SECT. 5.

The Particularily of the Difference in our Freedom, and the Benefit of a Monarchical Reformation.

SAY now, therefore, no more, that you have conformed yourselves to the pattern. nd judgments of some other Reformed Churches.

This starting-hole is too strait to hide you. We can, at once, tenderly respect them, and justly censure you.

Acts done out of any extremity can be no precedents for voluntary and deliberate resolutions. The mariner casts out his goods in a storm would we censure him for less than a madman, who should do thus in a calm, or in a fair gale? When a house is on fire in the city, we pull down the next roof, though firm and free, to prevent the spreading of the flame: would we not wonder at the man, that should offer this violence to his neighbour's house, when there is no appearance of danger? We cut off a limb, to prevent the deadly malignity of a gangrene: is this any warrant to dismember the sound?

Right thus stands the case, betwixt other Churches and yours. They found themselves in danger to be wrecked, with the impetuous storms of Popish Tyranny; to be consumed with the Aames of Romish Persecution; to be struck dead with the killing gangrene of Superstition. They saw, on the sudden perhaps, no other way left them for their freedom and safety, but to eject, pull down, cut off the known instruments of that Papal Tyranny, Persecution, Infection; as without whose perfect exauthorization, they could conceive no hope of enjoying the Gospel and themselves. Neither could they find any glimpse of hope, that the Sovereign State under which they then lived, being governed by a superstitious Clergy, would so far favour them, as to allow them an Episcopal Government of their own profession, opposite to the overprevalent faction of Rome. Hereupon, therefore, they were forced to discard the office, as well as the men: but yet the office, because of the men; as Popish, not as Bishops: and to put themselves, for the present, into such a form of government, at a venture, as under which they might be sure, without violent interruption, to sow the seeds of the saving and sincere truth of the Gospel +. Though, also, it is very considerable, whether the condition they were in doth altogether absolutely warrant such a proceeding: for was it not so with us, after Reformation was stept in, during

* Non culpå vestrá abesse Episcopatum, sed injuriá temporum: non, enim, tam propitios habuisse Reges vestram Galliam in Ecclesiá reformandâ, quàm habuit Britannia nostra. Episc. Winton. Molinæo. Epist. 3.

+ Nisi eos coegerit dura necessitas, cui nulla lex est posita. Hadr. Sarav. Resp. ad Bez. de Grad. Ministr. Factum Ecclesiarum Reformatarum accipio et excuso ; non incuso, nec exprobro. Ibid.

those fiery times of Queen Mary? Was it not so with you, when ONE DOT men. Patrick Hamiton and George Wischart, sowed the the seeds of Reformation among you in their own blood; wita sort de Hoy Ghost eased them, of patience and CONSENT, COwned with martyrdom; not of tumult and furious opposition to the disquiet of the State and hazard of the Reformation the f, or to the abluring and blaspheming of a Holy Order at the Chorot, and dishonouring of Almighty God while they pre

tended to seek is bobour?

To was thear case: but what is this to yours?

Your Church was happily gone out of Babylon. Your and our most gracious and religious Sovereign sincerely professeth, maintaineth, encourageth the blessedly-reformed Religion: his Bishops preach for it, write for it; and profess themselves ready, after the example of their predecessors, to bleed for it. Your and our late learned and plons Sovereign, of blessed memory, with the general votes of a lawful assembly, re-inforced that Order of Episcenact, which had been, as I take it, but about seventeen years scontinued.

And how can you now think of paralleling your condition with the fore gn?

But, that you may not think that I speak at random, and upon blind coniectures of the state of this difference, bear, I pray you, what wise Fregiviilæus (a deep head, and one that was able to cut even betwixt the League, the Church, and the State) saith concerning it. "The Ministers of the Reformation,” saith be*, "which planted it in France, had respect unto their business, and to the work they took in hand, when they brought in this equality; which was, to plant a Church, and to begin after the manner of the Apos tles, when they planted a Church in Jerusalem. As also they meant not to traverse the state of the Clergy, or to submit it to their Orders, whensoever the Clergy or whole State of France should happen to admit the Reformation: but their purpose tended only to overthrow superstition; and, in the mean time, to bear themselves according to their simple equality: whereupon I infer, that he, that would take occasion of this equality brought into France, to reverse the estate of the Episcopal Clergy among the Reformed, should greatly wrong the cause of those, who thereunder have reformed France, and had never that intent." Thus he. Whereto add; that the same author professeth, that it is not the degrees of the Clergy, which the Reformers except against, but the superstition. In the mean time, he judiciously professeth, that the French Ministers have taken up this equality of government, only provisionally reserving liberty to alter it according to occurrences. To which purpose he projecteth to the French King, the creation of one supreme Bishop or Patriarch of France, to whom the whole estate of the French Clergy might, upon fair terms, be subjected.

Fregevill. Politique Reform. p. 70, of the Translation into English.

Do you not now, in all this which hath been said, see a sensible difference betwixt their condition and yours? Can you chuse but observe the blessing of Monarchical Reformation amongst us, beyond that Popular and Tumultuary Reformation amongst our neighbours? ours, a Council; theirs, an uproar: ours, beginning from the head; theirs, from the feet: ours, proceeding in a due order; theirs, with confusion: ours, countenancing and encouraging the converted Governors of the Church; theirs, extremely over-awed with averse power, or totally overborne with foul sacrilege: in a word, ours, comfortably yielding what the true and happy condition of a Church required; theirs, hand-over-head taking what they could get for the present. And what now? shall we, instead of blessing God for our happiness, emulate the misery of those, whom we do at once respect and pity?

Suppose the late Kings and Parliaments of France, before these separate forms of administration were pitched upon, would have said; "You, of the Reformed Profession, enjoy your religion freely; and, if you think it more safe to live under Church-Governors of your own, let your Clergy recommend unto us such grave and worthy persons, as may be fit for those places, they shall forthwith be established over you, with full authority and just maintenance; would any of the learned Divines of those times have slighted the offer; and have said, "By your leave, Sir, we like it not; we have other projects in hand: we will set up a new government, that will better befit our purposes?" Certainly, I should wonder at the man, that should entertain such an impossible imagination of those wise and godly-learned professors, who were, by the iniquity of the times, in a manner forcibly driven, at least as they imagined, upon this form; and necessarily put to this choice, whether they would still submit to Popery, or no longer submit to Episcopal Administration which there was only managed by Popish hands.

What need more words? Themselves have, as we have already seen, clearly decided it.

Go now, and take these men and times for your patterns; who never meant to make themselves and their condition imitable precedents, but rather the objects of our better wishes. It was a modest word of Beza*, That he never meant to prescribe the Ecclesiastical Policy of Geneva to other Churches: for this were high presumption. And will you be prescribing to yourselves, that, which he would not prescribe to you? Will you create that to be an Universal Ordinance of God, which he dare not warrant for any other than a Local Constitution?

Neither is there a more sensible difference, between the authority and success of a Monarchical or Popular Reformation; than there is, between the forms which are fit and expedient for large Churches living under the sway of a monarch, and those which particular cities or territories may admit under a democratical or aristo

* Hadr. Sarav. Fregevill, in Præf. ad Palmam Christ.

cratical government. "Hereupon," saith the Reformed Politic discreetly, "I do infer, that, in the state of a mighty and peaceable Church, as that of England, or as the Church of France, or such like might be, if God should call them to Reformation, the state of the Clergy ought to be preserved: for equality would be hurtful to the State; and, in time, breed confusion." Thus he.

And, indeed, besides those holy and divine considerations whereof we shall treat in the sequel, it stands with great reason, that there should be a correspondence betwixt the Church and the State, and a meet respect to the rules of both. As, therefore, because, in a free city or state, we find certain Optimates, who, by successive, elections, sway the government, according to their municipal rules, not without the assistance and consent of a greater number of Plebeian Burgesses; and see, perhaps, this form of administration in those places successful; it were a crime, of strange brain-sick giddiness, to say nothing of the heinous moral transgression, to cast off the yoke of just and hereditary monarchy, and to affect this Tokunopávy "many headed sovereignty:" so were it no less unreasonable, where a National Church is happily settled in the orderly regiment of certain grave Overseers, ruling under one acknowledged Sovereign, by wholesome and unquestionable laws, and by these laws punishable if they overlash or be defective in their charge; in a fastidious discontentment, to seek to abandon this ancient form, and to betake themselves to a popular form of discipline borrowed from abroad; which, what were it other, than to snatch the reins out of the hands of a skilful coachman, and either to lay them loose in the horses' necks, or to deliver them to the hands of some ignorant and unskilful lacqueys that run along by them? But of this point more, elsewhere.

My zeal and my respects to the Churches abroad, and my care and pity of many seduced souls at home, have drawn me on farther in this discourse, than I meant: for, who can endure to see simple and well-meaning Christians abused with the false colour of conformity with other Churches, when there is apparently more distance in the ground of their differences, than in the places of their situation?

Be wise, my Dear Brethren, and suffer not yourselves to be cheated of the truth, by the mis-zealous suggestions of partial teachers. Reserve your hearts free for the clearer light of Scripture and right reason, which shall, in this discourse, offer to shine into your souls.

For you, sir, (fu frere) confess, unless you can in truth deny it, that you go alone; and that you have reason absolutely to quit all the hope of the patrocination of other Churches, which you might seem to challenge from their example and practice. For, now that I have got you alone, I shall be bold to take you to task; and do, in the name of Almighty God, vehemently urge and challenge you to maintain, if by any skill or pretence you may, your own act of the condemnation of Episcopacy, and your penitent submission to a Presbyterial Government. Wherein, I doubt not, but I shall con

vince you of a high and irreparable injury done by you to God, his Ordinance, and his Church.

SECT. 6.

The Project and Substance of the Treatise following.

For the full and satisfactory performance whereof, I shall only need to make good these two main points.

First, That Episcopacy, such as you have renounced, even that which implies a fixed superiority over the rest of the Clergy, and jurisdiction; is not only a holy and lawful, but a divine institution; and, therefore, cannot be abdicated, without a manifest violation of God's Ordinance.

Secondly, That the Presbyterian Government, so constituted as you have now submitted to it, (however venditated under the glorious names of Christ's Kingdom and Ordinance, by those specious and glozing terms to bewitch the ignorant multitude, and to ensnare their consciences) hath no true footing, either in Scripture, or the practice of the Church, in all ages, from Christ's time to the pre

sent.

That I may clearly evince these two main points, wherein indeed consists the life and soul of the whole cause; I shall take leave to lay down certain just and necessary POSTULATA, as the groundworks of my ensuing proofs: all which are so clear and evident, that I would fain suppose neither yourself nor any ingenuous Christian can grudge to yield them; but, if any man will be so stiff and close-fisted, as to stick at any of them, they shall be easily wrung out of his fingers, by the force of reason and manifest demonstra tion of truth.