7. Nor is mine own intent any other, in these several books of The matter discourse, than to make it appear unto you, that for the ecclesiastical contained in these eight laws of this land, we are led by great reason to observe them, and books. ye by no necessity bound to impugn them. It is no part of my secret meaning to draw you hereby into hatred, or to set upon the face of this cause any fairer gloss than the naked truth doth afford; but my whole endeavour is to resolve the conscience, and to shew, as near as I can, what in this controversy the heart is to think, if it will follow the light of sound and sincere judgment, without either cloud of prejudice or mist of passionate affection. Wherefore seeing that laws and ordinances in particular, whether such as we observe, or such as yourselves would have established; when the mind doth sift and examine them, it must needs have often recourse to a number of doubts and questions, about the nature, kinds, and qualities, of laws in general; whereof, unless it be thoroughly informed, there will appear no certainty to stay our persuasion upon : I have for that cause set down, in the first place, an introduction on both sides needful to be considered; declaring therein what law is, how different kinds of laws there are, and what force they are of, according unto each kind. This done, because ye suppose the laws for which ye strive are found in Scripture; but those not for which we strive; and upon this surmise, are drawn to hold it, as the very main pillar of your whole cause. That Scripture ought to be the only rule of all our actions; and consequently, that the church-orders which we observe, being not commanded in Scripture, are offensive and displeasant unto God; I have spent the second book in sifting of this point, which standeth with you for the first and chiefest principle whereon ye build. Whereunto the next in degree is, that as God will have always a church upon earth, while the world doth continue, and that church stand in need of government: of which government it behoveth himself to be both the author and teacher; so it cannot stand with duty, that man should ever presume in any wise to change and alter the same; and therefore, that in Scripture there must of necessity be found some particular form of ecclesiastical polity, the laws whereof admit not any kind of alteration. The first three books being thus ended, the fourth proceedeth from the general grounds and foundations of your cause, unto your general accusations against us, as having in the orders of our church (for so you pretend) corrupted the right form of church-polity with manifold popish rites and ceremonies, which certain reformed churches have banished from amongst them, and have thereby given us such example as (you think) we ought to follow. This your assertion hath herein drawn us to make search, whether these be just exceptions against the customs of our church, when ye plead, that they are the same which

How just cause there is to fear

events,

this intended

the church of Rome hath, or that they are not the same which some other reformed churches have devised. Of those four books which remain, and are bestowed about the specialities of that cause which lieth in controversy, the first examineth the causes by you alleged, wherefore the public duties of Christian religion, as our prayers, our sacraments, and the rest, should not be ordered in such sort as with us they are; nor that power whereby the persons of men are consecrated unto the ministry, be disposed of in such manner as the laws of this church do allow. The second and third are concerning the power of jurisdiction; the one, whether laymen, such as your governing elders are, ought in all congregations for ever to be invested with that power? The other, whether bishops may have that power over other pastors, and therewithal that honour which with us they have? And because, besides the power of order, which all consecrated persons have, and the power of jurisdiction, which neither they all, nor they only have, there is a third power, a power of ecclesiastical dominion, communicable, as we think, unto persons not ecclesiastical, and most fit to be restrained unto the prince our sovereign commander over the whole body politic; the eighth book we have allotted unto this question, and have sifted therein your objections against those pre-eminences royal which thereunto appertain. Thus have I laid before you the brief of these my travels, and presented under your view the limbs of that cause litigious between us, the whole entire body whereof being thus compact, it shall be no troublesome thing for any man to find each particular controversy's resting-place, and the coherence it hath with those things, either on which it dependeth, or which depend on it.

8. The case so standing therefore, my brethren, as it doth, the wisdom of governors ye must not blame, in that they, farther also manifold forecasting the manifold strange and dangerous innovations, which dangerous are more than likely to follow, if your discipline should take place, likely to have for that cause thought it hitherto a part of their duty to withensue upon stand your endeavours that way; the rather, for that they have reformation, seen already some small beginnings of the fruits thereof in them, if it did who concurring with you in judgment about the necessity of that take place. discipline, have adventured without more ado to separate themselves from the rest of the church, and to put your speculations in execution. These men's hastiness the warier sort of you doth not commend; ye wish they had held themselves longer in, and not so dangerously flown abroad before the feathers of the cause had been grown ; their error with merciful terms ye reprove, naming them, in great commiseration of mind, your "poor brethren." They on the contrary side more bitterly accuse you as their false brethren; and against you they plead, saying, From your breasts it is that we

lv. 13.

have sucked those things, which when ye delivered unto us, ye termed that heavenly, sincere, and wholesome milk of God's word; 1 Pet. howsoever ye now abhor as poison, that which the virtue thereof ii. 2. hath wrought and brought forth in us. Ye sometime our companions, guides, and familiars, with whom we have had most sweet Psalm consultations, are now become our professed adversaries, because we think the statute-congregations in England, to be no true Christian churches; because we have severed ourselves from them; and because without their leave or licence, that are in civil authority, we have secretly framed our own churches according to the platform of the word of God; for of that point between you and us there is no controversy. Alas! what would ye have us to do? At such time as ye were content to accept us in the number of your own, your teaching we heard, we read your writings: and though we would, yet able we are not to forget with what zeal ye have ever professed, that in the English congregations (for so many of them as be ordered according unto their own laws) the very public service of God is fraught, as touching matter, with heaps of intolerable pollutions, and as concerning form, borrowed from the shop of antichrist; hateful both ways in the eyes of the Most Holy; the kind of their government, by bishops and archbishops, antichristian : that discipline which Christ hath essentially tied, that is to say, so Pref. united unto his church, that we cannot account it really to be his against church which hath not in it the same discipline, that very discipline no less there despised, than in the highest throne of antichrist. All such parts of the word of God, as do any way concern that discipline, no less unsoundly taught and interpreted by all authorized English pastors, than by antichrist's factors themselves: at baptism, crossing; at the supper of the Lord, kneeling; at both, a number of other the most notorious badges of antichristian recognizance usual. Being moved with these and the like your effectual discourses, whereunto we gave most attentive ear, till they entered even into our souls, and were as fire within our bosoms; we thought we might hereof be bold to conclude, that sith no such antichristian synagogue may be accounted a true church of Christ, ye by accusing all congregations, ordered according to the laws of England as antichristian, did mean to condemn those congregations, as not being any of them worthy the name of a true Christian church. Ye tell us now, it is not your meaning. But what meant your often threatenings of them, who professing themselves the inhabitants of Mount Sion, were too loath to depart wholly as they should out of Babylon? Whereat our hearts being fearfully troubled, we durst not, we durst not continue longer so near her confines, lest her plagues might suddenly overtake us, before we did cease to be partakers with her sins; for so we could not choose but acknowledge

Dr. Bancr.

with grief, that we were, when they doing evil, we by our presence in their assemblies seemed to like thereof; or at leastwise, not so earnestly to dislike, as became men heartily zealous of God's glory. For adventuring to erect the discipline of Christ, without the leave of the Christian magistrate, haply ye may condemn us as fools, in that we hazard thereby our estates and persons farther than you, which are that way more wise, think necessary: but of any offence or sin therein committed against God, with what conscience can you accuse us, when your own positions are, that the things we observe should every of them be dearer unto us than ten thousand lives; that they are the peremptory commandments of God; that no mortal man can dispense with them; and that the magistrate grievously sinneth, in not constraining thereunto? Will ye blame any man for doing that of his own accord, which all men should be compelled to do, that are not willing of themselves? When God commandeth, shall we answer, that we will obey, if so be Cæsar will grant us leave? Is discipline an ecclesiastical matter, or a civil? If an ecclesiastical, it must of necessity belong to the duty of the minister; and the minister (ye say) holdeth all his authority of doing whatsoever belongeth unto the spiritual charge of the house of God, even immediately from God himself, without dependency upon any magistrate. Whereupon it followeth, as we suppose, that the hearts of the people being willing to be under the sceptre of Christ, the minister of God, into whose hands the Lord himself hath put that sceptre, is without all excuse, if thereby he guide them not. Nor do we find, that hitherto greatly ye have disliked those churches abroad, where the people with direction of their godly ministers have, even against the will of the magistrate, brought in either the doctrine or discipline of Jesus Christ. For which cause we must now think the very same thing of you, which our Saviour did sometime utter concerning false-hearted scribes and pharisees, "they say, and do not." Thus the foolish Barrowist deriveth his xxiii. 3. schism by way of conclusion, as to him it seemeth, directly and plainly out of your principles. Him therefore we leave to be satisfied by you, from whom he hath sprung. And if such, by your own acknowledgment, be persons dangerous, although as yet the alterations which they have made are of small and tender growth; the changes likely to ensue, throughout all states and vocations within this land, in case your desire should take place, must be thought upon. First, concerning the supreme power of the highest, they are no small prerogatives, which now thereunto belonging, the form of your discipline will constrain it to resign; as in the last book of this treatise we have shewed at large. Again, it may justly be feared, whether our English nobility, when the matter came in trial, would contentedly suffer themselves to be always at the call, and

Matt.

to stand to the sentence of a number of mean persons, assisted with the presence of their poor teacher; a man (sometime it happeneth) though better able to speak, yet little or no whit apter to judge, than the rest from whom, be their dealings never so absurd (unless it be by way of complaint to a synod), no appeal may be made unto any one of higher power; inasmuch as the order of your discipline admitteth no standing inequality of courts, no spiritual judge to have any ordinary superior on earth, but as many supremacies as there are parishes and several congregations. Neither is it altogether without cause, that so many do fear the overthrow of all learning, as a threatened sequel of this your intended discipline. For if the world's preservation depend upon the multitude of the Sap. vi. wise; and of that sort, the number hereafter be not likely to wax 24. over great, when (that therewith the son of Sirach professeth him- Ecclus. self at the heart grieved) men of understanding are already so little xxvi. 28. set by; how should their minds whom the love of so precious a jewel filleth with secret jealousy, even in regard of the least things which may any way hinder the flourishing estate thereof, choose but misdoubt lest this discipline, which always you match with Divine doctrine as her natural and true sister, be found unto all kinds of knowledge a step-mother; seeing that the greatest worldly hopes, which are proposed unto the chiefest kind of learning, ye seek utterly to extirpate as weeds; and have grounded your platform on such propositions, as do after a sort undermine those most renowned habitations, where, through the goodness of Almighty God, all commendable arts and sciences are with exceeding great industry hitherto (and so may they for ever continue !) studied, proceeded in, and professed? To charge you, as purposely bent to the overthrow of that, wherein so many of you have attained no small perfection, were injurious. Only therefore, I wish, that yourselves did well consider how opposite certain of your positions are unto the state of collegiate societies, wherein the two universities consist. Those degrees which their statutes bind them to take are by your laws taken away; yourselves who have sought them, ye so excuse; as that ye would have men to think ye judge them not allowable, but tolerable only, and to be borne with, for some help which ye find in them unto the furtherance of your purposes, till the corrupt estate of the church may be better reformed. Your laws forbidding ecclesiastical persons utterly the exercise of civil power, must needs deprive the heads and masters in the same colleges of all such authority as now they exercise, either at home, by punishing the faults of those, who not as children to their parents by the law of nature, but altogether by civil authority, are subject unto them; or abroad, by keeping courts amongst their tenants. Your laws making permanent inequality amongst ministers a thing