and traditional corruption, fears to shoot himself too far into the meeting embraces of a divinely warranted reformation, had better not have run at all. And for the fuddennefs, it cannot be feared. Who fhould oppose it? The papifts? they dare not. The protestants otherwise affected? they were mad. There is nothing will be removed but what to them is profeffedly indifferent. The long affection which the people have borne to it, what for itself, what for the odiouinets of prelates, is evident: from the first year of queen Elizabeth it hath ftill been more and more propounded, defired, and befeeched, yea fometimes favourably forwarded by the parliaments themfelves. Yet if it were fudden and fwift, provided fill it be from worfe to better, certainly we ought to hie us from evil like a torrent, and rid ourfelves of corrupt difcipline, as we would fhake fire out of our bofoms.

Speedy and vehement were the reformations of all the good kings of Judah, though the people had been nuzzled in idolatry ever fo long before; they feared not the bugVOL. I.

E

bear

bear danger, nor the lion in the way that the sluggish and timorous politician thinks he fees; no more did our brethren of the reformed churches abroad, they ventured (God being their guide) out of rigid popery, into that which we in mockery call precife puritanism, and yet we fee no inconvenience befel them.

Let us not dally with God when he offers us a full bleffing, to take as much of it as we think will ferve our ends, and turn him back the reft upon his hands, left in his anger he fnatch all from us again. Next, they allege the antiquity of epifcopacy through all ages. What it was in the apoftles' time, that queftionless it must be ftill; and therein I truft the minifters will be able to fatisfy the parliament. But if epifcopacy be taken for prelacy, all the ages they can deduce it through, will make it no more venerable than papacy.

Moft certain it is (as all our ftories bear witness) that ever fince their coming to the fee of Canterbury for near twelve hundred years, to speak of them in general, they have been in England to our fouls a fad and doleful fucceffion of illiterate and blind guides; to our purfes and goods a wasteful band of robbers, a perpetual havock and rapine; to our state a continual hydra of mifchief and moleftation, the forge of difcord and rebellion: this is the trophy of their antiquity, and boafted fucceffion through fo many ages. And for those prelate-martyrs they glory of, they are to be judged what they were by the gofpel, and not the gospel to be tried by them.

And it is to be noted, that if they were for bishoprics and ceremonies, it was in their profperity and fulness of bread; but in their perfecution, which purified them, and near their death, which was their garland, they plainly difliked and condemned the ceremonies, and threw away thofe epifcopal ornaments wherein they were inftalled as foolish and deteftable; for fo the words of Ridley at his degradement, and his letter to Hooper, exprefsly fhow. Neither doth the author of our churchhiftory fpare to record fadly the fall (for fo he terms it) and infirmities of thefe martyrs, though we would deify them. And why fhould their martyrdom more countenance corrupt doctrine or difcipline, than their fubfcrip