Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity By Richard Hooker, 1594-1597 Edition by John Keble, 1888 Modern spelling text by Richard Mammana, 2008-2012 A PREFACE TO THEM THAT SEEK (AS THEY TERM IT) THE REFORMATION OF LAWS AND ORDERS ECCLESIASTICAL, IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.THOUGH for no other cause, yet for this; that posterity may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream, there shall be for men’s information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church of God established amongst us, and their careful endeavour which would have upheld the same. At your hands, beloved in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, (for in him the love which we bear unto all that would but seem to be born of him, it is not the sea of your gall and bitterness that shall ever drown,) I have no great cause to look for other than the selfsame portion and lot, which your manner hath been hitherto to lay on them that concur not in opinion and sentence with you. But our hope is, that the God of peace shall (notwithstanding man’s nature too impatient of contumelious malediction) enable us quietly and even gladly to suffer all things, for that work sake which we covet to perform.The wonderful zeal and fervour wherewith ye have withstood the received orders of this Church, was the first thing which caused me to enter into consideration, whether (as all your published books and writings peremptorily maintain) every Christian man, fearing God, stand bound to join with you for the furtherance of that which ye term the Lord’s Discipline. Wherein I must plainly confess unto you, that before I examined your sundry declarations in that behalf, it could not settle in my head to think, but that undoubtedly such numbers of otherwise right well affected and most religiously inclined minds had some marvellous reasonable inducements, which led them with so great earnestness that way. But when once, as near as my slender ability would serve, I had with travail and care performed that part of the Apostle’s advice and counsel in such cases, whereby he willeth to “try all things,” and was come at the length so far, that there remained only the other clause to be satisfied, wherein he concludeth that “what good is must be held;” there was in my poor understanding no remedy, but to set down this as my final resolute persuasion: “Surely the present form of church-government which the laws of this land have established is such, as no law of God nor reason of man hath hitherto been alleged of force sufficient to prove they do ill, who to the uttermost of their power withstand the alteration thereof.” Contrariwise, “The other, which instead of it we are required to accept, is only by error and misconceit named the ordinance of Jesus Christ, no one proof as yet brought forth whereby it may clearly appear to be so in very deed.”The explication of which two things I have here thought good to offer into your own hands, heartily beseeching you even by the meekness of Jesus Christ, whom I trust ye love; that, as ye tender the peace and quietness of this church, if there be in you that gracious humility which hath ever been the crown and glory of a Christianly-disposed mind, if your own souls, hearts, and consciences (the sound integrity whereof can but hardly stand with the refusal of truth in personal respects) be, as I doubt not but they are,

things most dear and precious unto you: let “not the faith which ye have in our Lord Jesus Christ” be blemished “with partialities;” regard not who it is which speaketh, but weigh only what is spoken. Think not that ye read the words of one who bendeth himself as an adversary against the truth which ye have already embraced; but the words of one who desireth even to embrace together with you the self-same truth, if it be the truth; and for that cause (for no other, God he knoweth) hath undertaken the burdensome labour of this painful kind of conference. For the plainer access whereunto, let it be lawful for me to rip up to the very bottom, how and by whom your Discipline was planted, at such time as this age we live in began to make first trial thereof. II. A founder it had, whom, for mine own part, I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him. His bringing up was in the study of the civil law. Divine knowledge he gathered, not by hearing or reading so much, as by teaching others. For, though thousands were debtors to him, as touching knowledge in that kind; yet he to none but only to God, the author of that most blessed fountain, the Book of Life, and of the admirable dexterity of wit, together with the helps of other learning which were his guides: till being occasioned to leave France, he fell at the length upon Geneva; which city the bishop and clergy thereof had a little before (as some do affirm) forsaken, being of likelihood frighted with the people’s sudden attempt for abolishment of popish religion: the event of which enterprise they thought it not safe for themselves to wait for in that place. At the coming of Calvin thither, the form of their civil regiment was popular, as it continueth at this day: neither king, nor duke, nor nobleman of any authority or power over them, but officers chosen by the people yearly out of themselves, to order all things with public consent. For spiritual government, they had no laws at all agreed upon, but did what the pastors of their souls by persuasion could win them unto. Calvin, being admitted one of their preachers, and a divinity reader amongst them, considered how dangerous it was that the whole estate of that Church should hang still on so slender a thread as the liking of an ignorant multitude is, if it have power to change whatsoever itself listeth. Wherefore taking unto him two of the other ministers for more countenance of the action, (albeit the rest were all against it,) they moved, and in the end persuaded with much ado, the people to bind themselves by solemn oath, first never to admit the Papacy amongst them again; and secondly, to live in obedience unto such orders concerning the exercise of their religion, and the form of their ecclesiastical government, as those their true and faithful ministers of God’s word had agreeably to scripture set down for that end and purpose.When these things began to be put in ure, the people also (what causes moving them thereunto, themselves best know) began to repent them of that they had done, and irefully to champ upon the bit they had taken into their mouths; the rather, for that they grew by means of this innovation into dislike with some Churches near about them, the benefit of whose good friendship their state could not well lack. It was the manner of those times (whether through men’s desire to enjoy alone the glory of their own enterprizes, or else because the quickness of their occasions required present despatch; so it was,) that every particular Church did that within itself, which some few of their own thought good, by whom the rest were all directed. Such number of Churches

then being, though free within themselves, yet small, common conference beforehand might have eased them of much after trouble. But a greater inconvenience it bred, that every later endeavoured to be certain degrees more removed from conformity with the Church of Rome, than the rest before had been: whereupon grew marvellous great dissimilitudes, and by reason thereof, jealousies, heart-burnings, jars and discords amongst them. Which, notwithstanding, might have easily been prevented, if the orders, which each Church did think fit and convenient for itself, had not so peremptorily been established under that high commanding form, which tendered them unto the people, as things everlastingly required by the law of that Lord of lords, against whose statutes there is no exception to be taken. For by this mean it came to pass, that one Church could not but accuse and condemn another of disobedience to the will of Christ, in those things where manifest difference was between them: whereas the selfsame orders allowed, but yet established in more wary and suspense manner, as being to stand in force till God should give the opportunity of some general conference what might be best for every of them afterwards to do; this I say had both prevented all occasion of just dislike which others might take, and reserved a greater liberty unto the authors themselves of entering into farther consultation afterwards. Which though never so necessary they could not easily now admit, without some fear of derogation from their credit: and therefore that which once they had done, they became for ever after resolute to maintain. Calvin therefore and the other two his associates, stiffly refusing to administer the holy Communion to such as would not quietly, without contradiction and murmur, submit themselves unto the orders which their solemn oath had bound them to obey, were in that quarrel banished the town.A few years after (such was the levity of that people) the places of one or two of their ministers being fallen void, they were not before so willing to be rid of their learned pastor, as now importunate to obtain him again from them who had given him entertainment, and which were loath to part with him, had not unresistable earnestness been used. One of the town ministers, that saw in what manner the people were bent for the revocation of Calvin, gave him notice of their affection in this sort. “The senate of two hundred being assembled, they all crave Calvin. The next day a general convocation. They cry in like sort again all, We will have Calvin, that good and learned man, Christ’s minister. This,” saith he, “when I understood, I could not choose but praise God, nor was I able to judge otherwise than that ‘this was the Lord’s doing, and that it was marvellous in our eyes,’ and that ‘the stone which the builders refused was now made the head of the corner.’” The other two whom they had thrown out, (together with Calvin,) they were content should enjoy their exile. Many causes might lead them to be more desirous of him. First, his yielding unto them in one thing might happily put them in hope, that time would breed the like easiness of condescending further unto them. For in his absence he had persuaded them, with whom he was able to prevail, that albeit himself did better like of common bread to be used in the Eucharist, yet the other they rather should accept, than cause any trouble in the church about it. Again, they saw that the name of Calvin waxed every day greater abroad, and that together with his fame, their infamy was spread, which had so rashly and childishly ejected him. Besides, it was not unlikely but that his credit in the world might many ways stand the poor town in great stead: as the truth is, their

minister’s foreign estimation hitherto hath been the best stake in their hedge. But whatsoever secret respects were likely to move them, for contenting of their minds Calvin returned (as it had been another Tully) to his old home.He ripely considered how gross a thing it were for men of his quality, wise and grave men, to live with such a multitude, and to be tenants at will under them, as their ministers, both himself and others, had been. For the remedy of which inconvenience, he gave them plainly to understand, that if he did become their teacher again, they must be content to admit a complete form of discipline, which both they and also their pastors should now be solemnly sworn to observe for ever after. Of which discipline the main and principal parts were these: A standing ecclesiastical court to be established; perpetual judges in that court to be their ministers; others of the people to be annually chosen (twice so many in number as they) to be judges together with them in the same court: these two sorts to have the care of all men’s manners, power of determining all kind of ecclesiastical causes, and authority to convent, to control, to punish, as far as with excommunication, whomsoever they should think worthy, none either small or great excepted. This device I see not how the wisest at that time living could have bettered, if we duly consider what the present estate of Geneva did then require. For their bishop and his clergy being (as it is said) departed from them by moonlight, or howsoever, being departed; to choose in his room any other bishop, had been a thing altogether impossible. And for their ministers to seek that themselves alone might have coercive power over the whole church, would perhaps have been hardly construed at that time. But when so frank an offer was made, that for every one minister there should be two of the people to sit and give voice in the ecclesiastical consistory, what inconvenience could they easily find which themselves might not be able always to remedy? Howbeit (as evermore the simpler sort are, even when they see no apparent cause, jealous notwithstanding over the secret intents and purposes of wiser men) this proposition of his did somewhat trouble them. Of the ministers themselves which had stayed behind in the city when Calvin was gone, some, upon knowledge of the people’s earnest intent to recall him to his place again, had beforehand written their letters of submission, and assured him of their allegiance for ever after, if it should like him to hearken unto that public suit. But yet misdoubting what might happen, if this discipline did go forward; they objected against it the example of other reformed churches living quietly and orderly without it. Some of chiefest place and countenance amongst the laity professed with greater stomach their judgments, that such a discipline was little better than Popish tyranny disguised and tendered unto them under a new form. This sort, it may be, had some fear, that the filling up of the seats in the consistory with so great a number of laymen was but to please the minds of the people, to the end they might think their own sway somewhat; but when things came to trial of practice, their pastors’ learning would be at all times of force to over-persuade simple men, who knowing the time of their own presidentship to be but short would always stand in fear of their ministers’ perpetual authority: and among the ministers themselves, one being so far in estimation above the rest, the voices of the rest were likely to be given for the most part respectively, with a kind of secret dependency and awe: so that in show a marvellous indifferently composed senate ecclesiastical was to

govern, but in effect one only man should, as the spirit and soul of the residue, do all in all. But what did these vain surmises boot? Brought they were now to so strait an issue, that of two things they must choose one: namely, whether they would to their endless disgrace, with ridiculous lightness dismiss him whose restitution they had in so impotent manner desired; or else condescend unto that demand, wherein he was resolute either to have it, or to leave them. They thought it better to be somewhat hardly yoked at home, than for ever abroad discredited. Wherefore in the end those orders were on all sides assented unto: with no less alacrity of mind than cities unable to hold out longer are wont to shew, when they take conditions such as it liketh him to offer them which hath them in the narrow straits of advantage.Not many years were over-passed, before these twice-sworn men adventured to give their last and hottest assault to the fortress of the same discipline; childishly granting by common consent of their whole Senate, and that under their town seal, a relaxation to one Bertelier, whom the Eldership had excommunicated: further also decreeing, with strange absurdity, that to the same Senate it should belong to give final judgment in matter of excommunication, and to absolve whom it pleased them: clean contrary to their own former deeds and oaths. The report of which decree being forthwith brought unto Calvin; “Before,” saith he, “this decree take place, either my blood or banishment shall sign it.” Again, two days before the communion should be celebrated, his speech was publickly to like effect: “Kill me if ever this hand do reach forth the things that are holy to them whom the Church hath judged despisers.” Whereupon, for fear of tumult, the forenamed Bertelier was by his friends advised for that time not to use the liberty granted him by the Senate, nor to present himself in the church, till they saw somewhat further what would ensue. After the communion quietly ministered, and some likelihood of peaceable ending of these troubles without any more ado, that very day in the afternoon, besides all. men’s expectation, concluding his ordinary sermon, he telleth them, that because he neither had learned nor taught to strive with such as are in authority, “therefore,” saith he, “the case so standing as now it doth, let me use “these words of the apostle unto you, ‘I commend you unto “God and the word of his grace;’” and so bade them heartily all adieu.It sometimes cometh to pass, that the readiest way which a wise man hath to conquer, is to fly. This voluntary and unexpected mention of sudden departure caused presently the Senate (for according to their wonted manner they still continued only constant in unconstancy) to gather themselves together, and for a time to suspend their own decree, leaving things to proceed as before till they had heard the judgment of four Helvetian cities concerning the matter which was in strife. This to have done at the first before they gave assent unto any order had shewed some wit and discretion in them: but now to do it was as much as to say in effect, that they would play their parts on a stage. Calvin therefore dispatched with all expedition his letters unto some principal pastor in every of those cities, craving earnestly at their hands, to respect this cause as a thing whereupon the whole state of religion and piety in that church did so much depend, that God and all good men were now inevitably certain to be trampled under foot, unless those four cities by their good means might be brought to give sentence with the ministers of Geneva, when the cause should be brought before them: yea so to give it, that two things it might effectually contain; the one an absolute approbation of the discipline of Geneva as

consonant unto the word of God, without any cautions, qualifications, ifs or ands; the other an earnest admonition not to innovate or change the same. His vehement request herein as touching both points was satisfied. For albeit the said Helvetian Churches did never as yet observe that discipline, nevertheless, the Senate of Geneva having required their judgment concerning these three questions: First, “After what manner, by God’s commandment, according to the scripture and unspotted religion, excommunication is to be exercised:” Secondly, “Whether it may not be exercised some other way than by the Consistory:” Thirdly, “What the use of their Churches was to do in this case:” answer was returned from the said Churches, “That they had heard already of those consistorial laws, and did acknowledge them to be godly ordinances drawing towards the prescript of the word of God; for which cause they did not think it good for the Church of Geneva by innovation to change the same, but rather to keep them as they were.” Which answer, although not answering unto the former demands, but respecting what Master Calvin had judged requisite for them to answer, was notwithstanding accepted without any further reply: in as much as they plainly saw, that when stomach doth strive with wit, the match is not equal. And so the heat of their former contentions began to slake.The present inhabitants of Geneva, I hope, will not take it in evil part, that the faultiness of their people heretofore is by us so far forth laid open, as their own learned guides and pastors have thought necessary to discover it unto the world. For out of their books and writings it is that I have collected this whole narration, to the end it might thereby appear in what sort amongst them that discipline was planted, for which so much contention is raised amongst ourselves. The reason which moved Calvin herein to be so earnest, was, as Beza himself testifieth, “For that he saw “how needful these bridles were, to be put in the jaws of “that city.” That which by wisdom he saw to be requisite for that people, was by as great wisdom compassed. But wise men are men, and the truth is truth. That which Calvin did for establishment of his discipline, seemeth more commendable than that which he taught for the countenancing of it established. Nature worketh in us all a love to our own counsels. The contradiction of others is a fan to inflame that love. Our love set on fire to maintain that which once we have done, sharpeneth the wit to dispute, to argue, and by all means to reason for it. Wherefore a marvel it were if a man of so great capacity, having such incitements to make him desirous of all kind of furtherances unto his cause, could espy in the whole Scripture of God nothing which might breed at the least a probable opinion of likelihood, that divine authority itself was the same way somewhat inclinable. And all which the wit even of Calvin was able from thence to draw, by sifting the very utmost sentence and syllable, is no more than that certain speeches there are which to him did seem to intimate that all Christian churches ought to have their Elderships endued with power of excommunication, and that a part of those Elderships every where should be chosen out from amongst the laity, after that form which himself had framed Geneva unto. But what argument are ye able to shew, whereby it was ever proved by Calvin, that any one sentence of Scripture doth necessarily enforce these things, or the rest wherein your opinion concurreth with his against the orders of your own church?

We should be injurious unto virtue itself, if we did derogate from them whom their industry hath made great. Two things of principal moment there are which have deservedly procured him honour throughout the world: the one his exceeding pains in composing the Institutions of Christian religion; the other his no less industrious travails for exposition of holy Scripture according unto the same Institutions. In which two things whosoever they were that after him bestowed their labour, he gained the advantage of prejudice against them, if they gainsayed; and of glory above them, if they consented. His writings published after the question about that discipline was once begun omit not any the least occasion of extolling the use and singular necessity thereof. Of what account the Master of Sentences was in the church of Rome, the same and more amongst the preachers of reformed churches Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they, which were skilfullest in Calvin’s writings. His books almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by. French churches, both under others abroad and at home in their own country, all cast according to that mould which Calvin had made. The Church of Scotland in erecting the fabric of their reformation took the selfsame pattern. Till at length the discipline, which was at the first so weak, that without the staff of their approbation, who were not subject unto it themselves, it had not brought others under subjection, began now to challenge universal obedience, and to enter into open conflict with those very Churches, which in desperate extremity had been relievers of it.To one of those churches which lived in most peaceable sort, and abounded as well with men for their learning in other professions singular, as also with divines whose equals were not elsewhere to be found, a church ordered by Gualter’s discipline, and not by that which Geneva adoreth; unto this church, the Church of Heidelberg, there cometh one who craving leave to dispute publicly defendeth with open disdain of their government, that “to a minister with his Eldership power is given by the law of God to excommunicate whomsoever, yea even kings and princes themselves.’ Here were the seeds sown of that controversy which sprang up between Beza and Erastus about the matter of excommunication, whether there ought to be in all churches an Eldership having power to excommunicate, and a part of that Eldership to be of necessity certain chosen out from amongst the laity for that purpose. In which disputation they have, as to me it seemeth, divided very equally the truth between them; Beza most truly maintaining the necessity of excommunication, Erastus as truly the non-necessity of lay elders to be ministers thereof.Amongst ourselves, there was in King Edward’s days some question moved by reason of a few men’s scrupulosity touching certain things. And beyond seas, of them which fled in the days of Queen Mary, some contenting themselves abroad with the use of their own service-book at home authorized before their departure out of the realm, others liking better the Common Prayer-book of the Church of Geneva translated, those smaller contentions before begun were by this mean somewhat increased. Under the happy reign of her Majesty which now is, the greatest matter a while contended for was the wearing of the cap and surplice, till there came Admonitions directed unto the high court of Parliament, by men who concealing their names thought it glory enough to discover their minds and affections, which now were universally bent even against all the orders and laws, wherein this church is found unconformable to the platform of Geneva.

Concerning the Defender of which Admonitions, all that I mean to say is but this: there will come a time when three words uttered with charity and meekness shall receive a far more blessed reward than three thousand volumes written with disdainful sharpness of wit. But the manner of men’s writing must not alienate our hearts from the truth, if it appear they have the truth; as the followers of the same defender do think he hath; and in that persuasion they follow him, no otherwise than himself doth Calvin, Beza, and others, with the like persuasion that they in this cause had the truth. We being as fully persuaded otherwise, it resteth that some kind of trial be used to find out which part is in error. III. The first mean whereby nature teacheth men to judge good from evil, as well in laws as in other things, is the force of their own discretion. Hereunto therefore St. Paul referreth oftentimes his own speech, to be considered of by them that heard him. “I speak as to them which have understanding, judge ye what I say.” Again afterward, “Judge in yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray uncovered?” The exercise of this kind of judgment our Saviour requireth in the Jews. In them of Berea the Scripture commendeth it. Finally, whatsoever we do, if our own secret judgment consent not unto it as fit and good to be done, the doing of it to us is sin. although the thing itself be allowable. St. Paul’s rule therefore generally is, “Let every man in his own mind be fully persuaded of that thing which he either alloweth or doth.”Some things are so familiar and plain, that truth from falsehood, and good from evil, is most easily discerned in them, even by men of no deep capacity. And of that nature, for the most part, are things absolutely unto all men’s salvation necessary, either to be held or denied, either to be done or avoided. For which cause St. Augustine acknowledgeth, that they are not only set down, but also plainly set down in Scripture; so that he which heareth or readeth may without any great difficulty understand. Other things also there are belonging (though in a lower degree of importance) unto the offices of Christian men: which, because they are more obscure, more intricate and hard to be judged of, therefore God hath appointed some to spend their whole time principally in the study of things divine, to the end that in these more doubtful cases their understanding might be a light to direct others. “If the understanding power or faculty of the soul be” (saith the grand physician) “like unto bodily sight, not of equal sharpness in all, what can be more convenient than that, “even as the dark-sighted man is directed by the clear about things visible; so likewise in matters of deeper discourse the wise in heart do shew the simple where his way lieth?” In our doubtful cases of law, what man is there who seeth not how requisite it is that professors of skill in that faculty be our directors? So it is in all other kinds of knowledge. And even in this kind likewise the Lord hath himself appointed, that “the priest’s lips should preserve knowledge, and that other men should seek the truth at his mouth, because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” Gregory Nazianzen, offended at the people’s too great presumption in controlling the judgment of them to whom in such cases they should have rather submitted their own, seeketh by earnest entreaty to stay them within their bounds: “Presume not ye that are sheep to make yourselves guides of them that should guide you; neither seek ye to overskip the fold which they about you have pitched. It sufficeth for your part, if ye can well frame yourselves to be ordered. Take not upon you to judge your judges, nor to make them

subject to your laws who should be a law to you; for God is not a God of sedition and confusion, but of order and of peace.”But ye will say that if the guides of the people be blind, the common sort of men must not close up their own eyes and be led by the conduct of such: if the priest be “partial in the law,” the flock must not therefore depart from the ways of sincere truth, and in simplicity yield to be followers of him for his place sake and office over them. Which thing, though in itself most true, is in your defence notwithstanding weak; because the matter wherein ye think that ye see, and imagine that your ways are sincere, is of far deeper consideration than any one amongst five hundred of you conceiveth. Let the vulgar sort amongst you know, that there is not the least branch of the cause wherein they are so resolute, but to the trial of it a great deal more appertaineth than their conceit doth reach unto. I write not this in disgrace of the simplest that way given, but I would gladly they knew the nature of that cause wherein they think themselves throughly instructed and are not; by means whereof they daily run themselves, without feeling their own hazard, upon the dint of the Apostle’s sentence against “evil-speakers as touching things wherein they are ignorant.”If it be granted a thing unlawful for private men, not called unto public consultation, to dispute which is the best state of civil polity, (with a desire of bringing in some other kind, than that under which they already live, for of such disputes I take it his meaning was;) if it be a thing confessed, that of such questions they cannot determine without rashness, inasmuch as a great part of them consisteth in special circumstances, and for one kind as many reasons may be brought as for another; is there any reason in the world, why they should better judge what kind of regiment ecclesiastical is the fittest? For in the civil state more insight, and in those affairs more experience a great deal must needs be granted them, than in this they can possibly have. When they which write in defence of your discipline and commend it unto the Highest not in the least cunning manner, are forced notwithstanding to acknowledge, “that with whom the truth is they know not,” they are not certain; what certainty or knowledge can the multitude have thereof?Weigh what doth move the common sort so much to favour this innovation, and it shall soon appear unto you, that the force of particular reasons which for your several opinions are alleged is a thing whereof the multitude never did nor could so consider as to be therewith wholly carried; but certain general inducements are used to make saleable your cause in gross; and when once men have cast a fancy towards it, any slight declaration of specialties will serve to lead forward men’s inclinable and prepared minds.The method of winning the people’s affection unto a general liking of “the cause” (for so ye term it) hath been this. First, In the hearing of the multitude, the faults especially of higher callings are ripped up with marvellous exceeding severity and sharpness of reproof’; which being oftentimes done begetteth a great good opinion of integrity, zeal, and holiness, to such constant reprovers of sin, as by likelihood would never be so much offended at that which is evil, unless themselves were singularly good.

The next thing hereunto is, to impute all faults and corruptions, wherewith the world aboundeth, unto the kind of ecclesiastical government established. Wherein, as before by reproving faults they purchased unto themselves with the multitude a name to be virtuous; so by finding out this kind of cause they obtain to be judged wise above others: whereas in truth unto the form even of Jewish government, which the Lord himself (they all confess) did establish, with like shew of reason they might impute those faults which the prophets condemn in the governors of that commonwealth, as to the English kind of regiment ecclesiastical, (whereof also God himself though in other sort is author,) the stains and blemishes found in our state; which springing from the root of human frailty and corruption, not only are, but have been always more or less, yea and (for any thing we know to the contrary) will be till the world’s end complained of, what form of government soever take place.Having gotten thus much sway in the hearts of men, a third step is to propose their own form of church-government, as the only sovereign remedy of all evils; and to adorn it with all the glorious titles that may be. And the nature, as of men that have sick bodies, so likewise of the people in the crazedness of their minds possessed with dislike and discontentment at things present, is to imagine that any thing, (the virtue whereof they hear commended,) would help them; but that most, which they least have tried.The fourth degree of inducement is by fashioning the very notions and conceits of men’s minds in such sort, that when they read the scripture, they may think that every thing soundeth towards the advancement of that discipline, and to the utter disgrace of the contrary. Pythagoras, by bringing up his scholars in the speculative knowledge of numbers, made their conceits therein so strong, that when they came to the contemplation of things natural, they imagined that in every particular thing they even beheld as it were with their eyes, how the elements of number gave essence and being to the works of nature. A thing in reason impossible; which notwithstanding, through their misfashioned preconceit, appeared unto them no less certain, than if nature had written it in the very foreheads of all the creatures of God. When they of the “Family of Love” have it once in their heads, that Christ doth not signify any one person, but a quality whereof many are partakers; that to be “raised” is nothing else but to be regenerated, or endued with the said quality; and that when separation of them which have it from them which have it not is here made, this is “judgment:” how plainly do they imagine that the Scripture every where speaketh in the favour of that sect? And assuredly, the very cause which maketh the simple and ignorant to think they even see how the word of God runneth currently on your side, is, that their minds are forestalled and their conceits perverted beforehand, by being taught, that an “elder” doth signify a layman admitted only to the office or rule of government in the Church; a “doctor,” one which may only teach, and neither preach nor administer the Sacraments; a “deacon,” one which hath charge of the alms-box, and of nothing else: that the “sceptre,” the “rod,” the “throne” and “kingdom” of Christ, are a form of regiment, only by pastors, elders, doctors, and deacons; that by mystical resemblance Mount Sion and Jerusalem are the churches which admit, Samaria and Babylon the churches which oppugn the said form of regiment. And in like sort they are taught to apply all things spoken of repairing the walls and decayed parts of the city and temple of God, by Esdras, Nehemias, and the rest; as if purposely the Holy Ghost had

therein meant to foresignify, what the authors of Admonitions to the Parliament, of Supplications to the Council, of Petitions to her Majesty, and of such other like writs, should either do or suffer in behalf of this their cause.From hence they proceed to an higher point, which is the persuading of men credulous and over-capable of such pleasing errors, that it is the special illumination of the Holy Ghost, whereby they discern those things in the word, which others reading yet discern them not. “Dearly beloved,” saith St. John, “give not credit unto every spirit.” There are but two ways whereby the Spirit leadeth men into all truth; the one extraordinary, the other common; the one belonging but unto some few, the other extending itself unto all that are of God; the one, that which we call by a special divine excellency Revelation, the other Reason. If the Spirit by such revelation have discovered unto them the secrets of that discipline out of Scripture, they must profess themselves to be all (even men, women, and children) Prophets. Or if reason be the hand which the Spirit hath led them by; forasmuch as persuasions grounded upon reason are either weaker or stronger according to the force of those reasons whereupon the same are grounded, they must every of them from the greatest to the least be able for every several article to shew some special reason as strong as their persuasion therein is earnest. Otherwise how can it be but that some other sinews there are from which that overplus of strength in persuasion doth arise? Most sure it is, that when men’s affections do frame their opinions, they are in defence of error more earnest a great deal, than (for the most part) sound believers in the maintenance of truth apprehended according to the nature of that evidence which scripture yieldeth: which being in some things plain, as in the principles of Christian doctrine; in some things, as in these matters of discipline, more dark and doubtful; frameth correspondently that inward assent which God’s most gracious Spirit worketh by it as by his effectual instrument. It is not therefore the fervent earnestness of their persuasion, but the soundness of those reasons whereupon the same is built, which must declare their opinions in these things to have been wrought by the Holy Ghost, and not by the fraud of that evil spirit, which is even in his illusions strong.After that the fancy of the common sort hath once throughly apprehended the Spirit to be author of their persuasion concerning discipline; then is instilled into their hearts, that the same Spirit leading men into this opinion doth thereby seal them to be God’s children; and that, as the state of the times now standeth, the most special token to know them that are God’s own from others is an earnest affection that way. This hath bred high terms of separation between such and the rest of the world; whereby the one sort are named The brethren, The godly, and so forth; the other, worldlings, time-servers, pleasers of men not of God, with such like.From hence, they are easily drawn on to think it exceeding necessary, for fear of quenching that good Spirit, to use all means whereby the same may be both strengthened in themselves, and made manifest unto others. This maketh them diligent hearers of such as are known that way to incline; this maketh them eager to take and to seek all occasions of secret conference with such; this maketh them glad to use such as counsellors and directors in all their dealings which ark of weight, as contracts, testaments, and the like; this maketh them, through an unweariable desire of receiving instruction from the

masters of that company, to cast off the care of those very affairs which do most concern their estate, and to think that then they are like unto Mary, commendable for making choice of the better part. Finally, this is it which maketh them willing to charge, yea, oftentimes even to overcharge themselves, for such men’s sustenance and relief; lest their zeal to the cause should any way be unwitnessed. For what is it which poor beguiled souls will not do through so powerful incitements?In which respect it is also noted, that most labour hath been bestowed to win and retain towards this cause them whose judgments are commonly weakest by reason of their sex. And although not “women loden with sins,” as the apostle Saint Paul speaketh, but (as we verily esteem of them for the most part) women propense and inclinable to holiness be otherwise edified in good things, rather than carried away as captives into any kind of sin and evil by such as enter into their houses, with purpose to plant there a zeal and a love towards this kind of discipline: yet some occasion is hereby ministered for men to think, that if the cause which is thus furthered did gain by the soundness of proof whereupon it doth build itself; it would not most busily endeavour to prevail where least ability of judgment is: and therefore, that this so eminent industry in making proselytes more of that sex than of the other groweth, for that they are deemed apter to serve as instruments and helps in the cause. Apter they are through the eagerness of their affection, that maketh them, which way soever they take, diligent in drawing their husbands, children, servants, friends and allies the same way; apter through that natural inclination unto pity, which breedeth in them a greater readiness than in men to be bountiful towards their preachers who suffer want; apter through sundry opportunities, which they especially have, to procure encouragements for their brethren; finally, apter through a singular delight which they take in giving very large and particular intelligence, how all near about them stand affected as concerning the same cause.But be they women or be they men, if once they have tasted of that cup, let any man of contrary opinion open his mouth to persuade them, they close up their ears, his reasons they weigh not, all is answered with rehearsal of the words of John, “‘We are of God; he that knoweth God heareth us:’” as for the rest, ye are of the world; for this world’s pomp and vanity it is that ye speak, and the world, whose ye are, heareth you.” Which cloak sitteth no less fit on the back of their cause, than of the Anabaptists, when the dignity, authority and honour of God’s magistrate is upheld against them. Shew these eagerly- affected men their inability to judge of such matters; their answer is, “God hath chosen the simple.” Convince them of folly, and that so plainly, that very children upbraid them with it; they have their bucklers of like defence: “Christ’s own apostle was accounted mad: the best men evermore by the sentence of the world have been judged to be out of their right minds.”When instruction doth them no good, let them feel but the least degree of most mercifully-tempered severity, they fasten on the head of the Lord’s vicegerents here on earth whatsoever they any where find uttered against the cruelty of bloodthirsty men, and to themselves they draw all the sentences which scripture hath in the favour of innocency persecuted for the truth; yea, they are of their due and deserved sufferings no less proud, than those ancient disturbers to whom Saint Augustine writeth, saying: “Martyrs rightly

so named are they not which suffer for their disorder, and for the ungodly breach they have made of Christian unity, but which for righteousness’ sake are persecuted. For Agar also suffered persecution at the hands of Sara, wherein, she which did impose was holy, and she unrighteous which did bear the burden. In like sort, with thieves was the Lord himself crucified; but they, who were matched in the pain which they suffered, were in the cause of their sufferings disjoined.”...”If that must needs be the true church which doth endure persecution, and not that which persecuteth, let them ask of the apostle what church Sara did represent, when she held her maid in affliction. For even our mother which is free, the heavenly Jerusalem, that is to say, the true Church of God, was, as he doth affirm, prefigured in that very woman by whom the bondmaid was so sharply handled. Although, if all things be throughly scanned, she did in truth more persecute Sara by proud resistance, than Sara her by severity of punishment.”These are the paths wherein ye have walked that are of the ordinary sort of men; these are the very steps ye have trodden, and the manifest degrees whereby ye are of your guides and directors trained up in that school: a custom of inuring your ears with reproof of faults especially in your governors; an use to attribute those faults to the kind of spiritual regiment under which ye live; boldness in warranting the force of their discipline for the cure of all such evils; a slight of framing your conceits to imagine that Scripture every where favoureth that discipline; persuasion that the cause why ye find it in Scripture is the illumination of the Spirit, that the same Spirit is a seal unto you of your nearness unto God, that ye are by all means to nourish and witness it in yourselves, and to strengthen on every side your minds against whatsoever might be of force to withdraw you from it. IV. Wherefore to come unto you whose judgment is a lantern of direction for all the rest, you that frame thus the people’s hearts, not altogether (as I willingly persuade myself) of a politic intent or purpose, but yourselves being first overborne with the weight of greater men’s judgments: on your shoulders is laid the burden of upholding the cause by argument. For which purpose sentences out of the word of God ye allege divers: but so, that when the same are discussed, thus it always in a manner falleth out, that what things by virtue thereof ye urge upon us as altogether necessary, are found to be thence collected only by poor and marvellous slight conjectures. I need not give instance in any one sentence so alleged, for that I think the instance in any alleged otherwise a thing not easy to be given. A very strange thing sure it were, that such a discipline as ye speak of should be taught by Christ and his apostles in the word of God, and no church ever have found it out, nor received it till this present time; contrariwise, the government against which ye bend yourselves be observed every where throughout all generations and ages of the Christian world, no church ever perceiving the word of God to be against it. We require you to find out but one church upon the face of the whole earth, that hath been ordered by your discipline, or hath not been ordered by ours, that is to say, by episcopal regiment, sithence the time that the blessed Apostles were here conversant.Many things out of antiquity ye bring, as if the purest times of the Church had observed the selfsame orders which you require; and as though your desire were that the churches of old should be patterns for us to follow, and even glasses, wherein we might

see the practice of that which by you is gathered out of Scripture. But the truth is, ye mean nothing less. All this is done for fashion’s sake only: for ye complain of it as of an injury, that men should be willed to seek for examples and patterns of government in any of those times that have been before. Ye plainly hold, that from the very Apostles’ time till this present age, wherein yourselves imagine ye have found out a right pattern of sound discipline, there never was any time safe to be followed. Which thing ye thus endeavour to prove. “Out of Egesippus” ye say that “Eusebius writeth,” how although “as long as the Apostles lived the Church did remain a pure virgin, yet after the death of the Apostles, and after they were once gone whom God vouchsafed to make hearers of the divine wisdom with their own ears, the placing of wicked error began to come into the Church. Clement also in a certain place, to confirm that there was corruption of doctrine immediately after the Apostles’ time, allegeth the proverb, that ‘There are few sons like their fathers.’ Socrates saith of the churches of Rome and Alexandria, the most famous churches in the Apostles’ times, that about the year 430, the Roman and Alexandrian bishops, leaving the sacred function, were degenerate to a secular rule or dominion.” Hereupon ye conclude, that it is not safe to fetch our government from any other than the Apostles’ times.Wherein by the way it may be noted, that in proposing the Apostles’ times as a pattern for the Church to follow, though the desire of you all be one, the drift and purpose of you all is not one. The chiefest thing which lay-reformers yawn for is, that the clergy may through conformity in state and condition be apostolical, poor as the Apostles of Christ were poor. In which one circumstance if they imagine so great perfection, they must think that Church which hath such store of mendicant Friars, a church in that respect most happy. Were it for the glory of God and the good of his Church indeed that the clergy should be left even as bare as the Apostles when they had neither staff nor scrip, that God, which should lay upon them the condition of his Apostles, would I hope endue them with the selfsame affection which was in that holy Apostle, whose words concerning his own right virtuous contentment of heart, “as well how to want, “as how to abound,” are a most fit episcopal emprese. The Church of Christ is a body mystical. A body cannot stand, unless the parts thereof be proportionable. Let it therefore be required on both parts, at the hands of the clergy, to be in meanness of state like the Apostles; at the hands of the laity, to be as they were who lived under the Apostles: and in this reformation there will be, though little wisdom, yet some indifferency.But your reformation which are of the clergy (if yet it displease you not that I should say ye are of the clergy) seemeth to aim at a broader mark. Ye think that he which will perfectly reform must bring the form of church-discipline unto the state which then it was at. A thing neither possible, nor certain, nor absolutely convenient. Concerning the first, what was used in the Apostles’ times, the Scripture fully declareth not; so that making their times the rule and canon of church-polity, ye make a rule, which being not possible to be fully known, is as impossible to be kept. Again, sith the later even of the Apostles’ own times had that which in the former was not thought upon; in this general proposing of the apostolical times, there is no certainty

which should be followed: especially seeing that ye give us great cause to doubt how far ye allow those times. For albeit “the loover of antichristian building were not,” ye say, as then “set up, yet the foundations thereof were secretly and under the ground laid in the Apostles’ times:’ so that all other times ye plainly reject, and the Apostles’ own times ye approve with marvellous great suspicion, leaving it intricate and doubtful, wherein we are to keep ourselves unto the pattern of their times. Thirdly, whereas it is the error of the common multitude to consider only what hath been of old, and if the same were well, to see whether still it continue; if not, to condemn that presently which is, and never to search upon what ground or consideration the change might grow: such rudeness cannot be in you so well borne with, whom learning and judgment hath enabled much more soundly to discern how far the times of the Church and the orders thereof may alter without offence. True it is, the ancienter, the better ceremonies of religion are; howbeit, not absolutely true and without exception: but true only so far forth as those different ages do agree in the state of those things, for which at the first those rites, orders, and ceremonies, were instituted. In the Apostles’ times that was harmless, which being now revived would be scandalous; as their oscula sancta. Those feasts of charity, which being instituted by the Apostles, were retained in the Church long after, are not now thought any where needful. What man is there of understanding, unto whom it is not manifest how the way of providing for the clergy by tithes, the device of almshouses for the poor, the sorting out of the, people into their several parishes, together with sundry other things which the Apostles’ times could not have, (being now established,) are much more convenient and fit for the Church of Christ, than if the same should be taken away for conformity’s sake with the ancientest and first times?The orders therefore, which were observed in the Apostles’ times, are not to be urged as a rule universally either sufficient or necessary. If they be, nevertheless on your part it still remaineth to be better proved, that the form of discipline, which ye entitle apostolical, was in the Apostles’ times exercised. For of this very thing ye fail even touching that which ye make most account of’, as being matter of substance in discipline, I mean the power of your lay-elders, and the difference of your Doctors from the Pastors in all churches. So that in sum, we may be bold to conclude, that besides these last times, which for insolency, pride, and egregious contempt of all good order, are the worst, there are none wherein ye can truly affirm, that the complete form of your discipline, or the substance thereof, was practised.The evidence therefore of antiquity failing you, ye fly to the judgments of such learned men, as seem by their writings to be of opinion, that all Christian churches should receive your discipline, and abandon ours. Wherein, as ye heap up the names of a number of men not unworthy to be had in honour; so there are a number whom when ye mention, although it serve you to purpose with the ignorant and vulgar sort, who measure by tale and not by weight, yet surely they who know what quality and value the men are of, will think ye draw very near the dregs. But were they all of as great account as the best and chiefest amongst them, with us notwithstanding neither are they, neither ought they to be of such reckoning, that their opinion or conjecture should cause the laws of the Church of

England to give place. Much less when they neither do all agree in that opinion, and of them which are at agreement, the most part through a courteous inducement have followed one man as their guide, finally that one therein not unlikely to have swerved. If any chance to say it is probable that in the Apostles’ times there were lay-elders, or not to mislike the continuance of them in the Church, or to affirm that Bishops at the first were a name but not a power distinct from Presbyters, or to speak any thing in praise of those Churches which are without episcopal regiment, or to reprove the fault of such as abuse that calling; all these ye register for men persuaded as you are, that every Christian Church standeth bound by the law of God to put down Bishops, and in their rooms to elect an Eldership so authorized as you would have it for the government of each parish. Deceived greatly they are therefore, who think that all they whose names are cited amongst the favourers of this cause, are on any such verdict agreed.Yet touching some material points of your discipline, a kind of agreement we grant there is amongst many divines of reformed Churches abroad. For, first, to do as the Church of Geneva did the learned in some other Churches must needs be the more wiling, who having used in like manner not the slow and tedious help of proceeding by public authority, but the people’s more quick endeavour for alteration, in such an exigent I see not well how they could have stayed to deliberate about any other regiment than that which already was devised to their hands, that which in like case had been taken, that which was easiest to be established without delay, that which was likeliest to content the people by reason of some kind of sway which it giveth them. When therefore the example of one Church was thus at the first almost through a kind of constraint or necessity followed by many, their concurrence in persuasion about some material points belonging to the same polity is not strange. For we are not to marvel greatly, if they which have all done the same thing, do easily embrace the same opinion as concerning their own doings.Besides, mark I beseech you that which Galen in matter of philosophy noteth; for the like falleth out even in questions of higher knowledge. It fareth many times with men’s opinions as with rumours and reports. “That which a credible person telleth is easily thought probable by such as are well persuaded of him. But if two, or three, or four, agree all in the same tale, they judge it then to be out of controversy, and so are many times overtaken for want of due consideration; either some common cause leading them all into error, or one man’s oversight deceiving many through their too much credulity and easiness of belief.” Though ten persons be brought to give testimony in any cause, yet if the knowledge they have of the thing whereunto they come as witnesses, appear to have grown from some one amongst them, and to have spread itself from hand to hand, they all are in force but as one testimony. Nor is it otherwise here where the daughter churches do speak their mother’s dialect; here where so many sing one song, by reason that he is the guide of the choir, concerning whose deserved authority amongst even the gravest divines we have already spoken at large. Will ye ask what should move those many learned to be followers of one man’s judgment, no necessity of argument forcing them thereunto? Your demand is answered by yourselves. Loth ye are to think that they, whom ye judge to have attained as sound knowledge in all points of doctrine as any since the Apostles’ time, should mistake in discipline. Such is naturally our affection, that whom in great things we mightily admire, in them we are not persuaded willingly that any thing

should be amiss. The reason whereof is, “for that as dead flies putrify the ointment of the apothecary, so a little folly him that is in estimation for wisdoms” This in every profession hath too much authorized the judgments of a few. This with Germans hath caused Luther, and with many other Churches Calvin, to prevail in all things. Yet are we not able to define, whether the wisdom of that God, (who setteth before us in holy Scripture so many admirable patterns of virtue, and no one of them without somewhat noted wherein they were culpable, to the end that to Him alone it might always be acknowledged, “Thou only art holy, thou only art just;”) might not permit those worthy vessels of his glory to be in some things blemished with the stain of human frailty, even for this cause, lest we should esteem of any man above that which behoveth. V. Notwithstanding, as though ye were able to say a great deal more than hitherto your books have revealed to the world, earnest challengers 4 ye are of trial by some public disputation. Wherein if the thing ye crave be no more than only leave to dispute openly about those matters that are in question, the schools in universities (for any thing I know) are open unto you. They have their yearly Acts and Commencements, besides other disputations both ordinary and upon occasion, wherein the several parts of our own ecclesiastical discipline are oftentimes offered unto that kind of examination; the learnedest of you have been of late years noted seldom or never absent from thence at the time of those greater assemblies; and the favour of proposing there in convenient sort whatsoever ye can object (which thing myself have known them to grant of scholastical courtesy unto strangers) neither hath (as I think) nor ever will (I presume) be denied you.If your suit be to have some great extraordinary confluence, in expectation whereof the laws that already are should sleep and have no power over you, till in the hearing of thousands ye all did acknowledge your error and renounce the further prosecution of your cause: haply 1 they whose authority is required unto the satisfying of your demand do think it both dangerous to admit such concourse of divided minds, and unmeet that laws, which being once solemnly established are to exact obedience of all men and to constrain thereunto, should so far stoop as o hold themselves in suspense from taking any effect upon you till some disputer can persuade you to be obedient. A law is the deed of the whole body politic, whereof if ye judge yourselves to be any part, then is the law even your deed also. And were it reason in things of this quality to give men audience, pleading for the overthrow of that which their own very deed hath ratified? Laws that have been approved may be (no man doubteth) again repealed, and to that end also disputed against, by the authors thereof themselves. But this is when the whole doth deliberate what laws each part shall observe, and not when a part refuseth the laws which the whole hath orderly agreed upon.Notwithstanding, forasmuch as the cause we maintain is (God be thanked) such as needeth not to shun any trial, might it please them on whose approbation the matter dependeth to condescend so far unto you in this behalf, I wish heartily that proof were made even by solemn conference in orderly and quiet sort, whether you would yourselves be satisfied, or else could by satisfying others draw them to your part. Provided always, first, inasmuch as ye go about to destroy a thing which is in force, and to draw in that which hath not as yet been received; to impose on us that which we think not ourselves

bound unto, and to overthrow those things whereof we are possessed; that therefore ye are not to claim in any such conference other than the plaintiff’s or opponent’s part, which must consist altogether in proof and confirmation of two things: the one, that our orders by you condemned we ought to abolish; the other, that yours we are bound to accept in the stead thereof: secondly, because the questions in controversy between us are many, if once we descend unto particularities; that for the easier and more orderly proceeding therein the most general be first discussed, nor any question left off, nor in each question the prosecution of any one argument given over and another taken in hand, till the issue whereunto by replies and answers both parts are come, be collected, read, and acknowledged as well on the one side as on the other to be the plain conclusion which they are grown unto: thirdly, for avoiding of the manifold inconveniences whereunto ordinary and extemporal disputes are subject; as also because, if ye should singly dispute one by one as every man’s own wit did best serve, it might be conceived by the rest that haply some other would have done more; the chiefest of you do all agree in this action, that whom ye shall then choose your speaker, by him that which is publickly brought into disputation be acknowledged by all your consents not to be his allegation but yours, such as ye all are agreed upon, and have required him to deliver in all your names; the true copy whereof being taken by a notary, that a reasonable time be allowed for return of answer unto you in the like form. Fourthly, whereas a number of conferences have been had in other causes with the less effectual success, by reason of partial and untrue reports published afterwards unto the world; that to prevent this evil, there be at the first a solemn declaration made on both parts, of their agreement to have that very book and no other set abroad, wherein their present authorized notaries do write those things fully and only, which being written and there read, are by their own open testimony acknowledged to be their own. Other circumstances hereunto belonging, whether for the choice of time, place, and language, or for prevention of impertinent and needless speech, or to any end and purpose else--they may be thought on when occasion serveth. In this sort to broach my private conceit for the ordering of a public action I should be loth (albeit I do it not otherwise than under correction of them whose gravity and wisdom ought in such cases to overrule,) but that so venturous boldness I see is a thing now general; and am thereby of good hope, that where all men are licensed to offend, no man will shew himself a sharp accuser. VI. What success God may give unto any such kind of conference or disputation, we cannot tell. But of this we are right sure, that nature, Scripture, and experience itself; have all taught the world to seek for the ending of contentions by submitting itself unto some judicial and definitive sentence, whereunto neither part that contendeth may under any pretence or colour refuse to stand. This must needs be effectual and strong. As for other means without this, they seldom prevail. I would therefore know, whether for the ending of these irksome strifes, wherein you and your followers do stand thus formally divided against the authorized guides of this church, and the rest of the people subject unto their charge; whether I say ye be content to refer your cause to any other higher judgment than your own, or else intend to persist and proceed as ye have begun, till yourselves can be persuaded to condemn yourselves. If your determination be this, we can be but sorry that

ye should deserve to be reckoned with such, of whom God himself pronounceth, “The way of peace they have not known.”Ways of peaceable conclusion there are, but these two certain: the one, a sentence of judicial decision given by authority thereto appointed within ourselves; the other, the like kind of sentence given by a more universal authority. The former of which two ways God himself in the Law prescribeth, and his Spirit it was which directed the very first Christian churches in the world to use the latter. The ordinance of God in the Law was this. “If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea, &c. then shalt thou arise, and go up unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the Priests of the Levites, and ‘unto the Judge that shall be in those days, and ask, and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment, and thou shalt do according to that thing, which they of that place which the Lord hath chosen shew thee, and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee according to the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, shalt thou do; thou shalt not decline from the thing which they shall shew thee to the right hand nor to the left. And that man that will do presumptuously, not hearkening unto the Priest (that standeth before the Lord thy God to minister there) or unto the Judge, that man shall die, and thou shalt take away evil from Israel.” When there grew in the Church of Christ a question, Whether the Gentiles believing might be saved, although they were not circumcised after the manner of Moses, nor did observe the rest of those legal rites and ceremonies whereunto the Jews were bound; after great dissension and disputation about it, their conclusion in the end was to have it determined by sentence at Jerusalem; which was accordingly done in a council there assembled for the same purpose. Are ye able to allege any just and sufficient cause wherefore absolutely ye should not condescend in this controversy to have your judgments overruled by some such definitive sentence, whether it fall out to be given with or against you; that so these tedious contentions may cease?Ye will perhaps make answer, that being persuaded already as touching the truth of your cause, ye are not to hearken unto any sentence, no not though Angels should define otherwise, as the blessed Apostle’s own example teacheth: again, that men, yea councils, may err; and that, unless the judgment given do satisfy your minds, unless it be such as ye can by no further argument oppugn, in a word, unless you perceive and acknowledge it yourselves consonant with God’s word; to stand unto it not allowing it were to sin against your own consciences. But consider I beseech you first as touching the Apostle, how that wherein he was so resolute and peremptory, our Lord Jesus Christ made manifest unto him even by intuitive revelation, wherein there was no possibility of error. That which you are persuaded of, ye have it no otherwise than by your own only probable collection, and therefore such bold asseverations as in him were admirable, should in your mouths but argue rashness. God was not ignorant that the priests and judges, whose sentence in matters of controversy he

ordained should stand, both might and oftentimes would be deceived in their judgment. Howbeit, better it was in the eye of His understanding, that sometime an erroneous sentence definitive should prevail, till the same authority perceiving such oversight, might afterwards correct or reverse it, than that strifes should have respite to grow, and not come speedily unto some end. Neither wish we that men should do any thing which in their hearts they are persuaded they ought not to do, but this persuasion ought (we say) to be fully settled in their hearts; that in litigious and controversed causes of such quality, the will of God is to have them do whatsoever the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determine, yea, though it seem in their private opinion to swerve utterly from that which is right: as no doubt many times the sentence amongst the Jews did seem unto one part or other contending, and yet in this case, God did then allow them to do that which in their private judgment it seemed, yea and perhaps truly seemed, that the law did disallow. For if God be not the author of confusion but of peace, then can he not be the author of our refusal, but of our contentment, to stand unto some definitive sentence; without which almost impossible it is that either we should avoid confusion, or ever hope to attain peace. To small purpose had the Council of Jerusalem been assembled, if once their determination being set down, men might afterwards have defended their former opinions. When therefore they had given their definitive sentence, all controversy was at an end. Things were disputed before they came to be determined; men afterwards were not to dispute any longer, but to obey. The sentence of judgment finished their strife, which their disputes before judgment could not do. This was ground sufficient for any reasonable man’s conscience to build the duty of obedience upon, whatsoever his own opinion were as touching the matter before in question. So full of wilfulness and self-liking is our nature, that without some definitive sentence, which being given may stand, and a necessity of silence on both sides afterward imposed, small hope there is that strifes thus far prosecuted will in short time quietly end.Now it were in vain to ask you, whether ye could be content that the sentence of any court already erected should be so far authorized, as that among the Jews established by God himself, for the determining of all controversies: “That man which will do presumptuously, not hearkening unto the Priest that standeth before the Lord to minister there, nor unto the Judge, let him die.” Ye have given us already to understand, what your opinion is in part concerning her sacred Majesty’s Court of High Commission; the nature whereof is the same with that amongst the Jews, albeit the power be not so great. The other way haply may like you better, because Master Beza, in his last book save one 2 written about these matters, professeth himself to be now weary of such combats and encounters, whether by word or writing, inasmuch as he findeth that “controversies thereby are made but brawls;” and therefore wisheth “that in some common lawful assembly of churches all these strifes may at once be decided.”Shall there be then in the meanwhile no “doings?” Yes. There are the weightier matters of the law, “judgment, and mercy, and fidelity.” These things we ought to do; and these things, while we contend about less, we leave undone. Happier are they whom the Lord when he cometh shall find “doing” in these things, than disputing about “Doctors,

Elders, and Deacons.” Or if there be no remedy but somewhat needs ye must do which may tend to the setting forward of your discipline; do that which wise men, who think some statute of the realm more fit to be repealed than to stand in force, are accustomed to do before they come to parliament where the place of enacting is; that is to say, spend the time in re-examining more duly your cause, and in more throughly considering of that which ye labour to overthrow. As for the orders which are established, sith equity and reason, the law of nature, God and man, do all favour that which is in being, till orderly judgment of decision be given against it; it is but justice to exact of you, and perverseness in you it should be to deny, thereunto your willing obedience.Not that I judge it a thing allowable for men to observe those laws which in their hearts they are steadfastly persuaded to be against the law of God: but your persuasion in this case ye are all bound for the time to suspend; and in otherwise doing, ye offend against God by troubling his Church without any just or necessary cause. Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our laws. Are those reasons demonstrative, are they necessary, or but mere probabilities only? An argument necessary and demonstrative is such, as being proposed unto any man and understood, the mind cannot choose but inwardly assent. Any one such reason dischargeth, I grant, the conscience, and setteth it at full liberty. For the public approbation given by the body of this whole church unto those things which are established, doth make it but probable that they are good. And therefore unto a necessary proof that they are not good it must give place. But if the skilfullest amongst you can shew that all the books ye have hitherto written be able to afford any one argument of this nature, let the instance be given. As for probabilities, what thing was there ever set down so agreeable with sound reason, but some probable shew against it might be made? Is it meet that when publicly things are received, and have taken place, general obedience thereunto should cease to be exacted, in case this or that private person, led with some probable conceit, should make open protestation, “I Peter or John disallow them, and pronounce them nought?” In which case your answer will be, that concerning the laws of our church, they are not only condemned in the opinion of “a private man, but of thousands,” yea and even “of. those amongst which divers are in public charge and authority.” As though when public consent of the whole hath established any thing, every man’s judgment being thereunto compared were not private, howsoever his calling be to some kind of public charge. So that of peace and quietness there is not any way possible, unless the probable voice of every entire society or body politic overrule all private of like nature in the same body. Which thing effectually proveth, that God, being author of peace and not of confusion in the church, must needs be author of those men’s peaceable resolutions, who concerning these things have determined with themselves to think and do as the church they are of decreeth, till they see necessary cause enforcing them to the contrary. VII. Nor is mine own intent any other in these several books of discourse, than to make it appear unto you, that for the ecclesiastical laws of this land, we are led by great reason to observe them, and 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 glass 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 throughly 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, against which ye 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 Polity Ecclesiastical, 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 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 specialties 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 or Sovereign commander over the whole body politic: the eighth book we have allotted unto this question, and have sifted therein your objections against those preeminences royal which thereunto appertain.Thus have I laid before you the brief of these my travails, 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. VIII. The case so standing therefore, my brethren, as it doth, the wisdom of governors ye must not blame, in that they further also forecasting the manifold strange and dangerous innovations which are more than likely to follow, if your discipline should take place, have for that cause thought it hitherto a part of their duty to withstand your endeavours, that way. The rather, for that they have seen already some small beginnings of the fruits thereof, in them who concurring with you in judgment about the necessity of that 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 have sucked those things, which when ye delivered unto us ye termed that heavenly, sincere, and wholesome milk of God’s word, howsoever ye now abhor as poison that which the virtue thereof hath wrought and brought forth in us. You sometime our companions, guides and familiars, with whom we have had most sweet 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 and license 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 teachings 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 united unto his Church, that we cannot account it really to be his 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, you 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 loth 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 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 further 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 Caesar 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 (you 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 “falsehearted Scribes and Pharisees, ‘they say, and do not:’” Thus the foolish Barrowist deriveth his 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 to stand to the sentence of a number of mean persons assisted with the presence of their poor teacher, a man (as sometimes 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 wise;” and of that sort the number hereafter be not likely to wax overgreat, “when” (that wherewith the son of Sirach professeth himself at the heart grieved) “men of understanding are” already so “little 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 your positions are unto the state of collegiate societies, whereon 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 equality amongst ministers a thing repugnant to the word of God, enforce those colleges, the seniors whereof are all or any part of them ministers under the government of a master in the same vocation, to choose as oft as they meet together a new president. For if so ye judge it necessary to do in synods, for the avoiding of permanent inequality amongst ministers, the same cause must needs even in these collegiate assemblies enforce the like.

Except peradventure ye mean to avoid all such absurdities, by dissolving those corporations, and by bringing the universities unto the form of the School of Geneva. Which thing men the rather are inclined to look for, inasmuch as the ministry, whereinto their founders with singular providence have by the same statutes appointed them necessarily to enter at a certain time, your laws bind them much more necessarily to forbear, till some parish abroad call for them.Your opinion concerning the law civil is that the knowledge thereof might be spared, as a thing which this land doth not need. Professors in that kind being few, ye are the bolder to spurn at them, and not to dissemble your minds as concerning their removal: in whose studies although myself have not much been conversant, nevertheless exceeding great cause I see there is to wish that thereunto more encouragement were given; as well for the singular treasures of wisdom therein contained, as also for the great use we have thereof, both in decision of certain kinds of causes arising daily within ourselves, and especially for commerce with nations abroad, whereunto that knowledge is most requisite. The reasons wherewith ye would persuade that Scripture is the only rule to frame all our actions by, are in every respect as effectual for proof that the same is the only law whereby to determine all our civil controversies. And then what doth let, but that as those men may have their desire, who frankly broach it already that the work of reformation will never be perfect, till the law of Jesus Christ be received alone; so pleaders and counsellors may bring their books of the common law, and bestow them as the students of curious and needless arts did theirs in the Apostles’ time? I leave them to scan how far those words of yours may reach, wherein ye declare that, whereas now many houses lie waste through inordinate suits of law, “this one thing will shew the excellency of discipline for the wealth of the realm, and quiet of subjects; that the Church is to censure such a party who is apparently troublesome and contentious, and without reasonable cause upon a mere will and stomach doth vex and molest his brother, and trouble the country.” For mine own part I do not see but that it might very well agree with your principles, if your discipline were fully planted, even to send out your writs of surcease unto all courts of England besides, for the most things handled in them.A great deal further I might proceed and descend lower. But forasmuch as against all these and the like difficulties your answer is’, that we ought to search what things are consonant to God’s will, not which be most for our own ease; and therefore that your discipline being (for such is your error) the absolute commandment of Almighty God, it must be received although the world by receiving it should be clean turned upside down; herein lieth the greatest danger of all. For whereas the name of divine authority is used to countenance these things, which are not the commandments of God, but your own erroneous collections; on him ye must father whatsoever ye shall afterwards be led, either to do in withstanding the adversaries of your cause, or to think in maintenance of your doings. And what this may be, God doth know. In such kinds of error the mind once imagining itself to seek the execution of God’s will, laboureth forthwith to remove both things and persons which any way hinder it from taking place; and in such cases if any strange or new thing seem requisite to be done, a strange and new opinion concerning the lawfulness thereof is withal received and broached under countenance of divine authority.

One example herein may serve for many, to shew that false opinions, touching the will of God to have things done, are wont to bring forth mighty and violent practices against, the hindrances of them; and those practices new opinions more pernicious than the first, yea most extremely sometimes opposite to that which the first did seem to intend. Where the people took upon them the reformation of the Church by casting out popish superstition, they having received from their pastors a general instruction “that. whatsoever the heavenly Father hath not planted “must be rooted out,” proceeded in some foreign places so far that down went oratories and the very temples of God themselves. For as they chanced to take the compass of their commission stricter or larger, so their dealings were accordingly more or less moderate. Amongst others there sprang up presently one kind of men, with whose zeal and forwardness the rest being compared were thought to be marvellous cold and dull. These grounding themselves on rules more general; that whatsoever the law of Christ commandeth not, thereof Antichrist is the author: and that whatsoever Antichrist or his adherents did in the world, the true professors of Christ are to undo; found out many things more than others had done, the extirpation whereof was in their conceit as necessary as of any thing before removed. Hereupon they secretly made their doleful complaints every where as they went, that albeit the world did begin to profess some dislike of that which was evil in the kingdom of darkness, yet fruits worthy of a true repentance were not seen; and that if men did repent as they ought, they must endeavour to purge the earth of all manner evil, to the end there might follow a new world afterward, wherein righteousness only should dwell. Private repentance they said must appear by every man’s fashioning his own life contrary unto the customs and orders of this present world, both in greater things and in less. To this purpose they had always in their mouths those greater things, charity, faith, the true fear of God, the cross, the mortification of the flesh. All their exhortations were to set light of the things in this world, to count riches and honours vanity, and in token thereof not only to seek neither, but if men were possessors of both, even to cast away the one and resign the other, that all men might see their unfeigned conversion unto Christ. They were solicitors of men to fasts, to often meditations of heavenly things, and as it were conferences in secret with God by prayers, not framed according to the frozen manner of the world, but expressing such fervent desires as might even force God to hearken unto them. Where they found men in diet, attire, furniture of house, or any other way, observers of civility and decent order, such they reproved as being carnally and earthly minded. Every word otherwise than severely and sadly uttered seemed to pierce like a sword through them. If any man were pleasant, their manner was presently with deep sighs to repeat those words of our Saviour Christ, “Woe be to you which now laugh, for ye shall lament.” So great was their delight to be always in trouble, that such as did quietly lead their lives, they judged of all other men to be in most dangerous case. They so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in every thing, that when other men’s use was to put on better attire, they would be sure to shew themselves openly abroad in worse: the ordinary names of the days in the week they thought it a kind of profaneness to use, and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other distinction than by numbers, the First, Second, Third day.From this they proceeded unto public reformation, first ecclesiastical, and then civil. Touching the former, they boldly avouched that themselves only had the truth, which

thing upon peril of their lives they would at all times defend; and that since the apostles lived, the same was never before in all points sincerely taught. Wherefore that things might again be brought to that ancient integrity which Jesus Christ by his word requireth, they began to control the ministers of the gospel for attributing so much force and virtue unto the scriptures of God read, whereas the truth was, that when the word is said to engender faith in the heart, and to convert the soul of man, or to work any such spiritual divine effect, these speeches are not thereunto appliable as it is read or preached, but as it is ingrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost opening the eyes of our understanding, and so revealing the mysteries of God, according to that which Jeremy promised before should be, saying, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their hearts”? The Book of God they notwithstanding for the most part so admired, that other disputation against their opinions than only by allegation of Scripture they would not hear; besides it they thought no other writings in the world should be studied; insomuch as one of their great prophets exhorting them to cast away all respects unto human writings, so far to his motion they condescended, that as many as had any books save the Holy Bible in their custody, they brought and set them publicly on fire. When they and their Bibles were alone together, what strange fantastical opinion soever at any time entered into their heads, their use was to think the Spirit taught it them. Their phrensies concerning our Saviour’s incarnation, the state of souls departed, and suchlike, are things needless to be rehearsed. And forasmuch as they were of the same suit with those of whom the apostle speaketh, saying, “They are still learning, but never attain to the knowledge of truth,” it was no marvel to see them every day broach some new thing, not heard of before. Which restless levity they did interpret to be their growing to spiritual perfection, and a proceeding from faith to faith. The differences amongst them grew by this mean in a manner infinite, so that scarcely was there found any one of them, the forge of whose brain was not possessed with some special mystery. Whereupon, although their mutual contentions a were most fiercely prosecuted amongst themselves, yet when they came to defend the cause common to them all against the adversaries of their faction, they had ways to lick one another whole; the sounder in his own persuasion excusing the dear brethren, which were not so far enlightened, and professing a charitable hope of the mercy of God towards them notwithstanding their swerving from him in some things. Their own ministers they highly magnified as men whose vocation was from God; the rest their manner was to term disdainfully Scribes and Pharisees, to account their calling an human creature, and to detain the people as much as might be from hearing them. As touching Sacraments, Baptism administered in the Church of Rome they judged to be but an execrable mockery and no baptism; both because the ministers thereof in the Papacy are wicked idolaters, lewd persons, thieves and murderers, cursed creatures, ignorant beasts; and also for that to baptize is a proper action belonging unto none but the Church of Christ, whereas Rome is Antichrist’s synagogue. The custom of using godfathers and godmothers at christenings they scorned. Baptizing of infants, although confessed by themselves to have been continued ever sithence the very Apostles’ own times, yet they altogether condemned; partly because sundry errors are of no less antiquity; and partly for that there is no commandment in the gospel of Christ which saith, “Baptize infants;” but he contrariwise in saying, “Go preach and baptize,” doth appoint that the minister of baptism shall in that action first administer doctrine, and then baptism; as also in saying, “Whosoever doth believe and is baptized,” he appointeth that the party to whom baptism

is administered shall first believe and then be baptized; to the end that believing may go before this sacrament in the receiver, no otherwise than preaching in the giver; sith equally in both, the law of Christ declareth not only what things are required, but also in what order they are required. The Eucharist they received (pretending our Lord and Saviour’s example) after supper; and for avoiding all those impieties which have been grounded upon the mystical words of Christ, “This is my body, this is my blood,” they thought it not safe to mention either body or blood in that sacrament, but rather to abrogate both, and to use no words but these, “Take, eat, declare the death of our Lord: Drink, shew forth our Lord’s death.” In rites and ceremonies their profession was hatred of all conformity with the Church of Rome: for which cause they would rather endure any torment than observe the solemn festivals which others did, inasmuch as Antichrist (they said) was the first inventor of them.The pretended end of their civil reformation was that Christ might have dominion over all; that all crowns and sceptres might be thrown down at his feet; that no other might reign over Christian men but he, no regiment keep them in awe but his discipline, amongst them no sword at all be carried besides his, the sword of spiritual excommunication. For this cause they laboured with all their might in overturning the seats of magistracy, because Christ hath said, “Kings of nations;” in abolishing the execution of justice, because Christ hath said, “Resist not evil;” in forbidding oaths, the necessary means of judicial trial, because Christ hath said, “Swear not at all:” finally, in bringing in community of goods, because Christ by his apostles hath given the world such example, to the end that men might excel one another not in wealth the pillar of secular authority, but in virtue.These men at the first were only pitied in their error, and not much withstood by any; the great humility, zeal, and devotion, which appeared to be in them, was in all men’s opinion a pledge of their harmless meaning. The hardest that men of sound understanding conceived of them was but this, “O quam honesta voluntate miseri errant! With how good a “meaning these poor souls do evil!” Luther made request unto Frederick duke of Saxony, that within his dominion they might be favourably dealt with and spared, for that (their error excepted) they seemed otherwise right good men. By means of which merciful toleration they gathered strength, much more than was safe for the state of the commonwealth wherein they lived. They had their secret corner-meetings and assemblies in the night, the people flocked unto them by thousands.The means whereby they both allured and retained so great multitudes were most effectual: first, a wonderful show of zeal towards God, wherewith they seemed to be even rapt in every thing they spake: secondly, an hatred of sin, and a singular love of integrity, which men did think to be much more than ordinary in them, by reason of the custom which they had to fill the ears of the people with invectives against their authorized guides, as well spiritual as civil: thirdly, the bountiful relief wherewith they eased the broken estate of such needy creatures, as were in that respect the more apt to be drawn away: fourthly, a tender compassion which they were thought to take upon the miseries of the common sort, over whose heads their manner was even to pour down showers of tears, in complaining that no respect was had unto them, that their goods were devoured

by wicked cormorants, their persons had in contempt, all liberty both temporal and spiritual taken from them, that it was high time for God now to hear their groans, and to send them deliverance: lastly, a cunning sleight which they had to stroke and smooth up the minds of their followers, as well by appropriating unto them all the favourable titles, the good words, and the gracious promises in Scripture; as also by casting the contrary always on the heads of such as were severed from that retinue. Whereupon the people’s common acclamation unto such deceivers was, “These are verily the men of God, these are his true and sincere prophets.” If any such prophet or man of God did suffer by order of law condign and deserved punishment, were it for felony, rebellion, murder, or what else, the people, (so strangely were their hearts enchanted,) as though blessed Saint Stephen had been again martyred, did lament that God took away his most dear servants from them.In all these things being fully persuaded, that what they did, it was obedience to the will of God, and that all men should do the like; there remained, after speculation, practice, whereby the whole world thereunto (if it were possible) might be framed. This they saw could not be done but with mighty opposition and resistance; against which to strengthen themselves, they secretly entered into league of association. And peradventure considering, that although they were many, yet long wars would in time waste them out; they began to think whether it might not be that God would have them do, for their speedy and mighty increase, the same which sometime God’s own chosen people, the people of Israel, did. Glad and fain they were to have it so; which very desire was itself apt to breed both an opinion of possibility, and a willingness to gather arguments of likelihood, that so God himself would have it. Nothing more clear unto their seeming, than that a new Jerusalem being often spoken of in Scripture, they undoubtedly were themselves that new Jerusalem, and the old did by way of a certain figurative resemblance signify what they should both be and do. Here they drew in a sea of matter, by applying all things unto their own company, which are any where spoken concerning divine favours and benefits bestowed upon the old commonwealth of Israel: concluding that as Israel was delivered out of Egypt, so they spiritually out of the Egypt of this world’s servile thraldom unto sin and superstition; as Israel was to root out the idolatrous nations, and to plant instead of them a people which feared God; so the same Lord’s good will and pleasure was now, that these new Israelites should, under the conduct of other Josuas, Samsons, and Gedeons, perform a work no less miraculous in casting out violently the wicked from the earth, and establishing the kingdom of Christ with perfect liberty: and therefore, as the cause why the children of Israel took unto one man many wives, might be lest the casualties of war should any way hinder the promise of God concerning their multitude from taking effect in them; so it was not unlike that for the necessary propagation of Christ’s kingdom under the Gospel the Lord was content to allow as much.Now whatsoever they did in such sort collect out of Scripture, when they came to justify or persuade it unto others, all was the heavenly Father’s appointment, his commandment, his will and charge. Which thing is the very point, in regard whereof I have gathered this declaration. For my purpose herein is to shew, that when the minds of men are once erroneously persuaded that it is the will of God to have those things done

which they fancy, their opinions are as thorns in their sides, never suffering them to take rest till they have brought their speculations into practice. The lets and impediments of which practice their restless desire and study to remove leadeth them every day forth by the hand into other more dangerous opinions, sometimes quite and clean contrary to their first pretended meanings: so as what will grow out of such errors as go masked under the cloak of divine authority, impossible it is that ever the wit of man should imagine, till time have brought forth the fruits of them: for which cause it behoveth wisdom to fear the sequels thereof, even beyond all apparent cause of fear: These men, in whose mouths at the first sounded nothing but only mortification of the flesh, were come at the length to think they might lawfully have their six or seven wives apiece; they which at the first thought judgment and justice itself to be merciless cruelty, accounted at the length their own hands sanctified with being embrued in Christian blood; they who at the first were wont to beat down all dominion, and to urge against poor constables, “Kings of nations;” had at the length both consuls and kings of their own erection amongst themselves: finally, they which could not brook at the first that any man should seek, no not by law, the recovery of goods injuriously taken or withheld from him, were grown at the last to think they could not offer unto God more acceptable sacrifice, than by turning their adversaries clean out of house and home, and by enriching themselves with all kind of spoil and pillage; which thing being laid to their charge, they had in a readiness their answer, that now the time was come, when according to our Saviour’s promise, “the meek ones must inherit the earth;” and that their title hereunto was the same which the righteous Israelites had unto the goods of the wicked Egyptians.Wherefore sith the world hath had in these men so fresh experience, how dangerous such active errors are, it must not offend you, though, touching the sequel of your present mispersuasions, much more be doubted, than your own intents and purposes do haply aim at. And yet your words” already are somewhat, when ye affirm, that your Pastors, Doctors, Elders, and Deacons, ought to be in this Church of England, “whether her Majesty and our state will or no;” when for the animating of your confederates ye publish the musters which ye have made of your own bands, and proclaim them to amount I know not to how many thousands; when ye threaten, that sith neither your suits to the parliament, nor supplications to our convocation-house, neither your defences by writing, nor challenges of disputation in behalf of that cause are able to prevail, we must blame ourselves, if to bring in discipline some such means hereafter be used as shall cause all our hearts to ache. “That things doubtful are to be construed’ in the better part,” is a principle not safe to be followed in matters concerning the public state of a commonweal. But howsoever these and the like speeches be accounted as arrows idly shot at random, without either eye had to any mark, or regard to their lighting-place; hath not your longing desire for the practice of your discipline brought the matter already unto this demurrer amongst you, whether the people and their godly pastors that way affected ought not to make separation from the rest, and to begin the exercise of discipline without the license of civil powers, which license they have sought for, and are not heard? Upon which question as ye have now divided yourselves, the warier sort of you taking the one part, and the forwarder in zeal the other; so in case these earnest ones should prevail, what other sequel can any wise man imagine but this, that having first resolved that attempts for discipline without superiors are lawful, it will follow in the next place to be

disputed what may be attempted against superiors which will not have the sceptre of that discipline to rule over them? Yea even by you which have stayed yourselves from running headlong with the other sort, somewhat notwithstanding there hath been done without the leave or liking of your lawful superiors, for the exercise of a part of your discipline amongst the clergy thereunto addicted. And lest examination of principal parties therein should bring those things to light, which might hinder and let your proceedings; behold, for a bar against that impediment, one opinion ye have newly added unto the rest even upon this occasion, an opinion to exempt you from taking oaths which may turn to the molestation of your brethren in that cause. The next neighbour opinion whereunto, when occasion requireth, may follow for dispensation with oaths already taken, if they afterwards be found to import a necessity of detecting ought which may bring such good men into trouble or damage, whatsoever the cause be. O merciful God, what man’s wit is there able to sound the depth of those dangerous and fearful evils, whereinto our weak and impotent nature is inclinable to sink itself, rather than to shew an acknowledgment of error in that which once we have unadvisedly taken upon us to defend, against the stream as it were of a contrary public resolution!Wherefore if we any thing respect their error, who being persuaded even as you are have gone further upon that persuasion than you allow; if we regard the present state of the highest governor placed over us, if the quality and disposition of our nobles, if the orders and laws of our famous universities, if the profession of the civil or the practice of the common law amongst us, if the mischiefs whereinto even before our eyes so many others have fallen headlong from no less plausible and fair beginnings than yours are: there is in every of these considerations most just cause to fear lest our hastiness to embrace a thing of so perilous consequence should cause posterity to feel those evils, which as yet are more easy for us to prevent than they would be for them to remedy. IX. The best and safest way for you therefor; my dear brethren, is, to call your deeds past to a new reckoning, to reexamine the cause ye have taken in hand, and to try it even point by point, argument by argument, with all the diligent exactness ye can; to lay aside the gall of that bitterness wherein your minds have hitherto over-abounded, and with meekness to search the truth. Think ye are men, deem it not impossible for you to err; sift unpartially your own hearts, whether it be force of reason or vehemency of affection, which hath bred and still doth feed these opinions in you. If truth do any where manifest itself, seek not to smother it with glosing delusions, acknowledge the greatness thereof, and think it your best victory when the same doth prevail over you.That ye have been earnest in speaking or writing again and again the contrary way, shall be no blemish or discredit at all unto you. Amongst so many so huge volumes as the infinite pains of St. Augustine have brought forth, what one hath gotten him greater love, commendation and honour, than the book wherein he carefully collecteth his own oversights, and sincerely condemneth them? Many speeches there are of Job’s whereby his wisdom and other virtues may appear; but the glory of an ingenuous mind he hath purchased by these words only, “Behold, I will lay mine hand on my mouth: I have spoken once, yet will I not therefore maintain argument; yea twice, howbeit for that cause further I will not proceed.”

Far more comfort it were for us (so small is the joy we take in these strifes) to labour under the same yoke, as men that look for the same eternal reward of their labours, to be joined with you in bands of indissoluble love and amity, to live as if our persons being many our souls were but one, rather than in such dismembered sort to spend our few and wretched days in a tedious prosecuting of wearisome contentions: the end whereof, if they have not some speedy end, will be heavy even on both sides. Brought already we are even to that estate which Gregory Nazianzen mournfully describeth, saying”, “My mind leadeth me” (sith there is no other remedy) “to fly and to convey myself into some corner out of sight, where I may scape from this cloudy tempest of maliciousness, whereby all parts are entered into a deadly war amongst themselves, and that little remnant of love which was, is now consumed to nothing. The only godliness we glory in, is to find out somewhat whereby we may judge others to be ungodly. Each other’s faults we observe as matter of exprobration and not of grief. By these means we are grown hateful in the eyes of the heathens themselves, and (which woundeth us the more deeply) able we are not to deny but that we have deserved their hatred. With the better sort of our own our fame and credit is clean lost. The less we are to marvel if they judge vilely of us, who although we did well would hardly allow thereof. On our backs they also build that are lewd, and what we object one against another, the same they use to the utter scorn and disgrace ‘of us all. This we have gained by our mutual home dissensions. This we are worthily rewarded with, which are more forward to strive than becometh men of virtuous ‘ and mild disposition.”But our trust in the Almighty is, that with us contentions are now at their highest float, and that the day will come (for what cause of despair is there?) when the passions of former enmity being allayed, we shall with ten times redoubled tokens of our unfeignedly reconciled love, shew ourselves each towards other the same which Joseph and the brethren of Joseph were at the time of their interview in Egypt. Our comfortable expectation and most thirsty desire whereof what man soever amongst you shall any way help to satisfy, (as we truly hope there is no one amongst you but some way or other will,) the blessings of the God of peace, both in this world and in the world to come, be upon him moe than the stars of the firmament in number. What Things are handled in the Books following: Book the First, concerning Laws in general. The Second, of the use of Divine Law contained in Scripture; whether that be the only Law which ought to serve for our direction in all things without exception. The Third, of Laws concerning Ecclesiastical Polity; whether the form thereof be in Scripture so set down, that no addition or change is lawful. The Fourth, of general exceptions taken against the Laws of our Polity, as being popish, and banished out of certain reformed churches.

The Fifth, of our Laws that concern the public religious duties of the Church, and the manner of bestowing that Power of Order, which enableth men in sundry degrees and callings to execute the same. The Sixth, of the Power of Jurisdiction, which the reformed platform claimeth unto lay- elders, with others. The Seventh, of the Power of Jurisdiction, and the honour which is annexed thereunto in Bishops. The Eighth, of the power of Ecclesiastical Dominion or Supreme Authority, which with us the highest governor or Prince hath, as well in regard of domestical Jurisdictions, as of that other foreignly claimed by the Bishop of Rome.

OF THE LAWS OF ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. THE FIRST BOOK. CONCERNING LAWS AND THEIR SEVERAL KINDS IN GENERAL. THE MATTER CONTAINED IN THIS FIRST BOOK. I. The cause of writing this general Discourse concerning Laws. II. Of that Law which God from before the beginning hath set for himself to do all things by. III. The Law which natural agents observe, and their necessary manner of keeping it. IV. The Law which the Angels of God obey. V. The Law whereby man is in his actions directed to the imitation of God. VI. Men’s first beginning to understand that Law. VII. Of Man’s Will, which is the first thing that Laws of action are made to guide. VIII. Of the natural finding out of Laws by the light of Reason, to guide the Will unto that which is good. IX. Of the benefit of keeping that Law which Reason teacheth. X. How Reason doth lead men unto the making of human Laws, whereby politic Societies are governed, and to agreement about Laws whereby the fellowship or communion of independent Societies standeth. XI. Wherefore God hath by Scripture further made known such supernatural Laws as do serve for men’s direction. XII. The cause why so many natural or rational Laws are set down in Holy Scripture. XIII. The benefit of having divine Laws written. XIV. The sufficiency of Scripture unto the end for which it was instituted. XV. Of Laws positive contained in Scripture, the mutability of certain of them, and the general use of Scripture. XVI. A Conclusion, shewing how all this belongeth to the cause in question.

I. HE that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall never want attentive and favourable hearers; because they know the manifold defects whereunto every kind of regiment is subject, but the secret lets and difficulties, which in public proceedings are innumerable and inevitable, they have not ordinarily the judgment to consider. And because such as openly reprove supposed disorders of state are taken for principal friends to the common benefit of all, and for men that carry singular freedom of mind; under this fair and plausible colour whatsoever they utter passeth for good and current. That which wanteth in the weight of their speech, is supplied by the aptness of men’s minds to accept and believe it. Whereas on the other side, if we maintain things that are established, we have not only to strive with a number of heavy prejudices deeply rooted in the hearts of men, who think that herein we serve the time, and speak in favour of the present state, because thereby we either hold or seek preferment; but also to bear such exceptions as minds so averted beforehand usually take against that which they are loth should be poured into them.Albeit therefore much of that we are to speak in this present cause may seem to a number perhaps tedious, perhaps obscure, dark, and intricate; (for many talk of the truth, which never sounded the depth from whence it springeth; and therefore when they are led thereunto they are soon weary, as men drawn from those beaten paths wherewith they have been inured;) yet this may not so far prevail as to cut off that which the matter itself requireth, howsoever the nice humour of some be therewith pleased or no. They unto whom we shall seem tedious are in no wise injured by us, because it is in their own hands to spare that labour which they are not willing to endure. And if any complain of obscurity, they must consider, that in these matters it cometh no otherwise to pass than in sundry the works both of art and also of nature, where that which hath greatest force in the very things we see is notwithstanding itself oftentimes not seen. The stateliness of houses, the goodlinessof trees, when we behold them delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosom of the earth concealed; and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour is then more necessary than pleasant, both to them which undertake it and for the lookers-on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the grounds and first original causes from whence they have sprung be unknown, as to the greatest part of men they are. But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious; for better examination of their quality, it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest wellspring and fountain of them to be discovered. Which because we are not oftentimes accustomed to do, when we do it the pains we take are more needful a great deal than acceptable, and the matters which we handle seem by reason of newness (till the mind grow better acquainted with them) dark, intricate, and unfamiliar. For as much help whereof as may be in this case, I have endeavoured throughout the body of this whole discourse, that every former part might give strength unto all that follow, and every later bring some light unto all before. So that if the judgments of men do but hold themselves in suspense as touching these first more general meditations, till in order they have perused the rest that ensue; what may seem dark at the first will afterwards be found more plain, even as the later particular decisions will appear I doubt not more strong, when the other have been read before.

The Laws of the Church, whereby for so many ages together we have been guided in the exercise of Christian religion and the service of the true God, our rites, customs, and orders of ecclesiastical government, are called in question: we are accused as men that will not have Christ Jesus to rule over them, but have wilfully cast his statutes behind their backs, hating to be reformed and made subject unto the sceptre of his discipline. Behold therefore we offer the laws whereby we live unto the general trial and judgment of the whole world; heartily beseeching Almighty God, whom we desire to serve according to his own will, that both we and others (all kind of partial affection being clean laid aside) may have eyes to see and hearts to embrace the things that in his sight are most acceptable. And because the point about which we strive is the quality of our laws, our first entrance hereinto cannot better be made, than with consideration’ of the nature of law in general, and of that law which giveth life unto all the rest, which are commendable, just, and good; namely the law whereby the Eternal himself doth work. Proceeding from hence to the law, first of Nature, then of Scripture, we shall have the easier access unto those things which come after to be debated, concerning the particular cause and question which we have in hand. II. All things that are, have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth any thing ever begin to exercise the same, without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained, unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure, of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be attained, unless the actions whereby it is attained were regular; that is to say, made suitable, fit and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule or law. Which thing doth first take place in the works even of God himself.All things therefore do work after a sort, according to law: all other things according to a law, whereof some superior, unto whom they are subject, is author; only the works and operations of God have Him both for their worker, and for the law whereby they are wrought. The being of God is a kind of law to his working: for that perfection which God is, giveth perfection to that he doth. Those natural, necessary, and internal operations of God, the Generation of the Son, the Proceeding of the Spirit, are without the compass of my present intent: which is to touch only such operations as have their beginning and being by a voluntary purpose, wherewith God hath eternally decreed when and how they should be. Which eternal decree is that we term an eternal law. Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.

## Our God is one, or rather very Oneness, and mere unity, having nothing but itself in itself, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many things. In which essential Unity of God a Trinity personal nevertheless subsisteth, after a manner far exceeding the possibility of man’s conceit. The works which outwardly are of God, they are in such sort of Him being one, that each Person hath in them somewhat peculiar and proper. For being Three, and they all subsisting in the essence of one Deity; from the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit, all things are. That which the Son doth hear of the Father, and which the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son, the same we have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last, and therefore the nearest unto us in order, although in power the same with the second and the firsts.The wise and learned among the very heathens themselves have all acknowledged some First Cause, whereupon originally the being of all things dependeth. Neither have they otherwise spoken of that cause than as an Agent, which knowing what and why it worketh, observeth in working a most exact order or law . Thus much is signified by that which Homer mentioneth, Dios deteleieto boulh . Thus much acknowledged by Mercurius Trismegistus, Ton panta kosmon epoihsen o dhmyiourgoV ou cersin alla logw . Thus much confest by Anaxagoras and Plato, terming the Maker of the world an intellectual Worker. Finally the Stoics, although imagining the first cause of all things to be fire, held nevertheless, that the same fire having art, did odw badizein epi genesei kosmou . They all confess therefore in the working of that first cause, that Counsel is used, Reason followed, a Way observed; that is to say, constant Order and Law is kept; whereof itself must needs be author unto itself. Otherwise it should have some worthier and higher to direct it, and so could not itself be the first. Being the first, it can have no other than itself to be the author of that law which it willingly worketh by. God therefore is a law both to himself, and to all other things besides. To himself he is a law in all those things, whereof our Saviour speaketh, saying, “My Father worketh as yet, so I.” God worketh nothing without cause. All those things which are done by him have some end for which they are done; and the end for which they are done is a reason of his will to do them. His will had not inclined to create woman, but that he saw it could not be well if she were not created. Non est bonum , “It is not good man should be alone; therefore let us make a helper for him.” That and nothing else is done by God, which to leave undone were not so good. If therefore it be demanded, why God having power and ability infinite, the effects notwithstanding of that power are all so limited as we see they are: the reason hereof is the end which he hath proposed, and the law whereby his wisdom hath stinted the effects of his power in such sort, that it doth not work infinitely, but correspondently unto that end for which it worketh, even “all things crestwV in most decent and comely sort,” all things in “Measure, Number, and Weight.”The general end of God’s external working is the exercise of his most glorious and most abundant virtue. Which abundance doth shew itself in variety, and for that cause this variety is oftentimes in Scripture exprest by the name of riches . “The Lord hath made

## all things for his “own sake.” Not that any thing is made to be beneficial unto him, but all things for him to shew beneficence and grace in them. The particular drift of every act proceeding externally from God we are not able to discern, and therefore cannot always give the proper and certain reason of his works. Howbeit undoubtedly a proper and certain reason there is of every finite work of God, inasmuch as there is a law imposed upon it; which if there were not, it should be infinite, even as the worker himself is.They err therefore who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides his will. Many times no reason known to us; but that there is no reason thereof I judge it most unreasonable to imagine, inasmuch as he worketh all things kata thn loulhn tou qelhmatoV aou , not only according to his own will, but “the Counsel of his own will.” And whatsoever is done with counsel or wise resolution hath of necessity some reason why it should be done, albeit that reason be to us in some things so secret, that it forceth the wit of man to stand, as the blessed Apostle himself doth, amazed thereat: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments,” &c. That law eternal which God himself hath made to himself, and thereby worketh all things whereof he is the cause and author; that law in the admirable frame whereof shineth with most perfect beauty the countenance of that wisdom which hath testified concerning herself, “The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, even before his works of old I was set up;” that law, which hath been the pattern to make, and is the card to guide the world by; that law which hath been of God and with God everlastingly; that law, the author and observer whereof is one only God to be blessed for ever: how should either men or angels be able perfectly to behold? The book of this law we are neither able nor worthy to open and look into. That little thereof which we darkly apprehend we admire, the rest with religious ignorance we humbly and meekly adore.Seeing therefore that according to this law He worketh, “of whom, through whom, and for whom, are all things;” although there seem unto us confusion and disorder in the affairs of this present world: “Tamen quoniam bonus mundum rector temperat, recte fieri cuncta ne dubites: let no man doubt but that every thing is well done, because the world is ruled by so good a guide,” as transgresseth not His own law, than which nothing can be more absolute, perfect, and just. The law whereby He worketh is eternal, and therefore can have no show or colour of mutability: for which cause, a part of that law being opened in the promises which God hath made (because his promises are nothing else but declarations what God will do for the good of men) touching those promises the Apostle hath witnessed, that God may as possibly “deny himself’” and not be God, as fail to perform them. And concerning the counsel of God, he termeth it likewise a thing “unchangeable;” the counsel of God, and that law of God whereof now we speak, being one. Nor is the freedom of the will of God any whit abated, let or hindered, by means of this; because the imposition of this law upon himself is his own free and voluntary act.

This law therefore we may name eternal, being “that order which God before all ages hath set down with himself, for himself to do all things by.” III. I am not ignorant that by “law eternal” the learned for the most part do understand the order, not which God hath eternally purposed himself in all his works to observe, but rather that which with himself he hath set down as expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the several condition” wherewith he hath endued them. They who thus are accustomed to speak apply the name of Law unto that only rule of working which superior authority imposeth; whereas we somewhat more enlarging the sense thereof, term any kind of rule of canon, whereby actions are framed, a law. Now that law which, as it is laid up in the bosom of God, they call Eternal, receiveth according unto the different kinds of things which are subject unto it different and sundry kinds of names. That part of it which ordereth natural agents we call usually Nature’s law; that which Angels do clearly behold and without any swerving observe is a law Celestial and heavenly; the law of Reason, that which bindeth creatures reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound; that which bindeth them, and is not known but by special revelation from God, Divine law; Human law, that which out of the law either of reason or of God men probably gathering to be expedient, they make it a law. All things therefore, which are as they ought to be, are conformed unto this second law eternal; and even those things which to this eternal law are not conformable are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eternal law. For what good or evil is there under the sun, what action correspondent or repugnant unto the law which God hath imposed upon his creatures, but in or upon it God doth work according to the law which himself hath eternally purposed to keep; that is to say, the first law eternal? So that a twofold law eternal being thus made, it is not hard to conceive how they both take place in all things.Wherefore to come to the law of nature: albeit thereby we sometimes mean that manner of working which God hath set for each created thing to keep; yet forasmuch as those things are termed most properly natural agents, which keep the law of their kind unwittingly, as the heavens and elements of the world, which can do no otherwise than they do; and forasmuch as we give unto intellectual natures the name of Voluntary agents, that so we may distinguish them from the other; expedient it will be, that we sever the law of nature observed by the one from that which the other is tied unto. Touching the former, their strict keeping of one tenure, statute, and law, is spoken of by all, but hath in it more than men have as yet attained to know, or perhaps ever shall attain, seeing the travail of wading herein is given of God to the sons of men, that perceiving how much the least thing in the world hath in it more than the wisest are able to reach unto, they may by this means learn humility. Moses, in describing the work of creation, attributeth speech unto God: “God said, Let there be light: let there be a firmament: let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place: let the earth bring forth: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven.” Was this only the intent of Moses, to signify the infinite greatness of God’s power by the easiness of his accomplishing such effects, without travail, pain, or labour? Surely it seemeth that Moses had herein besides this a further purpose, namely, first to teach that God did not work as a necessary but a voluntary agent, intending beforehand and decreeing with himself that which did outwardly proceed from

## him: secondly, to shew that God did then institute a law natural to be observed by creatures, and therefore according to the manner of laws, the institution thereof is described, as being established by solemn injunction. His commanding those things to be which are, and to be in such sort as they are, to keep that tenure and course which they do, importeth the establishment of nature’s law. This world’s first creation, and the preservation since of things created, what is it but only so far forth a manifestation by execution, what the eternal law of God is concerning things natural? And as it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered, that after a law is once published, it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto; even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world: since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labour hath been to do his will: He “made a law for the rain;” He gave his “decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment.” Now if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether though it were but for a while the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course 8, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?Notwithstanding with nature it cometh sometimes to pass as with art. Let Phidias have rude and obstinate stuff to carve, though his art do that it should, his work will lack that beauty which otherwise in fitter matter it might have had. He that striketh an instrument with skill may cause notwithstanding a very unpleasant sound, if the string whereon he striketh chance to be uncapable of harmony. In the matter whereof things natural consist, that of Theophrastus taketh place, Polu to ouc upakouon oude decomenon to eu . “Much of it is oftentimes such as will by no means yield to receive that impression which were best and most perfect.” Which defect in the matter of things natural, they who gave themselves unto the contemplation of nature amongst the heathen observed often: but the true original cause thereof, divine malediction, laid for the sin of man upon these creatures which God had made for the use of man, this being an article of that saving truth which God hath revealed unto his Church, was above the reach of their merely natural capacity and understanding. But howsoever these swervings are now and then incident into the course of nature, nevertheless so constantly the laws of nature are by natural agents observed, that no man denieth but those things which nature worketh are wrought, either always or for the most part, after one and the same manner.

If here it be demanded what that is which keepeth nature in obedience to her own law, we must have recourse to that higher law whereof we have already spoken, and because all other laws do thereon depend, from thence we must borrow so much as shall need for brief resolution in this point. Although we are not of opinion therefore, as some are, that nature in working hath before her certain exemplary draughts or patterns, which subsisting in the bosom of the Highest, and being thence discovered, she fixeth her eye upon them, as travellers by sea upon the pole-star of the world, and that according thereunto she guideth her hand to work by imitation: although we rather embrace the oracle of Hippocrates, that “each thing both in small and in great fulfilleth the task which destiny hath set down;” and concerning the manner of executing and fulfilling the same, “what they do they know not, yet is it in show and appearance as though they did know what they do; and the truth is they do not discern the things which they look on:” nevertheless, forasmuch as the works of nature are no less exact, than if she did both behold and study how to express some absolute shape or mirror always present before her; yea, such her dexterity and skill appeareth, that no intellectual creature in the world were able by capacity to do that which nature doth without capacity and knowledge; it cannot be but nature hath some director of infinite knowledge to guide her in all her ways. Who the guide of nature, but only the God of nature? “In him we live, move, and are.” Those things which nature is said to do, are by divine art performed, using nature as an instrument; nor is there any such art or knowledge divine in nature herself working, but in the Guide of nature’s work. Whereas therefore things natural which are not in the number of voluntary agents, (for of such only we now speak, and of no other,) do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms which give them their being, they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do; seeing the kinds of their operations are both constantly and exactly framed according to the several ends for which they serve, they themselves in the meanwhile, though doing that which is fit, yet knowing neither what they do, nor why: it followeth that all which they do in this sort proceedeth originally from some such agent, as knoweth, appointeth, holdeth up, and even actually frameth the same. The manner of this divine efficiency, being far above us, we are no more able to conceive by our reason than creatures unreasonable by their sense are able to apprehend after what manner we dispose and order the course of our affairs. Only thus much is discerned, that the natural generation and process of all things receiveth order of proceeding from the settled stability of divine understanding. This appointeth unto them their kinds of working; the disposition whereof in the purity of God’s own knowledge and will is rightly termed by the name of Providence. The same being referred unto the things themselves here disposed by it, was wont by the ancient to be. called natural Destiny. That law, the performance whereof we behold in things natural, is as it were an authentical or an original draught written in the bosom of God himself; whose Spirit being to execute the same useth every particular nature, every mere natural agent, only as an instrument created at the beginning, and ever since the beginning used, to work his own will and pleasure withal. Nature therefore is nothing else but God’s instrument’: in the course whereof Dionysius perceiving some sudden disturbance is said to have cried

out, “Aut Deus naturae patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvetur:” “either God doth suffer impediment, and is by a greater than himself hindered; or if that be impossible, then hath he determined to make a present dissolution of the world; the execution of that law beginning now to stand still, without which the world cannot stand.” This workman, whose servitor nature is, being in truth but only one, the heathens imagining to be moe, gave him in the sky the name of Jupiter, in the air the name of Juno, in the water the name of Neptune, in the earth the name of Vesta and sometimes of Ceres, the name of Apollo in the sun, in the moon the name of Diana, the name of AEolus and divers other in the winds; and to conclude, even so many guides of nature they dreamed of, as they saw there were kinds of things natural in the world. These they honoured, as having power to work or cease accordingly as men deserved of them. But unto us there is one only Guide of all agents natural, and he both the Creator and the Worker of all in all, alone to be blessed, adored and honoured by all for ever.That which hitherto hath been spoken concerneth natural agents considered in themselves. But we must further remember also, (which thing to touch in a word shall suffice,) that as in this respect they have their law, which law directeth them in the means whereby they tend to their own perfection: so likewise another law there is, which toucheth them as they are sociable parts united into one body; a law which bindeth them each to serve unto other’s good, and all to prefer the good of the whole before whatsoever their own particular; as we plainly see they do, when things natural in that regard forget their ordinary natural wont: that which is heavy. mounting sometime upwards of its own accord, and forsaking the centre of the earth which to itself is most natural, even as if it did hear itself commanded to let go the good it privately wished], and to relieve the present distress of nature in common. IV. But now, that we may lift up our eyes (as it were) from the footstool to the throne of God, and leaving these natural, consider a little the state of heavenly and divine creatures: touching Angels, which are spirits immaterial and intellectual, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where nothing but light and blessed immortality, no shadow of matter for tears, discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon, but all joy, tranquillity, and peace, even for ever and ever doth dwell: as in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto that law, which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour himself being to set down the perfect idea of that which we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heavens. God which moveth mere natural agents as an efficient only, doth otherwise move intellectual creatures, and especially his holy angels: for beholding the face of God, in admiration of so great excellency they all adore him; and being rapt with the love of his beauty, they cleave inseparably for ever unto him. Desire to resemble him in goodness maketh them unweariable and even unsatiable in their longing to do by all means all manner good unto all the creatures of God, but especially unto the children of men: in the countenance of whose nature, looking downward, they behold themselves beneath themselves; even as upward, in God, beneath whom themselves are, they see that character which is no where

but in themselves and us resembled. Thus far even the paynims have approached; thus far they have seen into the doings of the angels of God; Orpheus confessing, that “the fiery throne of God is attended on by those most industrious angels, careful how all things are performed amongst men;” and the Mirror of human wisdom plainly teaching, that God moveth angels, even as that thing doth stir man’s heart, which is thereunto presented amiable. Angelical actions may therefore be reduced unto these three general kinds: first, most delectable love arising from the visible apprehension of the purity, glory, and beauty of God, invisible saving only unto spirits that are pure: secondly, adoration grounded upon the evidence of the greatness of God, on whom they see how all things depend; thirdly, imitation, bred by the presence of his exemplary goodness, who ceaseth not before them daily to fill heaven and earth with the rich treasures of most free and undeserved grace.Of angels, we are not to consider only what they are and do in regard of their own being, but that also which concerneth them as they are linked into a kind of corporation amongst themselves, and of society or fellowship with men. Consider angels each of them severally in himself, and their law is that which the prophet David mentioneth, “All ye his angels praise him.” Consider the angels of God associated, and their law is that which disposeth them as an army, one in order and degree above another. Consider finally the angels as having with us that communion which the apostle to the Hebrews noteth, and in regard whereof angels have not disdained to profess themselves our “fellow servants;” from hence there springeth up a third law, which bindeth them to works of ministerial employment. Every of which their several functions are by them performed with joy.A part of the angels of God notwithstanding (we know) have fallen, and that their fall hath been through the voluntary breach of that law, which did require at their hands continuance in the exercise of their high and admirable virtue. Impossible it was that ever their will should change or incline to remit any part of their duty, without some object having force to avert their conceit from God, and to draw it another way; and that before they attained that high perfection of bliss, wherein now the elect angels are without possibility of falling. Of any thing more than of God they could not by any means like, as long as whatsoever they knew besides God they apprehended it not in itself without dependency upon God; because so long God must needs seem infinitely better than any thing which they so could apprehend. Things beneath them could not in such sort be presented unto their eyes, but that therein they must needs see always how those things did depend on God. It seemeth therefore that there was no other way for angels to sin, but by reflex of their understanding upon themselves; when being held with admiration of their own sublimity and honour, the memory of their subordination unto God and their dependency on him was drowned in this conceit; whereupon their adoration, love, and imitation of God could not choose but be also interrupted. The fall of angels therefore was pride. Since their fall, their practices have been the clean contrary unto those before mentioned. For being dispersed, some in the air, some on the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, dens, and caves, that are under the earth they have by all means laboured to effect an universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them lieth utter destruction of the works of God. These wicked spirits th’ heathens honoured

instead of gods, both generally under the name of Dii inferi, “gods infernal;” and particularly, some in oracles, some in idols, some as household gods, some as nymphs: in a word, no foul and wicked spirit which was not one way or other honoured of men as God, till such time as light appeared in the world and dissolved the works of the devil. Thus much therefore may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in degree are men. V. God alone excepted, who actually and everlastingly is whatsoever he may be, and which cannot hereafter be that which now he is not; all other things besides are somewhat in possibility, which as yet they are not in act. And for this cause there is in all things an appetite or desire, whereby they incline to something which they may be; and when they are it, they shall be perfecter than now they are. All which perfections are contained under the general name of Goodness. And because there is not in the world any thing whereby another may not some way be made the perfecter, therefore all things that are, are good.Again, sith there can be no goodness desired which proceedeth not from God himself, as from the supreme cause of all things; and every effect doth after a sort contain, at leastwise resemble, the cause from which it proceedeth: all things in the world are said in some sort to seek the highest, and to covet more or less the participation of God himself. Yet this doth no where so much appear as it doth in man, because there are so many kinds of perfections which man seeketh. The first degree of goodness is that general perfection which all things do seek, in desiring the continuance of their being. All things therefore coveting as much as may be to be like unto God in being ever, that which cannot hereunto attain personally doth seek to continue itself another way, that is by offspring and propagation. The next degree of goodness is that which each thing coveteth by affecting resemblance with God in the constancy and excellency of those operations which belong unto their kind. The immutability, of God they strive unto, by working either always or for the most part after one and the same manner; his absolute exactness they imitate, by tending unto that which is most exquisite in every particular. Hence have risen a number of axioms in philosophy, showing how “the works of nature do always aim at that which cannot be bettered.”These two kinds of goodness rehearsed are so nearly united to the things themselves which desire them, that we scarcely perceive the appetite to stir in reaching forth her hand towards them. But the desire of those perfections which grow externally is more apparent; especially of such as are not expressly desired unless they be first known, or such as are not for any other cause than for knowledge itself desired. Concerning perfections in this kind; that by proceeding in the knowledge of truth, and by growing in the exercise of virtue, man amongst the creatures of this inferior world aspireth to the greatest conformity with God; this is not only known unto us, whom he himself hath so instructed, but even they do acknowledge, who amongst men are not judged the nearest unto him. With Plato what one thing more usual, than to excite men unto the love of wisdom, by shewing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men how knowledge doth raise them up into heaven; how it maketh them, though not gods, yet as gods, high, admirable, and divine? And Mercurius Trismegistus speaking of the virtues of a righteous soul, “Such spirits” (saith he) “are never cloyed with praising and speaking well of all men,

with doing good unto every one by word and deed, because they study to frame themselves according to the pattern of the Father of spirits.” VI. In the matter of knowledge, there is between the angels of God and the children of men this difference: angels already have full and complete knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them; men, if we view them in their spring, are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all. Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at length to be even as the angels themselves are. That which agreeth to the one now, the other shall attain unto in the end; they are not so far disjoined and severed, but that they come at length to meet. The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book, wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted; we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto perfection of knowledge.Unto that which hath been already set down concerning natural agents this we must add, that albeit therein we have comprised as well creatures living as void of life, if they be in degree of nature beneath men; nevertheless a difference we must observe between those natural agents that work altogether unwittingly, and those which have though weak yet some understanding what they do, as fishes, fowls, and beasts have. Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. For as stones, though in dignity of nature inferior unto plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures endued with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of fertility: so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may notwithstanding in actions of sense and fancy go beyond them; because the endeavours of nature, when it hath a higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more remiss, not esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better proposed unto them.The soul of man therefore being capable of a more divine perfection, hath (besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man doth only store itself with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as instruments unto that which is greater; in the meanwhile above the reach of meaner creatures it ascendeth not. When once it comprehendeth any thing above this, as the differences of time, affirmations, negations, and contradictions in speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learning (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know nor greatly regard), there would undoubtedly be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now and innocents. Which speech if any condemn, as being over hyperbolical, let them consider but this one thing. No art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may after make it. Yet the very first man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it, hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of natural knowledge, than sithence in any one part thereof the whole world besides hath done.

In the poverty of that other new devised aid two things there are notwithstanding singular. Of marvellous quick despatch it is, and doth shew them that have it as much almost in three days, as if it dwell threescore years with them. Again, because the curiosity of man’s wit doth many times with peril wade farther in the search of things than were convenient; the same is thereby restrained unto such generalities as every where offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit that need be. So as following the rules and precepts thereof, we may define it to be, an Art which teacheth the way of speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man that it may not wax over- wise.Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by precept, to make our natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of those Laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions; this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern, than for any man by skill and learning to determine; even as it is not in philosophers, who best know the nature both of fire and of gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan, who doth this by fire, discerneth by sense when the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for his purpose. VII. By reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that are and are not sensible. It resteth therefore that we search how man attaineth unto the knowledge of such things unsensible as are to be known that they may be done. Seeing then that nothing can move unless there be some end, the desire whereof provoketh unto motion; how should that divine power of the soul, that “spirit of our mind,” as the apostle termeth it, ever stir itself unto action, unless it have also the like spur? The end for which we are moved to work, is sometimes the goodness which we conceive of the very working itself, without any further respect at all; and the cause that procureth action is the mere desire of action, no other good besides being thereby intended. Of certain turbulent wits it is said, “Illis quieta movere magna merces videbatur:” they thought the very disturbance of things established an hire sufficient to set them on work. Sometimes that which we do is referred to a further end, without the desire whereof we would leave the same undone; as in their actions that gave alms to purchase thereby the praise of men.Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker resembleth him also in the manner of working: so that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely; neither are we according to the manner of natural agents any way so tied, but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone. The good which either is gotten by doing, or which consisteth in the very doing itself, causeth not action, unless apprehending it as good we so like and desire it: that we do unto any such end, the same we choose and prefer before the leaving of it undone. Choice there is not, unless the thing which we take be so in our power that we might have refused and left it. If fire consume the stubble, it chooseth not so to do, because the nature thereof is such that it can do no other. To choose is to will one thing before another. And to will is to bend our souls to the having or doing’ of that which they see to be good. Goodness is seen with the eye of the understanding. And the light of that eye, is reason. So that two

principal fountains there are of human action, Knowledge and Will; which Will, in things tending towards any end, is termed Choice. Concerning Knowledge, “Behold, (saith Moses,) I have set before you this day good and evil, life and death.” Concerning Will, he addeth immediately, “Choose life;” that is to say, the things that tend unto life, them choose.But of one thing we must have special care, as being a matter of no small moment; and that is, how the Will, properly and strictly taken, as it is of things which are referred unto the end that man desired, differed greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call Appetite. The object of Appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of Will is that good which Reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy, and grief, and fear, and anger, with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of Appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power, whether we will be stirred with affections or no: whereas actions which issue from the disposition of the Will are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed. Finally, Appetite is the Will’s solicitor, and the Will is Appetite’s controller; what we covet according to the one by the other we often reject; neither is any other desire termed properly Will, but that where Reason and Understanding, or the show of Reason, prescribeth the thing desired. It may be therefore a question, whether those operations of men are to be counted voluntary, wherein that good which is sensible provoketh Appetite, and Appetite causeth action, Reason being never called to counsel; as when we eat or drink, and betake ourselves unto rest, and such like. The truth is, that such actions in men having attained to the use of Reason are voluntary. For as the authority of higher powers hath force even in those things, which are done without their privity, and are of so mean reckoning that to acquaint them therewith it needeth not; in like sort, voluntarily we are said to do that also, which the Will if it listed might hinder from being done, although about the doing thereof we do not expressly use our reason or understanding, and so immediately apply our wills thereunto. In cases therefore of such facility, the Will doth yield her assent as it were with a kind of silence, by not dissenting; in which respect her force is not so apparent as in express mandates or prohibitions, especially upon advice and consultation going before.Where understanding therefore needeth, in those things Reason is the director of man’s Will by discovering in action what is good. For the Laws of well-doing are the dictates of right Reason. Children, which are not as yet come unto those years whereat they may have; again, innocents, which are excluded by natural defect from ever having; thirdly, madmen, which for the present cannot possibly have the use of right Reason to guide themselves, have for their guide the Reason that guideth other men; which are tutors over them to seek and to procure their good for them. In the rest there is that light of Reason, whereby good may be known from evil, and which discovering the same rightly is termed right.The Will notwithstanding doth not incline to have or do that which Reason teacheth to be good, unless the same do also teach it to be possible. For albeit the Appetite, being more general, may wish any thing which seemeth good, be it never so impossible’; yet

for such things the reasonable Will of man doth never seek. Let Reason teach impossibility in any thing, and the Will of man doth let it go; a thing impossible it doth not affect, the impossibility thereof being manifest.There is in the Will of man naturally that freedom, whereby it is apt to take or refuse any particular object whatsoever being presented unto it. Whereupon it followeth, that there is no particular object so good, but it may have the shew of some difficulty or unpleasant quality annexed to it, in respect whereof the Will may shrink and decline it; contrariwise (for so things are blended) there is no particular evil which hath not some appearance of goodness whereby to insinuate itself. For evil as evil cannot be desired’: if that be desired which is evil, the cause is the goodness which is or seemeth to be joined with it. Goodness doth not move by being, but by being apparent; and therefore many things are neglected which are most precious, only because the value of them lieth hid. Sensible Goodness is most apparent, near, and present; which causeth the Appetite to be therewith strongly provoked. Now pursuit and refusal in the Will do follow, the one the affirmation the other the negation of goodness, which the understanding apprehendeth, grounding itself upon sense, unless some higher Reason do chance to teach the contrary. And if Reason have taught it rightly to be good, yet not so apparently that the mind receiveth it with utter impossibility of being otherwise, still there is place left for the Will to take or leave. Whereas therefore amongst so many things as are to be done, there are so few, the goodness whereof Reason in such sort doth or easily can discover, we are not to marvel at the choice of evil even then when the contrary is probably known. Hereby it cometh to pass that custom inuring the mind by long practice, and so leaving there a sensible impression, prevaileth more than reasonable persuasion what way soever. Reason therefore may rightly discern the thing which is good, and yet the Will of man not incline itself thereunto, as oft as the prejudice of sensible experience doth oversway.Nor let any man think that this doth make any thing for the just excuse of iniquity. For there was never sin committed, wherein a less good was not preferred before a greater, and that wilfully; which cannot be done without the singular disgrace of Nature, and the utter disturbance of that divine order, whereby the preeminence of chiefest acceptation is by the best things worthily challenged. There is not that good which concerneth us, but it hath evidence enough for itself, if Reason were diligent to search it out. Through neglect thereof, abused we are with the show of that which is not; sometimes the subtilty of Satan inveigling us as it did Eve, sometimes the hastiness of our Wills preventing the more considerate advice of sound Reason, as in the Apostles, when they no sooner saw what they liked not, but they forthwith were desirous of fire from heaven; sometimes the very custom of evil making the heart obdurate against whatsoever instructions to the contrary, as in them over whom our Saviour spake weeping, “O Jerusalem, how often, and thou wouldest not!”. Still therefore that wherewith we stand blameable, and can no way excuse it, is, In doing evil, we prefer a less good before a greater, the greatness whereof is by reason investigable and may be known. The search of knowledge is a thing painful; and the painfulness of knowledge is that which maketh the Will so hardly inclinable thereunto. The root hereof, divine malediction; whereby the instruments being weakened wherewithal the soul (especially in reasoning) doth work, it preferreth rest in ignorance before wearisome labour to know. For a spur of diligence

therefore we have a natural thirst after knowledge ingrafted in us. But by reason of that original weakness in the instruments, without which the understanding part is not able in this world by discourse to work, the very conceit of painfulness is as a bridle to stay us. For which cause the Apostle, who knew right well that the weariness of the flesh is an heavy clog to the Will, striketh mightily upon this key, “Awake thou that sleepest; Cast off all which presseth down; Watch; Labour; Strive to go forward, and to grow in knowledge.” VIII. Wherefore to return to our former intent of discovering the natural way, whereby rules have been found out concerning that goodness wherewith the Will of man ought to be moved in human actions; as every thing naturally and necessarily doth desire the utmost good and greatest perfection whereof Nature hath made it capable, even so man. Our felicity therefore being the object and accomplishment of our desire, we cannot choose but wish and covet it. All particular things which are subject unto action, the Will doth so far forth incline unto, as Reason judgeth them the better for us, and consequently the more available to our bliss. If Reason err, we fall into evil, and are so far forth deprived of the general perfection we seek. Seeing therefore that for the framing of men’s actions the knowledge of good from evil is necessary, it only resteth that we search how this may be had. Neither must we suppose that there needeth one rule to know the good and another the evil by. For he that knoweth what is straight doth even thereby discern what is crooked, because the absence of straightness in bodies capable thereof is crookedness. Goodness in actions is like unto straightness; wherefore that which is done well we term right. For as the straight way is most acceptable to him that travelleth, because by it he cometh soonest to his journey’s end; so in action, that which doth lie the evenest between us and the end we desire must needs be the fittest for our use. Besides which fitness for use, there is also in rectitude, beauty; as contrariwise in obliquity, deformity. And that which is good in the actions of men, doth not only delight as profitable, but as amiable also. In which consideration the Grecians most divinely have given to the active perfection of men a name expressing both beauty and goodness because goodness in ordinary speech is for the most part applied only to that which is beneficial. But we in the name of goodness do here imply both.And of discerning goodness there are but these two ways; the one the knowledge of the causes whereby it is made such; the other the observation of those signs and tokens, which being annexed always unto goodness, argue that where they are found, there also goodness is, although we know not the cause by force whereof it is there. The former of these is the most sure and infallible way, but so hard that all shun it, and had rather walk as men do in the dark by haphacard, than tread so long and intricate mazes for knowledge’ sake. As therefore physicians are many times forced to leave such methods of curing as themselves know to be the fittest, and being overruled by their patients’ impatiency are fain to try the best they can, in taking that way of cure which the cured will yield unto; in. like sort, considering how the case doth stand with this present age full of tongue and weak of brain, behold we yield to the stream thereof; into the causes of goodness we will not make any curious or deep inquiry; to touch them now and then it shall be sufficient, when they are so near at hand that easily they may be conceived without any far-removed discourse: that way we are contented to prove, which being the

worse in itself, is notwithstanding now by reason of common imbecility the fitter and likelier to be brooked.Signs and tokens to know good by are of sundry kinds; some more certain and some less. The most certain token of evident goodness is, if the general persuasion of all men do so account it. And therefore a common received error is never utterly overthrown, till such time as we go from signs unto causes, and shew some manifest root or fountain thereof common unto all, whereby it may clearly appear how it hath come to pass that so many have been overseen. In which case surmises and slight probabilities will not serve, because the universal consent of men is the perfectest and strongest in this kind, which comprehendeth only the signs and tokens of goodness. Things casual do vary, and that which a man doth but chance to think well of cannot still have the like hap. Wherefore although we know not the cause, yet thus much we may know; that some necessary cause there is, whensoever the judgments of all men generally or for the most part run one and the same way, especially in matters of natural discourse. For of things necessarily and naturally done there is no more affirmed but this, “They keep either always or for the most part one tenure.” The general and perpetual voice of men is as the sentence of God himself. For that which all men have at all times learned, Nature herself must needs have taught; and God being the author of Nature, her voice is but his instrument. By her from Him we receive whatsoever in such sort we learn. Infinite duties there are, the goodness whereof is by this rule sufficiently manifested, although we had no other warrant besides to approve them. The Apostle St. Paul having speech concerning the heathen saith of them, “They are a law unto themselves.” His meaning is, that by force of the light of Reason, wherewith God illuminateth every one which cometh into the world, men being enabled to know truth from falsehood, and good from evil, do thereby learn in many things what the will of God is; which will himself not revealing by any extraordinary means unto them, but they by natural discourse attaining the knowledge thereof, seem the makers of those Laws which indeed are his, and they but only the finders of them out.A law therefore generally taken, is a directive rule unto goodness of operation. The rule of divine operations outward, is the definitive appointment of God’s own wisdom set down within himself. The rule of natural agents that work by simple necessity, is the determination of the wisdom of God, known to God himself the principal director of them, but not unto them that are directed to execute the same. The rule of natural agents which work after a sort of their own accord, as the beasts do, is the judgment of common sense or fancy concerning the sensible goodness of those objects wherewith they are moved. The rule of ghostly or immaterial natures, as spirits and angels, is their intuitive intellectual judgment concerning the amiable beauty and high goodness of that object, which with unspeakable joy and delight doth set them on work. The rule of voluntary agents on earth is the sentence that Reason giveth concerning the goodness of those things which they are to do. And the sentences which Reason giveth are some more some less general, before it come to define in particular actions what is good.The main principles of Reason are in themselves apparent. For to make nothing evident of itself unto man’s understanding were to take away all possibility of knowing any thing. And herein that of Theophrastus is true, “They that seek a reason of all things

do utterly overthrow Reason.” In every kind of knowledge some such grounds there are, as that being proposed the mind doth presently embrace them as free from all possibility of error, clear and manifest without proof. In which kind axioms or principles more general are such as this, “that the greater good is to be chosen before the less.” If therefore it should be demanded what reason there is, why the Will of Man, which doth necessarily shun harm and covet whatsoever is pleasant and sweet, should be commanded to count the pleasures of sin gall, and notwithstanding the bitter accidents wherewith virtuous actions are compassed, yet still to rejoice and delight in them: surely this could never stand with Reason, but that wisdom thus prescribing groundeth her laws upon an infallible rule of comparison; which is, “That small difficulties, when exceeding great good is sure to ensue, and on the other side moment any benefits, when the hurt which they draw after them is unspeakable, are not at all to be respected.” This rule is the ground whereupon the wisdom of the Apostle buildeth a law, enjoining patience unto himself; “The present lightness of our affliction worketh “unto us even with abundance upon abundance an eternal “weight of glory; while we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen: for the things “which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal:” therefore Christianity to be embraced, “whatsoever calamities in those times it was accompanied withal. Upon the same ground our Saviour proveth the law most reasonable, that doth forbid those crimes which men for gain’s sake fall into. “For a man to win the world if it be with the loss of his soul, what benefit or good is it?” Axioms less general, yet so manifest that they need no further proof, are such as these, “God to be worshipped;” “parents to be honoured;” “others to be used by us as we ourselves would by them.” Such things, as soon as they are alleged, all men acknowledge to be good; they require no proof or further discourse to be assured of their goodness. Notwithstanding whatsoever such principle there is, it was at the first found out by discourse, and drawn from out of the very bowels of heaven and earth. For we are to note, that things in the world are to us discernible, not only so far forth as serveth for our vital preservation, but further also in a twofold higher respect. For first if all other uses were utterly taken away, yet the mind of man being by nature speculative and delighted with contemplation in itself, they were to be known even for mere knowledge and understanding’s sake. Yea further besides this, the knowledge of every the least thing in the whole world hath in it a second peculiar benefit unto us, inasmuch as it serveth to minister rules, canons, and laws, for men to direct those actions by, which we properly term human. This did the very heathens themselves obscurely insinuate, by making Themis, which we call Jus, or Right, to be the daughter of heaven and earth.We know things either as they are in themselves, or as they are in mutual relation one to another. The knowledge of that which man is in reference unto himself, and other things in relation unto man, I may justly term the mother of all those principles, which are as it were edicts, statutes, and decrees, in that Law of Nature, whereby human actions are framed. First therefore having observed that the best things, where they are not hindered, do still produce the best operations, (for which cause, where many things are to concur unto one effect, the best is in all congruity of reason to guide the residue, that it prevailing most, the work principally done by it may have greatest perfection:) when

hereupon we come to observe in ourselves, of what excellency our souls are in comparison of our bodies, and the diviner part in relation unto the baser of our souls; seeing that all these concur in producing human actions, it cannot be well unless the chiefest do command and direct the rest. The soul then ought to conduct the body, and the spirit of our minds the soul. This is therefore the first Law, whereby the highest power of the mind requireth general obedience at the hands of all the rest concurring with it unto action.Touching the several grand mandates, which being imposed by the understanding faculty of the mind must be obeyed by the Will of Man, they are by the same method found out, whether they import our duty towards God or towards man. Touching the one, I may not here stand to open, by what degrees of discourse the minds even of mere natural men have attained to know, not only that there is a God, but also what power, force, wisdom, and other properties that God hath, and how all things depend on him. This being therefore presupposed, from that known relation which God hath unto us as unto children, and unto all good things as unto effects whereof himself is the principal cause, these axioms and laws natural concerning our duty have arisen, “that in all things we go about his aid is by prayer to be craved:” “that he cannot have sufficient honour done unto him, but the utmost of that we can do to honour him we must;” which is in effect the same that we read, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind:” which Law our Saviour doth term “The first and the great commandment.” Touching the next, which as our Saviour addeth is “like unto this,” (he meaneth in amplitude and largeness, inasmuch as it is the root out of which all Laws of duty to menward have grown, as out of the former all offices of religion towards God,) the like natural inducement hath brought men to know that it is their duty no less to love others than themselves. For seeing those things which are equal must needs all have one measure; if I cannot but wish to receive all good, even as much at every man’s hand as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like,desire which is undoubtedly in other men, we all being of one and the same nature? To have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me: so that if I do harm I must look to suffer: there being no reason that others should shew greater measure of love to me than they nave by me shewed unto them. My desire therefore to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully the like affection. From which relation of equality between ourselves and them that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural Reason hath drawn for direction of life no man is ignorant; as namely, “That because we would take no harm, we must therefore do none;” “That sith we would not be in any “thing extremely dealt with, we must ourselves avoid all “extremity in our dealings;” “That from all violence and wrong we are utterly to abstain;” with such like; which further to wade in would be tedious, and to our present purpose not altogether so necessary, seeing that on these two general heads already mentioned all other specialities are dependent.

Wherefore the natural measure whereby to judge our doings, is the sentence of Reason, determining and setting down what is good to be done. Which sentence is either mandatory, sheaving what must be done; or else permissive, declaring only what may be done; or thirdly admonitory, opening what is the most convenient for us to do. The first taketh place, where the comparison doth stand altogether between doing and not doing of one thing which in itself is absolutely good or evil; as it had been for Joseph a to yield or not to yield to the impotent desire of his lewd mistress, the one evil the other good simply. The second is, when of divers things evil, all being not evitable, we are permitted to take one; which one saving only in case of so great urgency were not otherwise to be taken; as in the matter of divorce amongst the Jews. The last, when of divers things good, one is principal and most eminent; as in their act who sold their possessions and laid the price at the Apostles’ feet; which possessions they might have retained unto themselves without sin: again, in the Apostle St. Paul’s own choice to maintain himself by his own labour; whereas in living by the Church’s maintenance, as others did, there had been no offence committed. In Goodness therefore there is a latitude or extent, whereby it cometh to pass that even of good actions some are better than other some; whereas otherwise one man could not excel another, but all should be either absolutely good, as hitting jump that indivisible point or centre wherein goodness consisteth; or else missing it they should be excluded out of the number of well-doers. Degrees of well-doing there could be none, except perhaps in the seldomness and oftenness of doing well. But the nature of Goodness being thus ample, a Law is properly that which Reason in such sort defineth to be good that it must be done. And the Law of Reason or human Nature is that which men by discourse of natural Reason have rightly found out themselves to be all for ever bound unto in their actions.Laws of Reason have these marks to be known by. Such as keep them resemble most lively in their voluntary actions that very manner of working which Nature herself doth necessarily observe in the course of the whole world. The works of Nature are all behoveful, beautiful, without superfluity or defect; even so theirs, if they be framed according to that which the Law of Reason teacheth. Secondly, those Laws are investigable by Reason, without the help of Revelation’ supernatural and divine. Finally, in such sort they are investigable, that the knowledge of them is general, the world hath always been acquainted with them; according to that which one in Sophocles observeth concerning a branch of this Law, “It is no child of to-day’s or yesterday’s birth, “but hath been no man knoweth how long sithence.” It is not agreed upon by one, or two, or few, but by all. Which we may not so understand, as if every particular man in the whole world did know and confess whatsoever the Law of Reason doth contain; but this Law is such that being proposed no man can reject it as unreasonable and unjust. Again, there is nothing in it but any man (having natural perfection of wit and ripeness of judgment) may by labour and travail find out. And to conclude, the general principles thereof are such, as it is not easy to find men ignorant of them, Law rational therefore, which men commonly use to call the Law of Nature, meaning thereby the Law which human Nature knoweth itself in reason universally bound unto, which also for that cause may be termed most fitly the Law of Reason; this Law, I say, comprehendeth all those things which men by

the light of their natural understanding evidently know, or at leastwise may know, to be beseeming or unbeseeming, virtuous or vicious, good or evil for them to do.Now although it be true, which some have said, that “whatsoever is done amiss, the Law of Nature and Reason thereby is transgressed,” because even those offences which are by their special qualities breaches of supernatural laws, do also, for that they are generally evil, violate in general that principle of Reason, which willeth universally to fly from evil: yet do we not therefore so far extend the Law of Reason, as to contain in it all manner laws whereunto reasonable creatures are bound, but (as hath been shewed) we restrain it to those only duties, which all men by force of natural wit either do or might understand to be such duties as concern all men. “Certain half-waking men there are” (as Saint Augustine noteth), “who neither altogether asleep in folly, nor yet throughly awake in the light of true understanding, have thought that there is not at all any thing just and righteous in itself; but look, wherewith nations are inured, the same they take to be right and just. Whereupon their conclusion is, that seeing each sort of people hath a different kind of right from other, and that which is right of its own nature must be everywhere one and the same, therefore in itself there is nothing right. These good folk,” saith he, (“that I may not trouble their wits with rehearsal of too many things,) have not “looked so far into the world as to perceive that, ‘Do as thou wouldest be done unto,’ is a sentence which all nations under heaven are agreed upon. Refer this sentence to the love of God, and it extinguisheth all heinous crimes; refer it to the love of thy neighbour, and all grievous wrongs it banisheth out of the world.” Wherefore as touching the Law of Reason, this was (it seemeth) Saint Augustine’s judgment: namely, that there are in it some things which stand as principles universally agreed upon; and that out of those principles, which are in themselves evident, the greatest moral duties we owe towards God or man may without any great difficulty be concluded.If then it be here demanded, by what means it should come to pass (the greatest part of the Law moral being so easy for all men to know) that so many thousands of men notwithstanding have been ignorant even of principal moral duties, not imagining the breach of them to be sin: I deny not but lewd and wicked custom, beginning perhaps at the first amongst few, afterwards spreading into greater multitudes, and so continuing from time to time, may be of force even in plain things to smother the light of natural understanding; because men will not bend their wits to examine whether things wherewith they have been accustomed be good or evil. For example’s sake, that grosser kind of heathenish idolatry, whereby they worshipped the very works of their own hands, was an absurdity to reason so palpable, that the Prophet David comparing idols and idolaters together maketh almost no odds between them, but the one in a manner as much without wit and sense as the other; “They that make them are like unto them, and so are all that trust in them.” That wherein an idolater doth seem so absurd and foolish is by the Wise Man thus exprest, “He is not ashamed to speak unto that which hath no life, he calleth on him that is weak for health, he prayeth for life unto him which is dead, of him which hath no experience he requireth help, for his journey he sueth to him which is not able to go, for gain and work and success in his affairs he seeketh furtherance of him that hath no manner of power.” The cause of which senseless stupidity is afterwards imputed to customs. “When a father mourned grievously for his son that was taken away suddenly,

he made an image for him that was once dead, whom now he worshippeth as a god, ordaining to his servants ceremonies and sacrifices. Thus by process of time this wicked custom prevailed, and was kept as a law;” the authority of rulers, the ambition of craftsmen, and such like means thrusting forward the ignorant, and increasing their superstition. Unto this which the Wise Man hath spoken somewhat besides may be added. For whatsoever we have hitherto taught, or shall hereafter, concerning the force of man’s natural understanding, this we always desire withal to be understood; that there is no kind of faculty or power in man or any other creature, which can rightly perform the functions allotted to it, without perpetual aid and concurrence of that Supreme Cause of all things. The benefit whereof as oft as we cause God in his justice to withdraw, there can no other thing follow than that which the Apostle noteth, even men endued with the light of reason to walk notwithstanding in the vanity of their mind, having their cogitations darkened, and being strangers from the life of God through the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts.” And this cause is mentioned by the prophet Esay, speaking of the ignorance of idolaters, who see not how the manifest Law of Reason condemneth their gross iniquity and sin. “They have not in them,” saith he, “so much wit as to think, ‘Shall I bow to the stock of a tree?’ All knowledge and understanding is taken from them; for God hath shut their eyes that they cannot see.” That which we say in this case of idolatry serveth for all other things, wherein the like kind of general blindness hath prevailed against the manifest Laws of Reason. Within the compass of which laws we do not only comprehend whatsoever may be easily known to belong to the duty of all men, but even whatsoever may possibly be known to be of that quality, so that the same be by necessary consequence deduced out of clear and manifest principles. For if once we descend unto probable collections what is convenient for men, we are then in the territory where free and arbitrary determinations, the territory where Human Laws take place; which laws are after to be considered. IX. Now the due observation of this Law which Reason teacheth us cannot but be effectual unto their great good that observe the same. For we see the whole world and each part thereof so compacted, that as long as each thing performeth only that work which is natural unto it, it thereby preserveth both other things and also itself. Contrariwise, let any principal thing, as the sun, the moon, any one of the heavens or elements, but once cease or fail, or swerve, and who doth not easily conceive that the sequel thereof would be ruin both to itself and whatsoever dependeth on it? And is it possible, that Man being not only the noblest creature in the world, but even a very world in himself, his transgressing the Law of his Nature should draw no manner of harm after it? Yes, “tribulation and anguish unto every soul that doeth evil.” Good doth follow unto all things by observing the course of their nature, and on the contrary side evil by not observing it; but not unto natural agents that good which we call Reward, not that evil which we properly term Punishment. The reason whereof is, because amongst creatures in this world, only Man’s observation of the Law of his Nature is Righteousness, only Man’s transgression Sin. And the reason of this is the difference in his manner of observing or transgressing the Law of his Nature. He doth not otherwise than voluntarily

the one or the other. What we do against our wills, or constrainedly, we are not properly said to do it, because the motive cause of doing it is not in ourselves, but carrieth us, as if the wind should drive a feather in the air, we no whit furthering that whereby we are driven. In such cases therefore the evil which is done moveth compassion; men are pitied for it, as being rather miserable in such respect than culpable. Some things are likewise done by man, though not through outward force and impulsion, though not against, yet without their wills; as in alienation of mind, or any the like inevitable utter absence of wit and judgment. For which cause, no man did ever think the hurtful actions of furious men and innocents to be punishable. Again, some things we do neither against nor without, and yet not simply and merely with our wills, but with our wills in such sort moved, that albeit there be no impossibility but that we might, nevertheless we are not so easily able to do otherwise. In this consideration one evil deed is made more pardonable than another. Finally, that which we do being evil, is notwithstanding by so much more pardonable, by how much the exigence of so doing or the difficulty of doing otherwise is greater; unless this necessity or difficulty have originally risen from ourselves. It is no excuse therefore unto him, who being drunk committeth incest, and allegeth that his wits were not his own; inasmuch as himself might have chosen whether his wits should by that mean have been taken from him. Now rewards and punishments do always presuppose something willingly done well or ill; without which respect though we may sometimes receive good or harm, yet then the one is only a benefit and not a reward, the other simply an hurt not a punishment. From the sundry dispositions of man’s Will, which is the root of all his actions, there groweth variety in the sequel of rewards and punishments, which are by these and the like rules measured: “Take away the will, and all acts are equal: That which we do not, and would do, is commonly accepted as done.” By these and the like rules men’s actions are determined of and judged, whether they be in their own nature rewardable or punishable.Rewards and punishments are not received, but at the hands of such as being above us have power to examine and judge our deeds. How men come to have this authority one over another in external actions, we shall more diligently examine in that which followeth. But for this present, so much all do acknowledge, that sith every man’s heart and conscience doth in good or evil, even secretly committed and known to none but itself, either like or disallow itself, and accordingly either rejoice, very nature exulting (as it were) in certain hope of reward, or else grieve (as it were) in a sense of future punishment; neither of which can in this case be looked for from any other, saving only from Him who discerneth and judgeth the very secrets of all hearts: therefore He is the only rewarder and revenger of all such actions; although not of such actions only, but of all whereby the Law of Nature is broken whereof Himself is author. For which cause, the Roman laws, called The Laws of the Twelve Tables, requiring offices of inward affection which the eye of man cannot reach unto, threaten the neglecters of them with none but divine punishment. X. That which hitherto we have set down is (I hope) sufficient to shew their brutishness, which imagine that religion and virtue are only as men will account of them; that we might make as much account, if we would, of the contrary, without any harm unto ourselves, and that in nature they are as indifferent one as the other. We see then how;

nature itself teacheth laws and statutes to live by. The laws which have been hitherto mentioned do bind men absolutely even as they are men, although they have never any settled fellowship, never any solemn agreement amongst themselves what to do or not to do. But forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store’ of things needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others. This was the cause of men’s uniting themselves at the first in politic Societies, which societies could not be without Government, nor Government without a distinct kind of Law from that which hath been already declared. Two foundations there are which bear up public societies; the one, a natural inclination, whereby all men desire sociable life and fellowship; the other, an order expressly or secretly agreed upon touching the manner of their union in living together. The latter is that which we call the Law of a Commonweal, the very soul of a politic body, the parts whereof are by law animated, held together, and set on work in such actions, as the common good requireth. Laws politic, ordained for external order and regiment amongst men, are never framed as they should be, unless presuming the will of man to be inwardly obstinate, rebellious, and averse from all obedience unto the sacred laws of his nature; in a word, unless presuming man to be in regard of his depraved mind little better than a wild beast, they do accordingly provide notwithstanding so to frame his outward actions, that they be no hindrance unto the common good for which societies are instituted: unless they do this, they are not perfect. It resteth therefore that we consider how nature findeth out such laws of government as serve to direct even nature depraved to a right end.All men desire to lead in this world a happy life. That life is led most happily, wherein all virtue is exercised without impediment or let. The Apostle, in exhorting men to contentment although they have in this world no more than very bare food and raiment, giveth us thereby to understand that those are even the lowest of things necessary; that if we should be stripped of all those things without which we might possibly be, yet these must be left; that destitution in these is such an impediment, as till it be removed suffereth not the mind of man to admit any other care. For this cause, first God assigned Adam maintenance of life, and then appointed him a law to observe. For this cause, after men began to grow to a number, the first thing we read they gave themselves unto was the tilling of the earth and the feeding of cattle. Having by this mean whereon to live, the principal actions of their life afterward are noted by the exercise of their religion. True it is, that the kingdom of God must be the first thing in our purposes and desires. But inasmuch as righteous life presupposeth life; inasmuch as to live virtuously it is impossible except we live; therefore the first impediment, which naturally we endeavour to remove, is penury and want of things without which we cannot live. Unto life many implements are necessary; moe, if we seek (as all men naturally do) such a life as hath in it joy, comfort, delight, and pleasure. To this end we see how quickly sundry arts mechanical were found out, in the very prime of the world. As things of greatest necessity are always first provided for, so things of greatest dignity are most accounted of by all such as judge rightly. Although therefore riches be a thing which every man wisheth, yet no man of judgment can esteem it’ better to be rich, than wise, virtuous, and religious. If we be both or either of these, it is not because we are so born. For into the

world we come as empty of the one as of the other, as naked in mind as we are in body. Both which necessities of man had at the first no other helps and supplies than only domestical; such as that which the Prophet implieth, saying, “Can a mother forget her chile?” such as that which the Apostle mentioneth, saying, “He that careth not for his own is worse than an infidel;” such as that concerning Abraham, “Abraham will command his sons and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord.”But neither that which we learn of ourselves nor that which others teach us can prevail, where wickedness and malice have taken deep root. If therefore when there was but as yet one only family in the world, no means of instruction human or divine could prevent effusion of blood; how could it be chosen but that when families were multiplied and increased upon earth, after separation each providing for itself, envy, strife, contention and violence must grow amongst them? For hath not Nature furnished man with wit and valour, as it were with armour, which may be used as well unto extreme evil as good? Yea, were they not used by the rest of the world unto evil; unto the contrary only by Seth, Enoch, and those few the rest in that line? We all make complaint of the iniquity of our times: not unjustly; for the days are evil. But compare them with those times wherein there were no civil societies, with those times wherein there was as yet no manner of public regiment established, with those times wherein there were not above eight persons righteous living upon the face of the earth; and we have surely good cause to think that God hath blessed us exceedingly, and hath made us behold most happy days.To take away all such mutual grievances, injuries, and wrongs, there was no way but only by growing unto composition and agreement amongst themselves, by ordaining some kind of government public, and by yielding themselves subject thereunto; that unto whom they granted authority to rule and govern, by them the peace, tranquillity, and happy estate of the rest might be procured. Men always knew that when force and injury was offered they might be defenders of themselves; they knew that howsoever men may seek their own commodity, yet if this were done with injury unto others it was not to be suffered, but by all men and by all good means to be withstood; finally they knew that no man might in reason take upon him to determine his own right, and according to his own determination proceed in maintenance thereof, inasmuch as every man is towards himself and them whom he greatly affecteth partial; and therefore that strifes and troubles would be endless, except they gave their common consent all to be ordered by some whom they should agree upon: without which consent there were no reason that one man should take upon him to be lord or judge over another; because, although there be according to the opinion of some very great and judicious men a kind of natural right in the noble, wise, and virtuous, to govern them which are of servile disposition’; nevertheless for manifestation of this their right, and men’s more peaceable contentment on both sides, the assent of them who are to be governed seemeth necessary. To fathers within their private families Nature hath given a supreme power; for which cause we see throughout the world even from the foundation thereof, all men have ever been taken as lords and lawful kings in their own houses. Howbeit over a whole grand multitude having no such dependency upon any one, and consisting of so many families as every politic society in the world doth, impossible it is that any should have complete

lawful power, but by consent of men, or immediate appointment of God; because not having the natural superiority of fathers, their power must needs be either usurped, and then unlawful; or, if lawful, then either granted or consented unto by them over whom they exercise the same, or else given extraordinarily from God, unto whom all the world is subject. It is no improbable opinion therefore which the arch philosopher was of, that as the chiefest person in every household was always as it were a king, so when numbers of households joined themselves in civil society together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them. Which is also (as it seemeth) the reason why the name of Father continued still in them, who of fathers were made rulers; as also the ancient custom of governors to do as Melchisedec, and being kings to exercise the office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the same occasion. Howbeit not this the only kind of regiment that hath been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused sundry other to be devised. So that in a word all public regiment of what kind soever seemeth evidently to have risen from deliberate advice, consultation, and composition between men, judging it convenient and behoveful; there being no impossibility in nature considered by itself, but that men might have lived without any public regiment. Howbeit, the corruption of our nature being presupposed, we may not deny but that the Law of Nature doth now require of necessity some kind of regiment, so that to bring things unto the first course they were in, and utterly to take away all kind of public government in the world, were apparently to overturn the whole world.The case of man’s nature standing therefore as it doth, some kind of regiment the Law of Nature doth require; yet the kinds thereof being many, Nature tieth not to any one, but leaveth the choice as a thing arbitrary. At the first when some certain kind of regiment was once approved, it may be that nothing was then further thought upon for the manner of governing, but all permitted unto their wisdom and discretion which were to rule; till by experience they found this for all parts very inconvenient, so as the thing which they had devised for a remedy did indeed but increase the sore which it should have cured. They saw that to live by one man’s will became the cause of all men’s misery. This constrained them to come unto laws, wherein all men might see their duties beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. If things be simply good or evil, and withal universally so acknowledged, there needs no new law to be made for such things. The first kind therefore of things appointed by laws human containeth whatsoever being in itself naturally good or evil, is notwithstanding more secret than that it can be discerned by every man’s present conceit, without some deeper discourse and judgment. In which discourse because there is difficulty and possibility many ways to err, unless such things were set down by laws, many would be ignorant of their duties which now are not, and many that know what they should do would nevertheless dissemble it, and to excuse themselves pretend ignorance and simplicity, which now they cannot.And because the greatest part of men are such as prefer their own private good before all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most divine; and for that the labour of doing good, together with the pleasure arising from the contrary, doth make men for the most part slower to the one and proner to the other, than that duty prescribed

them by law can prevail sufficiently with them: therefore unto laws that men do make for the benefit of men it hath seemed always needful to add rewards, which may more allure unto good than any hardness deterreth from it, and punishments, which may more deter from evil than any sweetness thereto allureth. Wherein as the generality is natural, virtue rewardable and vice punishable; so the particular determination of the reward or punishment belongeth unto them by whom laws are made. Theft is naturally punishable, but the kind of punishment is positive, and such lawful as men shall think with discretion convenient by law to appoint.In laws, that which is natural bindeth universally, that which is positive not so. To let go those kind of positive laws which men impose upon themselves, as by vow unto God, contract with men, or such like; somewhat it will make unto our purpose, a little more fully to consider what things are incident into the making of the positive laws for the government of them that live united in public society. Laws do not only teach what is good, but they enjoin it, they have in them a certain constraining force. And to constrain men unto any thing inconvenient doth seem unreasonable. Most requisite therefore it is that to devise laws which all men shall be forced to obey none but wise men be admitted. Laws are matters of principal consequence; men of common capacity and but ordinary judgment are not able (for how should they?) to discern what things are fittest for each kind and state of regiment. We cannot be ignorant how much our obedience unto laws dependeth upon this point. Let a man though never so justly oppose himself unto them that are disordered in their ways, and what one amongst them commonly. doth not stomach at such contradiction, storm at reproof, and hate such as would reform them? Notwithstanding even they which brook it worst that men should tell them of their duties, when they are told the same by a law, think very well and reasonably of it. For why? They presume that the law doth speak with all indifferency; that the law hath no side- respect to their persons; that the law is as it were an oracle proceeded from wisdom and understanding.Howbeit laws do not take their constraining force from the quality of such as devise them, but from that power which doth give them the strength of laws. That which we spake before concerning the power of government must here be applied unto the power of making laws whereby to govern; which power God hath over all: and by the natural law, whereunto he hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny. Laws they are not therefore which public approbation hath not made so. But approbation not only they give who personally declare their assent by voice sign or act, but also when others do it in their names by right originally at the least derived from them. As in parliaments, councils, and the like assemblies, although we be not personally ourselves present, notwithstanding our assent is by reason of others agents there in our behalf. And what we do by others, no reason but that it should stand as our deed, no less effectually to

bind us than if ourselves had done it in person. In many things assent is given, they that give it not imagining they do so, because the manner of their assenting is not apparent. As for example, when an absolute monarch commandeth his subjects that which seemeth good in his own discretion, hath not his edict the force of a law whether they approve or dislike it? Again, that which hath been, received long sithence and is by custom now established, we keep as a law which we may not transgress; yet what consent was ever thereunto sought or required at our hands? Of this point therefore we are to note that sith men naturally have no full and perfect power to command whole politic multitudes of men, therefore utterly without our consent we could in such sort be at no man’s commandment living. And to be commanded we do consent, when that society whereof we are part hath at any time before consented, without revoking the same after by the like universal agreement. Wherefore as any man’s deed past is good as long as himself continueth; so the act of a public society of men done five hundred years sithence standeth as theirs who presently are of the same societies, because corporations are immortal; we were then alive in our predecessors, and they in their successors do live still. Laws therefore human, of what kind soever, are available by consent.If here it be demanded how it cometh to pass that this being common unto all laws which are made, there should be found even in good laws so great variety as there is; we must note the reason hereof to be the sundry particular ends, whereunto the different disposition of that subject or matter, for which laws are provided, causeth them to have especial respect in making laws. A law there is mentioned amongst the Grecians whereof Pittacus is reported to have been author; and by that law it was agreed, that he which being overcome with drink did then strike any man, should suffer punishment double as much as if he had done “the same being sober 1. No man could ever have thought this reasonable, that had intended thereby only to punish the injury committed according to the gravity of the fact: for who knoweth not that harm advisedly done is naturally less pardonable, and therefore worthy of the sharper punishment? But forasmuch as none did so usually this way offend as men in that case, which they wittingly fell into, even because they would be so much the more freely outrageous; it was for their public good where such disorder was grown to frame a positive law for remedy thereof accordingly. To this appertain those known laws of making laws; as that law-makers must have an eye to the place where, and to the men amongst whom; that one kind of laws cannot serve for all kinds of regiment; that where the multitude beareth sway, laws that shall tend unto preservation of that state must make common smaller offices to go by lot, for fear of strife and division likely to arise; by reason that ordinary qualities sufficing for discharge of such offices, they could not but by many be desired, and so with danger contended for, and not missed without grudge and discontentment, whereas at an uncertain lot none can find themselves grieved, on whomsoever it lighteth; contrariwise the greatest, whereof but few are capable, to pass by popular election, that neither the people may envy such as have those honours, inasmuch as themselves bestow them, and that the chiefest may be kindled with desire to exercise all parts of rare and beneficial virtue, knowing they shall not lose their labour by growing in fame and estimation amongst the people: if the helm of chief government be in the hands of a few of the wealthiest, that then laws providing

for continuance thereof must make the punishment of contumely and wrong offered unto any of the common sort sharp and grievous, that so the evil may be prevented whereby the rich are most likely to bring themselves into hatred with the people, who are not wont to take so great offence when they are excluded from honours and offices, as when their persons are contumeliously trodden upon. In other kinds of regiment the like is observed concerning the difference of positive laws, which to be every where the same is impossible and against their nature.Now as the learned in the laws of this land observe, that our statutes sometimes are only the affirmation or ratification of that which by common law was held before; so here it is not to be omitted that generally all laws human, which are made for the ordering of politic societies, be either such as establish some duty whereunto all men by the law of reason did before stand bound; or else such as make that a duty now which before was none. The one sort we may for distinction’s sake call “mixedly,” and the other “merely” human. That which plain or necessary reason bindeth men unto may be in sundry considerations expedient to be ratified by human law. For example, if confusion of blood in marriage, the liberty of having many wives at once, or any other the like corrupt and unreasonable custom doth happen to have prevailed far, and to have gotten the upper hand of right reason with the greatest part; so that no way is left to rectify such foul disorder without prescribing by law the same things which reason necessarily doth enforce but is not perceived that so it doth; or if many be grown unto that which the Apostle did lament in some, concerning whom he writeth, saying, that “even what things they naturally know, in those very things as beasts void of reason they corrupted themselves;” or if there be no such special accident, yet forasmuch as the common sort are led by the sway of their sensual desires, and therefore do more shun sin for the sensible evils which follow it amongst men, than for any kind of sentence which reason doth pronounce against it: this very thing is cause sufficient why duties belonging unto each kind of virtue, albeit the Law of Reason teach them, should notwithstanding be prescribed even by human law. Which law in this case we term mixed, because the matter whereunto it bindeth is the same which reason necessarily doth require at our hands, and from the Law of Reason it differeth in the manner of binding only. For whereas men before stood bound in conscience to do as the Law of Reason teacheth, they are now by virtue of human law become constrainable, and if they outwardly transgress, punishable. As for laws which are merely human, the matter of them is any thing which reason doth but probably teach to be fit and convenient; so that till such time as law hath passed amongst men about it, of itself it bindeth no man. One example whereof may be this. Lands are by human law in some places after the owner’s decease divided unto all his children, in some all descendeth to the eldest son. If the Law of Reason did necessarily require but the one of these two to be done, they which by law have received the other should be subject to that heavy sentence, which denounceth against all that decree wicked, unjust, and unreasonable things, woe. Whereas now whichsoever be received there is no Law of Reason transgressed; because there is probable reason why either of them may be expedient, and for either of them more than probable reason there is not to be found.Laws whether mixedly or merely human are made by politic societies: some, only as those societies are civilly united; some, as they are spiritually joined and make such a

body as we call the Church. Of laws human in this latter kind we are to speak in the third book following. Let it therefore suffice thus far to have touched the force wherewith Almighty God hath graciously endued our nature, and thereby enabled the same to find out both those laws which all men generally are for ever bound to observe, and also such as are most fit for their behoof, who lead their lives in any ordered state of government.Now besides that law which simply concerneth men as men, and that which belongeth unto them as they are men linked with others in some form of politic society, there is a third kind of law which toucheth all such several bodies politic, so far forth as one of them hath public commerce with another. And this third is the Law of Nations. Between men and beasts there is no possibility of sociable communion, because the well- spring of that communion is a natural delight which man hath to transfuse from himself into others, and to receive from others into himself especially those things wherein the excellency of his kind doth most consist. The chiefest instrument of human communion therefore is speech, because thereby we impart mutually one to another the conceits of our reasonable understanding. And for that cause seeing beasts are not hereof capable, forasmuch as with them we can use no such conference, they being in degree, although above other creatures on earth to whom nature hath denied sense, yet lower than to be sociable companions of man to whom nature hath given reason; it is of Adam said that amongst the beasts “he found not for himself any meet companion.” Civil society doth more content the nature of man than any private kind of solitary living, because in society this good of mutual participation is so much larger than otherwise. Herewith notwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet (if it might be) to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all mankind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify professed himself a citizen, not of this or that commonwealth, but of the world. And an effect of that very natural desire in us (a manifest token that we wish after a sort an universal fellowship with all men) appeareth by the wonderful delight men have, some to visit foreign countries, some to discover nations not heard of in former ages, we all to know the affairs and dealings of other people, yea to be in league of amity with them: and this not only for traffick’s sake, or to the end that when many are confederated each may make other the more strong, but for such cause also as moved the Queen of Saba to visit Salomon; and in a word, because nature doth presume that how many men there are in the world, so many gods as it were there are, or at leastwise such they should be towards men.Touching laws which are to serve men in this behalf; even as those Laws of Reason, which (man retaining his original integrity) had been sufficient to direct each particular person in all his affairs and duties, are not sufficient but require the access of other laws, now that man and his offspring are grown thus corrupt and sinful; again, as those laws of polity and regiment, which would have served men living in public society together with that harmless disposition which then they should have had, are not able now to serve, when men’s iniquity is so hardly restrained within any tolerable bounds: in like manner, the national laws of mutual commerce between societies of that former and better quality might have been other than now, when nations are so prone to offer violence, injury, and wrong. Hereupon hath grown in every of these three kinds that distinction between Primary and Secondary laws; the one grounded upon sincere, the other built upon

depraved nature. Primary laws of nations are such as concern embassage, such as belong to the courteous entertainment of foreigners and strangers, such as serve for commodious traffick, and the like. Secondary laws in the same kind are such as this present unquiet world is most familiarly acquainted with; I mean laws of arms, which yet are much better known than kept. But what matter the Law of Nations doth contain I omit to search. The strength and virtue of that law is such that no particular nation can lawfully prejudice the same by any their several laws and ordinances, more than a man by his private resolutions the law of the whole commonwealth or state wherein he liveth. For as civil law, being the act of a whole body politic, doth therefore overrule each several part of the same body; so there is no reason that any one commonwealth of itself should to the prejudice of another annihilate that whereupon the whole world hath agreed. For which cause, the Lacedaemonians forbidding all access of strangers into their coasts, are in that respect both by Josephus and Theodoret deservedly blamed, as being enemies to that hospitality which for common humanity’s sake all the nations on earth should embrace.Now as there is great cause of communion, and consequently of laws for the maintenance of communion, amongst nations; so amongst nations Christian the like in regard even of Christianity hath been always judged needful. And in this kind of correspondence amongst nations the force of general councils doth stand. For as one and the same law divine, whereof in the next place we are to speak, is unto all Christian churches a rule for the chiefest things; by means whereof they all in that respect make one church, as having all but “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism:” so the urgent necessity of mutual communion for preservation of our unity in these things, as also for order in some other things convenient to be every where uniformly kept, maketh it requisite that the Church of God here on earth have her laws of spiritual commerce between Christian nations; laws by virtue whereof all churches may enjoy freely the use of those reverend, religious, and sacred consultations, which are termed Councils General. A thing whereof God’s own blessed Spirit was the author; a thing practised by the holy Apostles themselves; a thing always afterwards kept and observed throughout the world; a thing never otherwise than most highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and tyranny began by factious and vile endeavours to abuse that divine invention unto the furtherance of wicked purposes. But as the just authority of civil courts and parliaments is not therefore to be abolished, because sometime there is cunning used to frame them according to the private intents of men over potent in the commonwealth; so the grievous abuse which hath been of councils should rather cause men to study how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to that first perfection, than in regard of stains and blemishes sithence growing be held for ever in extreme disgrace. To speak of this matter as the cause requireth would require very long discourse. All I will presently say is this: whether it be for the finding out of any thing whereunto divine law bindeth us, but yet in such sort that men are not thereof on all sides resolved; or for the setting down of some uniform judgment to stand touching such things, as being neither way matters of necessity, are notwithstanding offensive and scandalous when there. is open opposition about them; be it for the ending of strifes, touching matters of

Christian belief; wherein the one part may seem to have probable cause of dissenting from the other; or be it concerning matters of polity, order, and regiment in the church; I nothing doubt but that Christian men should much better frame themselves to those heavenly precepts, which our Lord and Saviour with so great instancy gave as concerning peace and unity, if we did all concur in desire to have the use of ancient councils again renewed, rather than these proceedings continued, which either make all contentions endless, or bring them to one only determination, and that of all other the worst, which is by sword.It followeth therefore that a new foundation being laid, we now adjoin hereunto that which cometh in the next place to be spoken of; namely, wherefore God hath himself by Scripture made known such laws as serve for direction of men. XI. All things, (God only excepted,) besides the nature which they have in themselves, receive externally some perfection from other things, as hath been shewed. Insomuch as there is in the whole world no one thing great or small, but either in respect of knowledge or of use it may unto our perfection add somewhat. And whatsoever such perfection there is which our nature may acquire, the same we properly term our Good; our Sovereign Good or Blessedness, that wherein the highest degree of all our perfection consisteth, that which being once attained unto there can rest nothing further to be desired; and therefore with it our souls are fully content and satisfied, in that they have they rejoice, and thirst for no more. Wherefore of good things desired some are such that for themselves we covet them not, but only because they serve as instruments unto that for which we are to seek: of this sort are riches. Another kind there is, which although we desire for itself, as health, and virtue, and knowledge, nevertheless they are not the last mark whereat we aim, but have their further end whereunto they are referred, so as in them we are not satisfied as having attained the utmost we may, but our desires do still proceed. These things are linked and as it were chained one to another; we labour to eat, and we eat to live, and we live to do good, and the good which we do is as seed sown with reference to a future harvest’. But we must come at length to some pause. For, if every thing were to be desired for some other without any stint, there could be no certain end proposed unto our actions, we should go on we know not whither; yea, whatsoever we do were in vain, or rather nothing at all were possible to be done. For as to take away the first efficient of our being were to annihilate utterly our persons, so we cannot remove the last final cause of our working, but we shall cause whatsoever we work to cease. Therefore something there must be desired for itself simply and for no other. That is simply for itself desirable, unto the nature whereof it is opposite and repugnant to be desired with relation unto any other. The ox and the ass desire their food, neither propose they unto themselves any end wherefore; so that of them this is desired for itself; but why? By reason of their imperfection which cannot otherwise desire it; whereas that which is desired simply for itself, the excellency thereof is such as permitteth it not in any sort to be referred to a further end.Now that which man doth desire with reference to a further end, the same he desireth in such measure as is unto that end convenient; but what he coveteth as good in itself, towards that his desire is ever infinite. So that unless the last good of all, which is desired

altogether for itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making it our end; even as they who placed their felicity in wealth or honour or pleasure or any thing here attained; because in desiring any thing as our final perfection which is not so, we do amiss. Nothing may be infinitely desired but that good which indeed is infinite; for the better the more desirable; that therefore most desirable wherein there is infinity of goodness: so that if any thing desirable may be infinite, that must needs be the highest of all things that are desired. No good is infinite but only God; therefore he our felicity and bliss. Moreover, desire tendeth unto union with that it desireth. If then in Him we be blessed, it is by force of participation and conjunction with Him. Again, it is not the possession of any good thing can make them happy which have it, unless they enjoy the thing wherewith they are possessed. Then are we happy therefore when fully we enjoy God, as an object wherein the powers of our souls are satisfied even with everlasting delight; so that although we be men, yet by being unto God united we live as it were the life of God.Happiness therefore is that estate whereby we attain, so far as possibly may be attained, the full possession of that which simply for itself is to be desired, and containeth in it after an eminent sort the contentation of our desires, the highest degree of all our perfection. Of such perfection capable we are not in this life. For while we are in the world, subject we are unto sundry imperfections, griefs of body, defects of mind; yea the best things we do are painful, and the exercise of them grievous, being continued without intermission; so as in those very actions whereby we are especially perfected in this life we are not able to persist; forced we are with very weariness, and that often, to interrupt them: which tediousness cannot fall into those operations that are in the state of bliss, when our union with God is complete. Complete union with him must be according unto every power and faculty of our minds apt to receive so glorious an object. Capable we are of God both by understanding and will: by understanding, as He is that sovereign Truth which comprehendeth the rich treasures of all wisdom; by will, as He is that sea of Goodness whereof whoso tasteth shall thirst no more. As the will doth now work upon that object by desire, which is as it were a motion towards the end as yet unobtained; so likewise upon the same hereafter received it shall work also by love. “Appetitus inhiantis fit amor fruentis,” saith St. Augustine: “The longing disposition of them that thirst is changed into the sweet affection of them that taste and are replenished.” Whereas we now love the thing that is good, but good especially in respect of benefit unto us; we shall then love the thing that is good, only or principally for the goodness of beauty in itself. The soul being in this sort, as it is active, perfected by love of that infinite good, shall, as it is receptive, be also perfected with those supernatural passions of joy, peace, and delight. All this endless and everlasting. Which perpetuity, in regard whereof our blessedness is termed “a crown which withereth not,” doth neither depend upon the nature of the thing itself, nor proceed from any natural necessity that our souls should so exercise themselves for ever in beholding and loving God, but from the will of God, which doth both freely perfect our nature in so high a degree, and continue it so perfected. Under Man, no creature in the world is capable of felicity and bliss. First, because their chiefest perfection consisteth in that which is best for them, but not in that which is simply best, as ours doth. Secondly, because whatsoever external perfection they tend unto, it is not better than themselves, as ours is. How just occasion have we therefore even in this respect with the Prophet to admire the goodness of God! “Lord, what is man, that thou

shouldst exalt him above the works of thy hands,” so far as to make thyself the inheritance of his rest and the substance of his felicity?Now if men had not naturally this desire to be happy, how were it possible that all men should have it? All men have. Therefore this desire in man is natural. It is not in our power not to do the same; how should it then be in our power to do it coldly or remissly? So that our desire being natural is also in that degree of earnestness whereunto nothing can be added. And is it probable that God should frame the hearts of all men so desirous of that which no man may obtain? It is an axiom of nature that natural desire cannot utterly be frustrate. This desire of ours being natural should be frustrate, if that which may satisfy the same were a thing impossible for man to aspire unto. Man doth seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. They that make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the Apostle to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly-minded men. Unto the second they bend themselves, who seek especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as doth most commend men. To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is somewhat higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very process of man’s desire, which being natural should be frustrate, if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with performance of such actions as advance him most deservedly in estimation; but doth further covet, yea oftentimes manifestly pursue with great sedulity and earnestness, that which cannot stand him in any stead for vital use; that which exceedeth the reach of sense; yea somewhat above capacity of reason, somewhat divine and heavenly, which with hidden exultation it rather surmiseth than conceiveth; somewhat it seeketh, and what that is directly it knoweth not, yet very intentive desire thereof doth so incite it, that all other known delights and pleasures are laid aside, they give place to the search of this but only suspected desire. If the soul of man did serve only to give him being in this life, then things appertaining unto this life would content him, as we see they do other creatures; which creatures enjoying what they live by seek no further, but in this contestation do shew a kind of acknowledgment that there is no higher good which doth any way belong unto them. With us it is otherwise. For although the beauties, riches, honours, sciences, virtues, and perfections of all men living, were in the present possession of one; yet somewhat beyond and above all this there would still be sought and earnestly thirsted for. So that Nature even in this life doth plainly claim and call for a more divine perfection than either of these two that have been mentioned.This last and highest estate of perfection whereof we speak is received of men in the nature of a Reward. Rewards do always presuppose such duties performed as are rewardable. Our natural means therefore unto blessedness are our works; nor is it possible that Nature should ever find any other way to salvation than only this. But examine the works which we do, and since the first foundation of the world what one can say, My

ways are pure? Seeing then all flesh is guilty of that for which God hath threatened eternally to punish, what possibility is there this way to be saved? There resteth therefore either no way unto salvation, or if any, then surely a way which is supernatural, a way which could never have entered into the heart of man as much as once to conceive or imagine, if God himself had not revealed it extraordinarily. For which cause we term it the Mystery or secret way of salvation. And therefore St. Ambrose in this matter appealeth justly from man to God, “Coeli mysterium doceat me Deus qui condidit, non homo qui seipsum ignoravit:—Let God himself that made me, let not man that knows not himself; be my instructor concerning the mystical way to heaven.” “When men of excellent wit,” saith Lactantius, “had wholly betaken themselves unto study, after farewell bidden unto all kind as well of private as public action, they spared no labour that might be spent in the search of truth; holding it a thing of much more price to seek and to find out the reason of all affairs as well divine as human, than to stick fast in the toil of piling up riches and gathering together heaps of honours. Howbeit, they both did fail of their purpose, and got not as much as to quite their charges; because truth which is the secret of the Most High God, whose proper handy-work all things are, cannot be compassed with that wit and those senses which are our own. For God and man should be very near neighbours, “if man’s cogitations were able to take a survey of the counsels and appointments of that Majesty everlasting. Which being utterly impossible, that the eye of man by itself should look into the bosom of divine Reason; God did not suffer him being desirous of the light of wisdom to stray any longer up and down, and with bootless expense of travail to wander in darkness that had no passage to get out by. His eyes at the length God did open, and bestow upon him the knowledge of the truth by way of Donative, to the end that man might both be clearly convicted of folly, and being through error out of the way, have the path that leadeth unto immortality laid plain before him.” Thus far Lactantius Firmianus, to shew that God himself is the teacher of the truth, whereby is made known the supernatural way of salvation and law for them to live in that shall be saved. In the natural path of everlasting life the first beginning is that ability of doing good, which God in the day of man’s creation endued him with; from hence obedience unto the will of his Creator, absolute righteousness and integrity in all his actions; and last of all the justice of God rewarding the worthiness of his deserts with the crown of eternal glory. Had Adam continued in his first estate, this had been the way of life unto him and all his posterity. Wherein I confess notwithstanding with the wittiest of the school-divines, “That if we speak of strict justice, God could no way have been bound to requite man’s labours in so large and ample a manner as human felicity doth import; inasmuch as the dignity of this exceedeth so far the other’s value. But be it that God of his great liberality had determined in lieu of man’s endeavours to bestow the same by the rule of that justice which best beseemeth him, namely, the justice of one that requiteth nothing mincingly, but all with pressed and heaped and even over-enlarged measure; yet could it never hereupon necessarily be gathered, that such justice should add to the nature of that reward the property of everlasting continuance; sith possession of bliss, though it should be but for a moment, were an abundant retribution.” But we are not now to enter into this consideration, how gracious and bountiful our good God might still appear in so rewarding the sons of men, albeit they should exactly perform whatsoever duty their nature bindeth them unto. Howsoever God did propose this reward, we that were to be rewarded must have done that which is required at our hands; we failing in the one, it

were in nature an impossibility that the other should be looked for. The light of nature is never able to find out any way of obtaining the reward of bliss, but by performing exactly the duties and works of righteousness.From salvation therefore and life all flesh being excluded this way, behold how the wisdom of God hath revealed a way mystical and supernatural, a way directing unto the same end of life by a course which groundeth itself upon the guiltiness of sin, and through sin desert of condemnation and death. For in this way the first thing is the tender compassion of God respecting us drowned and swallowed up in misery; the next is redemption out of the same by the precious death and merit of a mighty Saviour, which hath witnessed of himself, saying, “I am the way,” the way that leadeth us from misery into bliss. This supernatural way had God in himself prepared before all worlds. The way of supernatural duty which to us he hath prescribed, our Saviour in the Gospel of St. John doth note, terming it by an excellency, The Work of God, “This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom he hath sent.” Not that God doth require nothing unto happiness at the hands of men saving only a naked belief (for hope and charity we may not exclude); but that without belief all other things are as nothing, and it the ground of those other divine virtues. Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal Verity which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting Goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning Charity, the final object whereof is that incomprehensible Beauty which shineth in the countenance of Christ the Son of the living God: concerning these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the second beginning here with a trembling expectation of things far removed and as yet but only heard of, endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that law which God himself hath from heaven revealed? There is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the eternal God. Laws therefore concerning these things are supernatural, both in respect of the manner of delivering them, which is divine; and also in regard of the things delivered, which are such as have not in nature any cause from which they flow, but were by the voluntary appointment of God ordained besides the course of nature, to rectify nature’s obliquity withal. XII. When supernatural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected as needless. The law of God therefore is, though principally delivered for instruction in the one, yet fraught with precepts of the other also. The Scripture is fraught even with laws of Nature; insomuch that Gratian defining Natural Right, (whereby is meant the right which exacteth

those general duties that concern men naturally even as they are men,) termeth “Natural Right, that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain.” Neither is it vain that the Scripture aboundeth with so great store of laws in this kind: for they are either such as we of ourselves could not easily have found out, and then the benefit is not small to have them readily set down to our hands; or if they be so clear and manifest that no man endued with reason can lightly be ignorant of them, yet the Spirit as it were borrowing them from the school of Nature, as serving to prove things less manifest, and to induce a persuasion of somewhat which were in itself more hard and dark, unless it should in such sort be cleared, the very applying of them unto cases particular is not without most singular use and profit many ways for men’s instruction. Besides, be they plain of themselves or obscure, the evidence of God’s own testimony added to the natural assent of reason concerning the certainty of them, doth not a little comfort and confirm the same.Wherefore inasmuch as our actions are conversant about things beset with many circumstances, which cause men of sundry wits to be also of sundry judgments concerning that which ought to be done; requisite it cannot but seem the rule of divine law should herein help our imbecility, that we might the more infallibly understand what is good and what evil. The first principles of the Law of Nature are easy; hard it were to find men ignorant of them. But concerning the duty which Nature’s law doth require at the hands of men in a number of things particular, so far hath the natural understanding even of sundry whole nations been darkened, that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin. Again, being so prone as we are to fawn upon ourselves, and to be ignorant as much as may be of our own deformities, without the feeling sense whereof we are most wretched, even so much the more, because not knowing them we cannot so much as desire to have them taken away: how should our festered sores be cured, but that God hath delivered a law as sharp as the two-edged sword, piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart, which the Law of Nature can hardly, human laws by no means possible, reach unto? Hereby we know even secret concupiscence to be sin, and are made fearful to offend though it be but in a wandering cogitation. Finally, of those things which are for direction of all the parts of our life needful, and not impossible to be discerned by the light of Nature itself; are there not many which few men’s natural capacity, and some which no man’s, hath been able to find out? They are, saith St. Augustine, but a few, and they endued with great ripeness of wit and judgment, free from all such affairs as might trouble their meditations, instructed in the sharpest and the subtlest points of learning, who have, and that very hardly, been able to find out but only the immortality of the soul. The resurrection of the flesh what man did ever at any time dream of, having not heard it otherwise than from the school of Nature? Whereby it appeareth how much we are bound to yield unto our Creator, the Father of all mercy, eternal thanks, for that he hath delivered his law unto the world, a law wherein so many things are laid open, clear, and manifest, as a light which otherwise would have been buried in darkness, not without the hazard, or rather not with the hazard but with the certain loss, of infinite thousands of souls most undoubtedly now saved.We see, therefore, that our sovereign good is desired naturally; that God the author of that natural desire had appointed natural means whereby to fulfil it; that man having utterly disabled his nature unto those means hath had other revealed from God, and hath

received from heaven a law to teach him how that which is desired naturally must now supernaturally be attained. Finally, we see that because those latter exclude not the former quite and clean as unnecessary, therefore together with such supernatural duties as could not possibly have been otherwise known to the world, the same law that teacheth them, teacheth also with them such natural duties as could not by light of Nature easily have been known. XIII. In the first age of the world God gave laws unto our fathers, and by reason of the number of their days their memories served instead of books; whereof the manifold imperfections and defects being known to God, he mercifully relieved the same by often putting them in mind of that whereof it behoved them to be specially mindful. In which respect we see how many times one thing hath been iterated unto sundry even of the best and wisest amongst them. After that the lives of men were shortened, means more durable to preserve the laws of God from oblivion and corruption grew in use, not without precise direction from God himself. First therefore of Moyses it is said, that he “wrote all the words of God;” not by his own private motion and device: for God taketh this act to himself, “I have written.” Furthermore, were not the Prophets following commanded also to do the like? Unto the holy evangelist St. John; how often express charge is given, “ Scribe,” “Write these things.” Concerning the rest of our Lord’s disciples, the words of St. Augustine are, “Quicquid ille de suis factis et dictis nos legere voluit, hoc scribendum illis tanquam suis manibus imperavit.”Now, although we do not deny it to be a matter merely accidental unto the law of God to be written; although writing be not that which addeth authority and strength thereunto; finally, though his laws do require at our hands the same obedience howsoever they be delivered; his providence, notwithstanding, which hath made principal choice of this way to deliver them, who seeth not what cause we have to admire and magnify? The singular benefit that hath grown unto the world, by receiving the laws of God even by his own appointment committed unto writing, we are not able to esteem as the value thereof deserveth. When the question therefore is, whether we be now to seek for any revealed law of God otherwhere than only in the sacred Scripture; whether we do now stand bound in the sight of God to yield to traditions urged by the Church of Rome the same obedience and reverence we do to his written law, honouring equally and adoring both as divine: our answer is, No. They that so earnestly plead for the authority of tradition, as if nothing were more safely conveyed than that which spreadeth itself by report, and descendeth by relation of former generations unto the ages that succeed, are not all of them (surely a miracle it were if they should be) so simple as thus to persuade themselves; howsoever, if the simple were so persuaded, they could be content perhaps very well to enjoy the benefit, as they account it, of that common error. What hazard the truth is in when it passeth through the hands of report, how maimed and deformed it becometh, they are not, they cannot possibly be ignorant. Let them that are indeed of this mind consider but only that little of things divine, which the heathen have in such sort received. How miserable had the state of the Church of God been long ere this, if wanting the sacred Scripture we had no record of his laws, but only the memory of man receiving the same by report and relation from his predecessors?

By Scripture it hath in the wisdom of God seemed meet to deliver unto the world much but personally expedient to be practised of certain men; many deep and profound points of doctrine, as being the main original ground whereupon the precepts of duty depend; many prophecies, the clear performance whereof might confirm the world in belief of things unseen; many histories to serve as looking-glasses to behold the mercy, the truth, the righteousness of God towards all that faithfully serve, obey, and honour him; yea many entire meditations of piety, to be as patterns and precedents in cases of like nature; many things needful for explication, many for application unto particular occasions, such as the providence of God from time to time hath taken to have the several books of his holy ordinance written. Be it then that together with the principal necessary laws of God there are sundry other things written, whereof we might haply be ignorant and yet be saved: what? shall we hereupon think them needless? shall we esteem them as riotous branches wherewith we sometimes behold most pleasant vines overgrown? Surely no more than we judge our hands or our eyes superfluous, or what part soever, which if our bodies did want, we might notwithstanding any such defect retain still the complete being of men. As therefore a complete man is neither destitute of any part necessary, and hath some parts whereof though the want could not deprive him of his essence, yet to have them standeth him in singular stead in respect of the special uses for which they serve; in like sort all those writings which contain in them the Law of God, all those venerable books of Scripture, all those sacred tomes and volumes of Holy Writ, they are with such absolute perfection framed, that in them there neither wanteth any thing the lack whereof might deprive us of life, nor any thing in such wise aboundeth, that as being superfluous, unfruitful, and altogether needless, we should think it no loss or danger at all if we did want it. XIV. Although the Scripture of God therefore be stored with infinite variety of matter in all kinds, although it abound with all sorts of laws, yet the principal intent of Scripture is to deliver the laws of duties supernatural. Oftentimes it hath been in very solemn manner disputed, whether all things necessary unto salvation be necessarily set down in the Holy Scriptures or no. If we define that necessary unto salvation, whereby the way to salvation is in any sort made more plain, apparent, and easy to be known; then is there no part of true philosophy, no art of account, no kind of science rightly so called, but the Scripture must contain it. If only those things be necessary, as surely none else are, without the knowledge and practice whereof it is not the will and pleasure of God to make any ordinary grant of salvation; it may be notwithstanding and oftentimes hath been demanded, how the books of Holy Scripture contain in them all necessary things, when of things necessary the very chiefest is to know what books we are bound to esteem holy; which point is confessed impossible for the Scripture itself to teach. Whereunto we may answer with truth, that there is not in the world any art or science, which proposing unto itself an end (as every one doth some end or other) hath been therefore thought defective, if it have not delivered simply whatsoever is needful to the same end; but all kinds of knowledge have their certain bounds and limits; each of them presupposeth many necessary things learned in other sciences and known beforehand. He that should take upon him to teach men how to be eloquent in pleading causes, must needs deliver unto them whatsoever precepts are requisite unto that end; otherwise he doth not the thing which he taketh upon him. Seeing then no man can plead eloquently unless he be able

first to speak; it followeth that ability of speech is in this case a thing most necessary. Notwithstanding every man would think it ridiculous, that he which undertaketh by writing to instruct an orator should therefore deliver all the precepts of grammar; because his profession is to deliver precepts necessary unto eloquent speech, yet so that they which are to receive them be taught beforehand so much of that which is thereunto necessary, as comprehendeth the skill of speaking. In like sort, albeit Scripture do profess to contain in it all things that are necessary unto salvation; yet the meaning cannot be simply of all things which are necessary, but all things that are necessary in some certain kind or form; as all things which are necessary, and either could not at all or could not easily be known by the light of natural discourse; all things which are necessary to be known that we may be saved, but known with presupposal of knowledge concerning certain principles whereof it receiveth us already persuaded, and then instructeth us in all the residue that are necessary. In the number of these principles one is the sacred authority of Scripture. Being therefore persuaded by other means that these Scriptures are the oracles of God, themselves do then teach us the rest, and lay before us all the duties which God requireth at our hands as necessary unto salvation.Further, there hath been some doubt likewise, whether containing in Scripture do import express setting down in plain terms, or else comprehending in such sort that by reason we may from thence conclude all things which are necessary. Against the former of these two constructions instance hath sundry ways been given. For our belief in the Trinity, the co-eternity of the Son of God with his Father, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, the duty of baptizing infants: these with such other principal points, the necessity whereof is by none denied, are notwithstanding in Scripture nowhere to be found by express literal mention, only deduced they are out of Scripture by collection. This kind of comprehension in Scripture being therefore received, still there is doubt how far we are to proceed by collection, before the full and complete measure of things necessary be made up. For let us not think that as long as the world doth endure the wit of man shall be able to sound the bottom of that which may be concluded out of the Scripture; especially if “things contained by collection” do so far extend, as to draw in whatsoever may be at any time out of Scripture but probably and conjecturally surmised. But let necessary collection be made requisite, and we may boldly deny, that of all those things which at this day are with so great necessity urged upon this church under the name of reformed church-discipline, there is any one which their books hitherto have made manifest to be contained in the Scripture. Let them, if they can, allege but one properly belonging to their cause, and not common to them and us, and shew the deduction thereof out of Scripture to be necessary.It hath been already shewed, how all things necessary unto salvation in such sort as before we have maintained must needs be possible for men to know; and that many things are in such sort necessary, the knowledge whereof is by the light of Nature impossible to be attained. Whereupon it followeth that either all flesh is excluded from possibility of salvation, which to think were most barbarous; or else that God hath by supernatural means revealed the way of life so far forth as doth suffice. For this cause God hath so many times and ways spoken to the sons of men. Neither hath he by speech only, but by writing also, instructed and taught his Church. The cause of writing hath

been to the end that things by him revealed unto the world might have the longer continuance, and the greater certainty of assurance, by how much that which standeth on record hath in both those respects preeminence above that which passeth from hand to hand, and hath no pens but the tongues, no books but the ears of men to record it. The several books of Scripture having had each some several occasion and particular purpose which caused them to be written, the contents thereof are according to the exigence of that special end whereunto they are intended. Hereupon it groweth that every book of Holy Scripture doth take out of all kinds of truth, natural, historical, foreign, supernatural, so much as the matter handled requireth. Now forasmuch as there hath been reason alleged sufficient to conclude, that all things necessary unto salvation must be made known, and that God himself hath therefore revealed his will, because otherwise men could not have known so much as is necessary; his surceasing to speak to the world, since the publishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the delivery of the same in writing, is unto us a manifest token that the way of salvation is now sufficiently opened, and that we need no other means for our full instruction than God hath already furnished us withal.The main drift of the whole New Testament is that which St. John setteth down as the purpose of his own history; “These things are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is Christ the Son of God, and that in believing ye might have life through his name.” The drift of the Old that which the Apostle mentioneth to Timothy, “The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” So that the general end both of Old and New is one; the difference between them consisting in this, that the Old did make wise by teaching salvation through Christ that should come, the New by teaching that Christ the Saviour is come, and that Jesus whom the Jews did crucify, and whom God did raise again from the dead, is he. When the Apostle therefore affirmeth unto Timothy, that the Old was able to make him wise to salvation, it was not his meaning that the Old alone can do this unto us which live sithence the publication of the New. For he speaketh with presupposal of the doctrine of Christ known also unto Timothy; and therefore first it is said, “Continue thou in those things which thou hast learned and art persuaded, knowing of whom thou hast been taught them.” Again, those Scriptures he granteth were able to make him wise to salvation; but he addeth, “through the faith which is in Christ.” Wherefore without the doctrine of the New Testament teaching that Christ hath wrought the redemption of the world, which redemption the Old did foreshew he should work, it is not the former alone which can on our behalf perform so much as the Apostle doth avouch, who presupposeth this when he magnifieth that so highly. And as his words concerning the books of ancient Scripture do not take place but with presupposal of the Gospel of Christ embraced; so our own words also, when we extol the complete sufficiency of the whole entire body of the Scripture, must in like sort be understood with this caution, that the benefit of nature’s light be not thought excluded as unnecessary, because the necessity of a diviner light is magnified.There is in Scripture therefore no defect, but that any man, what place or calling soever he hold in the Church of God, may have thereby the light of his natural understanding so perfected, that the one being relieved by the other, there can want no

part of needful instruction unto any good work which God himself requireth, be it natural or supernatural, belonging simply unto men as men, or unto men as they are united in whatsoever kind of society. It sufficeth therefore that Nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort, that they both jointly, and not severally either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting felicity we need not the knowledge of any thing more than these two may easily furnish our minds with on all sides; and therefore they which add traditions, as a part of supernatural necessary truth, have not the truth, but are in error. For they only plead, that whatsoever God revealeth as necessary for all Christian men to do or believe, the same we ought to embrace, whether we have received it by writing or otherwise; which no man denieth: when that which they should confirm, who claim so great reverence unto traditions, is, that the same traditions are necessarily to be acknowledged divine and holy. For we do not reject them only because they are not in the Scripture, but because they are neither in Scripture, nor can otherwise sufficiently by any reason be proved to be of God. That which is of God, and may be evidently proved to be so, we deny not but it hath in his kind, although unwritten, yet the selfsame force and authority with the written laws of God. It is by ours acknowledged, “that the Apostles did in every church institute and ordain some rites and customs serving for the seemliness of church regiment, which rites and customs they have not committed, unto writing.” Those rites and customs being known to be apostolical, and having the nature of things changeable, were no less to be accounted of in the Church than other things of the like degree; that is to say, capable in like sort of alteration, although set down in the Apostles’ writings. For both being known to be apostolical, it is not the manner of delivering them unto the Church, but the author from whom they proceed, which doth give them their force and credit. XV. Laws being imposed either by each man upon himself, or by a public society upon the particulars thereof, or by all the nations of men upon every several society, or by the Lord himself upon any or every of these; there is not amongst these four kinds any one but containeth sundry both natural and positive laws. Impossible it is but that they should fall into a number of gross errors, who only take such laws for positive as have been made or invented of men, and holding this position hold also, that all positive and none but positive laws are mutable. Laws natural do always bind; laws positive not so, but only after they have been expressly and wittingly imposed. Laws positive there are in every of those kinds before mentioned. As in the first kind the promises which we have passed unto men, and the vows we have made unto God; for these are laws which we tie ourselves unto, and till we have so tied ourselves they bind us not. Laws positive in the second kind are such as the civil constitutions peculiar unto each particular commonweal. In the third kind the law of Heraldry in war is positive: and in the last all the judicials which God gave unto the people of Israel to observe. And although no laws but positive be mutable, yet all are not mutable which be positive. Positive laws are either permanent or else changeable, according as the matter itself is concerning which they were first made. Whether God or man be the maker of them, alteration they so far forth admit, as the matter doth exact.Laws that concern supernatural duties are all positive, and either concern men supernaturally as men, or else as parts of a supernatural society, which society we call the

Church. To concern men as men supernaturally is to concern them as duties which belong of necessity to all, and yet could not have been known by any to belong unto them, unless God had opened them himself, inasmuch as they do not depend upon any natural ground at all out of which they may be deduced, but are appointed of God to supply the defect of those natural ways of salvation, by which we are not now able to attain thereunto. The Church being a supernatural society doth differ from natural societies in this, that the persons unto whom we associate ourselves, in the one are men simply considered as men, but they to whom we be joined in the other, are God, Angels, and holy men. Again the Church being both a society and a society supernatural, although as it is a society it have the selfsame original grounds which other politic societies have, namely, the natural inclination which all men have unto sociable life, and consent to some certain bond of association, which bond is the law that appointeth what kind of order they shall be associated in: yet unto the Church as it is a society supernatural this is peculiar, that part of the bond of their association which belong to the Church of God must be a law supernatural, which God himself hath revealed concerning that kind of worship which his people shall do unto him. The substance of the service of God therefore, so far forth as it hath in it any thing more than the Law of Reason doth teach, may not be invented of men, as it is amongst the heathens, but must be received from God himself, as always it hath been in the Church, saving only when the Church hath been forgetful of her duty.Wherefore to end with a general rule concerning all the laws which God hath tied men unto: those laws divine that belong, whether naturally or supernaturally, either to men as men, or to men as they live in politic society, or to men as they are of that politic society which is the Church, without any further respect had unto any such variable accident as the state of men and of societies of men and of the Church itself in this world is subject unto; all laws that so belong unto men, they belong for ever, yea although they be Positive Laws, unless being positive God himself which made them alter them. The reason is, because the subject or matter of laws in general is thus far forth constant: which matter is that for the ordering whereof laws were instituted, and being instituted are not changeable without cause, neither can they have cause of change, when that which gave them their first institution remaineth for ever one and the same. On the other side, laws that were made for men or societies or churches, in regard of their being such as they do not always continue, but may perhaps be clean otherwise a while after, and so may require to be otherwise ordered than before; the laws of God himself which are of this nature, no man endued with common sense will ever deny to be of a different constitution from the former, in respect of the one’s constancy and the mutability of the other. And this doth seem to have been the very cause why St. John doth so peculiarly term the doctrine that teacheth salvation by Jesus Christ, Evangelium aeternum, “an eternal Gospel;” because there can be no reason wherefore the publishing thereof should be taken away, and any other instead of it proclaimed, as long as the world doth continue: whereas the whole law of rites and ceremonies, although delivered with so great solemnity, is notwithstanding clean abrogated, inasmuch as it had but temporary cause of God’s ordaining it.But that we may at the length conclude this first general introduction unto the nature and original birth, as of all other laws, so likewise of those which the sacred Scripture

containeth, concerning the Author whereof even infidels have confessed that He can neither err nor deceive: albeit about things easy and manifest unto all men by common sense there needeth no higher consultation; because as a man whose wisdom is in weighty affairs admired would take it in some disdain to have his counsel solemnly asked about a toy, so the meanness of some things is such, that to search the Scripture of God for the ordering of them were to derogate from the reverend authority and dignity of the Scripture, no less than they do by whom Scriptures are in ordinary talk very idly applied unto vain and childish trifles: yet better it were to be superstitious than profane; to take from thence our direction even in all things great or small, than to wade through matters of principal weight and moment, without ever caring what the law of God hath either for or against our designs. Concerning the custom of the very Painims, thus much Strabe witnesseth: “Men that are civil do lead their lives after one common law appointing them what to do. For that otherwise a multitude should with harmony amongst themselves concur in the doing of one thing, (for this is civilly to live,) or that they should in any sort manage community of life, it is not possible. Now laws or statutes are of two sorts. “ For they are either received from gods, or else from men. “And our ancient predecessors did surely most honour and reverence that which was from the gods; for which cause consultation with oracles was a thing very usual and frequent in their times.” Did they make so much account of the voice of their gods, which in truth were no gods; and shall we neglect the precious benefit of conference with those oracles of the true and living God, whereof so great store is left to the Church, and whereunto there is so free, so plain, and so easy access for all men? “By thy commandments” (this was David’s confession unto God) “thou hast made me wiser than mine enemies.” Again, “I have had more understanding than all my teachers, because thy testimonies are my meditations.” What pains would not they have bestowed in the study of these books, who travelled sea and land to gain the treasure of some few days’ talk with men whose wisdom the world did make any reckoning of? That little which some of the heathens did chance to hear, concerning such matter as the sacred Scripture plentifully containeth, they did in wonderful sort affect; their speeches as oft as they make mention thereof are strange, and such as themselves could not utter as they did other things, but still acknowledged that their wits, which did every where else conquer hardness, were with profoundness here over-matched. Wherefore seeing that God hath endued us with sense, to the end that we might perceive such things as this present life doth need; and with reason, lest that which sense cannot reach unto, being both now and also in regard of a future estate hereafter necessary to be known, should lie obscure; finally, with the heavenly support of prophetical revelation, which doth open those hidden mysteries that reason could never have been able to find out, or to have known the necessity of them unto our everlasting good: use we the precious gifts of God unto his glory and honour that gave them, seeking by all means to know what the will of our God is; what righteous before him; in his sight what holy, perfect, and good, that we may truly and faithfully do it. XVI. Thus far therefore we have endeavoured in part to open, of what nature and force laws are, according unto their several kinds; the law which God with himself hath eternally set down to follow in his own works; the law which he hath made for his

creatures to keep; the law of natural and necessary agents; the law which angels in heaven obey; the law whereunto by the light of reason men find themselves bound in that they are men; the law which they make by composition for multitudes and politic societies of men to be guided by; the law which belongeth unto each nation; the law that concerneth the fellowship of all; and lastly the law which God himself hath supernaturally revealed. It might peradventure have been more popular and more plausible to vulgar ears, if this first discourse had been spent in extolling the force of laws, in shewing the great necessity of them when they are good, and in aggravating their offence by whom public laws are injuriously traduced. But forasmuch as with such kind of matter the passions of men are rather stirred one way or other, than their knowledge any way set forward unto the trial of that whereof there is doubt made; I have therefore turned aside from that beaten path, and chosen though a less easy yet a more profitable way in regard of the end we propose. Lest therefore any man should marvel whereunto all these things tend, the drift and purpose of all is this, even to shew in what manner, as every good and perfect gift, so this very gift of good and perfect laws is derived from the Father of lights; to teach men a reason why just and reasonable laws are of so great force, of so great use in the world; and to inform their minds with some method of reducing the laws whereof there is present controversy unto their first original causes, that so it may be in every particular ordinance thereby the better discerned, whether the same be reasonable, just, and righteous, or no. Is there any thing which can either be throughly understood or soundly judged of, till the very first causes and principles from which originally it springeth be made manifest? If all parts of knowledge have been thought by wise men to be then most orderly delivered and proceeded in, when they are drawn to their first original; seeing that our whole question concerneth the quality of ecclesiastical laws, let it not seem a labour superfluous that in the entrance thereunto all these several kinds of laws have been considered, inasmuch as they all concur as principles, they all have their forcible operations therein, although not all in like apparent and manifest manner. By means whereof it cometh to pass that the force which they have is not observed of many.Easier a great deal it is for men by law to be taught what they ought to do, than instructed how to judge as they should do of law: the one being a thing which belongeth generally unto all, the other such as none but the wiser and more judicious sort can perform. Yea, the wisest are always touching this point the readiest to acknowledge, that soundly to judge of a law is the weightiest thing which any man can take upon him. But it we will give judgment of the laws under which we live; first let that law eternal be always before our eyes, as being of principal force and moment to breed in religious minds a dutiful estimation of all laws, the use and benefit whereof we see; because there can be no doubt but that laws apparently good are (as it were) things copied out of the very tables of that high everlasting law; even as the book of that law hath said concerning itself, “By me kings reign, and” by me “princes decree justices.” Not as if men did behold that book and accordingly frame their laws; but because it worketh in them, because it discovereth and (as it were) readeth itself to the world by them, when the laws which they make are righteous. Furthermore, although we perceive not the goodness of laws made, nevertheless sith things in themselves may have that which we peradventure discern not, should not this breed a fear in our hearts, how we speak or judge in the worse part

concerning that, the unadvised disgrace whereof may be no mean dishonour to Him, towards whom we profess all submission and awe? Surely there must be very manifest iniquity in laws, against which we shall be able to justify our contumelious invectives. The chiefest root whereof, when we use them without cause, is ignorance how laws inferior are derived from that supreme or highest law.The first that receive impression from thence are natural agents. The law of whose operations might be haply thought less pertinent, when the question is about laws for human actions, but that in those very actions which most spiritually and supernaturally concern men, the rules and axioms of natural operations have their force. What can be more immediate to our salvation than our persuasion concerning the laws of Christ towards his Church? What greater assurance of love towards his Church, than the knowledge of that mystical union, whereby the Church is become as near unto Christ as any one part of his flesh is unto other? That the Church being in such sort his he must needs protect it, what proof more strong than if a manifest law so require, which law it is not possible for Christ to violate? And what other law doth the Apostle for this allege, but such as is both common unto Christ with us, and unto us with other things natural; “No man hateth his own flesh, but doth love and cherish it?” The axioms of that law therefore, whereby natural agents are guided, have their use in the moral, yea, even in the spiritual actions of men, and consequently in all laws belonging unto men howsoever.Neither are the Angels themselves so far severed from us in their kind and manner of working, but that between the law of their heavenly operations and the actions of men in this our state of mortality such correspondence there is, as maketh it expedient to know in some sort the one, for the other’s more perfect direction. Would Angels acknowledge themselves “fellow-servants” with the sons of men, but that both having one Lord, there must be some kind of law which is one and the same to both, whereunto their obedience being perfecter is to our weaker both a pattern and a spur? Or would the Apostles, speaking of that which belongeth unto saints as they are linked together in the bond of spiritual society, so often make mention how Angels therewith are delighted, if in things publicly done by the Church we are not somewhat to respect what the Angels of heaven do? Yea, so far hath the Apostle Saint Paul proceeded, as to signify, that even about the outward orders of the Church which serve but for comeliness, some regard is to be had of Angels, who best like us when we are most like unto them in all parts of decent demeanour. So that the law of Angels we cannot judge altogether impertinent unto the affairs of the Church of God.Our largeness of speech how men do find out what things reason bindeth them of necessity to observe, and what it guideth them to choose in things which are left as arbitrary; the care we have had to declare the different nature of laws which severally concern all men, from such as belong unto men either civilly or spiritually associated, such as pertain to the fellowship which nations, or which Christian nations, have amongst themselves, and in the last place such as concerning every or any of these God himself hath revealed by his Holy Word: all serveth but to make manifest, that as the actions of men are of sundry distinct kinds, so the laws thereof must accordingly be distinguished. There are in men operations, some natural, some rational, some supernatural, some politic,

some finally ecclesiastical: which if we measure not each by his own proper law, whereas the things themselves are so different, there will be in our understanding and judgment of them confusion. As that first error sheweth, whereon our opposites in this cause have grounded themselves. For as they rightly maintain that God must be glorified in all things, and that the actions of men cannot tend unto his glory unless they be framed after his law; so it is their error to think that the only law which God ha appointed unto men in that behalf is the sacred Scripture. By that which we work naturally, as when we breathe, sleep, move, we set forth the glory of God as natural agents do, albeit we have no express purpose to make that our end, nor any advised determination therein to follow a law, but do that we do (for the most part) not as much as thinking thereon. In reasonable and moral actions another law taketh place; a law by the observation whereof we glorify God in such sort, as no creature else under man is able to do; because other creatures have not judgment to examine the quality of that which is done by them, and therefore in that they do they neither can accuse nor approve themselves. Men do both, as the Apostle teacheth; yea, those men which have no written law of God to shew what is good or evil, carry written in their hearts the universal law of mankind, the Law of Reason, whereby they judge as by a rule which God hath given unto all men for that purpose. The law of reason doth somewhat direct men how to honour God as their Creator; but (how to glorify God in such sort as is required, to the end he may be an everlasting Saviour, this we are taught by divine law, which law both ascertaineth the truth and supplieth unto us the want of that other law. So that in moral actions, divine law helpeth exceedingly the law of reason to guide man’s life; but in supernatural it alone guideth. Proceed we further; let us place man, in some public society with others, whether civil or spiritual; and in this case there is no remedy but we must add yet a further law. For although even here likewise the laws of nature and reason be of necessary use, yet somewhat over and besides them is necessary, namely human and positive law, together with that law which is of commerce between grand societies, the law of nations, and of nations Christian. For which cause the law of God hath likewise said, “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” The public power of all societies is above every soul contained in the same societies. And the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all that are under it; which laws in such case we must obey, unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily enforce that the law of Reason or of God doth enjoin the contrary. Because except our own private and but probable resolutions be by the law of public determinations overruled, we take away all possibility of sociable life in the world. A plainer example whereof than ourselves we cannot have. How cometh it to pass that we are at this present day so rent with mutual contentions, and that the Church is so much troubled about the polity of the Church? No doubt if men had been willing to learn how many laws their actions in this life are subject unto, and what the true force of each law is, all these controversies might have died the very day they were first brought forth.

It is both commonly said, and truly, that the best men otherwise are not always the best in regard of society. The reason whereof is, for that the law of men’s actions is one, if they be respected only as men; and another, when they are considered as parts of a politic body. Many men there are, than whom nothing is more commendable when they are singled; and yet in society with others none less fit to answer the duties which are looked for at their hands. Yea, I am persuaded, that of them with whom in this cause we strive, there are whose betters amongst men would be hardly found, if they did not live amongst men, but in some wilderness by themselves. The cause of which their disposition so unframable unto societies wherein they live, is, for that they discern not aright what place qnd force these several kinds of laws ought to have in all their actions. Is there question either concerning the regiment of the Church in general, or about conformity between one church and another, or of ceremonies, offices, powers, jurisdictions in our own church? Of all these things they judge by that rule which they frame to themselves with some show of probability, and what seemeth in that sort convenient, the same they think themselves bound to practise; the same by all means they labour mightily to uphold; whatsoever any law of man to the contrary hath determined they weigh it not. Thus by following the law of private reason, where the law of public should take place, they breed disturbance.For the better inuring therefore of men’s minds with the true distinction of laws, and of their several force according to the different kind and quality of our actions, it shall not peradventure be amiss to shew in some one example how they all take place. To seek no further, let but that be considered, than which there is not any thing more familiar unto us, our food. What things are food and what are not we judge naturally by sense; neither need we any other law to be our director in that behalf than the selfsame which is common unto us with beasts. But when we come to consider of food, as of a benefit which God of his bounteous goodness hath provided for all things living; the law of Reason doth here require the duty of thankfulness at our hands, towards him at whose hands we have it. And lest appetite in the use of food should lead us beyond that which is meet, we owe in this case obedience to that law of Reason, which teacheth mediocrity in meats and drinks. The same things divine law teacheth also, as at large we have shewed it doth all parts of moral duty, whereunto we all of necessity stand bound, in regard of the life to come. But of certain kinds of food the Jews sometime had, and we ourselves likewise have, a mystical, religious, and supernatural use, they of their paschal lamb and oblations, we of our bread and wine in the Eucharist; which use none but divine law could institute. Now as we live in civil society, the state of the commonwealth wherein we live both may and doth require certain laws concerning food; which laws, saving only that we are members of the commonwealth where they are of force, we should not need to respect as rules of action, whereas now in their place and kind they must be respected and obeyed.

Yea, the selfsame matter is also a subject wherein sometime ecclesiastical laws have place; so that unless we will be authors of confusion in the Church, our private discretion, which otherwise might guide us a contrary way, must here submit itself to be that way guided, which the public judgment of the Church hath thought better. In which case that of Zonaras concerning fasts may be remembered. “Fastings are good, but let good things be done in good and convenient manner. He that transgresseth in his fasting the orders of the holy fathers,” the positive laws of the Church of Christ, must be plainly told, “that good things do lose the grace of their goodness, when in good sort they are not performed.” And as here men’s private fancies must give place to the higher judgment of that Church which is in authority a mother over them; so the very actions of whole churches have, in regard of commerce and fellowship with other churches, been subject to laws concerning food, the contrary unto which laws had else been thought more convenient for them to observe; as by that order of abstinence from strangled and blood may appear; an order grounded upon that fellowship which the churches of the Gentiles had with the Jews. Thus we see how even one and the selfsame thing is under divers considerations conveyed through many laws; and that to measure by any one kind of law all the actions of men were to confound the admirable order, wherein God hath disposed all laws, each as in nature, so in degree, distinct from other.Wherefore that here we may briefly end: of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power, both Angels and men and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

THE SECOND BOOK. CONCERNING THEIR FIRST POSITION WHO URGE REFORMATION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: NAMELY, THAT SCRIPTURE IS THE ONLY RULE OF ALL THINGS WHICH IN THIS LIFE MAY BE DONE BY MEN. THE MATTER CONTAINED IN THIS SECOND BOOK. I. An answer to their first proof brought out of Scripture, Prov. ii. 9. II. To their second, I Cor. x. 31. III. To their third, I Tim. iv. 5. IV. To their fourth, Rom. xiv. 23. V. To their proofs out of Fathers, who dispute negatively from authority of Holy Scripture. VI. To their proof by the Scripture’s custom of disputing from divine authority negatively. VII. An examination of their opinion concerning the force of arguments taken from human authority for the ordering of men’s actions and persuasions. VIII. A declaration what the truth is in this matter.AS that which in the title hath been proposed for the matter whereof we treat, is only the ecclesiastical law whereby we are governed; so neither is it my purpose to maintain any other thing than that which therein truth and reason shall approve. For concerning the dealings of men who administer government, and unto whom the execution of that law belongeth; they have their Judge who sitteth in heaven, and before whose tribunal-seat they are accountable for whatsoever abuse or corruption, which (being worthily misliked in this church) the want either of care or of conscience in them hath bred. We are no patrons of those things therefore, the best defence whereof is speedy redress and amendment. That which is of God we defend, to the uttermost of that ability which he hath given; that which is otherwise, let it wither even in the root from whence it hath sprung. Wherefore all these abuses being severed and set apart, which rise from the corruption of men and not from the laws themselves; come we to those things which in the very whole entire form of our church polity have been (as we persuade ourselves) injuriously blamed by them, who endeavour to overthrow the same, and instead thereof to establish a much worse; only through a strong misconceit they have, that the same is grounded on divine authority. Now whether it be that through an earnest longing desire to see things brought to a peaceable end, I do but imagine the matters whereof we contend to be fewer than indeed

they are; or else for that in truth they are fewer when they come to be discussed by reason, than otherwise they seem when by heat of contention they are divided into many slips, and of every branch an heap is made: surely, as now we have drawn them together, choosing out those things which are requisite to be severally all discussed, and omitting such mean specialties as are likely (without any great labour) to fall afterwards of themselves; I know no cause why either the number or the length of these controversies should diminish our hope of seeing them end with concord and love on all sides; which of his infinite love and goodness the Father of all peace and unity grant.Unto which scope that our endeavour may the more directly tend, it seemeth fittest that first those things be examined, which are as seeds from whence the rest that ensue have grown. And of such the most general is that wherewith we are here to make our entrance: a question not moved (I think) any where in other churches, and therefore in ours the more likely to be soon (I trust) determined. The rather, for that it hath grown from no other root, than only a desire to enlarge the necessary use of the Word of God; which desire hath begotten an error enlarging it further than (as we are persuaded) soundness of truth will bear. For whereas God hath left sundry kinds of laws unto men, and by all those laws the actions of men are in some sort directed; they hold that one only law, the Scripture, must be the rule to direct in all things, even so far as to the “taking up of a rush or straw.” About which point there should not need any question to grow, and that which is grown might presently end, if they did yield but to these two restraints: the first is, not to extend the actions whereof they speak so low as that instance doth import of taking up a straw, but rather keep themselves at the least within the compass of moral actions, actions which have in them vice or virtue: the second, not to exact at our hands for every action the knowledge of some place of Scripture out of which we stand bound to deduce it, as by divers testimonies they seek to enforce; but rather as the truth is, so to acknowledge, that it sufficeth if such actions be framed according to the law of Reason; the general axioms, rules, and principles of which law being so frequent in Holy Scripture, there is no let but in that regard even out of Scripture such duties may be deduced by some kind of consequence, (as by long circuit of deduction it may be that even all truth out of any truth may be concluded,) howbeit no man bound in such sort to deduce all his actions out of Scripture, as if either the place be to him unknown whereon they may be concluded, or the reference unto that place not presently considered of, the action shall in that respect be condemned as unlawful. In this we dissent, and this we are presently to examine.In all parts of knowledge rightly so termed things most general are most strong. Thus it must be, inasmuch as the certainty of our persuasion touching particulars dependeth altogether upon the credit of those generalities out of which they grow. Albeit therefore every cause admit not such infallible evidence of proof, as leaveth no possibility of doubt or scruple behind it; yet they who claim the general assent of the whole world unto that which they teach, and do not fear to give very hard and heavy sentence upon as many as refuse to embrace the same, must have special regard that their first foundations and grounds be more than slender probabilities. This whole question which hath been moved about the kind of church regiment, we could not but for our own resolution’s sake endeavour to unrip and sift; following therein as near as we might the conduct of that

judicial method which serveth best for invention of truth. By means whereof, having found this the head theorem of all their discourses, who plead for the change of ecclesiastical government in England, namely, “That the Scripture of God is in such sort the rule of human actions, that simply whatsoever we do and are not by it directed thereunto, the same is sin;” we hold it necessary that the proofs hereof be weighed. Be they of weight sufficient or otherwise, it is not ours to judge and determine; only what difficulties there are which as yet withhold our assent, till we be further and better satisfied, I hope no indifferent amongst them will scorn or refuse to hear.First therefore whereas they allege, “That Wisdom doth teach men every good way;” and have thereupon inferred that no way is good in any kind of action unless wisdom do by Scripture lead unto it; see they not plainly how they restrain the manifold ways which wisdom hath to teach men by, unto one only way of teaching, which is by Scripture? The bounds of wisdom are large, and within them much is contained. Wisdom was Adam’s instructor in Paradise; wisdom endued the fathers who lived before the law with the knowledge of holy things; by the wisdom of the law of God David attained to excel others in understanding; and Salomon likewise to excel David by the selfsame wisdom of God teaching him many things besides the law. The ways of well-doing are in number even as many as are the kinds of voluntary actions; so that whatsoever we do in this world and may do it ill, we shew ourselves therein by well-doing to be wise. Now if wisdom did teach men by Scripture not only all the ways that are right and good in some certain kind, according to that of St. Paul concerning the use of Scripture, but did simply without any manner of exception, restraint, or distinction, teach every way of doing well; there is no art, but Scripture should teach it, because every art doth teach the way how to do something or other well. To teach men therefore wisdom professeth, and to teach them every good way; but not every good way by one way of teaching. Whatsoever either men on earth or the Angels of heaven do know, it is as a drop of that unemptiable fountain of wisdom; which wisdom hath diversely imparted her treasures unto the world. As her ways are of sundry kinds, so her manner of teaching is not merely one and the same. Some things she openeth by the sacred books of Scripture; some things by the glorious works of Nature: with some things she inspireth them from above by spiritual influence; in some things she leadeth and traineth them only by worldly experience and practice. We may not so in any one special kind admire her, that we disgrace her in any other; but let all her ways be according unto their place and degree adored. II. That “all things be done to the glory of God,” the blessed Apostle (it is true) exhorteth. The glory of God is the admirable excellency of that virtue divine, which being made manifest, causeth men and Angels to extol his greatness, and in regard thereof to fear him. By “being glorified” it is not meant that he doth receive any augmentation of glory at our hands, but his name we glorify when we testify our acknowledgment of his glory. Which albeit we most effectually do by the virtue of obedience; nevertheless it may be perhaps a question, whether St. Paul did mean that we sin as oft as ever we go about any thing, without an express intent and purpose to obey God therein. He saith of himself, “I do in all things please all men, seeking not mine own commodity but” rather the good “of many, that they may be saved.” Shall it hereupon be thought that St. Paul did not move either hand or foot, but with express intent even thereby to further the common salvation

of men? We move, we sleep, we take the cup at the hand of our friend, a number of things we oftentimes do, only to satisfy some natural desire, without present, express, and actual reference unto any commandment of God. Unto his glory even these things are done which we naturally perform, and not only that which morally and spiritually we do. For by every effect proceeding from the most concealed instincts of nature His power is made manifest: But it doth not therefore follow that of necessity we shall sin, unless we expressly intend this in every such particular.But be it a thing which requireth no more than only our general presupposed willingness to please God in all things, or be it a matter wherein we cannot so glorify the name of God as we should without an actual intent to do him in that particular some special obedience; yet for any thing there is in this sentence alleged to the contrary, God may be glorified by obedience, and obeyed by performance of his will, and his will be performed with art actual intelligent desire to fulfil that law which maketh known what his will is, although no special clause or sentence of Scripture be in every such action set before men’s eyes to warrant it. For Scripture is not the only law whereby God hath opened his will touching all things that may be done, but there are other kinds of laws which notify the will of God, as in the former book hath been proved at large: nor is there any law of God, whereunto he doth not account our obedience his glory. “Do therefore all things unto the glory of God (saith the Apostle), be inoffensive both to Jews and Grecians and the Church of God; even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own commodity, but many’s, that they may be saved.” In the least thing done disobediently towards God, or offensively against the good of men, whose benefit we ought to seek for as for our own, we plainly shew that we do not acknowledge God to be such as indeed he is, and consequently that we glorify him not. This the blessed Apostle teacheth; but doth any Apostle teach, that we cannot glorify God otherwise, than only in doing what we find that God in Scripture commandeth us to do? The churches dispersed amongst the heathen in the east part of the world are by the Apostle St. Peter exhorted to have their “conversation honest amongst the Gentiles, that they which spake evil of them as of evil-doers might by the good works which they should see glorify God in the day of visitation.” As long as that which Christians did was good, and no way subject unto just reproof, their virtuous conversation was a mean to work the heathen’s conversion unto Christ Seeing therefore this had been a thing altogether impossible, but that infidels themselves did discern, in matters of life and conversation, when believers did well and when otherwise, when they glorified their heavenly Father and when not; it followeth that some things wherein God is glorified may be some other way known than only by the sacred Scripture; of which Scripture the Gentiles being utterly ignorant did notwithstanding judge rightly of the quality of Christian men’s actions. Most certain it is that nothing but only sin doth dishonour God. So that to glorify him in all things is to do nothing whereby the name of God may be blasphemed; nothing whereby the salvation of Jew or Grecian or any in the Church of Christ may be let or hindered as nothing whereby his law is transgressed. But the question is, whether only Scripture do shew whatsoever God is glorified in?

III. And though meats and drinks be said to be sanctified by the word of God and by prayer, yet neither is this a reason sufficient to prove, that by Scripture we must of necessity be directed in every light and common thing which is incident into any part of man’s life. Only it sheweth that unto us the word, that is to say the Gospel of Christ, having not delivered any such difference of things clean and unclean, as the Law of Moses did unto the Jews, there is no cause but that we may use indifferently all things, as long as we do not (like swine) take the benefit of them without a thankful acknowledgment of His liberality and goodness by whose providence they are enjoyed. And therefore the Apostle gave warning beforehand to take heed of such as should enjoin to “abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving, because it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.” The Gospel, by not making many things unclean, as the Law did, hath sanctified those things generally to all, which particularly each man unto himself must sanctify by a reverend and holy use. Which will hardly be drawn so far as to serve their purpose, who have imagined the Word in such sort to sanctify all things, that neither food can be tasted, nor raiment put on, nor in the world any thing done, but this deed must needs be sin in them which do not first know it appointed unto them by Scripture before they do it. IV. But to come unto that which of all other things in Scripture is most stood upon; that place of St. Paul they say is “of all other most clear, where speaking of those things which are called indifferent, in the end he concludeth, “That ‘whatsoever is not of faith is sin.’ But faith is not but in respect of the Word of God. Therefore whatsoever is not done by the Word of God is sin.” Whereunto we answer, that albeit the name of Faith being properly and strictly taken, it must needs have reference unto some uttered word as the object of belief: nevertheless sith the ground of credit is the credibility of things credited; and things are made credible, either by the known condition and quality of the utterer, or by the manifest likelihood of truth which they have in themselves; hereupon it riseth that whatsoever we are persuaded of, the same we are generally said to believe. In which generality the object of faith may not so narrowly be restrained, as if the same did extend no further than to the only Scriptures of God. “Though,” saith our Saviour, “ye believe not me, believe my works, that ye may know and “believe that the Father is in me and I in him.” “The other disciples said unto Thomas, We have seen the Lord;” but his answer unto them was, “Except I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into them, I will not believe.” Can there be any thing more plain than that which by these two sentences appeareth, namely, that there may be a certain belief grounded upon other assurance than Scripture: any thing more clear, than that we are said not only to believe the things which we know by another’s relation, but even whatsoever we are certainly persuaded of, whether it be by reason or by sense?Forasmuch therefore as it is granted that St. Paul doth mean nothing else by Faith, but only “a full persuasion that that which we do is well done;” against which kind of faith or persuasion as St. Paul doth count it sin to enterprise any thing, so likewise “some of the very heathen have taught,” as Tully, ‘That nothing ought to be done whereof thou doubtest whether it be right or wrong;’ whereby it appeareth that even those which had

no knowledge of the word of God did see much of the equity of this which the Apostle requireth of a Christian man;” I hope we shall not seem altogether unnecessarily to doubt of the soundness of their opinion, who think simply that nothing but only the word of God can give us assurance in any thing we are to do, and resolve us that we do well. For might not the Jews have been fully persuaded that they did well to think (if they had so thought) that in Christ God the Father was, although the only ground of this their faith had been the wonderful works they saw him do? Might not, yea, did not Thomas fully in the end persuade himself, that he did well to think that body which now was raised to be the same which had been crucified? That which gave Thomas this assurance was his sense; “Thomas, because thou hast seen, thou believest,” saith our Saviour. What Scripture had Tully for this assurance? Yet I nothing doubt but that they who allege him think he did well to set down in writing a thing so consonant unto truth. Finally, we all believe that the Scriptures of God are sacred, and that they have proceeded from God; ourselves we assure that we do right well in so believing. We have for this point a demonstration sound and infallible. But it is not the word of God which doth or possibly can assure us, that we do well to think it his word. For if any one book of Scripture did give testimony to all, yet still that Scripture which giveth credit to the rest would require another Scripture to give credit unto it, neither could we ever come unto any pause whereon to rest our assurance this way; so that unless beside Scripture there were something which might assure us that we do well, we could not think we do well, no not in being assured that Scripture is a sacred and holy rule of well-doing.On which determination we might be contented to stay ourselves without further proceeding herein, but that we are drawn on into larger speech by reason of their so great earnestness, who beat more and more upon these last alleged words, as being of all other most pregnant. Whereas therefore they still argue, “That wheresoever faith is wanting, there is sin;” and, “in every action not commanded faith is wanting;” ergo, “in every action not commanded, there is sin:” I would demand of them first, forasmuch as the nature of things indifferent is neither to be commanded nor forbidden, but left free and arbitrary; how there can be any thing indifferent, if for want of faith sin be committed when any thing not commanded is done. So that of necessity they must add somewhat, and at leastwise thus set it down: in every action not commanded of God or permitted with approbation, faith is wanting, and for want of faith there is sin.The next thing we are to inquire is, What those things be which God permitteth with approbation, and how we may know them to be so permitted. When there are unto one end sundry means; as for example, for the sustenance of our bodies many kinds of food, many sorts of raiment to clothe our nakedness, and so in other things of like condition: here the end itself being necessary, but not so any one mean thereunto; necessary that our bodies should be both fed and clothed, howbeit no one kind of food or raiment necessary; therefore we hold these things free in their own nature and indifferent. The choice is left to our own discretion, except a principal bond of some higher duty remove the indifferency that such things have in themselves. Their indifferency is removed, if either we take away our own liberty, as Ananias did, for whom to have sold or held his

possessions it was indifferent, till his solemn vow and promise unto God had strictly bound him one only way; or if God himself have precisely abridged the same, by restraining us unto or by barring us from some one or moe things of many, which otherwise were in themselves altogether indifferent. Many fashions of priestly attire there were, whereof Aaron and his sons might have had their free choice without sin, but that God expressly tied them unto one. All meats indifferent unto the Jew, were it not that God by name excepted some, as swine’s flesh. Impossible therefore it is we should otherwise think, than that what things God doth neither command nor forbid, the same he permitteth with approbation either to be done or left undone. “All things are lawful unto me,” saith the Apostle, speaking as it seemeth in the person of the Christian Gentile for maintenance of liberty in things indifferent; whereunto his answer is, that nevertheless “all things are not expedient;” in things indifferent there is a choice, they are not always equally expedient.Now in things although not commanded of God yet lawful because they are permitted, the question is, what light shall shew us the conveniency which one hath above another. For answer, their final determination is, that “Whereas the Heathen did send men for the difference of good and evil to the light of Reason, in such things the Apostle sendeth us to the school of Christ in his word, which only is able through faith to give us assurance and resolution in our doings.” Which word only, is utterly without possibility of ever being proved. For what if it were true concerning things indifferent, that unless the word of the Lord had determined of the free use of them, there could have been no lawful use of them at all: which notwithstanding is untrue; because it is not the Scripture’s setting down such things as indifferent, but their not setting down as necessary, that doth make them to be indifferent: yet this to our present purpose serveth nothing at all. We inquire not now, whether any thing be free to be used which Scripture hath not set down as free: but concerning things known and acknowledged to be indifferent, whether particularly in choosing any one of them before another we sin, if any thing but Scripture direct us in this our choice. When many meats are set before me, all are indifferent, none unlawful, I take one as most convenient. If Scripture require me so to do, then is not the thing indifferent, because I must do what Scripture requireth. They are all indifferent, I might take any, Scripture doth not require of me to make any special choice of one: I do notwithstanding make choice of one, my discretion teaching me so to do. A hard case, that hereupon I should be justly condemned of sin. Nor let any man think that following the judgment of natural discretion in such cases we can have no assurance that we please God. For to the Author and God of our nature, how shall any operation proceeding in natural sort be in that respect unacceptable? The nature which himself hath given to work by he cannot but be delighted with, when we exercise the same any way without commandment of his to the contrary.My desire is to make this cause so manifest, that if it were possible, no doubt or scruple concerning the same might remain in any man’s cogitation. Some truths there are, the verity whereof time doth alter: as it is now true that Christ is risen from the dead; which thing was not true at such time as Christ was living on earth, and had not suffered. It would be known therefore, whether this which they teach concerning: the sinful stain of all actions not commanded of God, be a truth that doth now appertain unto us only, or

a perpetual truth, in such sort that from the first beginning of the world unto the last consummation thereof, it neither hath been nor can be otherwise. I see not how they can restrain this unto any particular time, how they can think it true now and not always true, that in every action not commanded there is for want of faith sin. Then let them cast back their eyes unto former generations of men, and mark what was done in the prime of the world. Seth, Enoch, Noah, Sem, Abraham, Job, and the rest that lived before any syllable of the law of God was written, did they not sin as much as we do in every action not commanded? That which God is unto us by his sacred word, the same he was unto them by such like means as Eliphaz in Job describeth. If therefore we sin in every action which the Scripture commandeth us not, it followeth that they did the like in all such actions as were not by revelation from Heaven exacted at their hands. Unless God from heaven did by vision still shew them what to do, they might do nothing, not eat, not drink, not sleep, not move.Yea, but even as in darkness candlelight may serve to guide men’s steps, which to use in the day were madness; so when God had once delivered his law in writing, it may be they are of opinion that then it must needs be sin for men to do any thing which was not there commanded them to do, whatsoever they might do before. Let this be granted, and it shall hereupon plainly ensue, either that the light of Scripture once shining in the world, all other light of Nature is therewith in such sort drowned, that now we need it not, neither may we longer use it; or if it stand us in any stead, yet as Aristotle speaketh of men whom Nature hath framed for the state of servitude, saying, “They have reason so far forth as to conceive when others direct them, but little or none in directing themselves by themselves;” so likewise our natural capacity and judgment must serve us only for the right understanding of that which the sacred Scripture teacheth. Had the Prophets who succeeded Moses, or the blessed Apostles which followed them, been settled in this persuasion, never would they have taken so great pains in gathering together natural arguments, thereby to teach the faithful their duties. To use unto them any other motive than Scriptum est, “Thus it is written,” had been to teach them other grounds of their actions than Scripture; which I grant they allege commonly, but not only. Only Scripture they should have alleged, had they been thus persuaded, that so far forth we do sin as we do any thing otherwise directed than by Scripture. St. Augustine was resolute in points of Christianity to credit none, how godly and learned soever he were, unless he confirmed his sentence by the Scriptures, or by some reason not contrary to them. Let them therefore with St. Augustine reject and condemn that which is not grounded either on the Scripture, or on some reason not contrary to Scripture, and we are ready to give them our hands in token of friendly consent with them. V. But against this it may be objected, and is, That the Fathers do nothing more usually in their books, than draw arguments from the Scripture negatively in reproof of that which is evil; “Scriptures teach it not, avoid it therefore:” these disputes with the Fathers are ordinary, neither is it hard to shew that the Prophets themselves have so reasoned. Which arguments being sound and good, it should seem that it cannot be unsound or evil to hold still the same assertion against which hitherto we have disputed. For if it stand with reason thus to argue, “such a thing is not taught us in Scripture, therefore we may not receive or allow it;” how should it seem unreasonable to think, that whatsoever we may

lawfully do, the Scripture by commanding it must make it lawful? But how far such arguments do reach, it shall the better appear by considering the matter wherein they have been urged.First therefore this we constantly deny, that of so many testimonies as they are able to produce for the strength of negative arguments, any one doth generally (which is the point in question) condemn either all opinions as false, or all actions as unlawful, which the Scripture teacheth us not. The most that can be collected out of them is only that in some cases a negative argument taken from Scripture is strong, whereof no man endued with judgment can doubt. But doth the strength of some negative argument prove this kind of negative argument strong, by force whereof all things are denied which Scripture affirmeth not, or all things which Scripture prescribeth not condemned? The question between us is concerning matter of action, what things are lawful or unlawful for men to do. The sentences alleged out of the Fathers are as peremptory and as large in every respect for matter of opinion as of action: which argueth that in truth they never meant any otherwise to tie the one than the other unto Scripture, both being thereunto equally tied, as far as each is required in the same kind of necessity unto salvation. If therefore it be not unlawful to know and with full persuasion to believe much more than Scripture alone doth teach; if it be against all sense and reason to condemn the knowledge of so many arts and sciences as are otherwise learned than in Holy, Scripture, notwithstanding the manifest speeches of ancient Catholic Fathers, which seem to close up within the bosom thereof all manner good and lawful knowledge; wherefore should their words be thought more effectual to shew that we may not in deeds and practice, than they are to prove that in speculation and knowledge we ought not to go any farther than the Scripture? Which Scripture being given to teach matters of belief no less than of action, the Fathers must needs be and are even as plain against credit besides the relation, as against practice without the injunction of the Scripture.St. Augustine hath said, “Whether it be question of Christ, or whether it be question of his Church, or of what thing soever the question be; I say not, if we, but if an angel from heaven shall tell us any thing beside that you have received in the Scripture under the Law and the Gospel, let him be accursed.” In like sort Tertullian, “We may not give ourselves this liberty to bring in any thing of our will, nor choose any thing that other men bring in of their will; we have the Apostles themselves for authors, which themselves brought nothing of their own will, but the discipline which they received of Christ they delivered faithfully unto the people.” In which place the name of Discipline importeth not as they who allege it would fain have it construed, but as any man who noteth the circumstance of the place and the occasion of uttering the words will easily acknowledge, even the selfsame thing it signifieth which the name of Doctrine doth, and as well might the one as the other there have been used. To help them farther, doth not St. Jerome after the selfsame manner dispute, “We believe it not, because we read it not?” Yea, “We ought not so much as to know the things which the Book of the Law containeth not,” saith St. Hilary. Shall we hereupon then conclude, that we may not take knowledge of or give credit unto any thing, which sense or experience or report or art doth propose, unless we find the same in Scripture? No; it is too plain that so far to extend their speeches is to wrest them against their true intent and meaning. To urge any thing upon

the Church, requiring thereunto that religious assent of Christian belief; wherewith the words of the holy prophets are received; to urge any thing as part of that supernatural and celestially revealed truth which God hath taught, and not to shew it in Scripture; this did the ancient Fathers evermore think unlawful, impious, execrable. And thus, as their speeches were meant, so by us they must be restrained.As for those alleged words of Cyprian, “The Christian Religion shall find, that out of this Scripture rules of all doctrines have sprung, and that from hence doth spring and hither doth return whatsoever the ecclesiastical discipline doth contain:” surely this place would never have been brought forth in this cause, if it had been but once read over in the author himself out of whom it is cited. For the words are uttered concerning that one principal commandment of love; in the honour whereof he speaketh after this sort: “Surely this commandment containeth the law and the Prophets, and in this one word is the abridgment of all the volumes of Scripture. This nature and reason and the authority of thy word, O Lord, doth proclaim; this we have heard out of thy mouth; herein the perfection of all religion doth consist. This is the first commandment and the last: this being written in the Book of Life is (as it were) an everlasting lesson both to Men and Angels. Let Christian religion read this one word, and meditate upon this commandment, and out of this Scripture it shall find the rules of all learning to have sprung, and from hence to have risen and hither to return whatsoever the ecclesiastical discipline containeth, and that in all things it is vain and bootless which charity confirmeth not.” Was this a sentence (trow you) of so great force to prove that Scripture is the only rule of all the actions of men? Might they not hereby even as well prove, that one commandment of Scripture is the only rule of all things, and so exclude the rest of the Scripture, as now they do all means beside Scripture? But thus it fareth, when too much desire of contradiction causeth our speech rather to pass by number than to stay for weight.Well, but Tertullian doth in this case speak yet more plainly: “The Scripture,” saith he, “denieth what it noteth not;” which are indeed the words of Tertullian. But what? the Scripture reckoneth up the kings of Israel, and amongst those kings David; the Scripture reckoneth up the sons of David, and amongst those sons Salomon. To prove that amongst the kings of Israel there was no David but only one, no Salomon but one in the sons of David; Tertullian’s argument will fitly prove. For inasmuch as the Scripture did propose to reckon up all, if there were moe it would have named them. In this case “the Scripture doth deny the thing it noteth not.” Howbeit I could not but think that man to do me some piece of manifest injury, which would hereby fasten upon me a general opinion, as if I did think the Scripture to deny the very reign of King Henry the Eighth, because it nowhere noteth that any such King did reign. Tertullian’s speech is probable concerning such matter as he there speaketh of. “There was,” saith Tertullian, “no second Lamech like to him that had two wives; the Scripture denieth what it noteth not.” As therefore it noteth one such to have been in that age of the world; so had there been moe, it would by likelihood as well have noted many as one. What infer we now hereupon? “There was no second Lamech; the Scripture denieth what it noteth not.” Were it consonant unto reason to divorce these two sentences, the former of which doth shew how the later is restrained, and not marking the former to conclude by the later of them, that simply whatsoever any

man at this day doth think true is by the Scripture denied, unless it be there affirmed to be true? I wonder that a cause so weak and feeble hath been so much persisted in.But to come unto those their sentences wherein matters of action are more apparently touched: the name of Tertullian is as before so here again pretended; who writing, unto his wife two books, and exhorting her in the one to live a widow, in case God before her should take him unto his mercy; and in the other, if she did marry, yet not to join herself to an infidel, as in those times some widows Christian had done for the advancement of their estate in this present world, he urged very earnestly St. Paul’s words, “only in the Lord:” whereupon he demandeth of them that think they may do the contrary, what Scripture they can shew where God hath dispensed and granted license to do against that which the blessed Apostle so strictly doth enjoin. And because in defence it might perhaps be replied, “Seeing God doth will that couples which are married when both are infidels, if either party chance to be after converted unto Christianity, this should not make separation between them, as long as the unconverted was willing to retain the other on whom the grace of Christ had shined; wherefore then should that let the making of marriage, which doth not dissolve marriage being made?” after great reasons shewed why God doth in converts being married allow continuance with infidels, and yet disallow that the faithful when they are free should enter into bonds of wedlock with such, [he] concludeth in the end concerning those women that so marry, “They that please not the Lord do even thereby offend the Lord; they do even thereby throw themselves into evil;” that is to say, while they please him not by marrying in him, they do that whereby they incur his displeasure; they make an offer of themselves into the service of that enemy with whose servants they link themselves in so near a bond. What one syllable is there in all this prejudicial any way to that which we hold? For the words of Tertullian as they are by them alleged are two ways misunderstood; both in the former part, where that is extended generally to “all things” in the neuter gender, which he speaketh in the feminine gender of women’s persons; and in the latter, where “received with hurt” is put instead of “wilful incurring that which is evil.” And so in sum Tertullian doth neither mean nor say as is pretended, “Whatsoever pleaseth not the Lord displeaseth him, and with hurt is received;” but, “Those women that please not the Lord by their kind of marrying do even thereby offend the Lord, they do even thereby throw themselves into evil.”Somewhat more show there is in a second place of Tertullian, which notwithstanding when we have examined it will be found as the rest are. The Roman emperor’s custom was at certain solemn times to bestow on his soldiers a donative; which donative they received wearing garlands upon their heads. There were in the time of the emperors Severus and Antoninus many, who being soldiers had been converted unto Christ, and notwithstanding continued still in that military course of life. In which number, one man there was amongst all the rest, who at such a time coming to the tribune of the army to receive his donative, came but with a garland in his hand, and not in such sort as others did. The tribune offended hereat demandeth what this great singularity should mean. To whom the soldier, Christianus sum, “I am a Christian.” Many there were so besides him which yet did otherwise at that time; whereupon grew a question, whether a Christian soldier might herein do as the unchristian did, and wear as they wore. Many of them

which were very sound in Christian belief did rather commend the zeal of this man than approve his action. Tertullian was at the same time a Montanist, and an enemy unto the church for condemning that prophetical spirit which Montanus and his followers did boast they had received, as if in them Christ had performed his last promise; as if to them he had sent the Spirit that should be their perfecter and final instructor in the mysteries of Christian truth. Which exulceration of mind made him apt to take all occasions of contradiction. Wherefore in honour of that action, and to gall their minds who did not so much commend it, he wrote his book De Corona Militis, not dissembling the stomach wherewith he wrote it. For first, the man he commendeth as “one more constant than the rest of his brethren, who presumed,” saith he, “that they might well enough serve two Lords.” Afterwards choler somewhat more rising with him, he addeth, “It doth even remain that they should also devise how to rid themselves of his martyrdoms, towards the prophecies of whose Holy Spirit they have already shewed their disdain. They mutter that their good and long peace is now in hazard. I doubt not but some of them send the Scriptures before, truss up bag and baggage, make themselves in a readiness that they may fly from city to city. For that is the only point of the Gospel which they are careful not to forget. I know even their pastors very well what men they are; in peace lions, harts in time of trouble and fear.” Now these men, saith Tertullian, “they must be answered, where we do find it written in Scripture that a Christian man may not wear a garland.” And as men’s speeches uttered in heat of distempered affection have oftentimes much more eagerness than weight, so he that shall mark the proofs alleged and the answers to things objected in that book will now and then perhaps espy the like imbecility. Such is that argument whereby they that wore on their heads garlands are charged as transgressors of nature’s law, and guilty of sacrilege against God the Lord of nature, inasmuch as flowers in such sort worn can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them; and God made flowers sweet and beautiful, that being seen and smelt unto they might so delight. Neither doth Tertullian bewray this weakness in striking only, but also in repelling their strokes with whom he contendeth. They ask, saith he, “What Scripture is there which doth teach that we should not be crowned? And what Scripture is there which doth teach that we should? For in requiring on the contrary part the aid of Scripture, they do give sentence beforehand that their part ought also by Scripture to be aided.” Which answer is of no great force. There is no necessity, that if I confess I ought not to do that which the Scripture forbiddeth me, I should thereby acknowledge myself bound to do nothing which the Scripture commandeth me not For many inducements besides Scripture may lead me to that, which if Scripture be against, they all give place and are of no value, yet otherwise are strong and effectual to persuade. Which thing himself well enough understanding, and being not ignorant that Scripture in many things doth neither command nor forbid, but use silence; his resolution in fine is, that in the church a number of things are strictly observed, whereof no law of Scripture maketh mention one way or other; that of things once received and confirmed by use, long usage is a law sufficient; that in civil affairs, when there is no other law, custom itself doth stand for law; that inasmuch as law doth stand upon reason, to allege reason

serveth as well as to cite Scripture; that whatsoever is reasonable, the same is lawful whosoever is author of it; that the authority of custom is great; finally, that the custom of Christians was then and had been a long time not to wear garlands, and therefore that undoubtedly they did offend who presumed to violate such a custom by not observing that thing, the very inveterate observation whereof was a law sufficient to bind all men to observe it, unless they could shew some higher law, some law of Scripture, to the contrary. This presupposed, it may stand then very well with strength and soundness of reason, even thus to answer, “Whereas they ask what Scripture forbiddeth them to wear a garland; we are in this case rather to demand what Scripture commandeth them. They cannot here allege that it is permitted which is not forbidden them: no, that is forbidden them which is not permitted.” For long-received custom forbidding them to do as they did, (if so be it did forbid them,) there was no excuse in the world to justify their act, unless in the Scripture they could shew some law, that did license them thus to break a received custom. Now whereas in all the books of Tertullian besides there is not so much found as in that one, to prove not only that we may do, but that we ought to do, sundry things which the Scripture commandeth not; out of that very book these sentences are brought to make us believe that Tertullian was of a clean contrary mind. We cannot therefore hereupon yield; we cannot grant, that hereby is made manifest the argument of Scripture negatively to be of force, not only in doctrine and ecclesiastical discipline, but even in matters arbitrary. For Tertullian doth plainly hold even in that book, that neither the matter which he intreateth of was arbitrary but necessary, inasmuch as the received custom of the Church did tie and bind them not to wear garlands as the heathens did; yea, and further also he reckoneth up particularly a number of things, whereof he expressly concludeth, “Harum et aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules Scripturarum, nullam invenies;” which is as much as if he had said in express words, “Many things there are which concern the discipline of the Church and the duties of men, which to abrogate and take away the Scripture negatively urged may not in any case persuade us, but they must be observed, yea, although no Scripture be found which requireth any such thing.” Tertullian therefore undoubtedly doth not in this book shew himself to be of the same mind with them by whom his name is pretended. VI. But sith the sacred Scriptures themselves afford oftentimes such arguments as are taken from divine authority both one way and other; “The Lord hath commanded, therefore it must be;” and again in like sort, “He hath not, therefore it must not be;” some certainty concerning this point seemeth requisite to be set down. God himself can neither possibly err, nor lead into error. For this cause his testimonies, whatsoever he affirmeth, are always truth and most infallible certainty. Yea further, because the things that proceed from him are perfect without any manner of defect or maim; it cannot be but that the words of his mouth are absolute, and lack nothing which they should have for performance of that thing whereunto they tend. Whereupon it followeth, that the end being known whereunto he directeth his speech, the argument even negatively is evermore strong and forcible concerning those things that

are apparently requisite unto the same end. As for example: God intending to set down sundry times that which in Angels is most excellent, hath not any where spoken so highly of them as he hath of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; therefore they are not in dignity equal unto him. It is the Apostle St. Paul’s argument.The purpose of God was to teach his people, both unto whom they should offer sacrifice, and what sacrifice was to be offered. To burn their sons in fire unto Baal he did not command them, he spake no such thing, neither came it into his mind; therefore this they ought not to have done. Which argument the Prophet Jeremy useth more than once, as being so effectual and strong, that although the thing he reproveth were not only not commanded but forbidden them, and that expressly; yet the Prophet chooseth rather to charge them with the fault of making a law unto themselves, than with the crime of transgressing a law which God had made. For when the Lord hath once himself precisely set down a form of executing that wherein we are to serve him; the fault appeareth greater to do that which we are not, than not to do that which we are commanded. In this we seem to charge the law of God with hardness only, in that with foolishness; in this we shew ourselves weak and unapt to be doers of his will, in that we take upon us to be controllers of his wisdom; in this we fail to perform the thing which God seeth meet, convenient, and good, in that we presume to see what is meet and convenient better than God himself. In those actions therefore the whole form whereof God hath of purpose set down to be observed, we may not otherwise do than exactly as he hath prescribed; in such things negative arguments are strong.Again, with a negative argument David is pressed concerning the purpose he had to build a temple unto the Lord; “Thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in. Wheresoever I have walked with all Israel, spake I one word to any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not built me an house?” The Jews urged with a negative argument touching the aid which they sought at the hands of the King of Egypt; “Woe to those rebellious children, saith the Lord, which walk forth to go down into Egypt, and have not asked counsel at my mouth; to strengthen themselves with the strength of Pharao.” Finally, the league of Joshua with the Gabeonites is likewise with a negative argument touched. It was not as it should be: and why? the Lord gave them not that advice; “They sought not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.” By the virtue of which examples if any man shall suppose the force of negative arguments approved, when they are taken from Scripture in such sort as we in this question are pressed therewith, they greatly deceive themselves. For unto which of all these was it said that they had done amiss, in purposing to do or in doing any thing at all which “the Scripture” commanded them not? Our question is, Whether all be sin which is done without direction by Scripture, and not, Whether the Israelites did at any time amiss by following their own minds without asking counsel of God. No, it was that people’s singular privilege, a favour which God vouchsafed them above the rest of the world, that in the affairs of their estate which were not determinable one way or other by the Scripture, himself gave them extraordinarily direction and counsel as oft as they sought it at his hands. Thus God did first by speech unto Moses, after by Urim and Thummim unto

priests, lastly by dreams and visions unto prophets, from whom in such cases they were to receive the answer of God. Concerning Josua therefore, thus spake the Lord unto Moses, saying, “He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him by the judgment of Urim before the Lord;” whereof had Josua been mindful, the fraud of the Gabeonites could not so smoothly have passed unespied till there was no help. The Jews had prophets to have resolved them from the mouth of God himself whether Egyptian aids should profit them, yea or no; but they thought themselves wise enough, and him unworthy to be of their counsel. In this respect therefore was their reproof though sharp yet just, albeit there had been no charge precisely given them that they should always take heed of Egypt. But as for David, to think that he did evil in determining to build God a temple, because there was in Scripture no commandment that he should build it, were very injurious: the purpose of his heart was religious and godly, the act most worthy of honour and renown; neither could Nathan choose but admire his virtuous intent, exhort him to go forward, and beseech God to prosper him therein. But God saw the endless troubles which David should be subject unto during the whole time of his regiment, and therefore gave charge to defer so good a work to the days of tranquillity and peace, wherein it might without interruption be performed. David supposed that it could not stand with the duty which he owed unto God, to set himself in a house of cedar-trees, and to behold the ark of the Lord’s covenant unsettled. This opinion the Lord abateth, by causing Nathan to shew him plainly, that it should be no more imputed unto him for a fault than it had been unto the Judges of Israel before him, his case being the same which theirs was, their times not more unquiet than his, not more unfit for such an action. Wherefore concerning the force of negative arguments so taken from the authority of Scripture as by us they are denied, there is in all this less than nothing.And touching that which unto this purpose is borrowed from the controversy sometime handled between M. Harding and the worthiest divine that Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years, who being brought up together in one University, it fell out in them which was spoken of two others, “They learned in the same that which in contrary camps they did practise:” of these two the one objecting that with us arguments taken from authority negatively are over common, the Bishop’s answer hereunto is, that “This kind of argument is thought to be good, whensoever proof is taken of God’s word; and is used not only by us, but also by St. Paul, and by many of the Catholic Fathers. St. Paul saith, God said not unto Abraham, ‘In thy seeds all the nations of the earth shall be blessed:’ but, ‘In thy seed, which is Christ:’ and thereof he thought he made a good argument. Likewise, saith Origen, ‘The bread which the Lord gave unto his disciples, saying unto them, Take and eat, he deferred not, nor commanded to be reserved till the next day.’ Such arguments Origen and other learned Fathers thought to stand for good, whatsoever misliking Master Harding hath found in them. This kind of proof is thought to hold in God’s commandments, for that they be full and perfect: and

God hath specially charged us, that we should neither put to them nor take from them; and therefore it seemeth good unto them that have learned of Christ, Unus est Magister vester, Christus, and have heard the voice of God the Father from heaven, Ipsum audite. But unto them that add to the word of God what them listeth, and make God’s will subject unto their will, and break God’s commandments for their own tradition’s sake, unto them it seemeth not good.” Again, the English Apology alleging the example of the Greeks, how they have neither private masses, nor mangled sacraments, nor purgatories, nor pardons; it pleaseth Master Harding to jest out the matter, to use the help of his wits where strength of truth failed him, and to answer with scoffing at negatives. The Bishop’s defence in this case is, “The ancient learned Fathers having to deal with impudent heretics, that in defence of their errors avouched the judgment of all the old bishops and doctors that had been before them, and the general consent of the primitive and whole universal Church, and that with as good regard of truth and as faithfully as you do now; the better to discover the shameless boldness and nakedness of their doctrine, were oftentimes likewise forced to use the negative, and so to drive the same heretics, as we do you, to prove their affirmatives, which thing to do it was never possible. The ancient father Irenaeus thus stayed himself, as we do, by the negative, ‘Hoc neque Prophetae praedicaverunt, neque Dominus docuit, neque Apostoli tradiderunt;’ ‘This thing neither did the Prophets publish, nor our Lord teach, nor the Apostles deliver.’ By a like negative Chrysostom saith, ‘This tree neither Paul planted, nor Apollos watered, nor God increased.’ In like sort Leo saith, ‘What needeth it to believe that thing that neither the Law hath taught, nor the Prophets have spoken, nor the Gospel hath preached, nor the Apostles have delivered?’ And again, `How are the new devices brought in that our Fathers never knew?’ St. Augustine, having reckoned up a great number of the Bishops of Rome, by a general negative saith thus; `In all this order of succession of bishops there is not one bishop found that was a Donatist.’ St. Gregory being himself a Bishop of Rome, “and writing against the title of Universal Bishop, saith thus, ‘None of all my predecessors ever consented to use this ungodly title; no Bishop of Rome ever took upon him this name of singularity.’ By such negatives, M. Harding, we reprove the vanity and novelty of your religion; we tell you, none of the catholic ancient learned Fathers either Greek or Latin, ever used either your private mass, or your half communion, or your barbarous unknown prayers. Paul never planted them, Apollos never watered them, God never increased them; they are of yourselves, they are not of God.” In all this there is not a syllable which any way crosseth us. For concerning arguments negative even taken from human authority, they are here proved to be in some cases very strong and forcible. They are not in our estimation idle reproofs, when the authors of needless innovations are opposed with such negatives as that of Leo, “How are these new devices brought in which our Fathers never knew?” When their grave and reverend superiors do reckon up unto them as Augustine did unto the Donatists, large catalogues of Fathers wondered at for their wisdom, piety, and learning, amongst whom for so many ages before us no one did ever so think of the Church’s affairs as now the world doth begin to be persuaded; surely by us they are not taught to take exception hereat, because such arguments are negative. Much less when the like are taken from the sacred authority

of Scripture, if the matter itself do bear them. For in truth the question is not, whether an argument from Scripture negatively may be good, but whether it be so generally good, that in all actions men may urge it. The Fathers I grant do use very general and large terms, even as Hiero the king did in speaking of Archimedes, “From henceforward, whatsoever Archimedes speaketh, it must be believed.” His meaning was not that Archimedes could simply in nothing be deceived, but that he had in such sort approved his skill, that he seemed worthy of credit for ever after in matters appertaining unto the science he was skilful in. In speaking thus largely it is presumed that men’s speeches will be taken according to the matter whereof they speak. Let any man therefore that carrieth indifferency of judgment peruse the bishop’s speeches, and consider well of those negatives concerning Scripture, which he produceth out of Irenaeus, Chrysostom and Leo; which three are chosen from amongst the residue, because the sentences of the others (even as one of theirs also) do make for defence of negative arguments taken from human authority, and not from divine only. They mention no more restraint in the one than in the other; yet I think themselves will not hereby judge, that the Fathers took both to be strong, without restraint unto any special kind of matter wherein they held such arguments forcible. Nor doth the bishop either say or prove any more, than that an argument in some kinds of matter may be good, although taken negatively from Scripture. VII. An earnest desire to draw all things unto the determination of bare and naked Scripture hath caused here much pains to be taken in abating the estimation and credit of man. Which if we labour to maintain as far as truth and reason will bear, let not any think that we travail about a matter not greatly needful. For the scope of all their pleading against man’s authority is, to overthrow such orders, laws, and constitutions in the Church, as depending thereupon if they should therefore be taken away, would peradventure leave neither face nor memory of Church to continue long in the world, the world especially being such as now it is. That which they have in this case spoken I would for brevity’s sake let pass, but that the drift of their speech being so dangerous, their words are not to be neglected.Wherefore to say that simply an argument taken from man’s authority doth hold no way, “neither affirmatively nor negatively,” is hard. By a man’s authority we here understand the force which his word hath for the assurance of another’s mind that buildeth upon it; as the Apostle somewhat did upon their report of the house of Chloe; and the Samaritans in a matter of far greater moment upon the report of a simple woman. For so it is said in St. John’s Gospel, “Many of the Samaritans of that city believed in him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He hath told me all things that ever I did.” The strength of man’s authority is affirmatively such that the weightiest affairs in the world depend thereon. In judgment and justice are not hereupon proceedings grounded? Saith not the Law that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be confirmed?” This the law of God would not say, if there were in a man’s testimony no force at all to prove any thing.

And if it be admitted that in matter of fact there is some credit to be given to the testimony of man, but not in matter of opinion and judgment; we see the contrary both acknowledged and universally practised also throughout the world. The sentences of wise and expert men were never but highly esteemed. Let the title of a man’s right be called in question; are we not bold to rely and build upon the judgment of such as are famous for their skill in the laws of this land? In matter of state the weight many times of some one man’s authority is thought reason sufficient, even to sway over whole nations. And this not only “with the simpler sort;” but the learneder and wiser we are, the more such arguments in some cases prevail with us. The reason why the simpler sort are moved with authority is the conscience of their own ignorance; whereby it cometh to pass that having learned men in admiration, they rather fear to dislike them than know wherefore they should allow and follow their judgments. Contrariwise with them that are skilful authority is much more strong and forcible; because they only are able to discern how just cause there is why to some men’s authority so much should be attributed. For which cause the name of Hippocrates (no doubt) were more effectual to persuade even such men as Galen himself, than to move a silly empiric. So that the very selfsame argument in this kind which doth but induce the vulgar sort to like, may constrain the wiser to yield. And therefore not orators only with the people, but even the very profoundest disputers in all faculties have hereby often with the best learned prevailed most. As for arguments taken from human authority and that negatively; for example sake, if we should think the assembling of the people of God together by the sound of a bell, the presenting of infants at the holy font by such as commonly we call their godfathers, or any other the like received custom, to be impious, because some men of whom we think very reverently have in their books and writings nowhere mentioned or taught that such things should be in the Church; this reasoning were subject unto just reproof, it were but feeble, weak, and unsound. Notwithstanding even negatively an argument from human authority may be strong, as namely thus: The Chronicles of England mention no moe than only six kings bearing the name of Edward since the time of the last conquest; therefore it cannot be there should be moe. So that if the question be of the authority of a man’s testimony, we cannot simply avouch either that affirmatively it doth not any way hold; or that it hath only force to induce the simpler sort, and not to constrain men of understanding and ripe judgment to yield assent; or that negatively it hath in it no strength at all. For unto every of these the contrary is most plain. Neither doth that which is alleged concerning the infirmity of men overthrow or disprove this. Men are blinded with ignorance and error; many things may escape them, and in many things they may be deceived; yea, those things which they do know they may either forget, or upon sundry indirect considerations let pass; and although themselves do not err, yet may they through malice or vanity even of purpose deceive others. Howbeit infinite cases there are wherein all these impediments and lets are so manifestly excluded, that there is no show or colour whereby any such exception may be taken, but that the testimony of man will stand as a ground of infallible assurance. That there is a city of Rome, that Pius Quintus and Gregory the Thirteenth and others have been Popes of Rome, I suppose we are certainly enough persuaded. The ground of our

persuasion, who never saw the place nor persons beforenamed, can be nothing but man’s testimony. Will any man here notwithstanding allege those mentioned human infirmities, as reasons why these things should be mistrusted or doubted of? Yea, that which is more, utterly to infringe the force and strength of man’s testimony were to shake the very fortress of God’s truth. For whatsoever we believe concerning salvation by Christ, although the Scripture be therein the ground of our belief; yet the authority of man is, if we mark it, the key which openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture. The Scripture could not teach us the things that are of God, unless we did credit men who have taught us that the words of Scripture do signify those things. Some way therefore, notwithstanding man’s infirmity, yet his authority may enforce assent.Upon better advice and deliberation so much is perceived, and at the length confest; that arguments taken from the authority of men may not only so far forth as hath been declared, but further also be of some force in “human sciences;” which force be it never so small, doth shew that they are not utterly naught. But in “matters divine” it is still maintained stiffly, that they have no manner force at all. Howbeit, the very selfsame reason, which causeth to yield that they are of some force in the one, will at the length constrain also to acknowledge that they are not in the other altogether unforcible. For if the natural strength of man’s wit may by experience and study attain unto such ripeness in the knowledge of things human, that men in this respect may presume to build somewhat upon their judgment; what reason have we to think but that even in matters divine, the like wits furnished with necessary helps, exercised in Scripture with like diligence, and assisted with the grace of Almighty God, may grow unto so much perfection of knowledge, that men shall have just cause, when any thing pertinent unto faith and religion is doubted of, the more willingly to incline their minds towards that which the sentence of so grave, wise, and learned in that faculty shall judge most sound? For the controversy is of the weight of such men’s judgments. Let it therefore be suspected; let it be taken as gross, corrupt, repugnant unto the truth, whatsoever concerning things divine above nature shall at any time be spoken as out of the mouths of mere natural men, which have not the eyes wherewith heavenly things are discerned. For this we contend not. But whom God hath endued with principal gifts to aspire unto knowledge by; whose exercises, labours, and divine studies he hath so blessed that the world for their great and rare skill that way hath them in singular admiration; may we reject even their judgment likewise, as being utterly of no moment? For mine own part, I dare not so lightly esteem of the Church, and of the principal pillars therein.The truth is, that the mind of man desireth evermore to know the truth according to the most infallible certainty which the nature of things can yield. The greatest assurance generally with all men is that which we have by plain aspect and intuitive beholding. Where we cannot attain unto this, there what appeareth to be true by strong and invincible demonstration, such as wherein it is not by any way possible to be deceived, thereunto the mind doth necessarily assent, neither is it in the choice thereof to do otherwise. And in case these both do fail, then which way greatest probability leadeth, thither the mind doth evermore incline. Scripture with Christian men being received as the Word of God;

that for which we have probable, yea, that which we have necessary reason for, yea, that which we see with our eyes, is not thought so sure as that which the Scripture of God teacheth; because we hold that his speech revealeth there what himself seeth, and therefore the strongest proof of all, and the most necessarily assented unto by us (which do thus receive the Scripture) is the Scripture. Now it is not required or can be exacted at our hands, that we should yield unto any thing other assent, than such as doth answer the evidence which is to be had of that we assent unto. For which cause even in matters divine, concerning some things we may lawfully doubt and suspend our judgment, inclining neither to one side nor other; as namely touching the time of the fall both of man and angels: of some things we may very well retain an opinion that they are probable and not unlikely to be true, as when we hold that men have their souls rather by creation than propagation, or that the Mother of our Lord lived always in the state of virginity as well after his birth as before (for of these two the one, her virginity before, is a thing which of necessity we must believe; the other, her continuance in the same state always, hath more likelihood of truth than the contrary); finally in all things then are our consciences best resolved, and in most agreeable sort unto God and nature settled, when they are so far persuaded as those grounds of persuasion which are to be had will bear. Which thing I do so much the rather set down, for that I see how a number of souls are for want of right information in this point oftentimes grievously vexed. When bare and unbuilded conclusions are put into their minds, they finding not themselves to have thereof any great certainty, imagine that this proceedeth only from lack of faith, and that the Spirit of God doth not work in them as it doth in true believers; by this means their hearts are much troubled, they fall into anguish and perplexity: whereas the truth is, that how bold and confident soever we may be in words, when it cometh to the point of trial, such as the evidence is which the truth hath either in itself or through proof, such is the heart’s assent thereunto; neither can it be stronger, being grounded as it should be. I grant that proof derived from the authority of man’s judgment is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof; and therefore although ten thousand general councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence concerning any point of religion whatsoever, yet one demonstrative reason alleged, or one manifest testimony cited from the mouth of God himself to the contrary, could not choose but overweigh them all; inasmuch as for them to have been deceived it is not impossible; it is, that demonstrative reason or testimony divine should deceive. Howbeit in defect of proof infallible, because the mind doth rather follow probable persuasions than approve the things that have in them no likelihood of truth at all; surely if a question concerning matter of doctrine were proposed, and on the one side no kind of proof appearing, there should on the other be alleged and shewed that so a number of the learnedest divines in the world have ever thought; although it did not appear what reason or what Scripture led them to be of that judgment, yet to their very bare judgment somewhat a reasonable man would attribute, notwithstanding the common imbecilities which are incident into our nature.And whereas it is thought, that especially with “the Church, and those that are called and persuaded of the authority of the Word of God, man’s authority” with them

especially “should not prevail;” it must and doth prevail even with them, yea with them especially, as far as equity requireth; and farther we maintain it not. For men to be tied and led by authority, as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment, and though there be reason to the contrary not to listen unto it, but to follow like beasts the first in the herd, they know not nor care not whither, this were brutish. Again, that authority of men should prevail with men either against or above Reason, is no part of our belief. “Companies of learned men” be they never so great and reverend, are to yield unto Reason; the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by the simplicity of his person which doth allege it, but being found to be sound and good, the bare opinion of men to the contrary must of necessity stoop and give place. Irenaeus, writing against Marcion, which held one God author of the Old Testament and another of the New, to prove that the Apostles preached the same God which was known before to the Jews, he copiously allegeth sundry their sermons and speeches uttered concerning that matter and recorded in Scripture. And lest any should be wearied with such store of allegations, in the end he concludeth, “While we labour for these demonstrations out of Scripture, and do summarily declare the things which many ways have been spoken, be contented quietly to hear, and do not think my speech tedious: Quoniam ostensiones quae sunt in Scripturis non possunt ostendi nisi ex ipsis Scripturis; Because demonstrations that are in Scripture may not otherwise be sheaved than by citing them out of the Scriptures themselves where they are.” Which words make so little unto the purpose, that they seem as it were offended at him which hath called them thus solemnly, forth to say nothing. And concerning the verdict of Jerome; if no man, be he never so well learned, have after the Apostles any authority to publish new doctrine as from heaven, and to require the world’s assent as unto truth received by prophetical revelation; doth this prejudice the credit of learned men’s judgments in opening that truth, which by being conversant in the Apostles’ writings they have themselves from thence learned? St. Augustine exhorteth not to hear men, but to hearken what God speaketh. His purpose is not (I think) that we should stop our ears against his own exhortation, and therefore he cannot mean simply that audience should altogether be denied unto men, but either that if men speak one thing and God himself teach another, then he not they to be obeyed; or if they both speak the same thing, yet then also man’s speech unworthy of hearing, not simply, but in comparison of that which proceedeth from the mouth of God. “Yea, but we doubt what the will of God is.” Are we in this case forbidden to hear what men of judgment think it to be? If not, then this allegation also might very well have been spared. In that ancient strife which was between the catholic Fathers and Arians, Donatists, and others of like perverse and froward disposition, as long as to Fathers or councils alleged on the one side the like by the contrary side were opposed, impossible it was that ever the question should by this means grow unto any issue or end. The Scripture they both believed: the Scripture they knew could not give sentence on both sides; by Scripture the

controversy between them was such as might be determined. In this case what madness was it with such kinds of proofs to nourish their contention, when there were such effectual means to end all controversy that was between them! Hereby therefore it doth not as yet appear, that an argument of authority of man affirmatively is in matters divine. nothing worth. Which opinion being once inserted into the minds of the vulgar sort, what it may grow unto God knoweth. Thus much we see, it hath already made thousands so headstrong even in gross and palpable errors, that a man whose capacity will scarce serve him to utter five words in sensible manner blusheth not in any doubt concerning matter of Scripture to think his own bare Yea as good as the Nay of all the wise, grave, and learned judgments that are in the whole world: which insolency must be repressed, or it will be the very bane of Christian religion.Our Lord’s disciples marking what speech he uttered unto them, and at the same time calling to mind a common opinion held by the Scribes, between which opinion and the words of their Master it seemed unto them that there was some contradiction, which they could not themselves answer with full satisfaction of their own minds; the doubt they propose to our Saviour, saying, “Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come?” They knew that the Scribes did err greatly, and that many ways even in matters of their own profession. They notwithstanding thought the judgment of the very Scribes in matters divine to be of some value; some probability they thought there was that Elias should come, inasmuch as the Scribes said it. Now no truth can contradict any truth; desirous therefore they were to be taught how both might stand together; that which they knew could not be false, because Christ spake it; and this which to them did seem true, only because the Scribes had said it. For the Scripture, from whence the Scribes did gather it, was not then in their heads. We do not find that our Saviour reproved them of error, for thinking the judgment of the Scribes to be worth the objecting, for esteeming it to be of any moment or value in matters concerning God.We cannot therefore be persuaded that the will of God is, we. should so far reject the authority of men as to reckon it nothing. No, it may be a question, whether they that urge us unto this be themselves so persuaded indeed. Men do sometimes bewray that by deeds, which to confess they are hardly drawn. Mark then if this be not general with all men for the most part. When the judgments of learned men are alleged against them, what do they but either elevate their credit, or oppose unto them the judgments of others as learned? Which thing doth argue that all men acknowledge in them some force and weight, for which they are loath the cause they maintain should be so much weakened as, their testimony is available. Again, what reason is there why alleging testimonies as proofs, men give them some title of credit, honour, and estimation, whom they allege, unless beforehand it be sufficiently known who they are; what reason hereof but only a common ingrafted persuasion, that in some men there may be found such qualities as are able to countervail those exceptions which might be taken against them, and that such men’s authority is not lightly to be shaken off?

Shall I add further, that the force of arguments drawn from the authority of Scripture itself, as Scriptures commonly are alleged, shall (being sifted) be found to depend upon the strength of this so much despised and debased authority of man? Surely it doth, and that oftener than we are aware of. For although Scripture be of God, and therefore the proof which is taken from thence must needs be of all other most invincible; yet this strength it hath not, unless it avouch the selfsame thing for which it is brought. If there be either undeniable appearance that so it doth, or reason such as cannot deceive, then Scripture-proof (no doubt) in strength and value exceedeth all. But for the most part, even such as are readiest to cite for one thing five hundred sentences of holy Scripture; what warrant have they, that any one of them doth mean the thing for which it is alleged? Is not their surest ground most commonly, either some probable conjecture of their own, or the judgment of others taking those Scriptures as they do? Which notwithstanding to mean otherwise than they take them, it is not still altogether impossible. So that now and then they ground themselves on human authority, even when they most pretend divine. Thus it fareth even clean throughout the whole controversy about that discipline which is so earnestly urged and laboured for. Scriptures are plentifully alleged to prove that the whole Christian world for ever ought to embrace it. Hereupon men term it The discipline of God. Howbeit examine, sift and resolve their alleged proofs, till you come to the very root from whence they spring, the heart wherein their strength lieth; and it shall clearly appear unto any man of judgment, that the most which can be inferred upon such plenty of divine testimonies is only this, That some things which they maintain, as far as some men can probably conjecture, do seem to have been out of Scripture not absurdly gathered. Is this a warrant sufficient for any man’s conscience to build such proceedings upon, as have been and are put in ure for the stablishment of that cause?But to conclude, I would gladly understand how it cometh to pass, that they which so peremptorily do maintain that human authority is nothing worth are in the cause which they favour so careful to have the common sort of men persuaded, that the wisest, the godliest and the best learned in all Christendom are that way given, seeing they judge this to make nothing in the world for them. Again how cometh it to pass they cannot abide that authority should be alleged on the other side, if there be no force at all in authorities on one side or other? Wherefore labour they to strip their adversaries of such furniture as doth not help? Why take they such needless pains to furnish also their own cause with the like? If it be void and to no purpose that the names of men are so frequent in their books, what did move them to bring them in, or doth to suffer them there remaining? Ignorant I am not how this is salved, “They do it not but after the truth made manifest first by reason or by Scripture: they do it not but to control the enemies of the truth, who bear themselves bold upon human authority making not for them but against them rather.” Which answers are nothing: for in what place or upon what consideration soever it be they do it, were it in their own opinion of no force being done, they would undoubtedly refrain to do it. VIII. But to the end it may more plainly appear what we are to judge of their sentences, and of the cause itself wherein they are alleged: first it may not well be denied, that all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil. For although it be granted that no action is properly termed good or evil unless it be

voluntary; yet this can be no let to our former assertion, That all actions of men endued with the use of reason arc generally either good or evil; because even those things are done voluntarily by us which other creatures do naturally, inasmuch as we might stay our doing of them if we would. Beasts naturally do take their food and rest when it offereth itself unto them. If men did so too, and could not do otherwise of themselves, there were no place for any such reproof as that of our Saviour Christ unto his disciples, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” That which is voluntarily performed in things tending to the end, if it be well done, must needs be done with deliberate consideration of some reasonable cause wherefore we rather should do it than not. Whereupon it seemeth, that in such actions only those are said to be good or evil which are capable of deliberation: so that many things being hourly done by men, wherein they need not use with themselves any manner of consultation at all, it may perhaps hereby seem that well or ill-doing belongeth only to our weightier affairs, and to those deeds which are of so great importance that they require advice. But thus to determine were perilous, and peradventure unsound also. I do rather incline to think, that seeing all the unforced actions of men are voluntary, and all voluntary actions tending to the end have choice, and all choice presupposeth the knowledge of some cause wherefore we make it: where the reasonable cause of such actions so readily offereth itself that it needeth not to be sought for; in those things though we do not deliberate, yet they are of their nature apt to be deliberated on, in regard of the will, which may incline either way, and would not any one way bend itself; if there were not some apparent motive to lead it. Deliberation actual we use, when there is doubt what we should incline our wills unto. Where no doubt is, deliberation is not excluded as impertinent unto the thing, but as needless in regard of the agent, which seeth already what to resolve upon. It hath no apparent absurdity therefore in it to think, that all actions of men endued with the use of reason are generally either good or evil.Whatsoever is good, the same is also approved of God: and according unto the sundry degrees of goodness, the kinds of divine approbation are in like sort multiplied. Some things are good, yet in so mean a degree of goodness, that men are only not disproved nor disallowed of God for them. “No man hateth his own flesh.” “If ye do good unto them that do so to you, the very publicans themselves do as much.” “They are worse than infidels that have no care to provide for their own.” In actions of this sort, the very light of Nature alone may discover that which is so far forth in the sight of God allowable.Some things in such sort are allowed, that they be also required as necessary unto salvation, by way of direct immediate and proper necessity final; so that without performance of them we cannot by ordinary course be saved, nor by any means be excluded from life observing them. In actions of this kind our chiefest direction is from Scripture, for Nature is no sufficient teacher what we should do that we may attain unto life everlasting. The unsufficiency of the light of Nature is by the light of Scripture so fully and so perfectly herein supplied, that further light than this hath added there doth not need unto that end.

Finally some things, although not so required of necessity that to leave them undone excludeth from salvation, are notwithstanding of so great dignity and acceptation with God, that most ample reward in heaven is laid up for them. Hereof we have no commandment either in Nature or Scripture which doth exact them at our hands; yet those motives there are in both which draw most effectually our minds unto them. In this kind there is not the least action but it doth somewhat make to the accessory augmentation of our bliss. For which cause our Saviour doth plainly witness, that there shall not be as much as a cup of cold water bestowed for his sake without reward. Hereupon dependeth whatsoever difference there is between the states of saints in glory; hither we refer whatsoever belongeth unto the highest perfection of man by way of service towards God; hereunto that fervour and first love of Christians did bend itself, causing them to sell their possessions, and lay down the price at the blessed Apostles’ feet Hereat St. Paul undoubtedly did aim in so far abridging his own liberty, and exceeding that which the bond of necessary and enjoined duty tied him unto.Wherefore seeing that in all these several kinds of actions there can be nothing possibly evil which God approveth; and that he approveth much more than he doth command; and that his very commandments in some kind, as namely his precepts comprehended in the law of nature, may be otherwise known than only by Scripture; and that to do them, howsoever we know them, must needs be acceptable in his sight: let them with whom we have hitherto disputed consider well, how it can stand with reason to make the bare mandate of sacred Scripture the only rule of all good and evil in the actions of mortal men. The testimonies of God are true, the testimonies of God are perfect, the testimonies of God are all sufficient unto that end for which they were given. Therefore accordingly we do receive them, we do not think that in them God hath omitted any thing needful unto his purpose, and left his intent to be accomplished by our devisings. What the Scripture purposeth, the same in all points it doth perform. Howbeit that here we swerve not in judgment, one thing especially we must observe, namely that the absolute perfection of Scripture is seen by relation unto that end whereto it tendeth. And even hereby it cometh to pass, that first such as imagine the general and main drift of the body of sacred Scripture not to be so large as it is, nor that God did thereby intend to deliver, as in truth he doth, a full instruction in all things unto salvation necessary, the knowledge whereof man by nature could not otherwise in this life attain unto: they are by this very mean induced either still to look for new revelations from heaven, or else dangerously to add to the word of God uncertain tradition, that so the doctrine of man’s salvation may be complete; which doctrine, we constantly hold in all respects without any such thing added to be so complete, that we utterly refuse as much as once to acquaint ourselves with any thing further. Whatsoever to make up the doctrine of man’s salvation is added, as in supply of the Scripture’s unsufficiency, we reject it. Scripture purposing this, hath perfectly and fully done it. Again the scope and purpose of God in delivering the Holy Scripture such as do take more largely than behoveth, they on the contrary side, racking and stretching it further

than by him was meant, are drawn into sundry as great inconveniences. These pretending the Scripture’s perfection infer thereupon, that in Scripture all things lawful to be done must needs be contained. We count those things perfect which want nothing requisite for the end whereto they were instituted. As therefore God created every part and particle of man exactly perfect, that is to say in all points sufficient unto that use for which he appointed it; so the Scripture, yea, every sentence thereof, is perfect, and wanteth nothing requisite unto that purpose for which God delivered the same. So that if hereupon we conclude, that because the Scripture is perfect, therefore all things lawful to be done are comprehended in the Scripture; we may even as well conclude so of every sentence, as of the whole sum and body thereof, unless we first of all prove that it was the drift, scope, and purpose of Almighty God in Holy Scripture to comprise all things which man may practise.But admit this, and mark, I beseech you, what would follow. God in delivering Scripture to his Church should clean have abrogated amongst them the law of nature; which is an infallible knowledge imprinted in the minds of all the children of men, whereby both general principles for directing of human actions are comprehended, and conclusions derived from them; upon which conclusions groweth in particularity the choice of good and evil in the daily affairs of this life. Admit this, and what shall the Scripture be but a snare and a torment to weak consciences, filling them with infinite perplexities, scrupulosities, doubts insoluble, and extreme despairs? Not that the Scripture itself doth cause any such thing, (for it tendeth to the clean contrary, and the fruit thereof is resolute assurance and certainty in that it teacheth,) but the necessities of this life urging men to do that which the light of nature, common discretion and judgment of itself directeth them unto; on the other side, this doctrine teaching them that so to do were to sin against their own souls, and that they put forth their hands to iniquity whatsoever they go about and have not first the sacred Scripture of God for direction; how can it choose but bring the simple a thousand times to their wits’ end? how can it choose but vex and amaze them? For in every action of common life to find out some sentence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we ought to do, (seem we in Scripture never so expert,) would trouble us more than we are aware. In weak and tender minds we little know what misery this strict opinion would breed, besides the stops it would make in the whole course of all men’s lives and actions. Make all things sin which we do by direction of nature’s light, and by the rule of common discretion, without thinking at all upon Scripture; admit this position, and parents shall cause their children to sin, as oft as they cause them to do any thing, before they come to years of capacity and be ripe for knowledge in the Scripture: admit this, and it shall not be with masters as it was with him in the Gospel, but servants being commanded to go shall stand still, till they have their errand warranted unto them by Scripture. Which as it standeth with Christian duty in some cases, so in common affairs to require it were most unfit.Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiency of Holy Scripture, each extremely opposite unto the other, and both repugnant unto truth. The schools of Rome teach Scripture to be so unsufficient, as if, except traditions were added, it did not contain all revealed and supernatural truth, which absolutely is necessary for the children of men in this life to know, that they may in the next be saved. Others justly condemning this

opinion grow likewise unto a dangerous extremity, as if Scripture did not only contain all things in that kind necessary, but all things simply, and in such sort that to do any thing according to any other law were not only unnecessary but even opposite unto salvation, unlawful and sinful. Whatsoever is spoken of God or things appertaining to God otherwise than as the truth is, though it seem an honour it is an injury. And as incredible praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation; so we must likewise take great heed, lest in attributing unto Scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be less reverently esteemed. I therefore leave it to themselves to consider, whether they have in this first point or not overshot themselves; which God doth know is quickly done, even when our meaning is most sincere, as I am verily persuaded theirs in this case was.

ALBEIT the substance of those controversies whereinto we have begun to wade be rather of outward things appertaining to the Church of Christ, than of any thing wherein the nature and being of the Church consisteth, yet because the subject or matter which this position concerneth is, A Form of Church Government or Church Polity, it therefore behoveth us so far forth to consider the nature of the Church, as is requisite for men’s more clear and plain understanding in what respect Laws of Polity or Government are necessary thereunto.That Church of Christ, which we properly term his body mystical, can be but one; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not discern under this property, whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend, that such a real body there is, a body collective, because it containeth an huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense. Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and the saving mercy which God sheweth towards his Church, the only proper subject thereof is this Church. Concerning this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised, “I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hands.” They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others, as are not object unto our sense; only unto God, who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations, unto him they are clear and manifest. All men knew Nathanael to be an Israelite. But our Saviour piercing deeper giveth further testimony of him than men could have done with such certainty as he did, “Behold indeed an Israelite in whom is no guile.” If we profess, as Peter did, that we love the Lord, and profess it in the hearing of men, charity is prone to believe all things, and therefore charitable men are likely to think we do so, as long as they see no proof to the contrary. But that our love is sound and sincere, that it cometh from “a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unfeigned,” who can pronounce, saving only the Searcher of all men’s hearts, who alone intuitively doth know in this kind who are His?And as those everlasting promises of love, mercy, and blessedness belong to the mystical Church; even so on the other side when we read of any duty which the Church of God is bound unto, the Church whom this doth concern is a sensibly known company. And this visible Church in like sort is but one, continued from the first beginning of the world to the last end. Which company being divided into two moieties, the one before, the other since the coming of Christ; that part, which since the coming of Christ partly hath embraced and partly shall hereafter embrace the Christian Religion, we term as by a more proper name the Church of Christ. And therefore the Apostle affirmeth plainly of all men Christian, that be they Jews or Gentiles, bond or free, they are all incorporated into one company, they all make but one body. The unity of which visible body and Church of Christ consisteth in that uniformity which all several persons thereunto belonging have, by reason of that one Lord whose servants they all profess themselves, that one Faith which they all acknowledge, that one Baptism wherewith they are all initiated.

The visible Church of Jesus Christ is therefore one, in outward profession of those things, which supernaturally appertain to the very essence of Christianity, and are necessarily required in every particular Christian man. “Let all the house of Israel know for certainty,” saith Peter, “that God hath made him both Lord and Christ, even this Jesus whom you have crucified.” Christians therefore they are not, which call not him their Master and Lord. And from hence it came that first at Antioch, and afterwards throughout the whole world, all that are of the Church visible were called Christians even amongst the heathen. Which name unto them was precious and glorious, but in the estimation of the rest of the world even Christ Jesus himself was execrable; for whose sake all men were so likewise which did acknowledge him to be their Lord. This himself did foresee, and therefore armed his Church, to the end they might sustain it without discomfort. “All these things they will do unto you for my name’s sake; yea, the time shall come, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth God good service.” These things I tell you, that when the hour shall come, ye may then call to mind how I told you beforehand of them.”But our naming of Jesus Christ the Lord is not enough to prove us Christians, unless we also embrace that faith, which Christ hath published unto the world. To shew that the angel of Pergamus continued in Christianity, behold how the Spirit of Christ speaketh, “Thou keepest my name, and thou hast not denied my faith!” Concerning which faith, “the rule thereof,” saith Tertullian, “is one alone, immovable, and no way possible to be better framed anew.” What rule that is he sheweth by rehearsing those few articles of Christian belief. And before Tertullian, Ireney; “The Church though scattered through the whole world unto the utmost borders of the earth, hath from the Apostles and their disciples received belief.” The parts of which belief he also reciteth, in substance the very same with Tertullian, and thereupon inferreth, “This faith the Church being spread far and wide preserveth as if one house did contain them: these things it equally embraceth, as though it had even one soul, one heart, and no more: it publisheth, teacheth and delivereth these things with uniform consent, as if God had given it but one only tongue wherewith to speak. He which amongst the guides of the Church is best able to speak uttereth no more than this, and less than this the most simple doth not utter,” when they make profession of their faith.Now although we know the Christian faith and allow of it, yet in this respect we are but entering; entered we are not into the visible Church before our admittance by the door of Baptism. Wherefore immediately upon the acknowledgment of Christian faith, the Eunuch (we see) was baptized by Philip, Paul by Ananias, by Peter an huge multitude containing three thousand souls, which being once baptized were reckoned in the number of souls added to the visible Church.As for those virtues that belong unto moral righteousness and honesty of life, we do not mention them, because they are not proper unto Christian men, as they are Christian, but do concern them as they are men. True it is, the want of these virtues excludeth from salvation. So doth much more the absence of inward belief of heart; so doth despair and lack of hope; so emptiness of Christian love and charity. But we speak now of the visible Church, whose children are signed with this mark, “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism.”

In whomsoever these things are, the Church doth acknowledge them for her children; them only she holdeth for aliens and strangers, in whom these things are not found. For want of these it is that Saracens, Jews, and Infidels are excluded out of the bounds of the Church. Others we may not deny to be of the visible Church, as long as these things are not wanting in them. For apparent it is, that all men are of necessity either Christians or not Christians. If by external profession they be Christians, then are they of the visible Church of Christ: and Christians by external profession they are all, whose mark of recognizance hath in it those things which we have mentioned, yea, although they be impious idolaters, wicked heretics, persons excommunicable, yea, and cast out for notorious improbity. Such withal we deny not to be the imps and limbs of Satan, even as long as they continue such.Is it then possible, that the selfsame men should belong both to the synagogue of Satan and to the Church of Jesus Christ? Unto that Church which is his mystical body, not possible; because that body consisteth of none but only true Israelites, true sons of Abraham, true servants and saints of God. Howbeit of the visible body and Church of Jesus Christ those may be and oftentimes are, in respect of the main parts of their outward profession, who in regard of their inward disposition of mind, yea, of external conversation, yea, even of some parts of their very profession, are most worthily both hateful in the sight of God himself, and in the eyes of the sounder parts of the visible Church most execrable. Our Saviour therefore compareth the kingdom of heaven to a net, whereunto all which cometh neither is nor seemeth fish his Church he compareth unto a field, where tares manifestly known and seen by all men do grow intermingled with good corn, and even so shall continue till the final consummation of the world. God hath had ever and ever shall have some Church visible upon earth. When the people of God worshipped the calf in the wilderness; when they adored the brazen serpents; when they served the gods of nations; when they bowed their knees to Baal; when they burnt incense and offered sacrifice unto idols: true it is, the wrath of God was most fiercely inflamed against them, their prophets justly condemned them, as an adulterous seed and a wicked generation of miscreants, which had forsaken the living God, and of him were likewise forsaken, in respect of that singular mercy wherewith he kindly and lovingly embraceth his faithful children. Howbeit retaining the law of God and the holy seal of his covenant, the sheep of his visible flock they continued even in the depth of their disobedience and rebellion. Wherefore not only amongst them God always had his Church, because he had thousands which never bowed their knees to Baal; but whose knees were bowed unto Baal, even they were also of the visible Church of God. Nor did the Prophet so complain, as if that Church had been quite and clean extinguished; but he took it as though there had not been remaining in the world any besides himself, that carried a true and an upright heart towards God with care to serve him according unto his holy will.For lack of diligent observing the difference, first between the Church of God mystical and visible, then between the visible sound and corrupted, sometimes more, sometimes less, the oversights are neither few nor light that have been committed. This deceiveth them, and nothing else, who think that in the time of the first world the family of Noah did contain all that were of the visible Church of God. From hence it grew, and

from no other cause in the world, that the African bishops in the council of Carthage, knowing how the administration of baptism belongeth only to the Church of Christ, and supposing that heretics which were apparently severed from the sound believing Church could not possibly be of the Church of Jesus Christ, thought it utterly against reason, that baptism administered by men of corrupt belief should be accounted as a sacrament. And therefore in maintenance of rebaptization their arguments are built upon the fore-alleged ground, “That heretics are not at all any part of the Church of Christ. Our Saviour founded his Church on a rock, and not upon heresy. Power of baptizing he gave to his Apostles, unto heretics he gave it not. Wherefore they that are without the Church, and oppose themselves against Christ, do but scatter His sheep and flock, without the Church baptize they cannot.” Again, “Are heretics Christians or are they not? If they be Christians, wherefore remain they not in God’s Church? If they be no Christians, how make they Christians? Or to what purpose shall those words of the Lord serve: ‘He which is not with me is against me;’ and, ‘He which gathereth not with me scattereth?’ Wherefore evident it is, that upon misbegotten children and the brood of Antichrist without rebaptization the Holy Ghost cannot descend.” But none in this case so earnest as Cyprian: “I know no baptism but one, and that in the Church only; none without the Church, where he that doth cast out the devil hath the devil: he doth examine about belief whose lips and words do breathe forth a canker; the faithless doth offer the articles of faith; a wicked creature forgiveth wickedness; in the name of Christ Antichrist signeth; he which is cursed of God blesseth; a dead carrion promiseth life; a man unpeaceable giveth peace; a blasphemer calleth upon the name of God; a profane person doth exercise priesthood; a sacrilegious wretch doth prepare the altar; and in the neck of all these that evil also cometh, the Eucharist a very bishop of the devil doth presume to consecrate.” All this was true, but not sufficient to prove that heretics were in no sort any part of the visible church of Christ, and consequently their baptism no baptism. This opinion therefore was afterwards both condemned by a better advised council’, and also revoked by the chiefest of the authors thereof themselves.What is it but only the selfsame error and misconceit, wherewith others being at this day likewise possessed, they ask us where our Church did lurk, in what cave of the earth it slept for so many hundreds of years together before the birth of Martin Luther? As if we were of opinion that Luther did erect a New Church of Christ. No, the Church of Christ which was from the beginning is and continueth unto the end: of which Church all parts have not been always equally sincere and sound. In the days of Abia it plainly appeareth that Judah was by many degrees more free from pollution than Israel, as that solemn oration sheweth wherein he pleadeth for the one against the other in this wise: “O Jeroboam and all Israel hear you me: have ye not driven away the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and have made you priests like the people of nations? Whosoever cometh to consecrate with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods. But we belong unto the Lord our God, and have not forsaken him; and the priests the sons of Aaron minister unto the Lord every morning and every evening burnt-offerings and sweet incense, and the bread is set in order upon the pure table, and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof to burn every evening; for we keep the watch of the Lord our God, but ye have forsaken him.” In St. Paul’s time the integrity of Rome was famous; Corinth many ways reproved; they of Galatia much more

out of square. In St. John’s time Ephesus and Smyrna in far better state than Thyatira and Pergamus were. We hope therefore that to reform ourselves, if at any time we have done amiss, is not to sever ourselves from the Church we were of before. In the Church we were, and we are so still. Other difference between our estate before and now we know none but only such as we see in Juda; which having sometime been idolatrous became afterwards more soundly religious by renouncing idolatry and superstition. If Ephraim “be joined unto idols,” the counsel of the Prophet is, “Let him alone.” “If Israel play the harlot, let not Juda sin.” “If it seem evil unto you,” saith Josua, “to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods whom your fathers served beyond the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell: but I and mine house will serve the Lord.” The indisposition therefore of the Church of Rome to reform herself must be no stay unto us from performing our duty to God; even as desire of retaining conformity with them could be no excuse if we did not perform that duty. Notwithstanding so far as lawfully we may, we have held and do hold fellowship with them. For even as the Apostle doth say of Israel that they are in one respect enemies but in another beloved of God; in like sort with Rome we dare not communicate concerning sundry her gross and grievous abominations, yet touching those main parts of Christian truth wherein they constantly still persist, we gladly acknowledge them to be of the family of Jesus Christ; and our hearty prayer unto God Almighty is, that being conjoined so far forth with them, they may at the length (if it be his will) so yield to frame and reform themselves, that no distraction remain in any thing, but that we “all may with one heart and one mouth glorify God the Father of our Lord and Saviour,” whose Church we are. As there are which make the Church of Rome utterly no Church at all, by reason of so many, so grievous errors in their doctrines; so we have them amongst us, who under pretence of imagined corruptions in our discipline do give even as hard a judgment of the Church of England itself.But whatsoever either the one sort or the other teach, we must acknowledge even heretics themselves to be, though a maimed part, yet a part of the visible Church. If an infidel should pursue to death an heretic professing Christianity, only for Christian profession’s sake, could we deny unto him the honour of martyrdom? Yet this honour all men know to be proper unto the Church. Heretics therefore are not utterly cut off from the visible Church of Christ. If the Fathers do any where, as oftentimes they do, make the true visible Church of Christ and heretical companies opposite; they are to be construed as separating heretics, not altogether from the company of believers, but from the fellowship of sound believers. For where professed unbelief, there can be no visible Church of Christ; there may be, where sound belief wanteth. Infidels being clean without the Church deny directly and utterly reject the very principles of Christianity; which heretics embrace, and err only by misconstruction: whereupon their opinions, although repugnant indeed to the principles of the Christian faith, are notwithstanding by them held otherwise, and maintained as most consonant thereunto. Wherefore being Christians in regard of the general truth of

Christ which they openly profess, yet they are by the Fathers every where spoken of as men clean excluded out of the right believing Church, by reason of their particular errors, for which all that are of a sound belief must needs condemn them.In this consideration, the answer of Calvin unto Farel concerning the children of Popish parents doth seem crazed. “Whereas,” saith he, “you ask our judgment about a matter, whereof there is doubt amongst you, whether the ministers of our order professing the pure doctrine of the Gospel may lawfully admit unto baptism an infant whose father is a stranger unto our Churches, and whose mother hath fallen from us unto the Papacy, so that both the parents are popish: thus we have thought good to answer; namely, that it is an absurd thing for us to baptize them which cannot be reckoned members of our body, And sith the Papists children are such, we see not how it should be lawful to minister baptism unto them.” Sounder a great deal is the answer of the ecclesiastical college of Geneva unto Knox, who having signified unto them, that himself did not think it lawful to baptize bastards or the children of idolaters (he meaneth Papists) or of persons excommunicate, till either the parents had by repentance submitted themselves unto the Church, or else their children being grown unto the years of understanding should come and sue for their own baptism: “For thus thinking,” saith he, “I am thought to be over- severe, and that not only by them which are popish, but even in their judgments also who think themselves maintainers of the truth.” Master Knox’s oversight herein they controlled. Their sentence was, “Wheresoever the profession of Christianity hath not utterly perished and been extinct, infants are beguiled of their right, if the common seal be denied them.” Which conclusion in itself is sound, although it seemeth the ground is but weak whereupon they built it. For the reason which they yield of their sentence, is this; “The promise which God doth make to the faithful concerning their seed reacheth unto a thousand generations; it resteth not only in the first degree of descent. Infants. therefore whose great-grandfathers have been holy and godly, do in that respect belong to the body of the church, although the fathers and grandfathers of whom they descend have been apostates: because the tenure of the grace of God which did adopt them three hundred years ago or more in their ancient predecessors, cannot with justice be defeated and broken off by their parents’ impiety coming between.” By which reason of theirs although it seem that all the world may be baptized, inasmuch as no man living is a thousand descents removed from Adam himself, yet we mean not at this time either to uphold or to overthrow it: only their alleged conclusion we embrace, so it be construed in this sort; “That forasmuch as men remain in the visible Church, till they utterly renounce the profession of Christianity, we may not deny unto infants their right by withholding from them the public sign of holy baptism, if they be born where the outward acknowledgment of Christianity is not clean gone and extinguished.” For being in such sort born, their parents are within the Church, and therefore their birth doth give them interest and right in baptism.Albeit not every error and fault, yet heresies and crimes which are not actually repented of and forsaken, exclude quite and clean from that salvation which belongeth unto the mystical body of Christ; yea, they also make a separation from the visible sound Church of Christ; altogether from the visible Church neither the one nor the other doth sever. As for the act of excommunication, it neither shutteth out from the mystical, nor

clean from the visible, but only from fellowship with the visible in holy duties. With what congruity then doth the Church of Rome deny, that her enemies, whom she holdeth always for heretics, do at all appertain to the Church of Christ; when her own do freely grant, that albeit the Pope (as they say) cannot teach heresy nor propound error, he may notwithstanding himself worship idols, think amiss concerning matters of faith, yea, give himself unto acts diabolical, even being Pope? How exclude they us from being any part of the Church of Christ under the colour and pretence of heresy, when they cannot but grant it possible even for him to be as touching his own personal persuasion heretical, who in their opinion not only is of the Church, but holdeth the chiefest place of authority over the same? But of these things we are not now to dispute. That which already we have set down, is for our present purpose sufficient.By the Church therefore in this question we understand no other than only the visible Church. For preservation of Christianity there is not any thing more needful, than that such as are of the visible Church have mutual fellowship and society one with another. In which consideration, as the main body of the sea being one, yet within divers precincts hath divers names; so the Catholic Church is in like sort divided into a number of distinct Societies, every of which is termed a Church within itself. In this sense the Church is always a visible society of men; not an assembly, but a society. For although the name of the Church be given unto Christian assemblies, although any multitude of Christian men congregated may be termed by the name of a Church, yet assemblies properly are rather things that belong to a Church. Men are assembled for performance of public actions; which actions being ended, the assembly dissolveth itself and is no longer in being, whereas the Church which was assembled doth no less continue afterwards than before. “Where but three are, and they of the laity also (saith Tertullian), yet there is a Church:” that is to say, a Christian assembly. But a Church, as now we are to understand it, is a Society; that is, a number of men belonging unto some Christian fellowship, the place and limits whereof are certain. That wherein they have communion is the public exercise of such duties as those mentioned in the Apostles’ Acts, Instruction, Breaking of Bread, and Prayers. As therefore they that are of the mystical body of Christ have those inward graces and virtues, whereby they differ from all others, which are not of the same body; again, whosoever appertain to the visible body of the Church, they have also the notes of external profession, whereby the world knoweth what they are: after the same manner even the several societies of Christian men, unto every of which the name of a Church is given with addition betokening severalty, as the Church of Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, England, and so the rest, must be endued with correspondent general properties belonging unto them as they are public Christian societies. And of such properties common unto all societies Christian, it may not be denied that one of the very chiefest is Ecclesiastical Polity. Which word I therefore the rather use, because the name of Government, as commonly men understand it in ordinary speech, doth not comprise the largeness of that whereunto in this question it is applied. For when we speak of Government, what doth the greatest part conceive thereby, but only the exercise of superiority peculiar unto rulers and guides of others? To our purpose therefore the name of Church-Polity will better serve, because it containeth both government and also whatsoever besides belongeth to the ordering of

the Church in public. Neither is any thing in this degree more necessary than Church- Polity, which is a form of ordering the public spiritual affairs of the Church of God. II. But we must note, that he which affirmeth speech to be necessary amongst all men throughout the world, doth not thereby import that all men must necessarily speak one kind of language. Even so the necessity of polity and regiment in all Churches may be held without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all. Nor is it possible that any form of polity, much less of polity ecclesiastical, should be good, unless God himself be author of it. “Those things that are not of God” (saith Tertullian), “they can have no other than God’s adversary for their author.” Be are not of it whatsoever in the Church of God, if it be not of God, we hate it. Of God it must be; either as those things sometime were, which God supernaturally revealed, and so delivered them unto Moses for government of the commonwealth of Israel; or else as those things which men find out by help of that light which God hath given them unto that end. The very Law of Nature itself, which no man can deny but God hath instituted, is not of God, unless that be of God, whereof God is the author as well this later way as the former. But forasmuch as no form of Church-Polity is thought by them to be lawful, or to be of God, unless God be so the author of it that it be also set down in Scripture; they should tell us plainly, whether their meaning be that it must be there set down in whole or in part. For if wholly, let them shew what one form of Polity ever was so. Their own to be so taken out of Scripture they will not affirm; neither deny they that in part even this which they so much oppugn is also from thence taken. Again they should tell us, whether only that be taken out of Scripture which is actually and particularly there set down; or else that also which the general principles and rules of Scripture potentially contain. The one way they cannot as much as pretend, that all the parts of their own discipline are in Scripture: and the other way their mouths are stopped, when they would plead against all other forms besides their own; seeing the general principles are such as do not particularly prescribe any one, but sundry may equally be consonant unto the general axioms of the Scripture.But to give them some larger scope and not to close them up in these straits: let their allegations be considered, wherewith they earnestly bend themselves against all which deny it necessary that any one complete form of Church-Polity should be in Scripture. First therefore whereas it hath been told them that maters of faith, and in general matters necessary unto salvation, are of a different nature from ceremonies, order, and the kind of church government; and that the one is necessary to be expressly contained in the word of God, or else manifestly collected out of the same, the other not so; that it is necessary not to receive the one, unless there be something in Scripture for them; the other free, if nothing against them may thence be alleged; although there do not appear any just or reasonable cause to reject or dislike of this, nevertheless as it is not easy to speak to the contentation of minds exulcerated in themselves, but that somewhat there will be always which displeaseth; so herein for two things we are reproved. The first is misdistinguishing, because matters of discipline and church government are (as they say) “matters necessary to salvation and of faith,” whereas we put a difference between the one and the other. Our second fault is, injurious dealing with the Scripture of God, as if it contained only “the principal points of religion, some rude and unfashioned matter of building the Church, but had left out that which belongeth unto the form and fashion of it; as if there were in

the Scripture no more than only to cover the Church’s nakedness, and not chains, bracelets, rings, jewels, to adorn her; sufficient to quench her thirst, to kill her hunger, but not to minister a more liberal, and (as it were) a more delicious and dainty diet.” In which case our apology shall not need to be very long. III. The mixture of those things by speech which by nature are divided, is the mother of all error. To take away therefore that error which confusion breedeth, distinction is requisite. Rightly to distinguish is by conceit of mind to sever things different in nature, and to discern wherein they differ. So that if we imagine a difference where there is none, because we distinguish where we should not, it may not be denied that we misdistinguish. The only trial whether we do so, yea or no, dependeth upon comparison between our conceit and the nature of things conceived.Touching matters belonging unto the Church of Christ this we conceive, that they are not of one suit. Some things are merely of faith, which things it doth suffice that we know and believe; some things not only to be known but done, because they concern the actions of men. Articles about the Trinity are matters of mere faith, and must be believed. Precepts concerning the works of charity are matters of action; which to know, unless they be practised, is not enough. This being so clear to all men’s understanding, I somewhat marvel that they especially should think it absurd to oppose Church- government, a plain matter of action, unto matters of faith, who know that themselves divide the Gospel into Doctrine and Discipline. For if matters of discipline be rightly by them distinguished from matters of doctrine, why not matters of government by us as reasonably set against matters of faith? Do not they under doctrine comprehend the same which we intend by matter of faith? Do not they under discipline comprise the regiment of the Church? When they blame that in us which themselves follow, they give men great cause to doubt that some other thing than judgment doth guide their speech.What the Church of God standeth bound to know or do, the same in part nature teacheth. And because nature can teach them but only in part, neither so fully as is requisite for man’s salvation, nor so easily as to make the way plain and expedite enough that many may come to the knowledge of it, and so be saved; therefore in Scripture hath God both collected the most necessary things that the school of nature teacheth unto that end, and revealeth also whatsoever we neither could with safety be ignorant of, nor at all be instructed in but by supernatural revelation from him. So that Scripture containing all things that are in this kind any way needful for the Church, and the principal of the other sort, this is the next thing wherewith we are charged as with an error: we teach that whatsoever is unto salvation termed necessary by way of excellency, whatsoever it standeth all men upon to know or do that they may be saved, whatsoever there is whereof it may truly be said, “This not to believe is eternal death and damnation,” or, “This every soul that will live must duly observe;” of which sort the articles of Christian faith and the sacraments of the Church of Christ are: all such things if Scripture did not comprehend, the Church of God should not be able to measure out the length and the breadth of that way wherein for ever she is to walk, heretics and schismatics never ceasing some to abridge, some to enlarge, all to pervert and obscure the same. But as for those things that are accessory hereunto, those things that so belong to the way of salvation, as to alter

them is no otherwise to change that way, than a path is changed by altering only the uppermost face thereof; which be it laid with gravel, or set with grass, or paved with stone, remaineth still the same path; in such things because discretion may teach the Church what is convenient, we hold not the Church further tied herein unto Scripture, than that against Scripture nothing be admitted in the Church, lest that path which ought always to be kept even, do thereby come to be overgrown with brambles and thorns.If this be unsound, wherein doth the point of unsoundness lie? It is not that we make some things necessary, some things accessory and appendent only: for our Lord and Saviour himself doth make that difference, by terming judgment and mercy and fidelity with other things of like nature, “the greater and weightier matters of the law.” Is it then in that we account ceremonies, (wherein we do not comprise sacraments, or any other the like substantial duties in the exercise of religion, but only such external rites as are usually annexed unto Church actions,) is it an oversight that we reckon these things and matters of government in the number of things accessory, not things necessary in such sort as hath been declared? Let them which therefore think us blameable consider well their own words. Do they not plainly compare the one unto garments which cover the body of the Church; the other unto rings, bracelets, and jewels, that only adorn it; the one to that food which the Church doth live by, the other to that which maketh her diet liberal, “dainty,” and more “delicious”? Is dainty fare a thing necessary to the sustenance, or to the clothing of the body rich attire? If not, how can they urge the necessity of that which themselves resemble by things not necessary? or by what construction shall any man living be able to make those comparisons true, holding that distinction untrue, which putteth a difference between things of external regiment in the Church and things necessary unto salvation? IV. Now as it can be to nature no injury that of her we say the same which diligent beholders of her works have observed; namely, that she provideth for all living creatures nourishment which may suffice; that she bringeth forth nc kind of creature whereto she is wanting in that which is needful: although we do not so far magnify her exceeding bounty, as to affirm that she bringeth into the world the sons of men adorned with gorgeous attire, or maketh costly buildings to spring up out of the earth for them: so I trust that to mention what the Scripture of God leaveth unto the Church’s discretion in some things, is not in any thing to impair the honour which the Church of God yieldeth to the sacred Scripture’s perfection. Wherein seeing that no more is by us maintained, than only that Scripture must needs teach the Church whatsoever is in such sort necessary as hath been set down; and that it is no more disgrace for Scripture to have left a number of other things free to be ordered at the discretion of the Church, than for nature to have left it unto the wit of man to devise his own attire, and not to look for it as the beasts of the field have theirs: if neither this can import, nor any other proof sufficient be brought forth, that we either will at any time or ever did affirm the sacred Scripture to comprehend no more than only those bare necessaries; if we acknowledge that as well for particular application to special occasions, as also in other manifold respects, infinite treasures of wisdom are over and besides abundantly to be found in the Holy Scripture; yea, that scarcely there is any noble part of knowledge, worthy the mind of man, but from thence it may have some direction and light; yea, that although there be no necessity it should of

purpose prescribe any one particular form of church government, yet touching. the manner of governing in general the precepts that Scripture setteth down are not few, and the examples many which it proposeth for all church governors even in particularities to follow; yea, that those things finally which are of principal weight in the very particular form of church polity (although not that form which they imagine, but that which we against them uphold) are in the selfsame Scriptures contained: if all this be willingly granted by us which are accused “to pin the word of God in so narrow room, as that it should be able to direct us but in principal points of our religion; or as though the substance of religion or some rude and unfashioned matter of building the Church were uttered in them, and those things left out that should pertain to the form and fashion of it;” let the cause of the accused be referred to the accusers’ own conscience, and let that judge whether this accusation be deserved where it hath been laid. V. But so easy it is for every man living to err, and so hard to wrest from any man’s mouth the plain acknowledgment of error, that what hath been once inconsiderately defended, the same is commonly persisted in, as long as wit by whetting itself is able to find out any shift, be it never so slight, whereby to escape out of the hands of present contradiction. So that it cometh herein to pass with men unadvisedly fallen into error, as with them whose state hath no ground to uphold it, but only the help which by subtle conveyance they draw out of casual events arising from day to day, till at length they be clean spent. They which first gave out, that “nothing ought to be established in the Church which is not commanded by the word of God,” thought this principle plainly warranted by the manifest words of the Law, “Ye shall put nothing unto the word which I command you, neither shall you take aught therefrom, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you.” Wherefore having an eye to a number of rites and orders in the Church of England, as marrying with a ring, crossing in the one sacrament, kneeling at the other, observing of festival days moe than only that which is called the Lord’s day, enjoining abstinence at certain times from some kinds of meat, churching of women after childbirth, degrees taken by divines in universities, sundry church offices, dignities, and callings, for which they found no commandment in the Holy Scripture, they thought by the one only stroke of that axiom to have cut them off. But that which they took for an oracle being sifted was repelled. True it is concerning the word of God, whether it be by misconstruction of the sense or by falsification of the words, wittingly to endeavour that any thing may seem divine which is not, or any thing not seem which is, were plainly to abuse, and even to falsify divine evidence; which injury offered but unto men, is most worthily counted heinous. Which point I wish they did well observe, with whom nothing is more familiar than to plead in these causes, “the law of God,” “the word of the Lord;” who notwithstanding when they come to allege what word and what law they mean, their common ordinary practice is to quote by-speeches in some historical narration or other, and to urge them as if they were written in most exact form of law. What is to add to the law of God if this be not? When that which the word of God doth but deliver historically, we construe without any warrant as if it were legally meant, and so urge it further than we can prove that it was intended; do we not add to the laws of God, and make them in number seem moe than they are? It standeth us upon to be careful in this case. For the sentence of God is heavy against them that wittingly shall presume thus to use the Scripture.

VI. But let that which they do hereby intend be granted them; let it once stand as consonant to reason, that because we are forbidden to add to the law of God any thing, or to take aught from it, therefore we may not for matters of the Church make any law more than is already set down in Scripture: who seeth not what sentence it shall enforce us to give against all Churches in the world, inasmuch as there is not one, but hath had many things established in it, which though the Scripture did never command, yet for us to condemn were rashness? Let the Church of God even in the time of our Saviour Christ serve for example unto all the rest. In their domestical celebration of the passover, which supper they divided (as it were) into two courses; what Scripture did give commandment that between the first and the second he that was chief should put off the residue of his garments, and keeping on his feast-robe only wash the feet of them that were with him? What Scripture did command them never to lift up their hands unwashed in prayer unto God? which custom Aristeas (be the credit of the author more or less) sheweth wherefore they did so religiously observe. What Scripture did command the Jews every festival-day to fast till the sixth hour? the custom both mentioned by Josephus in the history of his own life, and by the words of Peter signified. Tedious it were to rip up all such things as were in that church established, yea by Christ himself and by his Apostle observed, though not commanded any where in Scripture. VII. Well, yet a gloss there is to colour that paradox, and notwithstanding all this, still to make it appear in show; not to be altogether unreasonable. And therefore till further reply come, the cause is held by a feeble distinction; that; the commandments of God being either general or special, although there be no express word for every thing in specialty, yet there are general commandments for all things, to the end, that even such cases as are not in Scripture particularly mentioned, might not be left to any to order at their pleasure only with caution, that nothing be done against the word of God: and that for this cause the Apostle hath set down in Scripture four general rules, requiring such things alone to be received in the Church as do best and nearest agree with the same rules, that so all things in the Church may be appointed, not only not against, but by and according to the word of God. The rules are these, “Nothing scandalous or offensive unto any, especially unto the Church of God;” “All things in order and with seemliness;” “All unto edification;” finally, “All to the glory of God.” Of which kind how many might be gathered out of the Scripture, if it were necessary to take so much pains? Which rules they that urge, minding thereby to prove that nothing may be done in the Church but what Scripture commandeth, must needs hold that they tie the Church of Christ no otherwise than only because we find them there set down by the finger of the Holy Ghost. So that unless the Apostle by writing had delivered those rules to the Church, we should by observing them have sinned, as now by not observing them.In the Church of the Jews is it not granted, that the appointment of the hour for daily sacrifices; the building of synagogues throughout the land to hear the word of God and to pray in, when they came not up to Jerusalem, the erecting of pulpits and chairs to teach in, the order of burial, the rites of marriage, with such-like, being matters appertaining to the Church, yet are not any where prescribed in the law, but were by the Church’s discretion instituted? What then shall we think? Did they hereby add to the law, and so displease

God by that which they did? None so hardly persuaded of them. Doth their law deliver unto them the selfsame general rules of the Apostle, that framing thereby their orders they might in that respect clear themselves from doing amiss? St. Paul would then of likelihood have cited them out of the Law, which we see he doth not. The truth is, they are rules and canons of that law which is written in all men’s hearts; the Church had for ever no less than now stood bound to observe them, whether the Apostles had mentioned them or no. Seeing therefore those canons do bind as they are edicts of nature, which the Jews observing as yet unwritten, and thereby framing such church orders as in their law were not prescribed, are notwithstanding in that respect unculpable: it followeth that sundry things may be lawfully done in the Church, so as they be not done against the Scripture, although no Scripture do command them, but the Church only following the light of reason judge them to be in discretion meet.Secondly, unto our purpose and for the question in hand, whether the commandments of God in Scripture be general or special, it skilleth not: for if being particularly applied they have in regard of such particulars a force constraining us to take some one certain thing of many, and to leave the rest; whereby it would come to pass, that any other particular but that one being established, the general rules themselves in that case would be broken; then is it utterly impossible that God should leave any thing great or small free for the Church to establish or not.Thirdly, if so be they shall grant, as they cannot otherwise do, that these rules are no such laws as require any one particular thing to be done, but serve rather to direct the Church in all things which she doth; so that free and lawful it is to devise any ceremony, to receive any order, and to authorize any kind of regiment, no special commandment being thereby violated, and the same being thought such by them, to whom the judgment thereof appertaineth, as that it is not scandalous, but decent, tending unto edification, and setting forth the glory of God; that is to say, agreeable unto the general rules of Holy Scripture: this doth them no good in the world for the furtherance of their purpose. That which should make for them must prove that men ought not to make laws for church regiment, but only keep those laws which in Scripture they find made. The plain intent of the Book of Ecclesiastical Discipline is to shew that men may not devise laws of church government, but are bound for ever to use and to execute only those which God himself hath already devised and delivered in the Scripture. The selfsame drift the Admonitioners also had, in urging that nothing ought to be done in the Church according unto any law of man’s devising, but all according to that which God in his word hath commanded. Which not remembering, they gather out of Scripture general rules to be followed in making laws; and so in effect they plainly grant that we ourselves may lawfully make laws for the Church, and are not bound out of Scripture only to take laws already made, as they meant who first alleged that principle whereof we speak. One particular platform it is which they respected, and which they laboured thereby to force upon all Churches; whereas these general rules do not let but that there may well enough be sundry. It is the particular order established in the Church of England, which thereby they did intend to alter, as being not commanded of God; whereas unto those general rules they know we do not

defend that we may hold any thing unconformable. Obscure it is not what meaning they had, who first gave out that grand axiom; and according unto that meaning it doth prevail far and wide with the favourers of that part. Demand of them, wherefore they conform not themselves unto the order of our Church, and in every particular their answer for the most part is, “We find no such thing commanded in the word:” whereby they plainly require some special commandment for that which is exacted at their hands; neither are they content to have matters of the Church examined by general rules and canons.As therefore in controversies between us and the Church of Rome, that which they practise is many times even according to the very grossness of that which the vulgar sort conceiveth; when that which they teach to maintain it is so nice and subtle that hold can very hardly be taken thereupon; in which cases we should do the Church of God small benefit by disputing with them according unto the finest points of their dark conveyances, and suffering that sense of their doctrine to go uncontrolled, wherein by the common sort it is ordinarily received and practised: so considering what disturbance hath grown in the Church amongst ourselves, and how the authors thereof do commonly build altogether on this as a sure foundation, “Nothing ought to be established in the Church which in the word of God is not commanded;” were it reason that we should suffer the same to pass without controlment in that current meaning whereby every where it prevaileth, and stay till some strange construction were made thereof, which no man would lightly have thought on but being driven thereunto for a shift? VIII. The last refuge in maintaining this position is thus to construe it, “Nothing ought to be established in the Church, “but that which is commanded in the word of God;” that is to say, all Church orders must be “grounded upon the word of God;” in such sort grounded upon the word, not that being found out by some “star, or light of reason, or learning, or other help,” they may be received, so they be not against the word of God; but according at leastwise unto the general rules of Scripture they must be made. Which is in effect as much as to say, “We know not what to say well in defence of this position; and therefore lest we should say it is false, there is no remedy but to say that in some sense or other it may be true, if we could tell how.”First, that scholy had need of a very favourable reader and a tractable, that should think it plain construction, when to be commanded in the word and grounded upon the word are made all one. If when a man may live in the state of matrimony, seeking that good thereby which nature principally desireth, he make rather choice of a contrary life in regard of St. Paul’s judgment; that which he doth is manifestly grounded upon the word of God, yet not commanded in his word, because without breach of any commandment he might do otherwise.Secondly, whereas no man in justice and reason can be reproved for those actions which are framed according unto that known will of God, whereby they are to be judged; and the will of God which we are to judge our actions by, no sound divine in the world ever denied to be in part made manifest even by light of nature, and not by Scripture alone: if the Church being directed by the former of these two (which God hath given who gave the other, that man might in different sort be guided by them both), if the

Church I say do approve and establish that which thereby it judgeth meet, and findeth not repugnant to any word or syllable of holy Scripture; who shall warrant our presumptuous boldness controlling herein the Church of Christ?But so it is, the name of the light of nature is made hateful with men; the “star of reason and learning,” and all other such like helps, beginneth no otherwise to be thought of than if it were an unlucky comet; or as if God had so accursed it, that it should never shine or give light in things concerning our duty any way towards him, but be esteemed as that star in the Revelation called Wormwood, which being fallen from heaven, maketh rivers and waters in which it falleth so bitter, that men tasting them die thereof. A number there are, who think they cannot admire as they ought the power and authority of the word of God, if in things divine they should attribute any force to man’s reason. For which cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace reason. Their usual and common discourses are unto this effect. First, “the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Secondly, it is not for nothing that St. Paul giveth charge to “beware of philosophy,” that is to say, such knowledge as men by natural reason attain unto. Thirdly, consider them that have from time to time opposed themselves against the Gospel of Christ, and most troubled the Church with heresy. Have they not always been great admirers of human reason? Hath their deep and profound skill in secular learning made them the more obedient to the truth, and not armed them rather against it? Fourthly, they that fear God will remember how heavy his sentences are in this case: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will cast away the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made the wisdom of this world foolishness? Seeing the world by wisdom knew not God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save believers.” Fifthly, the word of God in itself is absolute, exact and perfect. The word of God is a two-edged sword; as for the weapons of natural reason, they are as the armour of Saul, rather cumbersome about the soldier of Christ than needful. They are not of force to do that which the Apostles of Christ did by the power of the Holy Ghost: “My preaching,” therefore saith Paul, “hath not been in the enticing speech of man’s wisdom, but in plain evidence of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Sixthly, if I believe the Gospel, there needeth no reasoning about it to persuade me; if I do not believe, it must be the Spirit of God and not the reason of man that shall convert my heart unto him. By these and the like disputes an opinion hath spread itself very far in the world, as if the way to be ripe in faith were to be raw in wit and judgment; as if reason were an enemy unto religion, childish simplicity the mother of ghostly and divine wisdom.The cause why such declamations prevail so greatly, is, for that men suffer themselves in two respects to be deluded; one is, that the wisdom of man being debased either in comparison with that of God, or in regard of some special thing exceeding the reach and compass thereof, it seemeth to them (not marking so much) as if simply it were condemned: another, that learning, knowledge or wisdom, falsely so termed, usurping a name whereof they are not worthy, and being under that name controlled; their reproof is by so much the more easily misapplied, and through equivocation wrested against those

things whereunto so precious names do properly and of right belong. This, duly observed, doth to the former allegations itself make sufficient answer. Howbeit, for all men’s plainer and fuller satisfaction:First, Concerning the inability of reason to search out and to judge of things divine, if they be such as those properties of God and those duties of men towards him, which may be conceived by attentive consideration of heaven and earth; we know that of mere natural men the Apostle testifieth, how they knew both God, and the Law of God. Other things of God there be which are neither so found,” nor though they be shewed can never be approved without the special operation of God’s good grace and Spirit. Of such things sometime spake the Apostle St. Paul, declaring how Christ had called him to be a witness of his death and resurrection from the dead, according to that which the Prophets and Moses had foreshewed. Festus, a mere natural man, an infidel, a Roman, one whose ears were unacquainted with such matter, heard him, but could not reach unto that whereof he spake; the suffering and the rising of Christ from the dead he rejecteth as idle superstitious fancies not worth the hearing. The Apostle that knew them by the Spirit, and spake of them with power of the Holy Ghost, seemed in his eyes but learnedly mad. Which example maketh manifest what elsewhere the same Apostle teacheth, namely, that nature hath need of grace, whereunto I hope we are not opposite, by holding that grace hath use of nature.Secondly, Philosophy we are warned to take heed of: not that philosophy, which is true and sound knowledge attained by natural discourse of reason; but that philosophy, which to bolster heresy or error casteth a fraudulent show of reason upon things which are indeed unreasonable, and by that mean as by a stratagem spoileth the simple which are not able to withstand such cunning. “Take heed lest any spoil you through philosophy and vain deceits.” He that exhorteth to beware of an enemy’s policy doth not give counsel to be impolitic, but rather to use all provident foresight and circumspection, lest our simplicity be overreached by cunning sleights. The way not to be inveigled by them that are so guileful through skill, is thoroughly to be instructed in that which maketh skilful against guile, and to be armed with that true and sincere philosophy, which doth teach, against that deceitful and vain, which spoileth.Thirdly, But many great philosophers have been very unsound in belief. And many sound in belief, have been also great philosophers. Could secular knowledge bring the one sort unto the love of Christian faith? Nor Christian faith the other sort out of love with secular knowledge. The harm that heretics did, they did it unto such as were unable to discern between sound and deceitful reasoning; and the remedy against it was ever the skill which the ancient Fathers had to descry and discover such deceit. Insomuch that Cresconius the heretic complained greatly of St. Augustine, as being too full of logical subtilties. Heresy prevaileth only by a counterfeit show of reason; whereby notwithstanding it becometh invincible, unless it be convicted of fraud by manifest remonstrance clearly true and unable to be withstood. When therefore the Apostle requireth ability to convict heretics, can we think he judgeth it a thing unlawful, and not rather needful, to use the principal instrument of their conviction, the light of reason? It may not be denied but that in the Fathers’ writings there are sundry sharp invectives

## against heretics, even for their very philosophical reasonings. The cause whereof Tertullian confesseth not to have been any dislike conceived against the kind of such reasonings, but the end. “We may,” saith he, “even in matters of God be made wiser by reasons drawn from the public persuasions, which are grafted in men’s minds: so they be used to further the truth, not to bolster error; so they make with, not against, that which God hath determined. For there are some things even known by nature, as the immortality of the soul unto many, our God unto all. I will therefore myself also use the sentence of some such as Plato, pronouncing every soul immortal. I myself too will use the secret acknowledgment of the commonalty, bearing record of the God of gods. But when I hear men allege, ‘That which is dead is dead;’ and, ‘While thou art alive be alive;’ and, ‘After death an end of all, even of death itself;’ then will I call to mind both that the heart of the people with God is accounted dust, and that the very wisdom of the world is pronounced folly. If then an heretic fly also unto such vicious popular and secular conceits, my answer unto him shall be, ‘Thou heretic, avoid the heathen; although in this ye be one, that ye both belie God, yet thou that doest this under the name of Christ, differest from the heathen, in that thou seemest to thyself a Christian. Leave him therefore his conceits, seeing that neither will he learn thine. Why dost thou having sight trust to a blind guide; thou which hast put on Christ take raiment of him that is naked? If the Apostle have armed thee, why dost thou borrow a stranger’s shield? Let him rather learn of thee to acknowledge, than thou of him to renounce the resurrection of the flesh: “In a word, the Catholic Fathers did good unto all by that knowledge, whereby heretics hindering the truth in many, might have furthered therewith themselves, but that obstinately following their own ambitious or otherwise corrupted affections, instead of framing their wills to maintain that which reason taught, they bent their wits to find how reason might seem to teach that which their wills were set to maintain. For which cause the Apostle saith of them justly, that they are for the most part autokatakritoi men condemned even in and of themselves. For though they be not all persuaded that it is truth which they withstand, yet that to be error which they uphold they might undoubtedly the sooner a great deal attain to know, but that their study is more to defend what once they have stood in, than to find out sincerely and simply what truth they ought to persist in for ever.Fourthly, There is in the world no kind of knowledge, whereby any part of truth is seen, but we justly account it precious; yea, that principal truth, in comparison whereof all other knowledge is vile, may receive from it some kind of light; whether it be that Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom mathematical, wherewith Moses and Daniel were furnished; or that natural, moral, and civil wisdom, wherein Salomon excelled all men; or that rational and oratorial wisdom of the Grecians, which the Apostle St. Paul brought from Tarsus; or that Judaical, which he learned in Jerusalem sitting at the feet of Gamaliel: to detract from the dignity thereof were to injury even God himself, who being that light which none can approach unto, hath sent out these lights whereof we are capable, even as so many sparkles resembling the bright fountain from which they rise. But there are that bear the title of wise men and scribes and great disputers of the world, and are nothing in deed less than what in show they most appear. These being wholly addicted unto their own wills, use their wit, their learning, and all the wisdom they have, to maintain that which their obstinate hearts are delighted with, esteeming in the frantic

## error of their minds the greatest madness in the world to be wisdom, and the highest wisdom foolishness. Such were both Jews and Grecians, which professed the one sort legal, and the other secular skill, neither enduring to be taught the mystery of Christ: unto the glory of whose most blessed name, whoso study to use both their reason and all other gifts, as well which nature as which grace hath endued them with, let them never doubt but that the same God who is to destroy and confound utterly that wisdom falsely so named in others, doth make reckoning of them as of true Scribes, Scribes by wisdom instructed to the kingdom of heaven, not Scribes against that kingdom hardened in a vain opinion of wisdom; which in the end being proved folly, must needs perish, true understanding, knowledge, judgment and reason continuing for evermore.Fifthly, Unto the word of God, being in respect of that end for which God ordained it perfect, exact, and absolute in itself, we do not add reason as a supplement of any maim or defect therein, but as a necessary instrument, without which we could not reap by the Scripture’s perfection that fruit and benefit which it yieldeth. “The word of God is a twoedged sword,” but in the hands of reasonable men; and reason as the weapon that slew Goliath, if they be as David was that use it. Touching the Apostles, He which gave them from above such power for miraculous confirmation of that which they taught, endued them also with wisdom from above to teach that which they so did confirm. Our Saviour made choice of twelve simple and unlearned men, that the greater their lack of natural wisdom was, the more admirable that might appear which God supernaturally endued them with from heaven. Such therefore as knew the poor and silly estate wherein they had lived, could not but wonder to hear the wisdom of their speech, and be so much the more attentive unto their teaching. They studied for no tongue, they spake with all; of themselves they were rude, and knew not so much as how to premeditate; the Spirit gave them speech and eloquent utterance. But because with St. Paul it was otherwise than with the rest, inasmuch as he never conversed with Christ upon earth as they did; and his education had been scholastical altogether, which theirs was not; hereby occasion was taken by certain malignants, secretly to undermine his great authority in the Church of Christ, as though the gospel had been taught him by others than by Christ himself, and as if the cause of the Gentiles’ conversion and belief through his means had been the learning and skill which he had by being conversant in their books; which thing made them so willing to hear him, and him so able to persuade them; whereas the rest of the Apostles prevailed, because God was with them, and by miracle from heaven confirmed his word in their mouths. They were mighty in deeds : as for him, being absent, his writings had some force; in presence, his power not like unto theirs. In sum, concerning his preaching, their very byword was, logoV exouqenhmenoV , addle speech, empty talk : his writings full of great words, but in the power of miraculous operations his presence not like the rest of the Apostles. Hereupon it riseth that St. Paul was so often driven to make his apologies. Hereupon it riseth that whatsoever time he had spent in the study of human learning, he maketh earnest protestation to them of Corinth, that the gospel which he had preached amongst them did not by other means prevail with them, than with others the same gospel taught by the rest of the Apostles of Christ. “My preaching,” saith he, “hath not been in the

persuasive speeches of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith may not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” What is it which the Apostle doth here deny? Is it denied that his speech amongst them had been persuasive? No: for of him the sacred history plainly testifieth, that for the space of a year and a half he spake in their synagogue every Sabbath, and persuaded both Jews and Grecians. How then is the speech of men made persuasive? Surely there can be but two ways to bring this to pass, the one human, the other divine. Either St. Paul did only by art and natural industry cause his own speech to be credited; or else God by miracle did authorize it, and so bring credit thereunto, as to the speech of the rest of the Apostles. Of which two, the former he utterly denieth. For why? if the preaching of the rest had been effectual by miracle, his only by force of his own learning; so great inequality between him and the other Apostles in this thing had been enough to subvert their faith. For might they not with reason have thought, that if he were sent of God as well as they, God would not have furnished them and not him with the power of the Holy Ghost? Might not a great part of them being simple haply have feared, lest their assent had been cunningly gotten unto his doctrine, rather through the weakness of their own wits than the certainty of that truth which he had taught them? How unequal had it been that all believers through the preaching of other Apostles should have their faith strongly built upon the evidence of God’s own miraculous approbation, and they whom he had converted should have their persuasion built only upon his skill and wisdom who persuaded them? As therefore calling from men may authorize us to teach, although it could not authorize him to teach as other Apostles did: so although the wisdom of man had not been sufficient to enable him such a teacher as the rest of the apostles were, unless God’s miracles had strengthened both the one and the other’s doctrine; yet unto our ability both of teaching and learning the truth of Christ, as we are but mere Christian men, it is not a little which the wisdom of man may add.Sixthly, Yea, whatsoever our hearts be to God and to his truth, believe we or be we as yet faithless, for our conversion or confirmation the force of natural reason is great. The force whereof unto those effects is nothing without grace. What then? To our purpose it is sufficient, that whosoever doth serve, honour, and obey God, whosoever believeth in Him, that man would no more do this than innocents and infants do, but for the light of natural reason that shineth in him, and maketh him apt to apprehend those things of God, which being by grace discovered, are effectual to persuade reasonable minds and none other, that honour, obedience, and credit, belong of right unto God. No man cometh unto God to offer him sacrifice, to pour out supplications and prayers before him, or to do him any service, which doth not first believe him both to be, and to be a rewarder of them who in such sort seek unto him. Let men be taught this either by revelation from heaven, or by instruction upon earth; by labour, study, and meditation, or by the only secret inspiration of the Holy Ghost; whatsoever the mean be they know it by, if the knowledge thereof were possible without discourse of natural reason, why should none be found capable thereof but only men; nor men till such time as they come unto ripe and full ability to work by reasonable understanding? The whole drift of the Scripture of God, what is it but only to teach Theology? Theology, what is it but the science of things divine? What science can be attained unto without the help of natural

discourse and reason? “Judge you of that which I speak,” saith the Apostle. In vain it were to speak any thing of God, but that by reason men are able somewhat to judge of that they hear, and by discourse to discern how consonant it is to truth.Scripture indeed teacheth things above nature, things which our reason by itself could not reach unto. Yet those things also we believe, knowing by reason that the Scripture is the word of God. In the presence of Festus a Roman, and of King Agrippa a Jew, St. Paul omitting the one, who neither knew the Jews’ religion nor the books whereby they were taught it, speaketh unto the other of things foreshewed by Moses and the Prophets. and performed in Jesus Christ; intending thereby to prove himself so unjustly accused, that unless his judges did condemn both Moses and the Prophets, him they could not choose but acquit who taught only that fulfilled, which they so long since had foretold. His cause was easy to be discerned; what was done their eyes were witnesses; what Moses and the Prophets did speak their books could quickly shew; it was no hard thing for him to compare them, which knew the one, and believed the other. “King Agrippa, believest thou the Prophets? I know thou dost.” The question is how the books of the Prophets came to be credited of King Agrippa. For what with him did authorize the Prophets, the like with us doth cause the rest of the Scripture of God to be of credit.Because we maintain that in Scripture we are taught all things necessary unto salvation; hereupon very childishly it is by some demanded, what Scripture can teach us the sacred authority of the Scripture, upon the knowledge whereof our whole faith and salvation dependeth? As though there were any kind of science in the world which leadeth men into knowledge without presupposing a number of things already known. No science doth make known the first principles whereon it buildeth, but they are always either taken as plain and manifest in themselves, or as proved and granted already, some former knowledge having made them evident. Scripture teacheth all supernatural revealed truth, without the knowledge whereof salvation cannot be attained. The main principle whereupon our belief of all things therein contained dependeth, is, that the Scriptures are the oracles of God himself. This in itself we cannot say is evident. For then all men that hear it would acknowledge it in heart, as they do when they hear that “every whole is more than any part of that whole,” because this in itself is evident. The other we know that all do not acknowledge when they hear it. There must be therefore some former knowledge presupposed which doth herein assure the hearts of all believers. Scripture teacheth us that saving truth which God hath discovered unto the world by revelation, and it presumeth us taught otherwise that itself is divine and sacred.The question then being by what means we are taught this; some answer that to learn it we have no other way than only tradition; as namely that so we believe because both we from our predecessors and they from theirs have so received. But is this enough? That which all men’s experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied. And by experience we all know, that the first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the authority of God’s Church. For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture, we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause.

Afterwards the more we bestow our labour in reading or hearing the mysteries thereof, the more we find that the thing itself doth answer our received opinion concerning it. So that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before, doth now much more prevail, when the very thing hath ministered farther reason. If infidels or atheists chance at any time to call it in question, this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is, whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture, and our own persuasion which Scripture itself hath confirmed, may be proved a truth infallible. In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew, what warrant they had so much to rely upon the Scriptures, endeavoured still to maintain the authority of the books of God by arguments such as unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable, if they judged thereof as they should. Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard, even by such kind of proofs so to manifest and clear that point, that no man living shall be able to deny it, without denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be true. Wherefore if I believe the Gospel, yet is reason of singular use, for that it confirmeth me in this my belief the more: if I do not as yet believe, nevertheless to bring me to the number of believers except reason did somewhat help, and were an instrument which God doth use unto such purposes, what should it boot to dispute with infidels or godless persons for their conversion and persuasion in that point?Neither can I think that when grave and learned men do sometime hold, that of this principle there is no proof but by the testimony of the Spirit, which assureth our hearts therein, it is their meaning to exclude utterly all force which any kind of reason may have in that behalf; but I rather incline to interpret such their speeches, as if they had more expressly set down, that other motives and inducements, be they never so strong and consonant unto reason, are notwithstanding uneffectual of themselves to work faith concerning this principle, if the special grace of the Holy Ghost concur not to the enlightening of our minds. For otherwise I doubt not but men of wisdom and judgment will grant, that the Church, in this point especially, is furnished with reason, to stop the mouths of her impious adversaries; and that as it were altogether bootless to allege against them what the Spirit hath taught us, so likewise that even to our ownselves it needeth caution and explication how the testimony of the Spirit may be discerned, by what means it may be known; lest men think that the Spirit of God doth testify those things which the Spirit of error suggesteth. The operations of the Spirit, especially these ordinary which be common unto all true Christian men, are as we know things secret and undiscernible even to the very soul where they are, because their nature is of another and an higher kind than that they can be by us perceived in this life. Wherefore albeit the Spirit lead us into all truth and direct us in all goodness, yet because these workings of the Spirit in us are so privy and secret, we therefore stand on a plainer ground, when we gather by reason from the quality of things believed or done, that the Spirit of God hath directed us in both, than if we settle ourselves to believe or to do any certain particular thing, as being moved thereto by the Spirit.But of this enough. To go from the books of Scripture to the sense and meaning thereof: because the sentences which are by the Apostles recited out of the Psalms’, to prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ, did not prove it, if so be the Prophet David meant

them of himself; this exposition therefore they plainly disprove, and shew by manifest reason, that of David the words of David could not possibly be meant. Exclude the use of natural reasoning about the sense of Holy Scripture concerning the articles of our faith, and then that the Scripture doth concern the articles of our faith who can assure us? That, which by right exposition buildeth up Christian faith, being misconstrued breedeth error: between true and false construction, the difference reason must shew. Can Christian men perform that which Peter requireth at their hands; is it possible they should both believe and be able, without the use of reason, to render “a reason of their belief,” a reason sound and sufficient to answer them that demand it, be they of the same faith with us or enemies thereunto? may we cause our faith without reason to appear reasonable in the eyes of men? This being required even of learners in the school of Christ, the duty of their teachers in bringing them unto, such ripeness must needs be somewhat more, than only to read the sentences of Scripture, and then paraphrastically to scholy them: to vary them with sundry forms of speech, without arguing or disputing about any thing which they contain. This method of teaching may commend itself unto the world by that easiness and facility which is in it: but a law or a pattern it is not, as some do imagine, for all men to follow that will do good in the Church of Christ.Our Lord and Saviour himself did hope by disputation to do some good, yea by disputation not only of but against, the truth, albeit with purpose for the truth. That Christ should be the son of David was truth; yet against this truth our Lord in the gospel objecteth, “If Christ be the son of David, how doth David call him Lord’?” There is as yet no way known how to dispute, or to determine of things disputed, without the use of natural reason. If we please to add unto Christ their example, who followed him as near in all things as they could; the sermon of Paul and Barnabas set down in the Acts, where the people would have offered unto them sacrifice; in that sermon what is there but only natural reason to disprove their act? “O men, why do you these things? We are men even subject to the selfsame passions with you: we preach unto you to leave these vanities and to turn to the living God, the God that hath not left himself without witness, in that he hath done good to the world, giving rain and fruitful seasons, filling our heart with joy and gladness.” Neither did they only use reason in winning such unto Christian belief as were yet thereto unconverted, but with believers themselves they followed the selfsame course. In that great and solemn assembly of believing Jews how doth Peter prove that the Gentiles were partakers of the grace of God as well as they, but by reason drawn from those effects, which. were apparently known amongst them? “God which knoweth hearts hath borne them witness in giving unto them the Holy Ghost as unto us.” The light therefore, which the “star of natural reason” and wisdom casteth, is too bright to be obscured by the mist of a word or two uttered to diminish that opinion which justly hath been received concerning the force and virtue thereof, even in matters that touch most nearly the principal duties of men and the glory of the eternal God.

In all which hitherto hath been spoken touching the force and use of man’s reason in things divine, I must crave that I be not so understood or construed, as if any such thing by virtue thereof could be done without the aid and assistance of God’s most blessed Spirit. The thing we have handled according to the question moved about it; which question is, whether the light of reason be so pernicious, that in devising laws for the Church men ought not by it to search what may be fit and convenient. For this cause therefore we have endeavoured to make it appear, how in the nature of reason itself there is no impediment, but that the selfsame Spirit, which revealeth the things that God hath set down in his law, may also be thought to aid and direct men in finding out by the light of reason what laws are expedient to be made for the guiding of his Church, over and besides them that are in Scripture. Herein therefore we agree with those men, by whom human laws are defined to be ordinances, which such as have lawful authority given them for that purpose do probably draw from the laws of nature and God, by discourse of reason aided with the influence of divine grace. And for that cause, it is not said amiss touching ecclesiastical canons, that “by instinct of the Holy Ghost they have been made, and consecrated by the reverend acceptation of all the world.” IX. Laws for the Church are not made as they should be, unless the makers follow such direction as they ought to be guided by: wherein that Scripture standeth not the Church of God in any stead, or serveth nothing at all to direct, but may be let pass as needless to be consulted with, we judge it profane, impious, and irreligious to. think. For although it were in vain to make laws which the Scripture hath already made, because what we are already there commanded to do, on our parts there resteth nothing but only that it be executed; yet because both in that which we are commanded, it concerneth the duty of the Church by law to provide, that the looseness and slackness of men may not cause the commandments of God to be unexecuted; and a number of things there are for which the Scripture hath not provided by any law, but left them unto the careful discretion of the Church; we are to search how the Church in these cases may be well directed to make that provision by laws which is most convenient and fit. And what is so in these cases, partly Scripture and partly reason must teach to discern. Scripture comprehending examples and laws, laws some natural and some positive: examples there neither are for all cases which require laws to be made, and when there are, they can but direct as precedents only. Natural laws direct in such sort, that in all things we must for ever do according unto them; Positive so, that against them in no case we may do any thing, as long as the will of God is that they should remain in force. Howbeit when Scripture doth yield us precedents, how far forth they are to be followed; when it giveth natural laws, what particular order is thereunto most agreeable; when positive, which way to make laws unrepugnant unto them; yea though all these should want, yet what kind of ordinances would be most for that good of the Church which is aimed at, all this must be by reason found out. And therefore, “to refuse the conduct of the light of nature,” saith St. Augustine,”is not folly alone but accompanied with impiety.”The greatest amongst the School-divines, studying how to set down by exact definition the nature of an human law, (of which nature all the Church’s constitutions are,) found not which way better to do it than in these words: “Out of the precepts of the law of nature, as out of certain common and undemonstrable principles, man’s reason doth

necessarily proceed unto certain more particular determinations; which particular determinations being found out according unto the reason of man, they have the names of human laws, so that such other conditions be therein kept as the making of laws doth require,” that is, if they whose authority is thereunto required do establish and publish them as laws. And the truth is, that all our controversy in this cause concerning the orders of the Church is, what particulars the Church may appoint. That which doth find them out is the force of man’s reason. That which doth guide and direct his reason is first the general law of nature; which law of nature and the moral law of Scripture are in the substance of law all one. But because there are also in Scripture a number of laws particular and positive, which being in force may not by any law of man be violated; we are in making laws to have thereunto an especial eye. As for example, it might perhaps seem reasonable unto the Church of God, following the general laws concerning the nature of marriage, to ordain in particular that cousin-germans shall not marry. Which law notwithstanding ought not to be received in the Church, if there should be in Scripture a law particular to the contrary, forbidding utterly the bonds of marriage to be so far forth abridged. The same Thomas therefore whose definition of human laws we mentioned before, doth add thereunto this caution concerning the rule and canon whereby to make them: human laws are measures in respect of men whose actions they must direct; howbeit such measures they are, as have also their higher rules to be measured by, which rules are two, the law of God, and the law of nature. So that laws human must be made according to the general laws of nature, and without contradiction into any positive law in Scripture. Otherwise they are ill made.Unto laws thus made and received by a whole church, they which live within the bosom of that church must not think it a matter indifferent either to yield or not to yield obedience. Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God? “My son keep thy father’s commandment,” saith Salomon, “and forget not thy mother’s instruction: bind them both always about thine heart.” It doth not stand with the duty which we owe to our heavenly Father, that to the ordinances of our mother the Church we should shew ourselves disobedient. Let us not say we keep the commandments of the one, when we break the law of the other: for unless we observe both, we obey neither. And what doth let but that we may observe both, when they are not the one to the other in any sort repugnant? For of such laws only we speak, as being made in form and manner already declared, can have in them no contradiction unto the laws of Almighty God. Yea that which is more, the laws thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize, that to despise them is to despise in them Him. It is a loose and licentious opinion which the Anabaptists have embraced, holding that a Christian man’s liberty is lost, and the soul which Christ hath redeemed unto himself injuriously drawn into servitude under the yoke of human power, if any law be now imposed besides the Gospel of Jesus Christ: in obedience whereunto the Spirit of God and not the constraint of man is to lead us, according to that of the blessed Apostle, “Such as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God,” and not such as live in thraldom unto men. Their judgment is therefore that the Church of Christ should admit no law-makers but the Evangelists. The author of that which causeth another thing to be, is author of that thing also which thereby is caused. The light of natural understanding, wit, and reason, is from God; he It is which thereby doth illuminate every man entering into the world. If there proceed from us any thing

afterwards corrupt and naught, the mother thereof is our own darkness, neither doth it proceed from any such cause whereof God is the author. He is the author of all that we think or do by virtue of that light, which himself hath given. And therefore the laws which the very heathens did gather to direct their actions by, so far forth as they proceeded from the light of nature, God himself doth acknowledge to have proceeded even from himself, and that he was the writer of them in the tables of their hearts. How much more then he the author of those laws, which have been made by his saints, endued further with the heavenly grace of his Spirit, and directed as much as might be with such instructions as his sacred word doth yield! Surely if we have unto those laws that dutiful regard which their dignity doth require, it will not greatly need that we should be exhorted to live in obedience unto them. If they have God himself for their author, contempt which is offered unto them cannot choose but redound unto him. The safest and unto God the most acceptable way of framing our lives therefore is, with all humility, lowliness, and singleness of heart, to study, which way our willing obedience both unto God and man may be yielded even to the utmost of that which is due. X. Touching the mutability of laws that concern the regiment and polity of the Church; changed they are, when either altogether abrogated, or in part repealed, or augmented with farther additions. Wherein we are to note, that this question about the changing of laws concerneth only such laws as are positive, and do make that now good or evil by being commanded or forbidden, which otherwise of itself were not simply the one or the other. Unto such laws it is expressly sometimes added, how long they are to continue in force. If this be nowhere exprest, then have we no light to direct our judgments concerning the changeableness or immutability of them, but by considering the nature and quality of such laws. The nature of every law must be judged of by the end for which it was made, and by the aptness of things therein prescribed unto the same end. It may so fall out that the reason why some laws of God were given is neither opened nor possible to be gathered by wit of man. As why God should forbid Adam that one tree, there was no way for Adam ever to have certainly understood. And at Adam’s ignorance of this point Satan took advantage, urging the more securely a false cause because the true was unto Adam unknown. Why the Jews were forbidden to plough their ground with an ox and an ass, why to clothe themselves with mingled attire of wool and linen, both it was unto them and to us it remaineth obscure. Such laws perhaps cannot be abrogated saving only by whom they were made: because the intent of them being known unto none but the author, he alone can judge how long it is requisite they should endure. But if the reason why things were instituted may be known, and being known do appear manifestly to be of perpetual necessity; then are those things also perpetual, unless they cease to be effectual unto that purpose for which they were at the first instituted. Because when a thing doth cease to be available unto the end which gave it being, the continuance of it must then of necessity appear superfluous. And of this we cannot be ignorant, how sometimes that hath done great good, which afterwards, when time hath changed the ancient course of things, doth grow to be either very hurtful, or not so greatly profitable and necessary. If therefore the end for which a law provideth be perpetually necessary, and the way whereby it provideth perpetually also most apt, no doubt but that every such law ought for ever to remain unchangeable.

Whether God be the author of laws by authorizing that power of men whereby they are made, or by delivering them made immediately from himself, by word only, or in writing also, or howsoever; notwithstanding the authority of their Maker, the mutability of that end for which they are made doth also make them changeable. The law of ceremonies came from God: Moses had commandment to commit it unto the sacred records of Scripture, where it continueth even unto this very day and hour: in force still, as the Jew surmiseth, because God himself was author of it, and for us to abolish what he hath established were presumption most intolerable. But (that which they in the blindness of their obdurate hearts are not able to discern) sith the end for which that law was ordained is now fulfilled, past and gone; how should it but cease any longer to be, which hath no longer any cause of being in force as before? “That which necessity of some special time doth cause to be enjoined bindeth no longer than during that time, but doth afterwards become free.” Which thing is also plain even by that law which the Apostles assembled at the council of Jerusalem did from thence deliver unto the Church of Christ, the preface whereof to authorize it was, “To the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good:” which style they did not use as matching themselves in power with the Holy Ghost, but as testifying the Holy Ghost to be the author, and themselves but only utterers of that decree. This law therefore to have proceeded from God as the author thereof no faithful man will deny. It was of God, not only because God gave them the power whereby they might make laws, but for that it proceeded even from the holy motion and suggestion of that secret divine Spirit, whose sentence they did but only pronounce. Notwithstanding, as the law of ceremonies delivered unto the Jews, so this very law which the Gentiles received from the mouth of the Holy Ghost, is in like respect abrogated by decease of the end for which it was given.But such as do not stick at this point, such as grant that what hath been instituted upon any special cause needeth not to be observed, that cause ceasing, do notwithstanding herein fail; they judge the laws of God only by the author and main end for which they were made, so that for us to change that which he hath established, they hold it execrable pride and presumption, if so be the end and purpose for which God by that mean provideth be permanent. And upon this they ground those ample disputes concerning orders and offices, which being by him appointed for the government of his Church, if it be necessary always that the Church of Christ be governed, then doth the end for which God provided remain still; and therefore in those means which he by law did establish as being fittest unto that end, for us to alter any thing is to lift up ourselves against God, and as it were to countermand him. Wherein they mark not that laws are instruments to rule by, and that instruments are not only to be framed according unto the general end for which they are provided, but even according unto that very particular, which riseth out of the matter whereon they have to work. The end wherefore laws were made may be permanent, and those laws nevertheless require some alteration, if there be any unfitness in the means which they prescribe as tending unto that end and purpose. As for example, a law that to bridle theft doth punish thieves with a quadruple restitution hath an end which will continue as long as the world itself continueth. Theft will be always, and will always need to be bridled. But that the mean which this law provideth for that end, namely the punishment of quadruple restitution, that this will be always

sufficient to bridle and restrain that kind of enormity no man can warrant. Insufficiency of laws doth sometimes come by want of judgment in the makers. Which cause cannot fall into any law termed properly and immediately divine, as it may and doth into human laws often. But that which hath been once most sufficient may wax otherwise by alteration of time and place; that punishment which hath been sometime forcible to bridle sin may grow afterwards too weak and feeble.In a word, we plainly perceive by the difference of those three laws which the Jews received at the hands of God, the moral, ceremonial, and judicial, that if the end for which and the matter according whereunto God maketh his laws continue always one and the same, his laws also do the like; for which cause the moral law cannot be altered: secondly, that whether the matter whereon laws are made continue or continue not, if their end have once ceased, they cease also to be of force; as in the law ceremonial it fareth: finally, that albeit the end continue, as in that law of theft specified and in a great part of those ancient judicials it doth; yet forasmuch as there is not in all respects the same subject or matter remaining for which they were first instituted, even this is sufficient cause of change: and therefore laws, though both ordained of God himself, and the end for which they were ordained continuing, may notwithstanding cease, if by alteration of persons or times they be found unsufficient to attain unto that end. In which respect why may we not presume that God doth even call for such change or alteration as the very condition of things themselves doth make necessary?They which do therefore plead the authority of the law-maker as an argument, wherefore it should not be lawful to change that which he hath instituted, and will have this the cause why all the ordinances of our Saviour are immutable; they which urge the wisdom of God as a proof, that whatsoever laws he hath made they ought to stand, unless himself from heaven proclaim them disannulled, because it is not in man to correct the ordinance of God; may know, if it please them to take notice thereof; that we are far from presuming to think that men can better any thing which God hath done, even as we are from thinking that men should presume to undo some things of men, which God doth know they cannot better. God never ordained any thing that could be bettered. Yet many things he hath that have been changed, and that for the better. That which succeedeth as better now when change is requisite, had been worse when that which now is changed was instituted. Otherwise God had not then left this to choose that, neither would now reject that to choose this, were it not for some new-grown occasion making that which hath been better worse. In this case therefore men do not presume to change God’s ordinance, but they yield thereunto requiring itself to be changed.Against this it is objected, that to abrogate or innovate the Gospel of Christ if men or angels should attempt, it were most heinous and cursed sacrilege. And the Gospel (as they say) containeth not only doctrine instructing men how they should believe, but also precepts concerning the regiment of the Church. Discipline therefore is “a part of the Gospel;” and God being the author of the whole Gospel, as well of discipline as of doctrine, it cannot be but that both of them “have a common cause.” So that as we are to believe for ever the articles of evangelical doctrine, so the precepts of discipline we are in like sort bound for ever to observe.

Touching points of doctrine, as for example, the Unity of God, the Trinity of Persons, salvation by Christ, the resurrection of the body, life everlasting, the judgment to come, and such like, they have been since the first hour that there was a Church in the world, and till the last they must be believed. But as for matters of regiment, they are for the most part of another nature. To make new articles of faith and doctrine no man thinketh it lawful; new laws of government what commonwealth or church is there which maketh not either at one time or another? “The rule of faith,” saith Tertullian, “is but one, and that alone immoveable and impossible to be framed or cast anew.” The law of outward order and polity not so. There is no reason in the world wherefore we should esteem it as necessary always to do, as always to believe, the same things; seeing every man knoweth that the matter of faith is constant, the matter contrariwise of action daily changeable, especially the matter of action belonging unto church polity. Neither can I find that men of soundest judgment have any otherwise taught, than that articles of belief, and things which all men must of necessity do to the end they may be saved, are either expressly set down in Scripture, or else plainly thereby to be gathered. But touching things which belong to discipline and outward polity, the Church hath authority to make canons, laws, and decrees, even as we read that in the Apostles’ times it did. Which kind of laws (forasmuch as they are not in themselves necessary to salvation) may after they are made be also changed as the difference of times or places shall require. Yea, it is not denied I am sure by themselves, that certain things in discipline are of that nature, as they may be varied by times, places, persons, and other the like circumstances. Whereupon I demand, are those changeable points of discipline commanded in the word of God or no? If they be not commanded and yet may be received in the Church, how can their former position stand, condemning all things in the Church which in the word are not commanded? If they be commanded and yet may suffer change, how can this latter stand, affirming all things immutable which are commanded of God? Their distinction touching matters of substance and of circumstance, though true, will not serve. For be they great things or be they small, if God have commanded them in the Gospel, and his commanding them in the Gospel do make them unchangeable, there is no reason we should more change the one than we may the other. If the authority of the maker do prove unchangeableness in the laws which God hath made, then must all laws which he hath made be necessarily for ever permanent, though they be but of circumstance only and not of substance. I therefore conclude, that neither God’s being author of laws for government of his Church, nor his committing them unto Scripture, is any reason sufficient wherefore all churches should for ever be bound to keep them without change.But of one thing we are here to give them warning by the way. For whereas in this discourse we have oftentimes profest that many parts of discipline or church polity are delivered in Scripture, they may perhaps imagine that we are driven to confess their discipline to be delivered in Scripture, and that having no other means to avoid it, we are fain to argue for the changeableness of laws ordained even by God himself, as if otherwise theirs of necessity should take place, and that under which we live be abandoned. There is no remedy therefore but to abate this error in them, and directly to let them know, that if they fall into any such conceit, they do but a little flatter their own cause. As for us, we think in no respect so highly of it. Our persuasion is, that no age ever

had knowledge of it but only ours; that they which defend it devised it; that neither Christ nor his Apostles at any time taught it, but the contrary. If therefore we did seek to maintain that which most advantageth our own cause, the very best way for us and the strongest against them were to hold even as they do, that in Scripture there must needs be found some particular form of church polity which God hath instituted, and which for that very cause belongeth to all churches, to all times. But with any such partial eye to respect ourselves, and by cunning to make those things seem the truest which are the fittest to serve our purpose, is a thing which we neither like nor mean to follow. Wherefore that which we take to be generally true concerning the mutability of laws, the same we have plainly delivered, as being persuaded of nothing more than we are of this, that whether it be in matter of speculation or of practice, no untruth can possibly avail the patron and defender long, and that things most truly are likewise most behovefully spoken. XI. This we hold and grant for truth, that those very laws which of their own nature are changeable, be notwithstanding uncapable of change, if he which gave them, being of authority so to do, forbid absolutely to change them; neither may they admit alteration against the will of such a law-maker. Albeit therefore we do not find any cause why of right there should be necessarily an immutable form set down in holy Scripture; nevertheless if indeed there have been at any time a church polity so set down, the change whereof the sacred Scripture doth forbid, surely for men to alter those laws which God for perpetuity hath established were presumption most intolerable.To prove therefore that the will of Christ was to establish laws so permanent and immutable that in any sort to alter them cannot but highly offend God, thus they reason. First, if Moses, being but a servant in the house of God, did therein establish laws of government for perpetuity, laws which they that were of the household might not alter; shall we admit into our thoughts, that the Son of God hath in providing for this his household declared himself less faithful than Moses? Moses delivering unto the Jews such laws as were durable, if those be changeable which Christ hath delivered unto us, we are not able to avoid it, but (that which to think were heinous impiety) we of necessity must confess even the Son of God himself to have been less faithful than Moses. Which argument shall need no touchstone to try it by but some other of the like making. Moses erected in the wilderness a tabernacle which was moveable from place to place; Salomon a sumptuous and stately temple which was not moveable: therefore Salomon was faithfuller than Moses, which no man endued with reason will think. And yet by this reason it doth plainly follow. He that will see how faithful the one or the other was, must compare the things which they both did unto the charge which God gave each of them. The Apostle in making comparison between our Saviour and Moses attributeth faithfulness unto both, and maketh this difference between them; Moses in, but Christ over the house of God; Moses in that house which was his by charge and commission, though to govern it, yet to govern it as a servant; but Christ over this house as being his own entire possession.

Our Lord and Saviour doth make protestation, “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” Faithful therefore he was, and concealed not any part of his Father’s will. But did any part of that will require the immutability of laws concerning church polity? They answer, Yea. For else God should less favour us than the Jews. God would not have their church guided by any laws but his own. And seeing this did so continue even till Christ, now to ease God of that care, or rather to deprive the Church of his patronage, what reason have we? Surely none to derogate any thing from the ancient love which God hath borne to his Church. An heathen philosopher there is, who considering how many things beasts have which men have not, how naked in comparison of them, how impotent, and how much less able we are to shift for ourselves a long time after we enter into this world, repiningly concluded hereupon, that nature being a careful mother for them, is towards us a hard-hearted stepdame. No, we may not measure the affection of our gracious God towards his by such differences. For even herein shineth his wisdom, that though the ways of his providence be many, yet the end which he bringeth all at the length unto is one and the selfsame.But if such kind of reasoning were good, might we not even as directly conclude the very same concerning laws of secular regiment? Their own words are these: “In the ancient church of the Jews, God did command and Moses commit unto writing all things pertinent as well to the civil as to the ecclesiastical state.” God gave them laws of civil regiment, and would not permit their commonweal to be governed by any other laws than his own. Doth God less regard our temporal estate in this world, or provide for it worse than for theirs? To us notwithstanding he hath not as to them delivered any particular form of temporal regiment, unless perhaps we think, as some do, that the grafting of the Gentiles’ and their incorporating into Israel doth import that we ought to be subject unto the rites and laws of their whole polity. We see then how weak such disputes are, and how smally they make to this purpose.That Christ did not mean to set down particular positive laws for all things in such sort as Moses did, the very different manner of delivering the laws of Moses and the laws of Christ doth plainly shew. Moses had commandment to gather the ordinances of God together distinctly, and orderly to set them down according unto their several kinds, for each public duty and office the laws that belong thereto, as appeareth in the books themselves, written of purpose for that end. Contrariwise the laws of Christ we find rather mentioned by occasion in the writings of the Apostles, than any solemn thing directly written to comprehend them in legal sort.Again, the positive laws which Moses gave, they were given for the greatest part with restraint to the land of Jewry: “Behold,” saith Moses, “I have taught you ordinances and laws, as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do even so within the land whither ye go to possess it.” Which laws and ordinances positive he plainly distinguisheth afterward from the laws of the Two Tables which were moral. “The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only a voice. Then he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments, and wrote them upon two tables of stone. And the Lord commanded me that same time, that I should teach you ordinances and laws which

ye should observe in the land whither ye go to possess it.” The same difference is again set down in the next chapter following. For rehearsal being made of the Ten Commandments, it followeth immediately, “These words the Lord spake unto all your multitude in the mount out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the darkness, with a great voice, and added no more; and wrote them upon two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.” But concerning other laws, the people give their consent to receive them at the hands of Moses: “Go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God saith, and declare thou unto us all that the Lord our God saith unto thee, and we will hear it and do it.” The people’s alacrity herein God highly commendeth with most effectual and hearty speech: “I have heard the voice of the words of this people; they have spoken well. 0 that there were such an heart in them to fear me, and to keep all my commandments always, that it might go well with them and with their children for ever! Go, say unto them, `Return you to your tents;’ but stand thou here with me, and I will tell thee all the commandments and the ordinances and the laws which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I have given them to possess.” From this later kind the former are plainly distinguished in many things. They were not both at one time delivered, neither both after one sort, nor to one end. The former uttered by the voice of God himself in the hearing of six hundred thousand men; the former written with the finger of God; the former termed by the name of a Covenant; the former given to be kept without either mention of time how long, or of place where. On the other side, the later given after, and neither written by God himself, nor given unto the whole multitude immediately from God, but unto Moses, and from him to them both by word and writing; the later termed Ceremonies, Judgments, Ordinances, but no where Covenants; finally, the observation of the later restrained unto the land where God would establish them to inhabit. The laws positive are not framed without regard had to the place and persons for which they are made. If therefore Almighty God in framing their laws had an eye unto the nature of that people, and to the country where they were to dwell; if these peculiar and proper considerations were respected in the making of their laws, and must be also regarded in the positive laws of all other nations besides: then seeing that nations are not all alike, surely the giving of one kind of positive laws unto one only people, without any liberty to alter them, is but a slender proof, that therefore one kind should in like sort be given to serve everlastingly for all.But that which most of all maketh for the clearing of this point is, that the Jews, who had laws so particularly determining and so fully instructing them in all affairs what to do, were notwithstanding continually inured with causes exorbitant, and such as their laws had not provided for. And in this point much more is granted us than we ask, namely, that for one thing which we have left to the order of the Church, they had twenty which were undecided by the express word of God; and that as their ceremonies and sacraments were multiplied above ours, even so grew the number of those cases which were not determined by any express word. So that if we may devise one law, they by this reason might devise twenty; and if their devising so many were not forbidden, shall their example prove us forbidden to devise as much as one law for the ordering of the Church? We might not devise no not one, if their example did prove that our Saviour had utterly

forbidden all alteration of his laws; inasmuch as there can be no law devised, but needs it must either take away from his, or add thereunto more or less, and so make some kind of alteration. But of this so large a grant we are content not to take advantage. Men are oftentimes in a sudden passion more liberal than they would be if they had leisure to take advice. And therefore so bountiful words of course and frank speeches we are contented to let pass, without turning them unto advantage with too much rigour.It may be they had rather be listened unto, when they commend the kings of Israel “which attempted nothing in the government of the Church without the express word of God;” and when they urge that God left nothing in his word “undescribed,” whether it concerned the worship of God or outward polity, nothing unset down, and therefore charged them strictly to keep themselves unto that, without any alteration. Howbeit, seeing it cannot be denied, but that many things there did belong unto the course of their public affairs, wherein they had no express word at all to shew precisely what they should do; the difference between their condition and ours in these cases will bring some light unto the truth of this present controversy. Before the fact of the son of Shelomith, there was no law which did appoint any certain punishment for blasphemers. That wretched creature being therefore deprehended in that impiety, was held in ward, till the mind of the Lord were known concerning his case. The like practice is also mentioned upon occasion of a breach of the Sabbath day. They find a poor silly creature gathering sticks in the wilderness, they bring him unto Moses and Aaron and all the congregation, they lay him in hold, because it was not declared what should be done with him, till God had said unto Moses, “This man shall die the death.” The law required to keep the Sabbath; but for the breach of the Sabbath what punishment should be inflicted it did not appoint. Such occasions as these are rare. And for such things as do fall scarce once in many ages of men, it did suffice to take such order as was requisite when they fell. But if the case were such as being not already determined by law were notwithstanding likely oftentimes to come in question, it gave occasion of adding laws that were not before. Thus it fell out in the case of those men polluted, and of the daughters of Zelophehad, whose causes Moses having brought before the Lord, received laws to serve for the like in time to come. The Jews to this end had the Oracle of God, they had the Prophets: and by such means God himself instructed them from heaven what to do, in all things that did greatly concern their state and were not already set down in the Law. Shall we then hereupon argue even against our own experience and knowledge? Shall we seek to persuade men that of necessity it is with us as it was with them; that because God is ours in all respects as much as theirs, therefore either no such way of direction hath been at any time, or if it have been, it doth still continue in the Church; or if the same do not continue, that yet it must be at the least supplied by some such mean as pleaseth us to account of equal force? A more dutiful and religious way for us were to admire the wisdom of God, which shineth in the beautiful variety of all things, but most in the manifold and yet harmonious dissimilitude of those ways, whereby his Church upon earth is guided from age to age, throughout all generations of men.The Jews were necessarily to continue till the coming of Christ in the flesh, and the gathering of nations unto him. So much the promise made unto Abraham did import. So much the prophecy of Jacob at the hour of his death did foreshew. Upon the safety

therefore of their very outward state and condition for so long, the after-good of the whole world and the salvation of all did depend. Unto their so long safety, for two things it was necessary to provide; namely, the preservation of their state against foreign resistance, and the continuance of their peace within themselves. Touching the one, as they received the promise of God to be the rock of their defence, against which whoso did violently rush should but bruise and batter themselves; so likewise they had his commandment in all their affairs that way to seek direction and counsel from him. Men’s consultations are always perilous. And it falleth out many times that after long deliberation those things are by their wit even resolved on, which by trial are found most opposite to public safety. It is no impossible thing for states, be they never so well established, yet by oversight in some one act or treaty between them and their potent opposites utterly to cast away themselves for ever. Wherefore lest it should so fall out to them upon whom so much did depend, they were not permitted to enter into war, nor conclude any league of peace, nor to wade through any act of moment between them and foreign states, unless the Oracle of God or his Prophets were first consulted with. And lest domestical disturbance should waste them within themselves, because there was nothing unto this purpose more effectual, than if the authority of their laws and governors were such, as none might presume to take exception against it, or to shew disobedience unto it, without incurring the hatred and detestation of all men that had any spark of the fear of God; therefore he gave them even their positive laws from heaven, and as oft as occasion required chose in like sort rulers also to lead and govern them. Notwithstanding some desperately impious there were, which adventured to try what harm it could bring upon them, if they did attempt to be authors of confusion, and to resist both governors and laws. Against such monsters God maintained his own by fearful execution of extraordinary judgment upon them. By which means it came to pass, that although they were a people infested and mightily hated of all others throughout the world, although by nature hard-hearted, querulous, wrathful, and impatient of rest and quietness; yet was there nothing of force either one way or other to work the ruin and subversion of their state, till the time before-mentioned was expired. Thus we see that there was not no cause of dissimilitude in these things between that one only people before Christ, and the kingdoms of the world since.And whereas it is further alleged that albeit “in civil matters and things pertaining to this present life God hath used a greater particularity with them than amongst us, framing laws according to the quality of that people and country; yet the leaving of us at greater liberty in things civil is so far from proving the like liberty in things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven, that it rather proves a straiter bond. For even as when the Lord would have his favour more appear by temporal blessings of this life towards the people under the Law than towards us, he gave also politic laws most exactly, whereby they might both most easily come into and most steadfastly remain in possession of those earthly benefits: even so at this time, wherein he would not have his favour so much esteemed by those outward commodities, it is required, that as his care in prescribing laws for that purpose hath somewhat fallen in leaving them to men’s consultations which may be deceived, so

## his care for conduct and government of the life to come should (if it were possible) rise, in leaving less to the order of men than in times past.” These are but weak and feeble disputes for the inference of that conclusion which is intended. For saving only in such consideration as hath been shewed, there is no cause wherefore we should think God more desirous to manifest his favour by temporal blessings towards them than towards us. Godliness had unto them, and it hath also unto us, the promises both of this life and the life to come. That the care of God hath fallen in earthly things, and therefore should rise as much in heavenly; that more is left unto men’s consultations in the one, and therefore less must be granted in the other; that God, having used a greater particularity with them than with us for matters pertaining unto this life, is to make us amends by the more exact delivery of laws for government of the life to come: these are proportions, whereof if there be any rule, we must plainly confess that which truth is, we know it not. God which spake unto them by his Prophets, hath unto us by his only-begotten Son; those mysteries of grace and salvation which were but darkly disclosed unto them, have unto us most clearly shined. Such differences between them and us the Apostles of Christ have well acquainted us withal. But as for matter belonging to the outward conduct or government of the Church, seeing that even in sense it is manifest that our Lord and Saviour hath not by positive laws descended so far into particularities with us as Moses with them, neither doth by extraordinary means, oracles, and prophets, direct us as them he did in those things which rising daily by new occasions are of necessity to be provided for; doth it not hereupon rather follow, that although not to them, yet to us there should be freedom and liberty granted to make laws?Yea, but the Apostle St. Paul doth fearfully charge Timothy, even “in the sight of God who quickeneth all, and of Jesus Christ who witnessed that famous confession before Pontius Pilate, to keep what was commanded him safe and sound till the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This doth exclude all liberty of changing the laws of Christ, whether by abrogation or addition, or howsoever. For in Timothy the whole Church of Christ receiveth charge concerning her duty; and that charge is to keep the Apostle’s commandment; and his commandment did contain the laws that concerned church government; and those laws he straitly requireth to be observed without breach or blame, till the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Scripture we grant every one man’s lesson to be the common instruction of all men, so far forth as their cases are like; and that religiously to keep the Apostle’s commandments in whatsoever they may concern us we all stand bound. But touching that commandment which Timothy was charged with, we swerve undoubtedly from the Apostle’s precise meaning if we extend it so largely, that the arms thereof shall reach unto all things which were commanded him by the Apostle. The very words themselves do restrain themselves unto some one especial commandment among many. And therefore it is not said, “Keep the ordinances, laws, and constitutions, which thou hast received;” but thn entolhn , “that great commandment, which doth principally concern thee and thy calling;” that commandment which Christ did so often inculcate unto Peter; that commandment unto the careful discharge whereof they of Ephesus are exhorted, “Attend to yourselves, and to all the flock wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you Bishops, to feed the Church of God, which he hath purchased by his own blood;” finally that commandment which unto the

same Timothy is by the same Apostle even in the same form and manner afterwards again urged, “I charge thee in the sight of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, which will judge the quick and dead at his appearance and in his kingdom, preach the word of God.” When Timothy was instituted into the office, then was the credit and trust of this duty committed unto his faithful care. The doctrine of the Gospel was then given him, “as the precious talent or treasure of Jesus Christ;” then received he for performance of this duty “the special gift of the Holy Ghost” To keep this commandment immaculate and blameless” was to teach the Gospel of Christ without mixture of corrupt and unsound doctrine, such as a number did even in those times intermingle with the mysteries of Christian belief. “Till the appearance of Christ to keep it so,” doth not import the time wherein it should be kept, but rather the time whereunto the final reward for keeping it was reserved: according to that of St. Paul concerning himself, “I have kept the faith; for the residue there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous shall in that day render unto me.” If they that labour in this harvest should respect but the present fruit of their painful travel, a poor encouragement it were unto them to continue therein all the days of their life. But their reward is great in heaven; the crown of righteousness which shall be given them in that day is honourable. The fruit of their industry then shall they reap with full contentment and satisfaction, but not till then. Wherein the greatness of their reward is abundantly sufficient to countervail the tediousness of their expectation. Wherefore till then, they that are in labour must rest in hope. “O Timothy, keep that which is committed unto thy charge; that great commandment which thou hast received keep, till the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In which sense although we judge the Apostle’s words to have been uttered, yet hereunto we do not require them to yield, that think any other construction more sound. If therefore it be rejected, and theirs esteemed more probable which hold, that the last words do import perpetual observation of the Apostle’s commandment imposed necessarily for ever upon the militant Church of Christ; let them withal consider, that then his commandment cannot so largely be taken, as to comprehend whatsoever the Apostle did command Timothy. For themselves do not all bind the Church unto some things whereof Timothy received charge, as namely unto that precept concerning the choice of widows. So as they cannot hereby maintain that all things positively commanded concerning the affairs of the Church were commanded for perpetuity. And we do not deny that certain things were commanded to be though positive yet perpetual in the Church.They should not therefore urge against us places that seem to forbid change, but rather such as set down some measure of alteration, which measure if we have exceeded, then might they therewith charge us justly: whereas now they themselves both granting, and also using liberty to change, cannot in reason dispute absolutely against all change. Christ delivered no inconvenient or unmeet laws: sundry of ours they hold inconvenient: therefore such laws they cannot possibly hold to be Christ’s: being not his, they must of necessity grant them added unto his. Yet certain of those very laws so added they themselves do not judge unlawful; as they plainly confess both in matter of prescript attire and of rites appertaining to burial. Their own protestations are, that they plead against the inconvenience, not the unlawfulness of popish apparel; and against the

inconvenience not the unlawfulness of ceremonies in burial. Therefore they hold it a thing not unlawful to add to the laws of Jesus Christ; and so consequently they yield that no law of Christ forbiddeth addition unto church laws.The judgment of Calvin being alleged against them, to whom of all men they attribute most; whereas his words be plain, that for ceremonies and external discipline the Church hath power to make laws: the answer which hereunto they make is, that indefinitely the speech is true, and that so it was meant by him; namely, that some things belonging unto external discipline and ceremonies are in the power and arbitrement of the Church; but neither was it meant, neither is it true generally, that all external discipline and all ceremonies are left to the order of the Church, inasmuch as the sacraments of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord are ceremonies, which yet the Church may not therefore abrogate. Again, Excommunication is a part of external discipline, which might also be cast away, if all external discipline were arbitrary and in the choice of the Church. By which their answer it doth appear, that touching the names of ceremony and external discipline they gladly would have us so understood, as if we did herein contain a great deal more than we do. The fault which we find with them is, that they overmuch abridge the Church of her power in these things. Whereupon they recharge us, as if in these things we gave the Church a liberty which hath no limits or bounds; as if all things which the name of discipline containeth were of the Church’s free choice; so that we might either have church governors and government or want them, either retain or reject church censures as we list. They wonder at us, as at men which think it so indifferent what the Church doth in matter of ceremonies, that it may be feared lest we judge the very Sacraments themselves to be held at the Church’s pleasure. No, the name of ceremonies we do not use in so large a meaning as to bring Sacraments within the compass and. reach thereof, although things belonging unto the outward form and seemly administration of them are contained in that name, even as we use it. For the name of ceremonies we use as they themselves do, when they speak after this sort: “The doctrine and discipline of the Church, as the weightiest things, ought especially to be looked unto; but the ceremonies also, as mint and cummin, ought not to be neglected.” Besides, in the matter of external discipline or regiment itself, we do not deny but there are some things whereto the church is bound till the world’s end. So as the question is only how far the bounds of the Church’s liberty do reach. We hold, that the power which the Church hath lawfully to make laws and orders for itself doth extend unto sundry things of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and such other matters, whereto their opinion is that the Church’s authority and power doth not reach. Whereas therefore in disputing against us about this point, they take their compass a great deal wider than the truth of things can afford; producing reasons and arguments by way of generality, to prove that Christ hath set down all things belonging any way unto the form of ordering his Church, and hath absolutely forbidden change by addition or diminution, great or small: (for so their manner of disputing is:) we are constrained to make our defence, by shewing that Christ hath not deprived his Church so far of all liberty in making orders and laws for itself, and that they themselves do not think he hath so done. For are they able to shew that all particular customs, rites, and orders of reformed churches have been appointed by Christ

himself? No: they grant that in matter of circumstance they alter that which they have received, but in things of substance, they keep the laws of Christ without change. If we say the same in our own behalf (which surely we may do with a great deal more truth) then must they cancel all that hath been before alleged, and begin to inquire afresh, whether we retain the laws that Christ hath delivered concerning matters of substance, yea or no. For our constant persuasion in this point is as theirs, that we have no where altered the laws of Christ farther than in such particularities only as have the nature of things changeable according to the difference of times, places, persons, and other the like circumstances. Christ hath commanded prayers to be made, sacraments to be ministered, his Church to be carefully taught and guided. Concerning every of these somewhat Christ hath commanded which must be kept till the world’s end. On the contrary side, in every of them somewhat there may be added, as the Church shall judge it expedient. So that if they will speak to purpose, all which hitherto hath been disputed of they must give over, and stand upon such particulars only as they can shew we have either added or abrogated otherwise than we ought, in the matter of church polity. Whatsoever Christ hath commanded for ever to be kept in his Church, the same we take not upon us to abrogate; and whatsoever our laws have thereunto added besides, of such quality we hope it is as no law of Christ doth any where condemn.Wherefore that all may be laid together and gathered into a narrower room: First, so far forth as the Church is the mystical body of Christ and his invisible spouse, it needeth no external polity. That very part of the law divine which teacheth faith and works of righteousness is itself alone sufficient for the Church of God in that respect. But as the Church is a visible society and body politic, laws of polity it cannot want.Secondly: Whereas therefore it cometh in the second place to be inquired, what laws are fittest and best for the Church; they who first embraced that rigorous and strict opinion, which depriveth the Church of liberty to make any kind of law for herself, inclined as it should seem thereunto, for that they imagined all things which the Church doth without commandment of Holy Scripture subject to that reproof which the Scripture itself useth in certain cases when divine authority ought alone to be followed. Hereupon they thought it enough for the cancelling of any kind of order whatsoever, to say. “The word of God teacheth it not, it is a device of the brain of man, away with it therefore out of the Church.” St. Augustine was of another mind, who speaking of fasts on the Sunday saith, “That he which would choose out that day to fast on, should give thereby no small offence to the Church of God, which had received a contrary custom. For in these things, whereof the Scripture appointeth no certainty, the use of the people of God or the ordinances of our fathers must serve for a law. In which case if we will dispute, and condemn one sort by another’s custom, it will be but matter of endless contention; where, forasmuch as the labour of reasoning shall hardly beat into men’s heads any certain or necessary truth, surely it standeth us upon to take heed, lest with the tempest of strife the brightness of charity and love be darkened.” If all things must be commanded of God which may be practised of his Church, I would know what commandment the Gileadites had to erect that altar which is spoken of in the Book of Josua. Did not congruity of reason induce them thereunto, and suffice for

defence of their fact? I would know what commandment the women of Israel had yearly to mourn and lament in the memory of Jephtha’s daughter; what commandment the Jews had to celebrate their feast of Dedication, never spoken of in the law, yet solemnized even by our Saviour himself; what commandment finally they had for the ceremony of odours used about the bodies of the dead, after which custom notwithstanding (sith it was their custom) our Lord was contented that his own most precious body should be entombed. Wherefore to reject all orders of the Church which men have established, is to think worse of the laws of men in this respect, than either the judgment of wise men alloweth, or the law of God itself will bear.Howbeit they which had once taken upon them to condemn all things done in the Church and not commanded of God to be done, saw it was necessary for them (continuing in defence of this their opinion) to hold that needs there must be in Scripture set down a complete particular form of church polity, a form prescribing how all the affairs of the Church must be ordered, a form in no respect lawful to be altered by mortal men. For reformation of which oversight and error in them, there were that thought it a part of Christian love and charity to instruct them better, and to open unto them the difference between matters of perpetual necessity to all men’s salvation, and matters of ecclesiastical polity: the one both fully and plainly taught in holy Scripture, the other not necessary to be in such sort there prescribed; the one not capable of any diminution or augmentation at all by men, the other apt to admit both. Hereupon the authors of the former opinion were presently seconded by other wittier and better learned, who being loth that the form of church polity which they sought to bring in should be otherwise than in the highest degree accounted of, took first an exception against the difference between church polity and matters of necessity unto salvation; secondly, against the restraint of Scripture, which they say receiveth injury at our hands, when we teach that it teacheth not as well matters of polity as of faith and salvation. Thirdly, Constrained hereby we have been therefore both to maintain that distinction, as a thing not only true in itself, but by them likewise so acknowledged, though unawares; Fourthly, and to make manifest that from Scripture we offer not to derogate the least thing that truth thereunto doth claim, inasmuch as by us it is willingly confest, that the Scripture of God is a storehouse abounding with inestimable treasures of wisdom and knowledge in many kinds, over and above things in this one kind barely necessary; yea, even that matters of ecclesiastical polity are not therein omitted, but taught also, albeit not so taught as those other things before mentioned. For so perfectly are those things taught, that nothing can ever need to be added, nothing ever cease to be necessary; these on the contrary side, as being of a far other nature and quality, not so strictly nor everlastingly commanded in Scripture, but that unto the complete form of church polity much may be requisite which the Scripture teacheth not, and much which it hath taught become unrequisite, sometime because we need not use it, sometime also because we cannot. In which respect for mine own part, although I see that certain reformed churches, the Scottish especially and French, have not that which best agreeth with the sacred Scripture, I mean the government that is by Bishops, inasmuch as both those churches are fallen under a different kind of regiment; which to remedy it is for the one altogether too late, and too soon for the other during their present affliction and troubles: this their defect and imperfection I had rather lament in such case than exagitate, considering that men oftentimes without any fault of their

own may be driven to want that kind of polity or regiment which is best, and to content themselves with that, which either the irremediable error of former times, or the necessity of the present hath cast upon them.Fifthly, Now because that position first-mentioned, which holdeth it necessary that all things which the Church may lawfully do in her own regiment be commanded in holy Scripture, hath by the later defenders thereof been greatly qualified; who, though perceiving it to be over extreme, are notwithstanding loth to acknowledge any oversight therein, and therefore labour what they may to salve it by construction; we have for the more perspicuity delivered what was thereby meant at the first: sixthly, how injurious a thing it were unto all the churches of God for men to hold it in that meaning: seventhly, and how imperfect their interpretations are who so much labour to help it, either by dividing commandments of Scripture into two kinds, and so defending that all things must be commanded, if not in special yet in general precepts; eighthly, or by taking it as meant, that in case the Church do devise any new order, she ought therein to follow the direction of Scripture only, and not any starlight of man’s reason. Ninthly, both which evasions being cut off, we have in the next place declared after what sort the Church may lawfully frame to herself laws of polity, and in what reckoning such positive laws both are with God and should be with men. Tenthly, furthermore, because to abridge the liberty of the Church in this behalf, it hath been made a thing very odious, that when God himself hath devised some certain laws and committed them to sacred Scripture, man by abrogation, addition, or any way, should presume to alter and change them; it was of necessity to be examined, whether the authority of God in making, or his care in committing those his laws unto Scripture, be sufficient arguments to prove that God doth in no case allow they should suffer any such kind of change. Eleventhly, the last refuge for proof that divine laws of Christian church polity may not be altered by extinguishment of any old or addition of new in that kind, is partly a marvellous strange discourse, that Christ (unless he should shew himself not so faithful as Moses, or not so wise as Lycurgus and Solon) must needs have set down in holy Scripture some certain complete and unchangeable form of polity: and partly a coloured show of some evidence where change of that sort of laws may seem expressly forbidden, although in truth nothing less be done.I might have added hereunto their more familiar and popular disputes, as, The Church is a city, yea the city of the great King; and the life of a city is polity: The Church is the house of the living God; and what house can there be without some order for the government of it? In the royal house of a prince there must be officers for government, such as not any servant in the house but the prince whose the house is shall judge convenient. So the house of God must have orders for the government of it, such as not any of the household but God himself hath appointed. It cannot stand with the love and wisdom of God to leave such order untaken as is necessary for the due government of his Church. The numbers, degrees, orders, and attire of Salomon’s servants, did shew his wisdom; therefore he which is greater than Salomon hath not failed to leave in his house such orders for government thereof, as may serve to be a looking-glass for his providence, care, and wisdom, to be seen in. That little spark of the light of nature which remaineth in us may serve us for the affairs of this life. “But as in all other matters concerning the

kingdom of heaven, so principally in this which concerneth the very government of that kingdom, needful it is we should be taught of God. As long as men are persuaded of any order that it is only of men, they presume of their own understanding, and they think to devise another not only as good, but better than that which they have received. By severity of punishment this presumption and curiosity may be restrained. But that cannot work such cheerful obedience as is yielded where the conscience hath respect to God as the author of laws and orders. This was it which countenanced the laws of Moses, made concerning outward polity for the administration of holy things. The like some lawgivers of the heathens did pretend, but falsely; yet wisely discerning the use of this persuasion. For the better obedience’ sake therefore it was expedient that God should be author of the polity of his Church.”But to what issue doth all this come? A man would think that they which hold out with such discourses were of nothing more fully persuaded than of this, that the Scripture hath set down a complete form of church polity, universal, perpetual, altogether unchangeable. For so it would follow, if the premises were sound and strong to such effect as is pretended. Notwithstanding, they which have thus formally maintained argument in defence of the first oversight, are by the very evidence of truth themselves constrained to make this in effect their conclusion, that the Scripture of God hath many things concerning church polity; that of those many some are of greater weight, some of less; that what hath been urged as touching immutability of laws, it extendeth in truth no farther than only to laws wherein things of greater moment are prescribed. Now those things of greater moment, what are they? Forsooth, “doctors, pastors, lay-elders, elderships compounded of these three; synods, consisting of many elderships; deacons, women-church-servants or widows; free consent of the people unto actions of greatest moment, after they be by churches or synods orderly resolved.” All “this form” of polity (if yet we may term that a form of building, when men have laid a few rafters together, and those not all of the soundest neither) but howsoever, all this form they conclude is prescribed in such sort, that to add to it any thing as of like importance (for so I think they mean) or to abrogate of it any thing at all, is unlawful. In which resolution if they will firmly and constantly persist, I see not but that concerning the points which hitherto have been disputed of, they must agree that they have molested the Church with needless opposition, and henceforward as we said before betake themselves wholly unto the trial of particulars, whether every of those things which they esteem as principal, be either so esteemed of, or at all established for perpetuity in holy Scripture; and whether any particular thing in our Church polity be received other than the Scripture alloweth of, either in greater things or in smaller.The matters wherein Church polity is conversant are the public religious duties of the Church, as the administration of the word and sacraments, prayers, spiritual censures, and the like. To these the Church standeth always bound. Laws of polity, are laws which appoint in what manner these duties shall be performed. In performance whereof because all that are of the Church cannot jointly and equally work, the first thing in polity required is a difference of persons in the Church, without which difference those functions cannot in orderly sort be executed. Hereupon we hold

that God’s clergy are a state, which hath been and will be, as long as there is a Church upon earth, necessary by the plain word of God himself; a state whereunto the rest of God’s people must be subject as touching things that appertain to their souls’ health. For where polity is, it cannot but appoint some to be leaders of others, and some to be led by others. “If the blind lead the blind, they both perish.” It is with the clergy, if their persons be respected, even as it is with other men; their quality many times far beneath that which the dignity of their place requireth. Howbeit according to the order of polity, they being the “lights of the world,” others (though better and wiser) must that way be subject unto them. Again, forasmuch as where the clergy are any great multitude, order doth necessarily require that by degrees they be distinguished; we hold there have ever been and ever ought to be in such case at leastwise two sorts of ecclesiastical persons, the one subordinate unto the other; as to the Apostles in the beginning, and to the Bishops always since, we find plainly both in Scripture and in all ecclesiastical records, other ministers of the word and sacraments have been., Moreover, it cannot enter into any man’s conceit to think it lawful, that every man which listeth should take upon him charge in the Church; and therefore a solemn admittance is of such necessity, that without it there can be no church-polity. A number of particularities there are, which make for the more convenient being of these principal and perpetual parts in ecclesiastical polity, but yet are not of such constant use and necessity in God’s Church. Of this kind are, times and places appointed for the exercise of religion; specialties belonging to the public solemnity of the word, the sacraments, and prayer; the enlargement or abridgment of functions ministerial depending upon those two principal before-mentioned; to conclude, even whatsoever doth by way of formality and circumstance concern any public action of the Church. Now although that which the Scripture hath of things in the former kind be for ever permanent: yet in the later both much of that which the Scripture teacheth is not always needful; and much the Church of God shall always need which the Scripture teacheth not. So as the form of polity by them set down for perpetuity is three ways faulty: faulty in omitting some things which in Scripture are of that nature, as namely the difference that ought to be of Pastors when they grow to any great multitude: faulty in requiring Doctors, Deacons, Widows, and such like, as things of perpetual necessity by the law of God, which in truth are nothing less: faulty also in urging some things by Scripture immutable, as their Lay-elders, which the Scripture neither maketh immutable nor at all teacheth, for any thing either we can as yet find or they have hitherto been able to prove. But hereof more in the books that follow.As for those marvellous discourses whereby they adventure to argue that God must needs have done the thing which they imagine was to be done; I must confess I have often wondered at their exceeding boldness herein. When the question is whether God have delivered in Scripture (as they affirm he hath) a complete, particular, immutable form of church polity, why take they that other both presumptuous and superfluous

labour to prove he should have done it; there being no way in this case to prove the deed of God, saving only by producing that evidence wherein he hath done it? But if there be no such thing apparent upon record, they do as if one should demand a legacy by force and virtue of some written testament, wherein there being no such thing specified, he pleadeth that there it must needs be, and bringeth arguments from the love or goodwill which always the testator bore him; imagining, that these or the like proofs will convict a testament to have that in it which other men can no where by reading find. In matters which concern the actions of God, the most dutiful way on our part is to search what God hath done, and with meekness to admire that, rather than to dispute what he in congruity of reason ought to do. The ways which he hath whereby to do all things for the greatest good of his Church are moe in number than we can search, other in nature than that we should presume to determine which of many should be the fittest for him to choose, till such time as we see he hath chosen of many some one; which one we then may boldly conclude to be the fittest, because he hath taken it before the rest. When we do otherwise, surely we exceed our bounds; who and where we are we forget; and therefore needful it is that our pride in such cases be controlled, and our disputes beaten back with those demands of the blessed Apostle, “How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who was his counsellor?”

THE FOURTH BOOK. CONCERNING THEIR THIRD ASSERTION, THAT OUR FORM OF CHURCH POLITY IS CORRUPTED WITH POPISH ORDERS, RITES, AND CEREMONIES, BANISHED OUT OF CERTAIN REFORMED CHURCHES, WHOSE EXAMPLE THEREIN WE OUGHT TO HAVE FOLLOWED. THE MATTER CONTAINED IN THIS FOURTH BOOK. I. How great use Ceremonies have in the Church. II. The first thing they blame in the kind of our Ceremonies is, that we have not in them ancient apostolical simplicity, but a greater pomp and stateliness. III. The second, that so many of them are the same which the Church of Rome useth; and the reasons which they bring to prove them for that cause blame-worthy. IV. How when they go about to expound what Popish Ceremonies they mean, they contradict their own arguments against Popish Ceremonies. V. An answer to the argument whereby they would prove, that sith we allow the customs of our fathers to be followed, we therefore may not allow such customs as the Church of Rome hath, because we cannot account of them which are of that Church as of our fathers. VI, To their allegation, that the course of God's own wisdom doth make against our conformity with the Church of Rome in such things. VII. To the example of the eldest Churches which they bring for the same purpose. VIII. That it is not our best polity (as they pretend it is) for establishment of sound religion, to have in these things no agreement with the Church of Rome being unsound. IX. That neither the Papists upbraiding us as furnished out of their store, nor any hope which in that respect they are said to conceive, doth make any more against our ceremonies than the former allegations have done. X. The grief which they say godly brethren conceive at such ceremonies as we have common with the Church of Rome. XI. The third thing for which they reprove a great part of our ceremonies is, for that as we have them from the Church of Rome, so that Church had them from the Jews. XII. The fourth, for that sundry of them have been (they say) abused unto idolatry, and are by that mean become scandalous.

XIII. The fifth, for that we retain them still, notwithstanding the example of certain Churches reformed before us, which have cast them out. XIV. A declaration of the proceedings of the Church of England for the establishment of things as they are. [I.] SUCH was the ancient simplicity and softness of spirit which sometimes prevailed in the world, that they whose words were even as oracles amongst men, seemed evermore loth to give sentence against any thing publicly received in the Church of God, except it were wonderful apparently evil; for that they did not so much incline to that severity which delighteth to reprove the least things it seeth amiss, as to that charity which is unwilling to behold any thing that duty bindeth it to reprove. The state of this present age, wherein zeal hath drowned charity, and skill meekness, will not now suffer any man to marvel, whatsoever he shall hear reproved by whomsoever. Those rites and ceremonies of the Church therefore, which are the selfsame now that they were when holy and virtuous men maintained them against profane and deriding adversaries, her own children have at this day in derision. Whether justly or no, it shall then appear, when all things are heard which they have to allege against the outward received orders of this church. Which inasmuch as themselves do compare unto "mint and cummin," granting them to be no part of those things which in the matter of polity are weightier, we hope that for small things their strife will neither be earnest nor long.The sifting of that which is objected against the orders of the Church in particular, doth not belong unto this place. Here we are to discuss only those general exceptions, which have been taken at any time against them. First therefore to the end that their nature and the use whereunto they serve may plainly appear, and so afterwards their quality the better be discerned; we are to note, that in every grand or main public duty which God requireth at the hands of his Church, there is, besides that matter and form wherein the essence thereof consisteth, a certain outward fashion whereby the same is in decent sort administered. The substance of all religious actions is delivered from God himself in few words. For example's sake in the sacraments “Unto the element let the word be added, and they both do make a sacrament," saith St. Augustine. Baptism is given by the element of water, and that prescript form of words which the Church of Christ doth use; the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is administered in the elements of bread and wine, if those mystical words be added thereunto. But the due and decent form of administering those holy sacraments doth require a great deal more.The end which is aimed at in setting down the outward form of all religious actions is the edification of the Church. Now men are edified, when either their understanding is taught somewhat whereof in such actions it behoveth all men to consider, or when their hearts are moved with any affection suitable thereunto; when their minds are in any sort stirred up unto that reverence, devotion, attention, and due regard, which in those cases seemeth requisite. Because therefore unto this purpose not only speech but sundry

sensible means besides have always been thought necessary, and especially those means which being object to the eye, the liveliest and the most apprehensive sense of all other, have in that respect seemed the fittest to make a deep and a strong impression: from hence have risen not only a number of prayers, readings, questionings, exhortings, but even of visible signs also; which being used in performance of holy actions, are undoubtedly most effectual to open such matter, as men when they know and remember carefully, must needs be a great deal the better informed to what effect such duties serve. We must not think but that there is some ground of reason even in nature, whereby it cometh to pass that no nation under heaven either doth or ever did suffer public actions which are of weight, whether they be civil and temporal or else spiritual and sacred, to pass without some visible solemnity: the very strangeness whereof and difference from that which is common, doth cause popular eyes to observe and to mark the same. Words, both because they are common, and do not so strongly move the fancy of man, are for the most part but slightly heard: and therefore with singular wisdom it hath been provided, that the deeds of men which are made in the presence of witnesses should pass not only with words, but also with certain sensible actions, the memory whereof is far more easy and durable than the memory of speech can be. The things which so long experience of all ages hath confirmed and made profitable, let not us presume to condemn as follies and toys, because we sometimes know not the cause and reason of them. A wit disposed to scorn whatsoever it doth not conceive, might ask wherefore Abraham should say to his servant, “Put thy hand under my thigh and swear:" was it not sufficient for his servant to shew the religion of an oath by naming the Lord God of heaven and earth, unless that strange ceremony were added? In contracts, bargains, and conveyances, a man's word is a token sufficient to express his will. Yet "this was the ancient manner in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging, to establish all things; a man did pluck off his shoe and gave it his neighbour; and this was a sure witness in Israel." Amongst the Romans in their making of a bondman free, was it not wondered wherefore so great ado should be made? The master to present his slave in some court, to take him by the hand, and not only to say in the hearing of the public magistrate, “I will that this man become free," but after these solemn words uttered, to strike him on the cheek, to turn him round, the hair of his head to be shaved off, the magistrate to touch him thrice with a rod, in the end a cap and a white garment to be given him. To what purpose all this circumstance? Amongst the Hebrews how strange and in outward appearance almost against reason, that he which was to make himself a perpetual servant, should not only testify so much in the presence of the judge, but for a visible token thereof have also his ear bored through with an awl! It were an infinite labour to prosecute these things so far as they might be exemplified both in civil and religious actions. For in both they have their necessary use and force. "The sensible things which religion hath hallowed, are resemblances framed according to things spiritually understood, whereunto they serve as a hand to lead, and a way to direct."And whereas it may peradventure be objected, that to add to religious duties such rites and ceremonies as are significant, is to institute new Sacraments; sure I am they will not say that Numa Pompilius did ordain a sacrament, a significant ceremony he did ordain, in commanding the priests "to execute the work of their divine service with their

hands as far as to the fingers covered; thereby signifying that fidelity must be defended, and that men's right hands are the sacred seat thereof." Again we are also to put them in mind, that themselves do not hold all significant ceremonies for sacraments, insomuch as imposition of hands they deny to be a sacrament, and yet they give thereunto a forcible signification; for concerning it their words are these: "The party ordained by this ceremony was put in mind of his separation to the work of the Lord, that remembering himself to be taken as it were with the hand of God from amongst others, this might teach him not to account himself now his own, nor to do what himself listeth, but to consider that God hath set him about a work, which if he will discharge and accomplish, he may at the hands of God assure himself of reward; and if 'otherwise, of revenge." Touching significant ceremonies, some of them are sacraments, some as sacraments only. Sacraments are those which are signs and tokens of some general promised grace, which always really descendeth from God unto the soul that duly receiveth them; other significant tokens are only as Sacraments, yet no Sacraments: which is not our distinction, but theirs. For concerning the Apostles' imposition of hands these are their own words; "manuum signum hoc et quasi Sacramentum usurparunt;" "they used this sign, or as it were sacrament." II. Concerning rites and ceremonies there may be fault, either in the kind or in the number and multitude of them. The first thing blamed about the kind of ours is, that in many things we have departed from the ancient simplicity of Christ, and his Apostles; we have embraced more outward stateliness, we have those orders in the exercise of religion, which they who best pleased God and served him most devoutly never had. For it is out of doubt that the first state of things was best, that in the prime of Christian religion faith was soundest, the Scriptures of God were then best understood by all men, all parts of godliness did then most abound; and therefore it must needs follow, that customs, laws, and ordinances devised since are not so good for the Church of Christ, but the best way is to cut off later inventions, and to reduce things unto the ancient state wherein at the first they were. Which rule or canon we hold to be either uncertain or at leastwise unsufficient, if not both.For in case it be certain, hard it cannot be for them to shew us, where we shall find it so exactly set down, that we may say without all controversy, “these were the orders of " the Apostles' times, these wholly and only, neither fewer "nor moe than these." True it is that many things of this nature be alluded unto, yea many things declared, and many things necessarily collected out of the Apostles' writings. But is it necessary that all the orders of the Church which were then in use should be contained in their books? Surely no. For if the tenor of their writings be well observed, it shall unto any man easily appear, that no more of them are there touched than were needful to be spoken of, sometimes by one occasion and sometimes by another. Will they allow then of any other records besides? Well assured I am they are far enough from acknowledging that the Church ought to keep any thing as apostolical, which is not found in the Apostles' writings, in what other records soever it be found. And therefore whereas St. Augustine affirmeth that those things which the whole Church of Christ doth hold, may well be thought to be apostolical although they be not found written; this his judgment they utterly condemn. I will not here stand in defence of St. Augustine's opinion, which is, that such things are

indeed apostolical, but yet with this exception, unless the decree of some general council have haply caused them to be received: for of positive laws and orders received throughout the whole Christian world, St. Augustine could imagine no other fountain save these two. But to let pass St. Augustine; they who condemn him herein must needs confess it a very uncertain thing what the orders of the Church were in the Apostles' times, seeing the Scriptures do not mention them all, and other records thereof besides they utterly reject. So that in tying the Church to the orders of the Apostles' times, they tie it to a marvellous uncertain rule; unless they require the observation of no orders but only those which are known to be apostolical by the Apostles' own writings. But then is not this their rule of such sufficiency, that we should use it as a touchstone to try the orders of the Church by for ever.Our end ought always to be the same; our ways and means thereunto not so. The glory of God and the good of His Church was the thing which the Apostles aimed at, and therefore ought to be the mark whereat we also level. But seeing those rites and orders may be at one time more which at another are less available unto that purpose, what reason is there in these things to urge the state of one only age as a pattern for all to follow? It is not I am right sure their meaning, that we should now assemble our people to serve God in close and secret meetings; or that common brooks or rivers should be used for places of baptism; or that the Eucharist should be ministered after meat; or that the custom of church feasting should be renewed; or that all kind of standing provision for the ministry should be utterly taken away, and their estate made again dependent upon the voluntary devotion of men. In these things they easily perceive how unfit that were for the present, which was for the first age convenient enough. The faith, zeal, and godliness of former times is worthily had in honour; but doth this prove that the orders of the Church of Christ must be still the selfsame with theirs, that nothing may be which was not then, or that nothing which then was may lawfully since have ceased? They who recall the Church unto that which was at the first, must necessarily set bounds and limits unto their speeches. If any thing have been received repugnant unto that which was first delivered, the first things in this case must stand, the last give place unto them. But where difference is without repugnancy, that which hath been can be no prejudice to that which is.Let the state of the people of God when they were in the house of bondage, and their manner of serving God in a strange land, be compared with that which Canaan and Jerusalem did afford, and who seeth not what huge difference there was between them? In Egypt it may be they were right glad to take some corner of a poor cottage, and there to serve God upon their knees, peradventure covered in dust and straw sometimes. Neither were they therefore the less accepted of God, but he was with them in all their afflictions, and at the length by working their admirable deliverance did testify, that they served him not in vain. Notwithstanding in the very desert they are no sooner possest of some little thing of their own, but a tabernacle is required at their hands. Being planted in the land of Canaan, and having David to be their king, when the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies, it grieved his religious mind to consider the growth of his own estate and dignity, the affairs of religion continuing still in their former manner: "Behold now I dwell in an house of cedar-trees, and the ark of God remaineth still within

curtains." What he did purpose it was the pleasure of God that Salomon his son should perform, and perform it in manner suitable unto their present, not their ancient estate and condition. For which cause Salomon writeth unto the king of Tyrus, “The house which I build is great and wonderful, for great is our God above all gods." Whereby it clearly appeareth that the orders of the Church of God may be acceptable unto him, as well being framed suitable to the greatness and dignity of later, as when they keep the reverend simplicity of ancienter times. Such dissimilitude therefore between us and the Apostles of Christ in the order of some outward things is no argument of default. III. Yea, but we have framed ourselves to the customs of the church of Rome; our orders and ceremonies are papistical. It is espied that our church founders were not so careful as in this matter they should have been, but contented themselves with such discipline as they took from the church of Rome. Their error we ought to reform by abolishing all popish orders. There must be no communion nor fellowship with Papists, neither in doctrine, ceremonies, nor government. It is not enough that we are divided from the church of Rome by the single wall of doctrine, retaining as we do part of their ceremonies and almost their whole government; but government or ceremonies or whatsoever it be which is popish, away with it. This is the thing they require in us, the utter relinquishment of all things popish. Wherein to the end we may answer them according unto their plain direct meaning, and not take advantage of doubtful speech, whereby controversies grow always endless; their main position being this, that "nothing should be placed in the Church but what God in his word hath commanded," they must of necessity hold all for popish which the church of Rome hath over and besides this. By popish orders, ceremonies, and government, they must therefore mean in every of these so much as the Church of Rome hath embraced without commandment of God's word: so that whatsoever such thing we have, if the church of Rome hath it also, it goeth under the name of those things that are popish, yea although it be lawful, although agreeable to the word of God. For so they plainly affirm, saying, “Although the forms and ceremonies which they" (the church of Rome) used were not unlawful, and that they contained nothing which is not agreeable to the word of God, yet notwithstanding neither the word of God, nor reason, nor the examples of the eldest churches both Jewish and Christian do permit us to use the same forms and ceremonies, being neither commanded of God, neither such as there may not as good as they, and rather better, be established." The question therefore is, whether we may follow the church of Rome in those orders, rites, and ceremonies, wherein we do not think them blameable, or else ought to devise others, and to have no conformity with them, no not so much as in these things. In this sense and construction therefore as they affirm, so we deny, that whatsoever is popish we ought to abrogate.Their arguments to prove that generally all popish orders and ceremonies ought to be clean abolished, are in sum these: "First, whereas we allow the judgment of St. Augustine, that touching those things of this kind which are not commanded or forbidden in the Scripture, we are to observe the custom of the people of God and decree of our forefathers; how can we retain the customs and constitutions of the papists in such things, who were neither the people of God nor our forefathers?" Secondly, although the forms

and ceremonies of the church of Rome were not unlawful, neither did contain any thing which is not agreeable to the word of God, yet neither the word of God, nor the examples of the eldest churches of God, nor reason, do permit us to use the same, they being heretics and so near about us, and their orders being neither commanded of God, nor yet such but that as good or rather better may be established." It is against the word of God to have conformity with the church of Rome in such things, as appeareth in that "the wisdom of God hath thought it a good way to keep his people from infection of idolatry and superstition, by severing them from idolaters in outward ceremonies, and therefore hath forbidden them to do things which are in themselves very lawful to be done." And further, "whereas the Lord was careful to sever them by ceremonies from other nations, yet was he not so careful to sever them from any as from the Egyptians amongst whom they lived, and from those nations which were next neighbours unto them, because from them was the greatest fear of infection." So that following the course which the wisdom of God doth teach, "it were more safe for us to conform our indifferent ceremonies to the Turks which are far off, than to the papists which are so near." Touching the example of the eldest churches of God; in one council it was decreed, “that Christians should not deck their houses with bay leaves and green boughs, because the Pagans did use so to do; and that they should not rest from their labours those days that the Pagans did; that they should not keep the first day of every month as they did. Another council decreed that Christians should not celebrate feasts on the birthdays of the martyrs, because it was the manner of the heathen." "O!' saith Tertullian, better is the religion of the heathen: for they use no solemnity of the Christians, neither the Lord's day, neither the Pentecost; and if they knew them they would have nothing to do with them: for they would be afraid lest they should seem Christians; but we are not afraid to be called heathen." The same Tertullian would not have Christians to sit after they have prayed, because the idolaters did so. Whereby it appeareth, that both of particular men and of councils, in making or abolishing of ceremonies, heed hath been taken that the Christians should not be like the idolaters, no not in those things which of themselves are most indifferent to be used or not used. The same conformity is not less opposite unto reason; first inasmuch as "contraries must be cured by their contraries, and therefore popery being anti-christianity is not healed, but by establishment of orders thereunto opposite. The way to bring a drunken man to sobriety is to carry him as far from excess of drink as may be. To rectify a crooked stick we bend it on the contrary side, as far as it was at the first on that side from whence we draw it, and so it cometh in the end to a middle between both, which is perfect straightness i. Utter inconformity therefore with the church of Rome in these things is the best and surest policy which the Church can use. While we use their ceremonies they take occasion to blaspheme, saying, that our religion cannot stand by itself, unless it lean upon the staff of their ceremonies. They hereby conceive great hope of having the rest of their popery in the end, which hope causeth them to be more frozen in their wickedness. Neither is it without cause that they have this hope, considering that which Master Bucer noteth upon the eighteenth of St. Matthew, that where these things have been left, popery hath returned; but on the other part in places which have been cleansed of these things, it hath not yet been seen that it hath had any entrance. None make such clamours for these

ceremonies, as the papists and those whom they suborn; a manifest token how much they triumph and joy in these things. They breed grief of mind in a number, that are godly- minded and have anti-christianity in such detestation, that their minds are martyred with the very sight of them in the Church. Such godly brethren we ought not thus to grieve with unprofitable ceremonies, yea, ceremonies wherein there is not only no profit, but also danger of great hurt, that may grow to the Church by infection, which popish ceremonies are means to breed." This in effect is the sum and substance of that which they bring by way of opposition against those orders which we have common with the church of Rome; these are the reasons wherewith they would prove our ceremonies in that respect worthy of blame. IV. Before we answer unto these things, we are to cut off that whereunto they from whom these objections proceed do oftentimes fly for defence and succour, when the force and strength of their arguments is elided. For the ceremonies in use amongst us being in no other respect retained, saving only for that to retain them is to our seeming good and profitable, yea, so profitable and so good, that if we had either simply taken them clean away, or else removed them so as to place in their stead others, we had done worse: the plain and direct way against us herein had been only to prove, that all such ceremonies as they require to be abolished are retained by us to the hurt of the Church, or with less benefit than the abolishment of them would bring. But forasmuch as they saw how hardly they should be able to perform this, they took a more compendious way, traducing the ceremonies of our church under the name of being popish. The cause why this way seemed better unto them was, for that the name of popery is more odious than very paganism amongst divers of the more simple sort, so as whatsoever they hear named popish, they presently conceive deep hatred against it, imagining there can be nothing contained in that name but needs it must be exceeding detestable. The ears of the people they have therefore filled with strong clamour: "The Church of England is fraught with popish ceremonies: they that favour the cause of reformation maintain nothing but the sincerity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: all such as withstand them fight, for the laws of his sworn enemy, uphold the filthy relics of' Antichrist, and are defenders of that which is popish." These are the notes wherewith are drawn from the hearts of the multitude so many sighs; with these tunes their minds are exasperated against the lawful guides and governors of their souls; these are the voices that fill them with general discontentment, as though the bosom of that famous church wherein they live were more noisome than any dungeon. But when the authors of so scandalous incantations are examined, and called to account how can they justify such their dealings; when they are urged directly to answer, whether it be lawful for, us to use any such ceremonies as the church of Rome useth, although the same be not commanded in the word of God; being driven to see that the use of some such ceremonies must of necessity be granted lawful, they go about to make us believe that they are just of the same opinion, and that they only think such ceremonies are not to be used when they are unprofitable, or " when as good or better may be established." Which answer is both idle in regard of us, and also repugnant to themselves.

It is in regard of us very vain to make this answer, because they know that what ceremonies we retain common unto the church of Rome, we therefore retain them, for that we judge them to be profitable, and to be such that others instead of them would be worse. So that when they say that we ought to abrogate such Romish ceremonies as are unprofitable, or else might have other more profitable in their stead, they trifle and they beat the air about nothing which toucheth us; unless they mean that we ought to abrogate all Romish ceremonies which in their judgment have either no use or less use than some other might have. But then must they shew some commission, whereby they are authorized to sit as judges, and we required to take their judgment for good in this case. Otherwise their sentences will not be greatly regarded, when they oppose their methinketh unto the orders of the Church of England: as in the question about surplices one of them doth; "If we look to the colour, black methinketh is more decent; if to the form, a garment down to the foot hath a great deal more comeliness in it" If they think that we ought to prove the ceremonies commodious which we have retained, they do in this point very greatly deceive themselves. For in all right and equity, that which the Church hath received and held so long for good, that which public approbation hath ratified, must carry the benefit of presumption with it to be accounted meet and convenient. They which have stood up as yesterday to challenge it of defect, must prove their challenge. If we being defendants do answer, that the ceremonies in question are godly, comely, decent, profitable for the Church; their reply is childish and unorderly, to say, that we demand the thing in question, and shew the poverty of our cause, the goodness whereof we are fain to beg that our adversaries would grant. For on our part this must be the answer, which orderly proceeding doth require. The burden of proving doth rest on them. In them it is frivolous to say, we ought not to use bad ceremonies of the church of Rome, and presume all such bad as it pleaseth themselves to dislike, unless we can persuade them the contrary.Besides, they are herein opposite also to themselves. For what one thing is so common with them, as to use the custom of the church of Rome for an argument to prove, that such and such ceremonies cannot be good and profitable for us, inasmuch as that church useth them? Which usual kind of disputing sheweth, that they do not disallow only those Romish ceremonies which are unprofitable, but count all unprofitable which are Romish; that is to say, which have been devised by the church of Rome, or which are used in that church and not prescribed in the word of God. For this is the only limitation which they can use suitable unto their other positions. And therefore the cause which they yield, why they hold it lawful to retain in doctrine and in discipline some things as good, which yet are common to the church of Rome, is for that those good things are "perpetual commandments in whose place no other can come;" but ceremonies are changeable. So that their judgment in truth is, that whatsoever by the word of God is not unchangeable in the church of Rome, that church's using is a cause why reformed churches ought to change it, and not to think it good or profitable. And lest we seem to father any thing upon them more than is properly their own, let them read even their own words, where they complain, “that we are thus constrained to be like unto the Papists in Any their ceremonies;" yea, they urge that this cause, although it were "alone, ought to move them to whom that belongeth to do them away, forasmuch as they are their ceremonies;" and that the Bishop of Salisbury doth justify this their complaint. The clause is untrue which

they add concerning the Bishop of Salisbury; but the sentence doth shew that we do them no wrong in setting down the state of the question between us thus: Whether we ought to abolish out of the church of England all such orders, rites, and ceremonies as are established in the Church of Rome, and are not prescribed in the word of God. For the affirmative whereof we are now to answer such proofs of theirs as have been before alleged. V. Let the church of Rome be what it will, let them that are of it be the people of God and our fathers in the Christian faith, or let them be otherwise; hold them for catholics or hold them for heretics; it is not a thing either one way or other in this present question greatly material. Our conformity with them in such things as have been proposed is not proved as yet unlawful by all this. St. Augustine hath said, yea and we have allowed his saying, “That the custom of the people of God and the decrees of our forefathers are to be kept, touching those things whereof the Scripture hath neither one way nor other given us any charge." What then? Doth it here therefore follow, that they being neither the people of God nor our forefathers, are for that cause in nothing to be followed? This consequent were good if so be it were granted, that only the custom of the people of God and the decrees of our forefathers are in such case to be observed. But then should no other kind of later laws in the Church be good; which were a gross absurdity to think. St. Augustine's speech therefore doth import, that where we have no divine precept, if yet we have the custom of the people of God or a decree of our forefathers, this is a law and must be kept. Notwithstanding it is not denied, but that we lawfully may observe the positive constitutions of our own churches, although the same were but yesterday made by ourselves alone. Nor is there any thing in this to prove, that the church of England might not by law receive orders, rites, or customs from the church of Rome, although they were neither the people of God nor yet our forefathers. How much less when we have received from them nothing, but that which they did themselves receive from such, as we cannot deny to have been the people of God, yea such, as either we must acknowledge for our own forefathers or else disdain the race of Christ? VI. The rites and orders wherein we follow the church of Rome are of no other kind than such as the church of Geneva itself doth follow them in. We follow the church of Rome in moe things; yet they in some things of the same nature about which our present controversy is: so that the difference is not in the kind, but in the number of rites only, wherein they and we do follow the church of Rome. The use of wafer-cakes, the custom of godfathers and godmothers in baptism, are things not commanded nor forbidden in Scripture, things which have been of old and are retained in the church of Rome even at this very hour. Is conformity with Rome in such things a blemish unto the church of England, and unto churches abroad an ornament? Let them, if not for the reverence they owe unto this church, in the bowels whereof they have received I trust that precious and blessed vigour, which shall quicken them to eternal life, yet at the leastwise for the singular affection which they do bear towards others, take heed how they strike, lest they wound whom they would not. For undoubtedly it cutteth deeper than they are aware of, when they plead that even such ceremonies of the church of Rome, as contain in them nothing which is not of itself agreeable to the word of God, ought nevertheless to be

abolished; and that neither the word of God, nor reason, nor the examples of the eldest churches do permit the church of Rome to be therein followed.Heretics they are, and they are our neighbours. By us and amongst us they lead their lives. But what then? therefore no ceremony of theirs lawful for us to use? We must yield and will that none are lawful, if God himself be a precedent against the use of any. But how appeareth it that God is so? Hereby they say it doth appear, in that "God severed his people from the heathens, but especially from the Egyptians, and such nations as were nearest neighbours unto them, by forbidding them to do those things which were in themselves very lawful to be done, yea, very profitable some, and incommodious to be forborne; such things it pleased God to forbid them, only because those heathens did them, with whom conformity in the same things might have bred infection. Thus in shaving, cutting, apparel-wearing, yea in sundry kinds of meats also, swine's flesh, conies, and such like b, they were forbidden to do so and so, because the Gentiles did so. And the end why God forbade them such things was to sever them for fear of infection by a great and an high wall from other nations, as St. Paul teacheth." The cause of more careful separation from the nearest nations was the greatness of danger to be especially by them infected. Now papists are to us as those nations were unto Israel. Therefore if the wisdom of God be our guide, we cannot allow conformity with them, no not in any such indifferent ceremony.Our direct answer hereunto is, that for any thing here alleged we may still doubt, whether the Lord in such indifferent ceremonies, as those whereof we dispute, did frame his people of set purpose unto any utter dissimilitude, either with Egyptians or with any other nation else. And if God did not forbid them all such indifferent ceremonies, then our conformity with the church of Rome in some such is not hitherto as yet disproved, although papists were unto us as those heathens were unto Israel. "After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein you dwelt, ye shall not do, saith the Lord; and after the manner of the land of Canaan, whither I will bring you, shall ye not do, neither walk in their ordinances: do after my judgments, and keep my ordinances to walk therein: I am the Lord your God." The speech is indefinite, "ye shall not be like them:" it is not general, "ye shall not be like them in any thing, or like to them in any thing indifferent, or like unto them in any indifferent ceremony of theirs." Seeing therefore it is not set down how far the bounds of his speech concerning dissimilitude should reach, how can any man assure us, that it extendeth farther than to those things only, wherein the nations there mentioned were idolatrous, or did against that which the law of God commandeth? Nay, doth it not seem a thing very probable, that God doth purposely add, “Do after my judgments," as giving thereby to understand that his meaning in the former sentence was but to bar similitude in such things, as were repugnant unto the ordinances, laws, and statutes which he had given? Egyptians and Canaanites are for example's sake named unto them, because the customs of the one they had been, and of the other they should be best acquainted with. But that wherein they might not be like unto either of them, was such peradventure as had been no whit less unlawful, although those nations had never been. So that there is no necessity to think, that God for fear of infection by reason of nearness forbade them to be like unto the Canaanites or the Egyptians, in those things which otherwise had been lawful enough.

For I would know what one thing was in those nations, and is here forbidden, being indifferent in itself, yet forbidden only because they used it. In the laws of Israel we find it written, “Ye shall not cut round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou tear the tufts of thy beard." These things were usual amongst those nations, and in themselves they are indifferent. But are they indifferent being used as signs of immoderate and hopeless lamentation for the dead? In this sense it is that the law forbiddeth them. For which cause the very next words following are, “Ye shall not cut your flesh for the dead, nor make any print of a mark upon you: I am the Lord." The like in Leviticus, where speech is of mourning for the dead; "They shall not make bald parts upon their head, nor shave off the locks of their beard, nor make any cutting in their flesh." Again in Deuteronomy, “Ye are the children of the Lord your God; ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make you baldness between your eyes for the dead." What is this but in effect the same which the Apostle doth more plainly express, saying, "Sorrow not as they do who have no hope?" The very light of nature itself was able to see herein a fault; that which those nations did use, having been also in use with others, the ancient Roman laws do forbid. That shaving therefore and cutting which the law doth mention was not a matter in itself indifferent, and forbidden only because it was in use amongst such idolaters as were neighbours to the people of God; but to use it had been a crime, though no other people or nation under heaven should have done it saving only themselves. As for those laws concerning attire: "There shall no garment of linen and woollen come upon thee;" as also those touching food and diet, wherein swine's flesh together with sundry other meats are forbidden; the use of these things had been indeed of itself harmless and indifferent: so that hereby it doth appear, how the law of God forbade in some special consideration such things as were lawful enough in themselves. But yet even here they likewise fail of that they intend. For it doth not appear that the consideration in regard whereof the law forbiddeth these things was because those nations did use them. Likely enough it is that the Canaanites used to feed as well on sheep's as on swine's flesh;; and therefore if the forbidding of the later had no other reason than dissimilitude with that people, they which of their own heads allege this for reason can shew I think some reason more than we are able to find why the former was not also forbidden. Might there not be some other mystery in this prohibition than they think of? Yes, some other mystery there was in it by all likelihood. For what reason is there which should but induce, and therefore much less enforce us to think, that care of dissimilitude between the people of God and the heathen nations about them, was any more the cause of forbidding them to put on garments of sundry stuff; than of charging them withal not to sow their fields with meslin; or that this was any more the cause of forbidding them to eat swine's flesh, than of charging them withal not to eat the flesh of eagles, hawks, and the like? Wherefore, although the church of Rome were to us, as to Israel the Egyptians and Canaanites were of old; yet doth it not follow, that the wisdom of God without respect doth teach us to erect between us and them a partition-wall of difference, in such things indifferent as have been hitherto disputed of.

VII. Neither is the example of the eldest churches a whit more available to this purpose. Notwithstanding some fault undoubtedly there is in the very resemblance of idolaters. Were it not some kind of blemish to be like unto infidels and heathens, it would not so usually be objected; men would not think it any advantage in the causes of religion to be able therewith justly to charge their adversaries as they do. Wherefore to the end that it may a little more plainly appear, what force this hath and how far the same extendeth, we are to note how all men are naturally desirous that they may seem neither to judge nor to do amiss; because every error and offence is a stain to the beauty of nature, for which cause it blusheth thereat, but glorieth in the contrary. From thence it riseth, that they which disgrace or depress the credit of others do it either in both or in one of these. To have been in either directed by a weak and unperfect rule argueth imbecility and imperfection. Men being either led by reason or by imitation of other men's example, if their persons be odious whose example we choose to follow, as namely if we frame our opinions to that which condemned heretics think, or direct our actions according to that which is practised and done by them; it lieth as an heavy prejudice against us, unless somewhat mightier than their bare example did move us, to think or do the same things with them. Christian men therefore having besides the common light of all men so great help of heavenly direction from above, together with the lamps of so bright examples as the Church of God doth yield, it cannot but worthily seem reproachful for us to leave both the one and the other, to become disciples unto the most hateful sort that live, to do as they do, only because we see their example before us and have a delight to follow it. Thus we may therefore safely conclude, that it is not evil simply to concur with the heathens either in opinion or in action; and that conformity with them is only then a disgrace, when either we follow them in that they think and do amiss, or follow them generally in that they do without other reason than only the liking we have to the pattern of their example; which liking doth intimate a more universal approbation of them than is allowable.Faustus the Manichee therefore objecting against the Jews, that they forsook the idols of the Gentiles, but their temples and oblations and altars and priesthoods and all kinds of ministry of holy things they exercised even as the Gentiles did, yea, more superstitiously a great deal; against the Catholic Christians likewise, that between them and the heathens there was in many things little difference; "From them," saith Faustus, "ye have learned to hold that one only God is the author of all; their sacrifices ye have turned into feasts of charity, their idols into martyrs whom ye honour with the like religious offices unto theirs; the ghosts of the dead ye appease with wine and delicates; the festival days of the nations ye celebrate together with them; and of their kind of life ye have verily changed nothing:" St. Augustine's defence in behalf of both is, that touching matters of action, Jews and Catholic Christians were free from the Gentiles' faultiness, even in those things which were objected as tokens of their agreement with Gentiles: and concerning their consent in opinion, they did not hold the same with Gentiles because Gentiles had so taught, but because heaven and earth had so witnessed the same to be truth, that neither the one sort could err in being fully persuaded thereof, nor the other but err in case they should not consent with them.

In things of their own nature indifferent, if either councils or particular men have at any time with sound judgment misliked conformity between the Church of God and infidels, the cause thereof hath been somewhat else than only affectation of dissimilitude. They saw it necessary so to do in respect of some special accident, which the Church being not always subject unto hath not still cause to do the like. For example, in the dangerous days of trial, wherein there was no way for the truth of Jesus Christ to triumph over infidelity but through the constancy of his saints, whom yet a natural desire to save themselves from the flame might peradventure cause to join with Pagans in external customs, too far using the same as a cloak to conceal themselves in, and a mist to darken the eyes of infidels withal: for remedy hereof those laws it might be were provided, which forbad that Christians should deck their houses with boughs as the Pagans did use to do, or rest those festival days whereon the Pagans rested, or celebrate such feasts as were, though not heathenish, yet such as the simpler sort of heathens might be beguiled in so thinking them.As for Tertullian's judgment concerning the rites and orders of the Church, no man having judgment can be ignorant how just exceptions may be taken against it. His opinion touching the Catholic Church was as unindifferent as touching our church the opinion of them that favour this pretended reformation is. He judged all them who did not Montanize to be but carnally minded, he judged them still over-abjectly to fawn upon the heathens, and to curry favour with infidels. Which as the catholic church did well provide that they might not do indeed, so Tertullian over-often through discontentment carpeth injuriously at them as though they did it, even when they were free from such meaning.But if it were so, that either the judgment of these councils before alleged, or of Tertullian himself against the Christians, are in no such consideration to be understood as we have mentioned; if it were so that men are condemned as well of the one as of the other, only for using the ceremonies of a religion contrary unto their own, and that this cause is such as ought to prevail no less with us than with them: shall it not follow that seeing there is still between our religion and Paganism the selfsame contrariety, therefore we are still no less rebukeable, if we now deck our houses with boughs, or send new- year's gifts unto our friends, or feast on those days which the Gentiles then did, or sit after prayer as they were accustomed? For so they infer upon the premises, that as great difference as commodiously may be, there should be in all outward ceremonies between the people of God and them which are not his people. Again they teach as hath been declared, that there is not as great a difference as may be between them, except the one do avoid whatsoever rites and ceremonies uncommanded of God the other doth embrace. So that generally they teach that the very difference of spiritual condition itself between the servants of Christ and others requireth such difference in ceremonies between them, although the one be never so far disjoined in time or place from the other.But in case the people of God and Belial do chance to be neighbours, then as the danger of infection is greater, so the same difference they say is thereby made more necessary'. In this respect as the Jews were severed from the heathen, so most especially from the heathen nearest them. And in the same respect we, which ought to differ howsoever from the church of Rome, are now they say by reason of our nearness more

bound to differ from them in ceremonies than from Turks. A strange kind of speech unto Christian ears, and such as I hope they themselves do acknowledge unadvisedly uttered. "We are not so much to fear infection from Turks as from papists." What of that? we must remember that by conforming rather ourselves in that respect to Turks, we should be spreaders of a worse infection into others than any we are likely to draw from papists by our conformity with them in ceremonies. If they did hate, as Turks do, the Christians; or as Canaanites did of old the Jewish religion even in gross; the circumstance of local nearness in them unto us might haply enforce in us a duty of greater separation from them than from those other mentioned. But forasmuch as papists are so much in Christ nearer unto us than Turks, is there any reasonable man, trow you, but will judge it meeter that our ceremonies of Christian religion should be popish than Turkish or heathenish? Especially considering that we were not brought to dwell amongst them, (as Israel in Canaan,) having not been of them. For even a very part of them we were. And when God did by his good Spirit put it into our hearts, first to reform ourselves, (whence grew our separation,) and then by all good means to seek also their reformation; had we not only cut off their corruptions but also estranged ourselves from them in things indifferent, who seeth not how greatly prejudicial this might have been to so good a cause, and what occasion it had given them to think (to their greater obduration in evil) that through a froward or wanton desire of innovation we did unconstrainedly those things for which conscience was pretended? Howsoever the case doth stand, as Juda had been rather to choose conformity in things indifferent with Israel when they were nearest opposites, than with the farthest removed Pagans; so we in the like case much rather with papists than with Turks. I might add further for more full and complete answer, so much concerning the large odds between the case of the eldest churches in regard of those heathens and ours in respect of the church of Rome, that very cavillation itself should be satisfied, and have no shift to fly unto. VIII. But that no one thing may detain us over long, I return to their reasons against our conformity with that church. That extreme dissimilitude which they urge upon us, is now commended as our best and safest policy for establishment of sound religion. The ground of which politic position is that "evils must be cured by their contraries;" and therefore the cure of the Church infected with the poison of Antichristianity must be done by that which is thereunto as contrary as may be. "A medled estate of the orders of the Gospel and the ceremonies of popery is not the best way to banish popery." We are contrariwise of opinion, that he which will perfectly recover a sick and restore a diseased body unto health, must not endeavour so much to bring it to a state of simple contrariety, as of fit proportion in contrariety unto those evils which are to be cured. He that will take away extreme heat by setting the body in extremity of cold, shall undoubtedly remove the disease, but together with it the diseased too. The first thing therefore in skilful cures is the knowledge of the part affected; the next is of the evil which doth affect it; the last is not only of the kind but also of the measure of contrary things whereby to remove it.They which measure religion by dislike of the church of Rome think every man so much the more sound, by how much he can make the corruptions thereof to seem more

large. And therefore some there are, namely the Arians in reformed churches of Poland, which imagine the canker to have eaten so far into the very bones and marrow of the church of Rome, as if it had not so much as a sound belief, no not concerning God himself, but that the very belief of the Trinity were a part of antichristian corruption; and that the wonderful providence of God did bring to pass that the bishop of the see of Rome should be famous for his triple crown; a sensible mark whereby the world might know him to be that mystical beast spoken of in the Revelation, to be that great and notorious Antichrist in no one respect so much as in this, that he maintaineth the doctrine of the Trinity. Wisdom therefore and skill is requisite to know, what parts are sound in that church, and what corrupted. Neither is it to all men apparent which complain of unsound parts, with what kind of unsoundness every such part is possessed. They can say, that in doctrine, in discipline, in prayers, in sacraments, the church of Rome hath (as it hath indeed) very foul and gross corruptions; the nature whereof notwithstanding because they have not for the most part exact skill and knowledge to discern, they think that amiss many times which is not; and the salve of reformation they mightily call for, but where and what the sores are which need it, as they wot full little, so they think it not greatly material to search. Such men's contentment must be wrought by stratagem; the usual method of art is not for them.But with those that profess more than ordinary and common knowledge of good from evil, with them that are able to put a difference between things naught and things indifferent in the church of Rome, we are yet at controversy about the manner of removing that which is naught; whether it may not be perfectly helped, unless that also which is indifferent be cut off with it, so far till no rite or ceremony remain which the church of Rome hath, being not found in the word of God. If we think this too extreme, they reply, that to draw men from great excess, it is not amiss though we use them unto somewhat less than is competent; and that a crooked stick is not straightened unless it be bent as far on the clean contrary side, that so it may settle itself at the length in a middle estate of evenness between both. But how can these comparisons stand them in any stead? When they urge us to extreme opposition against the church of Rome, do they mean we should be drawn unto it only for a time, and afterwards return to a mediocrity? or was it the purpose of those reformed churches, which utterly abolished all popish ceremonies, to come in the end back again to the middle point of evenness and moderation? Then have we conceived amiss of their meaning. For we have always thought their opinion to be, that utter inconformity with the church of Rome was not an extremity whereunto we should be drawn for a time, but the very mediocrity itself wherein they meant we should ever continue. Now by these comparisons it seemeth clean contrary, that howsoever they have bent themselves at first to an extreme contrariety against the Romish church, yet therein they will continue no longer than only till such time as some more moderate course for establishment of the Church may be concluded.Yea, albeit this were not at the first their intent, yet surely now there is great cause to lead them unto it. They have seen that experience of the former policy, which may cause the authors of it to hang down their heads. When Germany had stricken off that which appeared corrupt in the doctrine of the church of Rome, but seemed nevertheless in

discipline still to retain therewith very great conformity; France by that rule of policy which hath been before mentioned, took away the popish orders which Germany did retain. But process of time hath brought more light into the world; whereby men perceiving that they of the religion in France have also retained some orders which were before in the church of Rome, and are not commanded in the word of God, there hath arisen a sect in England, which following still the very selfsame rule of policy, seeketh to reform even the French reformation, and purge out from thence also dregs of popery. These have not taken as yet such root that they are able to establish any thing. But if they had, what would spring out of their stock, and how far the unquiet wit of man might be carried with rules of such policy, God doth know. The trial which we have lived to see, may somewhat teach us what posterity is to fear. But our Lord of his infinite mercy avert whatsoever evil our swervings on the one hand or on the other may threaten unto the state of his Church! IX. That the church of Rome doth hereby take occasion to blaspheme, and to say, our religion is not able to stand of itself unless it lean upon the staff of their ceremonies, is not a matter of so great moment, that it did need to be objected, or doth deserve to receive an answer. The name of blasphemy in this place, is like the shoe of Hercules on a child's foots. If the church of Rome do use any such kind of silly exprobration, it is no such ugly thing to the ear, that we should think the honour and credit of our religion to; receive thereby any great wound. They which hereof make so perilous a matter do seem to imagine, that we have erected: of late a frame of some new religion, the furniture whereof we should not have borrowed from our enemies, lest they relieving us might afterwards laugh and gibe at our poverty; whereas in truth the ceremonies which we have taken from such as were before us, are not things that belong to this or that sect, but they are the ancient rites and customs of the Church of Christ, whereof ourselves being a part, we have the selfsame interest in them which our fathers before us had, from whom the same are descended unto us. Again, in case we had been so much beholding privately unto them, doth the reputation to one church stand by saying unto another, “I need thee not?" If some should be so vain and impotent as to mar a benefit with reproachful upbraiding, where at the least they suppose themselves to have bestowed some good turn; yet surely a wise body's part it were not, to put out his fire, because his fond and foolish neighbour, from whom he borrowed peradventure wherewith to kindle it, might haply cast him therewith in the teeth, saying, “Were it not for me thou wouldest freeze, and not be able to heat thyself."As for that other argument derived from the secret affection of papists, with whom our conformity in certain ceremonies is said to put them in great hope, that their whole religion in time will have re-entrance, and therefore none are so clamorous amongst us for the observation of these ceremonies, as papists and such as papists suborn to speak for them, whereby it clearly appeareth how much they rejoice, how much they triumph in these things; our answer hereunto is still the same, that the benefit we have by such ceremonies overweigheth even this also. No man which is not exceeding partial can well deny, but that there is most just cause wherefore we should be offended greatly at the church of Rome. Notwithstanding at such times as we are to deliberate for ourselves, the freer our minds are from all distempered affections, the sounder and better is our

judgment. When we are in a fretting mood at the church of Rome, and with that angry disposition enter into any cogitation of the orders and rites of our church; taking particular survey of them, we are sure to have always one eye fixed upon the countenance of our enemies, and according to the blithe or heavy aspect thereof, our other eye sheweth some other suitable token either of dislike or approbation towards our own orders. For the rule of our judgment in such case being only that of Homer, “This is the thing which our enemies would have;" what they seem contented with, even for that very cause we reject: and there is nothing but it pleaseth us much the better if we espy that it galleth them. Miserable were the state and condition of that church, the weighty affairs whereof should be ordered by those deliberations wherein such a humour as this were predominant. We have most heartily to thank God therefore, that they amongst us to whom the first consultations of causes of this kind fell, were men which aiming at another mark, namely the glory of God and the good of this his church, took that which they judged thereunto necessary, not rejecting any good or convenient thing only because the church of Rome might perhaps like it. If we have that which is meet and right, although they be glad, we are not to envy them this their solace; we do not think it a duty of ours to be in every such thing their tormentors.And whereas it is said that popery for want of this utter extirpation hath in some places taken root and flourished again', but hath not been able to re-establish itself in any place after provision made against it by utter evacuation of all Romish ceremonies: and therefore, as long as we hold any thing like unto them, we put them in some more hope than if all were taken away: as we deny not but this may be true, so being of two evils to choose the less, we hold it better that the friends and favourers of the church of Rome should be in some kind of hope to have a corrupt religion restored, than both we and they conceive just fear, lest under colour of rooting out popery, the most effectual means to bear up the state of religion be removed, and so a way made either for Paganism or for extreme barbarity to enter. If desire of weakening the hope of others should turn us away from the course we have taken; how much more the care of preventing our own fear withhold us from that we are urged unto! Especially seeing that our own fear we know, but we are not so certain what hope the rites and orders of our church have bred in the hearts of others. For it is no sufficient argument thereof to say, that in maintaining and urging these ceremonies none are so clamorous as papists and they whom papists suborn; this speech being more hard to justify than the former, and so their proof more doubtful than the thing itself which they prove. He that were certain that this is true, must have marked who they be that speak for ceremonies; he must have noted who amongst them doth speak oftenest, or is most earnest; he must have been both acquainted throughly with the religion of such, and also privy what conferences or compacts are passed in secret between them and others; which kinds of notice are not wont to be vulgar and common. Yet they which allege this would have it taken as a thing that needeth no proof, a thing which all men know and see. And if so be it were granted them as true, what gain they by it? Sundry of them that be popish are eager in maintenance of ceremonies. Is it so strange a matter to find a good

thing furthered by ill men of a sinister intent and purpose, whose forwardness is not therefore a bridle to such as favour the same cause with a better and sincerer meaning? They that seek, as they say, the removing of all popish orders out of the Church, and reckon the state of Bishops in the number of those orders, do (I doubt not) presume that the cause which they prosecute is holy. Notwithstanding it is their own ingenuous acknowledgment, that even this very cause, which they term so often by an excellency, “The Lord's cause," is " gratissima, most acceptable, unto some which hope for prey and spoil by it, and that our age hath store of such, and that such are the very sectaries of Dionysius the famous atheist." Now if hereupon we should upbraid them with irreligious, as they do us with superstitious favourers; if we should follow them in their own kind of pleading, and say, that the most clamorous for this pretended reformation are either atheists, or else proctors suborned by atheists; the answer which herein they would make unto us, let them apply unto themselves, and there an end. For they must not forbid us to presume our cause in defence of our church orders to be as good as theirs against them, till the contrary be made manifest to the world. X. In the meanwhile sorry we are that any good and godly mind should be grieved' with that which is done. But to remedy their grief lieth not so much in us as in themselves. They do not wish to be made glad with the hurt of the, Church: and to remove all out of the Church whereat they shew themselves to be sorrowful, would be, as we are persuaded, hurtful if not pernicious thereunto. Till they be able to persuade the contrary, they must and will I doubt not find out some other good means to cheer up themselves. Amongst which means the example of Geneva may serve for one. Have not they the old popish custom of using godfathers and godmothers in Baptism? the old popish custom of administering the blessed sacrament of the holy Eucharist with wafer-cakes? These things the godly there can digest. Wherefore should not the godly here learn to do the like both in them and in the rest of the like nature? Some further mean peradventure it might be to assuage their grief, if so be they did consider the revenge they take on them which have been, as they interpret it, the workers of their continuance in so great grief so long. For if the maintenance of ceremonies be a corrosive to such as oppugn them, undoubtedly to such as maintain them it can be no great pleasure, when they behold how that which they reverence is oppugned. And therefore they that judge themselves martyrs when they are grieved, should think withal what they are whom they grieve. For we are still to put them in mind that the cause doth make no difference; for that it must be presumed as good at the least on our part as on theirs, till it be in the end decided who have stood for truth and who for error. So that till then the most effectual medicine and withal the most sound to ease their grief, must not be (in our opinion) the taking away of those things whereat they are grieved, but the altering of that persuasion which they have concerning the same.For this we therefore both pray and labour; the more because we are also persuaded, that it is but conceit in them to think, that those Romish ceremonies whereof we have hitherto spoken, are like leprous clothes, infectious unto the Church, or like soft and gentle poisons the venom whereof being insensibly pernicious, worketh death, and yet is never felt working. Thus they say: but because they say it only, and the world hair not as yet had so great experience of their art in curing the diseases of the Church, that the bare authority of their word should persuade in a cause so weighty, they may not think much if

it be required at their hands to shew, first, by what means so deadly infection can grow from similitude between us and the church of Rome in these things indifferent: secondly, for that it were infinite if the Church should provide against every such evil as may come to pass, it is not sufficient that they shew possibility of dangerous event, unless there appear some likelihood also of the same to follow in us, except we prevent it. Nor is this enough, unless it be moreover made plain, that there is no good and sufficient way of prevention, but by evacuating clean, and by emptying the Church of every such rite and ceremony, as is presently called in question. Till this be done, their good affection towards the safety of the Church is acceptable, but the way they prescribe us to preserve it by must rest in suspense.And lest hereat they take occasion to turn upon us the speech of the prophet Jeremy used against Babylon, “Behold we have done our endeavour to cure the diseases of Babylon, but she through her wilfulness doth rest uncured;" let them consider into what straits the Church might drive itself in being guided by this their counsel Their axiom is, that the sound believing Church of Jesus Christ may not be like heretical churches in any of those indifferent things, which men make choice of, and do not take by prescript appointment of the word of God. In the word of God the use of bread is prescribed, as a thing without which the Eucharist may not be celebrated; but as for the kind of bread it is not denied to be a thing indifferent. Being indifferent of itself, we are by this axiom of theirs to avoid the use of unleavened bread in that sacrament, because such bread the church of Rome being heretical useth. But doth not the selfsame axiom bar us even from leavened bread also, which the church of the Grecians useth; the opinions whereof are in a number of things the same for which we condemn the church of Rome, and in some things erroneous where the church of Rome is acknowledged to be sound; as namely, in the article about proceeding of the Holy Ghost? And lest here they should say that because the Greek church is farther off, and the church of Rome nearer, we are in that respect rather to use that which the church of Rome useth not: let them imagine a reformed church in the city of Venice, where a Greek church and a popish both are. And when both these are equally near let them consider what the third shall do. Without either leavened or unleavened bread, it can have no sacrament; the word of God doth tie it to neither; and their axiom doth exclude it from both. If this constrain them, as it must, to grant that their axiom is not to take any place save in those things only where the Church hath larger scope; it resteth that they search out some stronger reason than they have as yet alleged; otherwise they constrain not us to think that the Church is tied unto any such rule or axiom, no not then when she hath the widest field to walk in, and the greatest store of choice. XI. Against such ceremonies generally as are the same in the church of England and of Rome, we see what hath been hitherto alleged. Albeit therefore we do not find the one church's having of such things to be sufficient cause why the other should not have them: nevertheless, in case it may be proved, that amongst the number of rites and orders common unto both, there are particulars, the use whereof is utterly unlawful in regard of some special bad and noisome quality; there is no doubt but we ought to relinquish such rites and orders, what freedom soever we have to retain the other still. As therefore we have heard their general exception against all those things, which being not commanded

in the word of God, were first received in the church of Rome, and from thence have been derived into ours; so it followeth that now we proceed unto certain kinds of them, as being excepted against not only for that they are in the church of Rome, but are besides either Jewish, or abused unto idolatry, and so grown scandalous. [z.] The church of Rome, they say, being ashamed of the simplicity of the gospel, did almost out of all religions take whatsoever had any fair and gorgeous show, borrowing in that respect from the Jews sundry of their abolished ceremonies. Thus by foolish and ridiculous imitation, all their massing furniture almost they took from the Law, lest having an altar and a priest, they should want vestments for their stage; so that whatsoever we have in common with the church of Rome, if the same be of this kind we ought to remove it. "Constantine the emperor speaking of the keeping of the feast of Easter, saith, ‘That it is an unworthy thing to have any thing common with that most spiteful company of the Jews.' And a little after he saith, 'That it is most absurd and against reason, that the Jews should vaunt and glory that the Christians could not keep those things without their doctrine.' And in another place it is said after this sort; 'It is convenient so to order the matter, that we have nothing common with that nation'. The council of Laodicea, which was afterwards confirmed by the sixth general council, decreed ‘that the Christians should not take unleavened bread of the Jews, or communicate with their impiety."For the easier manifestation of truth in this point, two things there are which must be considered: namely, the causes wherefore the Church should decline from Jewish ceremonies; and how far it ought so to do. One cause is that the Jews were the deadliest and spitefullest enemies of Christianity that were in the world, and in this respect their orders so far forth to be shunned, as we have already set down in handling the matter of heathenish ceremonies. For no enemies being so venomous against Christ as Jews, they were of all other most odious, and by that mean least to be used. as fit church-patterns for imitation. Another cause is the solemn abrogation of the Jews' ordinances; which ordinances for us to resume, were to check our Lord himself which hath disannulled them. But how far this second cause Both extend, it is not on all sides fully agreed upon. And touching those things whereunto it reacheth not, although there be small cause wherefore the Church should frame itself to the Jews' example in respect of their persons which are most hateful; yet God himself having been the author of their laws, herein they are (notwithstanding the former consideration) still worthy to be honoured, and to be followed above others, as much as the state of things will bear.Jewish ordinances had some things natural, and of the perpetuity of those things no man doubteth. That which was positive we likewise know to have been by the coming of Christ partly necessary not to be kept, and partly indifferent to be kept or not. Of the former kind circumcision and sacrifice were. For this point Stephen was accused, and the evidence which his accusers brought against him in judgment was, “This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the Law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the ordinances that Moses gave us." True it is that this doctrine was then taught, which unbelievers condemning for blasphemy did therein commit that which they did condemn. The

Apostles notwithstanding from whom Stephen had received it, did not so teach the abrogation, no not of those things which were necessarily to cease, but that even the Jews being Christian, might for a time continue in them. And therefore in Jerusalem the first Christian bishop not circumcised was Mark; and he not bishop till the days of Adrian the emperor, after the overthrow of Jerusalem: there having been fifteen bishops before him which were all of the circumcision. The Christian Jews did think at the first not only themselves but the Christian Gentiles also bound, and that necessarily, to observe the whole Law. There went forth certain of the sect of Pharisees which did believe, and they coming unto Antioch, taught that it was necessary for the Gentiles to be circumcised, and to keep the Law of Moses. Whereupon there grew dissension, Paul and Barnabas disputing against them. The determination of the council held at Jerusalem concerning this matter was finally this; "Touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and determined that they observe no such thing." Their protestation by letters is, “Forasmuch as we have heard that certain which departed from us have troubled you with words, and cumbered your minds, saying, Ye must be circumcised and keep the Law; know that we gave them no such commandment's." Paul therefore continued still teaching the Gentiles, not only that they were not bound to observe the laws of Moses, but that the observation of those laws which were necessarily to be abrogated, was in them altogether unlawful. In which point his doctrine was misreported, as though he had every where preached this, not only concerning the Gentiles, but also touching the Jews. Wherefore coming unto James and the rest of the clergy at Jerusalem, they told him plainly of it, saying, "Thou seest, brother, how many thousand Jews there are which believe, and they are all zealous of the Law. Now they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are amongst the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and sayest that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to live after the customs." And hereupon they give him counsel to make it apparent in the eyes of all men, that those flying reports were untrue, and that himself being a Jew kept the Law even as they did. In some things therefore we see the Apostles did teach, that there ought not to be conformity between the Christian Jews and Gentiles. How many things this law of inconformity did comprehend, there is no need we should stand to examine. This general is true, that the Gentiles were not made conformable unto the Jews, in that which was necessarily to cease at the coming of Christ.Touching things positive, which might either cease or continue as occasion should require, the Apostles tendering the zeal of the Jews, thought it necessary to bind even the Gentiles for a time to abstain as the Jews did, “from things offered unto idols, from blood, from strangled." These decrees were every where delivered unto the Gentiles to be straitly observed and kept. In the other matters, where the Gentiles were free, and the Jews in their own opinion still tied, the Apostles' doctrine unto the Jew was, “condemn not the Gentile; unto the Gentile, despise not the Jew." The one sort they warned to take heed, that scrupulosity did not make them rigorous, in giving unadvised sentence against their brethren which were free; the other, that they did not become scandalous, by abusing their liberty and freedom to the offence of their weak brethren which were

scrupulous. From hence therefore two conclusions there are which may evidently be drawn; the first, that whatsoever conformity of positive laws the Apostles did bring in between the churches of Jews and Gentiles, it was in those things only which might either cease or continue a shorter or a longer time, as occasion did most require; the second, that they did not impose upon the churches of the Gentiles any part of the Jews' ordinances with bond of necessary and perpetual observation, (as we all both by doctrine and practice acknowledge,) but only in respect of the conveniency and fitness for the present state of the Church as then it stood. The wards of the council's decree concerning the Gentiles are, “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no more burden saving only those things of necessity, abstinence from idol offerings, from strangled and blood, and from fornication." So that in other things positive, which the coming of Christ did not necessarily extinguish, the Gentiles were left altogether free.Neither ought it to seem unreasonable that the Gentiles should necessarily be bound and tied to Jewish ordinances, so far forth as that decree importeth. For to the Jew, who knew that their difference from other nations which were aliens and strangers from God, did especially consist in this, that God's people had positive ordinances given to them of God himself, it seemed marvellous hard, that the Christian Gentiles should be incorporated into the same commonwealth with God's own chosen people, and be subject to no part of his statutes, more than only the law of nature, which heathens count themselves bound unto. It was an opinion constantly received amongst the Jews, that God did deliver unto the sons of Noah seven precepts: namely, first, to live in some form of regiment under public laws; secondly, to serve and call upon the name of God; thirdly, to shun idolatry; fourthly, not to suffer effusion of blood; fifthly, to abhor all unclean knowledge in the flesh; sixthly, to commit no rapine; seventhly, and finally, not to eat of any living creature whereof the blood was not first let out. If therefore the Gentiles would be exempt from the law of Moses, yet it might seem hard they should also cast off even those things positive which were observed before Moses, and which were not of the same kind with laws that were necessarily to cease. And peradventure hereupon the council saw it expedient to determine, that the Gentiles should, according unto the third, the seventh, and the fifth, of those precepts, abstain from things sacrificed unto idols, from strangled and blood, and from fornication. The rest the Gentiles did of their own accord observe, nature leading them thereto.And did not nature also teach them to abstain from fornication? No doubt it did. Neither can we with reason think, that as the former two are positive, so likewise this, being meant as the Apostle doth otherwise usually understand it. But very marriage within a number of degrees being not only by the law of Moses, but also by the law of the sons of Noah (for so they took it) an unlawful discovery of nakedness; this discovery of nakedness by unlawful marriages such as Moses in the law reckoneth up, I think it for mine own part more probable to have been meant in the words of that canon, than fornication according unto the sense of the law of nature. Words must be taken according to the matter whereof they are uttered. The Apostles command to abstain from blood. Construe this meaning according to the law of nature, and it will seem that homicide only is forbidden. But construe it in reference to the law of the Jews about which the question was, and it shall easily appear to have a clean other sense, and in any man's judgment a

truer, when we expound it of eating and not of shedding blood. So if we speak of fornication, he that knoweth no law but only the law of nature must needs make thereof a narrower construction, than he which measureth the same by a law, wherein sundry kinds even of conjugal copulation are prohibited as impure, unclean, unhonest. St. Paul himself doth term incestuous marriage fornication. If any do rather think that the Christian Gentiles themselves, through the loose and corrupt custom of those times, took simple fornication for no sin, and were in that respect offensive unto believing Jews, which by the Law had been better taught; our proposing of another conjecture is unto theirs no prejudice.Some things therefore we see there were, wherein the Gentiles were forbidden to be like unto the Jews; some things wherein they were commanded not to be unlike. Again, some things also there were, wherein no law of God did let but that they might be either like or unlike, as occasion should require. And unto this purpose Leo saith Apostolical ordinance (beloved,) knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ came not into this world to undo the law, hath in such sort distinguished the mysteries of the Old Testament, that certain of them it hath chosen out to benefit evangelical knowledge withal, and for that purpose appointed that those things which before were Jewish might now be Christian customs." The cause why the Apostles did thus conform the Christians as much as might be according to the pattern of the Jews, was to rein them in by this mean the more, and to make them cleave the better.The Church of Christ hath had in no one thing so many and so contrary occasions of dealing as about Judaism: some having thought the whole Jewish Law wicked and damnable in itself; some not condemning it as the former sort absolutely, have notwithstanding judged it either sooner necessary to be abrogated, or further unlawful to be observed than truth can bear: some of scrupulous simplicity urging perpetual and universal observation of the law of Moses necessary, as the Christian Jews at the first in the Apostles' times; some as heretics, holding the same no less even after the contrary determination set down by consent of the Church at Jerusalem; finally some being herein resolute through mere infidelity, and with open professed enmity against Christ, as unbelieving Jews. To control slanderers of the Law and Prophets, such as Marcionites and Manichees were, the Church in her liturgies hath intermingled with readings out of the New Testament lessons taken out of the Law and Prophets; whereunto Tertullian alluding, saith of the Church of Christ "It intermingleth with evangelical and apostolical writings the Law and the Prophets; and from thence it drinketh in that faith, which with water it sealeth, clotheth with the Spirit, nourisheth with the Eucharist, with martyrdom setteth forward." They would have wondered in those times to hear, that any man being not a favourer of heresy should term this by way of disdain, “mangling of the Gospels and Epistles."They which honour the Law as an image of the wisdom of God himself, are notwithstanding to know that the same had an end in Christ. But what? Was the Law so abolished with Christ, that after his ascension the office of Priests became immediately wicked, and the very name hateful, as importing the exercise of an ungodly function? No,

as long as the glory of the Temple continued, and till the time of that final desolation was accomplished, the very Christian Jews did continue with their sacrifices and other parts of legal service. That very Law therefore which our Saviour was to abolish, did not so soon become unlawful to be observed as some imagine; nor was it afterwards unlawful so far, that the very name of Altar, of Priest, of Sacrifice itself, should be banished out of the world. For though God do now hate sacrifice, whether it be heathenish or Jewish, so that we cannot have the same things which they had but with impiety; yet unless there be some greater let than the only evacuation of the Law of Moses, the names themselves may (I hope) be retained without sin, in respect of that proportion which things established by our Saviour have unto them which by him are abrogated. And so throughout all the writings of the ancient Fathers we see that the words which were do continue; the only difference is, that whereas before they had a literal, they now have a metaphorical use, and are as so many notes of remembrance unto us, that what they did signify in the letter is accomplished in the truth. And as no man can deprive the Church of this liberty, to use names whereunto the Law was accustomed, so neither are we generally forbidden the use of things which the Law hath; though it neither command us any particular rite, as it did the Jews a number, and the weightiest which it did command them are unto us in the Gospel prohibited.Touching such as through simplicity of error did urge universal and perpetual observation of the Law of Moses at the first, we have spoken already. Against Jewish heretics and false apostles teaching afterwards the selfsame, St. Paul in every epistle commonly either disputeth or giveth warning. Jews that were zealous for the Law, but withal infidels in respect of Christianity, and to the name of Jesus Christ most spiteful enemies, did while they flourished no less persecute the Church than heathens. After their estate was overthrown, they were not that way so much to be feared. Howbeit, because they had their synagogues in every famous city almost throughout the world, and by that means great opportunity to withdraw from the Christian faith, which to do they spared "no labour; this gave the church occasion to make sundry laws against them. As in the council of Laodicea “The festival presents which Jews or heretics use to send must not be received, nor Holidays solemnized in their company." Again, “from the Jews men ought not to receive their unleavened, nor to communicate with their impieties." Which council was afterwards indeed confirmed by the sixth general council. But what was the true sense or meaning both of the one and the other? Were Christians here forbidden to communicate in unleavened bread because the Jews did so being enemies of the Church? He which attentively shall weigh the words will suspect, that they rather forbid communion with Jews, than imitation of them: much more, if with these two decrees be compared a third in the Council of Constantinople, “Let no man either of the clergy or laity eat the unleavened of the Jews, nor enter into any familiarity with them, nor send for them in sickness, nor take physic at their hands, nor as much as go into the bath with them. If any do otherwise being a clergyman, let dim be deposed; if being a lay person, let excommunication be his punishment."If these canons were any argument, that they which made them did utterly condemn similitude between the Christians and Jews in things indifferent appertaining unto religion, either because the Jews were enemies unto the Church, or else for that their

ceremonies were abrogated; these reasons had been as strong and effectual against their keeping the feast of Easter on the same day the Jews kept theirs, and not according to the custom of the West church. For so they did from the first beginning till Constantine's time. For in these two things the East and West churches did interchangeably both confront the Jews and concur with them: the West church using unleavened bread, as the Jews in their passover did, but differing from them in the day whereon they kept the feast of Easter; contrariwise the East church celebrating the feast of Easter on the same day with the Jews, but not using the same kind of bread which they did. Now if so be the East church in using leavened bread had done HP, either for that the Jews were enemies to the Church, or because Jewish ceremonies were abrogated; how should we think but that Victor the bishop of Rome (whom all judicious men do in that behalf disallow) did well to be so vehement and fierce in drawing them to the like dissimilitude for the feast of Easter2? Again, if the West churches had in either of those two respects affected dissimilitude with the Jews in the feast of Easter, what reason had they to draw the Eastern church herein unto them, which reason did not enforce them to frame themselves unto it in the ceremony of leavened bread? Difference in rites should breed no controversy between one church and another; but if controversy be once bred, it must be ended. The feast of Easter being therefore litigious in the days of Constantine, who honoured of all other churches most the church of Rome, which church was the mother from whose breasts he had drawn that food, which gave him nourishment to eternal life; sith agreement was necessary, and yet impossible unless the one part were yielded unto; his desire was that of the two the Eastern church should rather yield. And to this end he useth sundry persuasive speeches. When Stephen the Bishop of Rome going about to shew what the Catholic Church should do, had alleged what the heretics themselves did, namely, that they received such as came unto them, and offered not to baptize them anew; St. Cyprian being of a contrary mind to him about the matter at that time in question, which was, “Whether heretics converted ought to be rebaptized, yea or no?" answered the allegation of Pope Stephen with exceeding great stomach, saying, "To this degree of wretchedness the church of God and Spouse of Christ is now come, that her ways she frameth to the example of heretics; that to celebrate the Sacraments which heavenly instruction hath delivered, light itself doth borrow from darkness, and Christians do that which Antichrists do." Now albeit Constantine have done that to further a better cause, which Cyprian did to countenance a worse, namely the rebaptization of heretics, and have taken advantage at the odiousness of the Jews, as Cyprian of heretics, because the Eastern church kept their feast of Easter always the fourteenth day of the month, as the Jews did, what day of the week soever it fell; or howsoever Constantine did take occasion in the handling of that cause to say, “It is unworthy to have any thing common with that spiteful nation of the Jews:" shall every motive argument used in such kind of conferences be made a rule for others still to conclude the like by, concerning all things of like nature, when as probable inducements may lead them to the contrary? Let both this and other allegations suitable unto it cease to bark any longer idly against that truth, the course and passage whereof it is not in them to hinder.

XII. But the weightiest exception, and of all the most worthy to be respected, is against such kind of ceremonies, as have been so grossly and shamefully abused in the church of Rome, that where they remain they are scandalous, yea, they cannot choose but be stumblingblocks and grievous causes of offence. Concerning this point therefore we are first to note, what properly it is to be scandalous or offensive; secondly, what kind of ceremonies are such; and thirdly, when they are necessarily for remedy thereof to be taken away, and when not.The common conceit of the vulgar sort is, whensoever they see any thing which they mislike and are angry at, to think that every such thing is scandalous, and that themselves in this case are the men concerning whom our Saviour spake in so fearful manner, saying, "whosoever shall scandalize or offend any one of these little ones which believe in me" (that is, as they construe it, whosoever shall anger the meanest and simplest artisan which carrieth a good mind, by not removing out of the Church such rites and ceremonies as displease him), "better he were drowned in the bottom of the sea." But hard were the case of the Church of Christ, if this were to scandalize. Men are scandalized when they are moved, led, and provoked unto sin. At good things evil men may take occasion to do evil; and so Christ himself was a rock of offence in Israel, they taking occasion at his poor estate and at the ignominy of his cross, to think him unworthy the name of that great and glorious Messias, whom the Prophets describe in such ample and stately terms. But that which we therefore term offensive because it inviteth men to offend,and by a dumb kind of provocation encourageth, moveth, or any way leadeth unto sin, must of necessity be acknowledged actively scandalous. Now some things are so even by their very essence and nature, so that wheresoever they are found they are not neither can be without this force of provocation unto evil; of which kind all examples of sin and wickedness are. Thus David was scandalous in that bloody act whereby he caused the enemies of God to be blasphemous a,: thus the whole state of Israel scandalous, when their public disorders caused the name of God to be ill-spoken of amongst the nations. It is of this kind that Tertullian meaneth: "Offence or scandal, if I be not deceived (saith he), is, when the example not of a good but of an evil thing doth set men forward unto sin. Good things can scandalize none save only evil minds: good things have no scandalizing nature in them.Yet that which is of its own nature either good or at least not evil, may by some accident become scandalous at certain times and in certain places and to certain men; the open use thereof nevertheless being otherwise without danger. The very nature of some rites and ceremonies therefore is scandalous, as it was in a number of those which the Manichees did use, and is in all such as the law of God doth forbid. Some are offensive only through the agreement of men to use them unto evil, and not else; as the most of those things indifferent which the heathens did to the service of their false gods, which another, in heart condemning their idolatry, could not do with them in show and token of approbation without being guilty of scandal given. Ceremonies of this kind are either devised at the first unto evil, as the Eunomian heretics in dishonour of the blessed Trinity brought in the laying on of water but once, to cross the custom of the church which in baptism did it thrice; or else having had a profitable use they are afterwards interpreted

and wrested to the contrary, as those heretics which held the Trinity to be three distinct not persons but natures, abused the ceremony of three times laying on water in baptism unto the strengthening of their heresy s The element of water is in baptism necessary; once to lay it on or twice is indifferent. For which cause Gregory making mention thereof saith, “To dive an infant either thrice or but once in baptism, can be no way a thing reprovable; seeing that both in three times washing the Trinity of persons, and in one the Unity of Godhead may be signified." So that of these two ceremonies neither being hurtful in itself, both may serve unto good purpose; yet one was devised, and the other converted, unto evil.Now whereas in the church of Rome certain ceremonies are said to have been shamefully abused unto evil, as the ceremony of crossing at baptism, of kneeling at the eucharist, of using wafer-cakes, and such like; the question is, whether for remedy of that evil wherein such ceremonies have been scandalous, and perhaps may be still unto some even amongst ourselves, whom the presence and sight of them may confirm in that former error whereto they served in times past, they are of necessity to be removed. Are these, or any other ceremonies we have common with the church of Rome, scandalous and wicked in their very nature? This no man objecteth. Are any such as have been polluted from their very birth, and instituted even at the first unto that thing which is evil? That which hath been ordained impiously at the first, may wear out that impiety in tract of time; and then what doth let but that the use thereof may stand without offence? The names of our months and of our days we are not ignorant from whence they came, and with what dishonour unto God they are said to have been devised at the first. What could be spoken against any thing more effectual to stir hatred, than that which sometime the ancient Fathers in this case speak? Yet those very names are at this day in use throughout Christendom without hurt or scandal to any. Clear and manifest it is, that things devised by heretics, yea, devised of a very heretical purpose even against religion, and at their first devising worthy to have been withstood, may in time grow meet to be kept; as that custom, the inventors whereof were the Eunomian heretics. So that customs once established and confirmed by long use, being presently without harm, are not in regard of their corrupt original to be held scandalous.But concerning those our ceremonies which they reckon for most popish, they are not able to avouch, that any of them was otherwise instituted than unto good, yea, so used at the first. It followeth then that they all are such, as having served to good purpose, were afterwards converted unto the contrary. And sith it is not so much as objected against us, that we retain together with them the evil wherewith they have been infected in the church of Rome, I would demand who they are whom we scandalize, by using harmless things unto that good end for which they were first instituted. Amongst ourselves that agree in the approbation of this kind of good use, no man will say that one of us is offensive and scandalous unto another. As for the favourers of the church of Rome, they know how far we herein differ and dissent from them; which thing neither we conceal, and they by their public writings also profess daily how much it grieveth them; so that of them there will not many rise up against us, as witnesses unto the indictment of scandal, whereby we might be condemned and cast, as having strengthened them in that evil wherewith they pollute themselves in the use of the same ceremonies. And concerning

such as withstand the church of England herein, and hate it because it loth not sufficiently seem to hate Rome; they (I hope) are far enough from being by this mean drawn to any kind of popish error. The multitude therefore of them, unto whom we are scandalous through the use of abused ceremonies, is not so apparent, that it can justly be said in general of any one sort of men or other, we cause them to offend. If it be so, that now or then some few are espied, who, having been accustomed heretofore to the rites and ceremonies of the church of Rome, are not so scoured of their former rust as to forsake their ancient persuasion which they have had, howsoever they frame themselves to outward obedience of laws and orders: because such may misconstrue the meaning of our ceremonies, and so take them as though they were in every sort the same they have been, shall this be thought a reason sufficient whereon to conclude that some law must necessarily be made to abolish all such ceremonies?They answer, that there is no law of God which doth bind us to retain them. And St. Paul's rule is, that in those things from which without hurt we may lawfully abstain, we should frame the usage of our liberty with regard to the weakness and imbecility of our brethren. Wherefore unto them which stood upon their own defence saying, “All things are lawful unto me; " he replieth, “but all things are not expedient" in regard of others. "All things are clean, all meats are lawful; but evil unto that man that eateth offensively. If for thy meat's sake thy brother be grieved, thou walkest no longer according to charity. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Dissolve not for food's sake the work of God. We that are strong must bear the imbecilities of the impotent, and not please ourselves." It was a weakness in the Christian Jews, and a maim of judgment in them, that they thought the Gentiles polluted by the eating of those meats which themselves were afraid to touch for fear of transgressing the law of Moses; yea, hereat their hearts did so much rise, that the Apostle had just cause to fear, lest they would rather forsake Christianity than endure any fellowship with such as made no conscience of that which was unto them abominable. And for this cause mention is made of destroying the weak by meats, and of dissolving the work of God, which was his Church, a part of the living stones whereof were believing Jews. Now those weak brethren before- mentioned are said to be as the Jews were, and our ceremonies which have been abused in the church of Rome to be as the scandalous meats, from which the Gentiles are exhorted to abstain in the presence of Jews, for fear of averting them from Christian faith. Therefore, as charity did bind them to refrain from that for their brethren's sake, which otherwise was lawful enough for them; so it bindeth us for our brethren's sake likewise to abolish such ceremonies, although we might lawfully else retain them.But between these two cases there are great odds. For neither are our weak brethren as the Jews, nor the ceremonies which we use as the meats which the Gentiles used. The Jews were known to be generally weak in that respect; whereas contrariwise the imbecility of ours is not common unto so many, that we can take any such certain notice of them. It is a chance if here and there some one be found; and therefore seeing we may presume men commonly otherwise, there is no necessity that our practice should frame itself by that which the Apostle doth prescribe to the Gentiles.

Again, their use of meats was not like unto our of ceremonies, that being a matter of private action in common life, where every man was free to order that which himself did; but this a public constitution for the ordering of the Church: and we are not to look that the Church should change her public laws and ordinances, made according to that which is judged ordinarily and commonly fittest for the whole, although it chance that for some particular men the same be found inconvenient; especially when there may be other remedy also against the sores of particular inconveniences. In this case therefore where any private harm doth grow, we are not to reject instruction, as being an unmeet plaister to apply unto it; neither can we say, that he which appointeth teachers for physicians in this kind of evil, is "As if a man would set one to watch a child all day long lest he should hurt himself with a knife; whereas by taking away the knife from him, the danger is avoided, and the service of the man better employed." For a knife may be taken away from a child, without depriving them of the benefit thereof which have years and discretion to use it. But the ceremonies which children do abuse if we remove quite and clean, as it is by some required that we should, then are they not taken from children only, but from others also; which is as though because children may perhaps hurt themselves with knives, we should conclude, that therefore the use of knives is to be taken quite and clean even from men also.Those particular ceremonies, which they pretend to be so scandalous, we shall in the next Book have occasion more throughly to sift, where other things also traduced in the public duties of the Church whereunto each of these appertaineth, are together with these to be touched, and such reasons to be examined as have at any time been brought either against the one or the other. In the meanwhile against the conveniency of curing such evils by instruction, strange it is that they should object the multitude of other necessary matters, wherein preachers may better bestow their time, than in giving men warning not to abuse ceremonies `: a wonder it is, that they should object this, which have so many years together troubled the Church with quarrels concerning these things, and are even to this very hour so earnest in them, that if they write or speak publicly but five words, one of them is lightly about the dangerous estate of the church of England in respect of abused ceremonies. How much happier had it been for this whole Church, if they which have raised contention therein about the abuse of rites and ceremonies, had considered in due time that there is indeed store of matters fitter and better a great deal for teachers to spend time and labour in t It is through their importunate and vehement asseverations, more than through any such experience which we have had of our own, that we are forced to think it possible for one or other now and then, at leastwise in the prime of the reformation of our church, to have stumbled at some kind of ceremony: wherein forasmuch as we are contented to take this upon their credit, and to think it may be; sith also they further pretend the same to be so dangerous a snare to their souls that are at any time taken therein; they must give our teachers leave for the saving of those souls (be they never so few) to intermingle sometime with other more necessary things admonition concerning these not unnecessary. Wherein they should in reason more easily yield this leave, considering that hereunto we shall not need to use the hundredth part of that time, which themselves think very needful to bestow in making most bitter invectives against the ceremonies of the Church.

XIII. But to come to the last point of all; the church of England is grievously charged with forgetfulness of her duty, which duty had been to frame herself unto the pattern of their example that went before her in the work of reformation. For "as the churches of Christ ought to be most unlike the synagogue of Antichrist in their indifferent ceremonies; so they ought to be most like one unto another, and for preservation of unity to have as much as possible may be all the same ceremonies. And therefore St. Paul, to establish this order in the church of Corinth, that they should make their gatherings for the poor upon the first day of the Sabbath, (which is our Sunday,) allegeth this for a reason, That he had so ordained in other churches." Again, “As children of one father and servants of one family, so all churches should not only have one diet in that they have one word, but also wear as it were one livery in using the same ceremonies." Thirdly, “This rule did the great council of Nice follow, when it ordained, that where certain at the feast of Pentecost did pray kneeling, they should pray standing: the reason whereof is added, which is, that one custom ought to be kept throughout all churches. It is true that the diversity of ceremonies ought not to cause the churches to dissent one with another; but yet it maketh most to the avoiding of dissension, that there be amongst them an unity not only in doctrine, but also in ceremonies. And therefore our form of service is to be amended, not only for that it cometh too near that of the Papists, but also because it is so different from that of the reformed churches." Being asked to what churches ours should conform itself, and why other reformed churches should not as well frame themselves to ours; their answer is, “that if there be any ceremonies which we have better than others, they ought to frame themselves to us; if they have better than we, then we ought to frame ourselves to them; if the ceremonies be alike commodious, the later churches should conform themselves to the first, as the younger daughter to the elder. For as St. Paul in the members, where all other things are equal, noteth it for a mark of honour above the rest, that one is called before another to the Gospel; so is it for the same cause amongst the churches. And in this respect he pincheth the Corinths, that not being the first which received the Gospel, yet they would have their several manners from other churches. Moreover, where the ceremonies are alike commodious, the fewer ought to conform themselves unto the moe. Forasmuch therefore as all the churches" (so far as they know which plead after this manner) "of our confession in doctrine agree in the abrogation of divers things which we retain, our church ought either to shew that they have done evil, or else she is found to be in fault that doth not conform herself in that, which she cannot deny to be well abrogated."In this axiom, that preservation of peace and unity amongst Christian churches should be by all good means procured, we join most willingly and gladly with them. Neither deny we but that to the avoiding of dissension it availeth much that there be amongst them an unity as well in ceremonies as in doctrine. The only doubt is about the manner of their unity; how far churches are bound to be uniform in their ceremonies, and what way they ought to take for that purpose.Touching the one, the rule which they have set down is, that in ceremonies indifferent, all churches ought to be one of them unto another as like as possibly s they may be. Which possibly we cannot otherwise construe, than that it doth require them to be even as like as they may be without breaking any positive ordinance of God. For the

ceremonies whereof we speak, being matter of positive law, they are indifferent, if God have neither himself commanded nor forbidden them, but left them unto the Church's discretion. So that if as great uniformity be required as is possible in these things; seeing that the law of God for biddeth not any one of them, it followeth that from the greatest unto the least they must be in every Christian church the same, except mere impossibility of so having it be the hinderance. To us this opinion seemeth over extreme and violent: we rather incline to think it a just and reason able cause for any church, the state whereof is free and independent, if in these things it differ from other churches, only for that it doth not judge it so fit and expedient to be framed therein by the pattern of their example, as to be otherwise framed than they. That of Gregory unto Leander is a charitable speech and a peaceable; "In una fide nil officit ecclesia: sanctae consuetudo diversa:" "Where the faith of the holy Church is one, a difference in customs of the Church doth no harm?" That of St. Augustine to Casulanus is somewhat more particular, and toucheth what kind of ceremonies they are, wherein one church may vary from the example of another without hurt: "Let the faith of the whole Church, how wide soever it have spread itself, be always one, although the unity of belief be famous for variety of certain ordinances, whereby that which is rightly believed suffereth no kind of let or impediment." Calvin goeth further, "As concerning rites in particular, let the sentence of Augustine take place, which leaveth it free unto all churches to receive each their own custom. Yea sometime it profiteth and is expedient that there be difference, lest men should think that religion is tied to outward ceremonies. Always provided that there be not any emulation, nor that churches delighted with novelty affect to have that which others have not."They which grant it true that the diversity of ceremonies in this kind ought not to cause dissension in churches, must either acknowledge that they grant in effect nothing by these words; or if any thing be granted, there must as much be yielded unto, as we affirm against their former strict assertion. For if churches be urged by way of duty to take such ceremonies as they like not of, how can dissension be avoided? Will they say that there ought to be no dissension, because such as be urged ought to like of that whereunto they are urged? If they say this, they say just nothing. For how should any church like to be urged of duty, by such as have no authority or power over it, unto those things which being indifferent it is not of duty bound unto them? Is it their meaning, that there ought to be no dissension, because, that which churches are not bound unto, no man ought by way of duty to urge upon them; and if any man do, he standeth in the sight of both God and men most justly blameable, as a needless disturber of the peace of God's Church, and an author of dissension? In saying this, they both condemn their own practice, when they press the church of England with so strict a bond of duty in these things; and they overthrow the ground of their practice, which is, that there ought to be in all kind of ceremonies uniformity, unless impossibility hinder it.For proof whereof it is not enough to allege what St. Paul did about the matter of collections, or what noblemen do in the liveries of Their servants, or what the council of Nice did for standing in time of prayer on certain days: because though St. Paul did will them of the church of Corinth every man to lay up somewhat by him upon the Sunday, and to reserve it in store, till himself did come thither to send it unto the church of Jerusalem for relief of the poor there; signifying withal, that he had taken the like order

with the churches of Galatia; yet the reason which he yieldeth of this order taken both in the one place and the other, sheweth the least part of his meaning to have been that whereunto his words are writhed. "Concerning collection for the saints, (he meaneth them of Jerusalem,) as I have given order to the church of Galatia, so likewise do ye," saith the Apostle; "that is, in every first of the week let each of you lay aside by himself, and reserve according to that which God hath blessed him with, that when I come collections be not then to make; and that when I am come, whom you shall choose, them I may forthwith send away by letters to carry your beneficence unto Jerusalem." Out of which words to conclude the duty of uniformity throughout all churches in all manner of indifferent ceremonies will be very hard, and therefore best to give it over.But perhaps they are by so much the more loth to forsake this argument, for that it hath, though nothing else, yet the name of Scripture, to give it some kind of countenance more than the next of livery coats afforded them. For neither is it any man's duty to clothe all his children or all his servants with one weed, nor theirs to clothe themselves so, if it were left to their own judgments, as these ceremonies are left of God to the judgment of the Church. And seeing churches are rather in this case like divers families than like divers servants of one family; because every church, the state whereof is independent upon any other, hath authority to appoint orders for itself in things indifferent: therefore of the two we may rather infer, that as one family is not abridged of liberty to be clothed in friar's-grey for that another doth wear clay-colour, so neither are all churches bound to the selfsame indifferent ceremonies which it liketh sundry to use.As for that canon in the council of Nice, let them but read it and weigh it well. The ancient use of the Church throughout all Christendom was for fifty days after Easter, (which fifty days were called Pentecost, though most commonly the last day of them which is Whitsunday be so called,) in like sort on all the Sundays throughout the whole year their manner was, to stand at prayer; whereupon their meetings unto that purpose on those days had the name of Stations given them. Of which custom Tertullian speaketh in this wise; "It is not with us thought fit either to fast on the Lord's day, or to pray kneeling. The same immunity from fasting and kneeling we keep all the time which is between the feasts of Easter and Pentecost." This being therefore an order generally received in the Church; when some began to be singular and different from all others, and that in a ceremony which was then judged very convenient for the whole church even by the whole, those few excepted which brake out of the common pale: the council of Nice thought good to enclose them again with the rest, by a law made in this sort: "Because there are certain which will needs kneel at the time of prayer on the Lord's-day, and in the fifty days after Easter; the holy synod judging it meet that a convenient custom be observed throughout all churches, hath decreed that standing we make our prayers to the Lord." Whereby it plainly appeareth that in things indifferent, what the whole Church doth think convenient for the whole, the same if any part do wilfully violate, it may be reformed and inrailed again by that general authority whereunto each particular is subject; and that the spirit of singularity in a few ought to give place unto public judgment: this doth clearly enough appear, but not that all Christian churches are bound in every indifferent ceremony to be uniform; because where the whole hath not tied the

parts unto one and the same thing, they being therein left each to their own choice, may either do as other do or else z otherwise, without any breach of duty at all.Concerning those indifferent things, wherein it hath been heretofore thought good that all Christian churches should be uniform, the way which they now conceive to bring this to pass was then never thought on. For till now it hath been judged, that seeing the Law of God doth not prescribe all particular ceremonies which the Church of Christ may use; and in so great variety of them as may be found out, it is not possible that the law of nature and reason should direct all churches unto the same things, each deliberating by itself what is most convenient; the way to establish the same things indifferent throughout them all must needs be the judgment of some judicial authority drawn into one only sentence, which may be a rule for every particular to follow. And because such authority over all churches is too much to be granted unto any one mortal man, there yet remaineth that which hath been always followed as the best, the safest, the most sincere and reasonable way; namely, the verdict of the whole Church orderly taken, and set down in the assembly of some general council. But to maintain that all Christian churches ought for unity's sake to be uniform in all ceremonies, and then to teach that the way of bringing this to pass must be by mutual imitation, so that where we have better ceremonies than others they shall be bound to follow us, and we them where theirs are better; how should we think it agreeable and consonant unto reason? For sith in things of this nature there is such variety of particular inducements, whereby one church may be led to think that better which another church led by other inducements judgeth to be worse: (for example, the East church did think it better to keep Easter-day after the manner of the Jews, the West church better to do otherwise; the Greek church judgeth it worse to use unleavened bread in the Eucharist, the Latin church leavened; one church esteemeth it not so good to receive the Eucharist sitting as standing. another church not so good standing as sitting; there being on the one side probable motives as well as on the other:) unless they add somewhat else to define more certainly what ceremonies shall stand for best, in such sort that all churches in the world shall know them to be the best, and so know them that there may not remain any question about this point, we are not a whit the nearer for that they have hitherto said.They themselves, although resolved in their own judgments what ceremonies are best, yet foreseeing that such as they are addicted unto be not all so clearly and so incomparably best, but others there are or may be at leastwise, when all things are well considered, as good, knew not which way smoothly to rid their hands of this matter, without providing some more certain rule to be followed for establishment of uniformity in ceremonies, when there are divers kinds of equal goodness; and therefore in this case they say, that the later churches and the fewer should conform themselves unto the elder and the moe. Hereupon they conclude, that forasmuch as all the reformed churches (so far as they know), which are of our confession in doctrine, have agreed already in the abrogation of divers things which we retain; our church ought either to shew that they have done evil, or else she is found to be in fault for not conforming herself to those churches, in that which she cannot deny to be in them well abrogated. For the authority of the first churches, (and those they account to be the first in this cause which were first reformed,) they bring the comparison of younger daughters conforming themselves in

attire to the example of their elder sisters; wherein there is just as much strength of reason as in the livery-coats beforementioned. St. Paul, they say, noteth it for a mark of special honour, that Epmnetus was the first man in all Achaia which did embrace the Christian faith; after the same sort he toucheth it also as a special preeminence of Junias and Andronicus, that in Christianity they were his ancients; the Corinthians he pinched with this demand, “Hath the word of God gone out from you, or hath it lighted on you alone?" But what of all this? If any man should think that alacrity and forwardness in good things doth add nothing unto men's commendation, the two former speeches of St. Paul might lead him to reform his judgment. In like sort, to take down the stomach of proud conceited men, that glory as though they were able to set all others to school, there can be nothing more fit than some such words as the Apostle's third sentence doth contain; wherein he teacheth the church of Corinth to know, that there was no such great odds between them and the rest of their brethren, that they should think themselves to be gold and the rest to be but copper. He therefore useth speech unto them to this effect: "Men instructed in the knowledge of Jesus Christ there both were before you, and are besides you in the world; ye neither are the fountain from which first, nor yet the river into which alone the word hath flowed." But although as Epaenetus was the first man in all Achaia, so Corinth had been the first church in the whole world, that received Christ; the Apostle doth not shew that in any kind of things indifferent whatsoever this should have made their example a law unto all others. Indeed the example of sundry churches for approbation of one thing doth sway much; but yet still as having the force of an example only, and not of a law. They are effectual to move any church, unless some greater thing do hinder; but they bind none, no not though they be many; saving only when they are the major part of a general assembly, and then their voices being moe in number must oversway their judgments who are fewer, because in such cases the greater half is the whole. But as they stand out single each of them by itself, their number can purchase them no such authority, that the rest of the churches being fewer should be therefore bound to follow them, and to relinquish as good ceremonies as theirs for theirs.Whereas therefore it is concluded out of these so weak premises, that the retaining of divers things in the church of England, which other reformed churches have cast out, must needs argue that we do not well, unless we can shew that they have done ill; what needed this wrest to draw out from us an accusation of foreign churches? It is not proved as yet that if they have done well our duty is to follow them, and to forsake our own course because it differeth from theirs, although indeed it be as well for us every way as theirs for them. And if the proofs alleged for confirmation hereof had been sound, yet seeing they lead no further than only to shew, that where we can have no better ceremonies theirs must be taken; as they cannot with modesty think themselves to have found out absolutely the best which the wit of men may devise, so liking their own somewhat better than other men's, even because they are their own, they must in equity allow us to be like unto them in this affection; which if they do, they ease us of that uncourteous burden, whereby we are charged either to condemn them or else to follow them. They grant we need not follow them, if our own ways already be better: and if our own be but equal, the law of common indulgence alloweth us to think them at the least

half a thought the better because they are our own; which we may very well do, and never draw any indictment at all against theirs, but think commendably even of them also. XIV. To leave reformed churches therefore and their actions for Him to judge of, in whose sight they are as they are; and our desire is that they may even in his sight be found such as we ought to endeavour by all means that our own may likewise be; somewhat we are enforced to speak by way of simple declaration concerning the proceedings of the church of England in these affairs, to the end that men whose minds are free from those partial constructions, whereby the only name of difference from some other churches is thought cause sufficient to condemn ours, may the better discern whether that we have done be reasonable, yea or no. The church of England being to alter her received laws concerning such orders, rites, and ceremonies, as had been in former times an hinderance unto piety and religious service of God, was to enter into consideration first, that the change of laws, especially concerning matter of religion, must be warily proceeded in. Laws, as all other things human, are many times full of imperfection; and that which is supposed behoveful unto men, proveth oftentimes most pernicious. The wisdom which is learned by tract of time, findeth the laws that have been in former ages established, needful in later to be abrogated. Besides, that which sometime is expedient doth not always so continue: and the number of needless laws unabolished doth weaken the force of them that are necessary. But true withal it is, that alteration though it be from worse to better hath in it inconveniences, and those weighty; unless it be in such laws as have been made upon special occasions, which occasions ceasing, laws of that kind do abrogate themselves. But when we abrogate a law as being ill made, the whole cause for which it was made still remaining, do we not herein revoke our very own deed, and upbraid ourselves with folly, yea, all that were makers of it with oversight and with error? Further, if it be a law which the custom and continual practice of many ages or years hath confirmed in the minds of men, to alter it must needs be troublesome and scandalous. It amazeth them, it causeth them to stand in doubt whether any thing be in itself by nature either good or evil, and not all things rather such as men at this or that time agree to account of them, when they behold even those things disproved, disannulled, rejected, which use had made in a manner natural. What have we to induce men unto the willing obedience and observation of laws, but the weight of so many men's judgment as have with deliberate advice assented thereunto; the weight of that long experience, which the world hath had thereof with consent and good liking? So that to change any such law must needs with the common sort impair and weaken the force of those grounds, whereby all laws are made effectual.Notwithstanding we do not deny alteration of laws to be sometimes a thing necessary; as when they are unnatural, or impious, or otherwise hurtful unto the public community of men, and against that good for which human societies were instituted. When the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour were ordained to alter the laws of heathenish religion received throughout the whole world, chosen I grant they were (Paul excepted) the rest ignorant, poor, simple, unschooled altogether and unlettered men; howbeit extraordinarily endued with ghostly wisdom from above before they ever undertook this enterprise; yea their authority confirmed by miracle, to the end it might plainly appear that they were the Lord's ambassadors, unto whose sovereign power for all flesh to stoop,

for all the kingdoms of the earth to yield themselves willingly conformable in whatsoever should be required, it was their duty. In this case therefore their oppositions in maintenance of public superstition against apostolic endeavours, as that they might not condemn the ways of their ancient predecessors, that they must keep religiones traditas, the rites which from age to age had descended, that the ceremonies of religion had been ever accounted by so much holier as elder; these and the like allegations in this case were vain and frivolous. Not to stay longer therefore in speech concerning this point, we will conclude, that as the change of such laws as have been specified is necessary, so the evidence that they are such must be great. If we have neither voice from heaven that so pronounceth of them, neither sentence of men grounded upon such manifest and clear proof, that they in whose hands it is to alter them may likewise infallibly even in heart and conscience judge them so: upon necessity to urge alteration is to trouble and disturb without necessity. As for arbitrary alterations, when laws in themselves not simply bad or unmeet are changed for better and more expedient; if the benefit of that which is newly better devised be but small, sith the custom of easiness to alter and change is so evil, no doubt but to bear a tolerable sore is better than to venture on a dangerous remedy.Which being generally thought upon as a matter that touched nearly their whole enterprise, whereas change was notwithstanding concluded necessary, in regard of the great hurt which the Church did receive by a number of things then in use, whereupon a great deal of that which had been was now to be taken away and removed out of the Church; yet sith there are divers ways of abrogating things established, they saw it best to cut off presently such things as might in that sort be extinguished without danger, leaving the rest to be abolished by disusage through tract of time. And as this was done for the manner of abrogation: so touching the stint or measure thereof, rites and ceremonies and other external things of like nature being hurtful unto the Church, either in respect of their quality or in regard of their number; in the former there could be no doubt or difficulty what should be done, their deliberation in the later was more hard. And therefore inasmuch as they did resolve to remove only such things of that kind as the Church might best spare, retaining the residue; their whole counsel is in this point utterly condemned, as having either proceeded from the blindness of those times, or from negligence, or from desire of honour and glory, or from an erroneous opinion that such things might be tolerated for a while; or if it did proceed (as they which would seem most favourable are content to think it possible) from a purpose, partly the easilier to draw papists unto "the Gospel" (by keeping so many orders still the same with theirs), “and partly to redeem peace thereby, the breach whereof they might fear would ensue upon more thorough alteration;" or howsoever it came to pass, the thing they did is judged evil. But such is the lot of all that deal in public affairs whether of church or commonwealth; that which men list to surmise of their doings, be it good or ill, they must beforehand patiently arm their minds to endure. Wherefore to let go private surmises, whereby the thing in itself is not made either better or worse; if just and allowable reasons might lead them to do as they did, then are these censures all frustrate.

Touching ceremonies harmless therefore in themselves, and hurtful only in respect of number: was it amiss to decree, that those things which were least needful and newliest come should be the first that were taken away, as in the abrogating of a number of saints' days, and of other the like customs, it appeareth they did; till afterwards the Form of Common Prayer being perfected, Articles of sound Religion and Discipline agreed upon, Catechisms framed for the needful instruction of youth, churches purged of things that indeed were burdensome to the people or to the simple offensive and scandalous, all was brought at the length unto that wherein now we stand? Or was it amiss, that having this way eased the Church as they thought of superfluity, they went not on till they had plucked up even those things also, which had taken a great deal stronger and deeper root; those things which to abrogate without constraint of manifest harm thereby arising, had been to alter unnecessarily (in their judgments) the ancient received custom of the whole Church, the universal practice of the people of God, and those very decrees of our fathers, which were not only set down by agreement of general councils, but had accordingly been put in ure and so continued in use till that very time present?True it is, that neither councils nor customs, be they never so ancient and so general, can let the Church from taking away that thing which is hurtful to be retained. Where things have been instituted, which being convenient and good at the first, do afterwards in process of time wax otherwise; we make no doubt but they may be altered, yea, though councils or customs general have received them. And therefore it is but a needless kind of opposition which they make who thus dispute, “If in those things which are not expressed in the Scripture, that is to be observed of the Church, which is the custom of the people of God and decree of our forefathers; then how can these things at any time be varied, which heretofore have been once ordained in such sort?" Whereto we say, that things so ordained are to be kept, howbeit not necessarily any longer, than till there grow some urgent cause to ordain the contrary. For there is not any positive law of men, whether it be general or particular; received by formal express consent, as in councils, or by secret approbation, as in customs it cometh to pass; but the same may be taken away if occasion serve. Even as we all know, that many things generally kept heretofore are now in like sort generally unkept and abolished every where.Notwithstanding till such things be abolished, what exception can there be taken against the judgment of St. Augustine, who saith, “That of things harmless, whatsoever there is which the whole Church doth observe throughout the world, to argue for any man's immunity from observing the same, it were a point of most insolent madness?" And surely odious it must needs have been for one Christian church to abolish that which all had received and held for the space of many ages, and that without any detriment unto religion so manifest and so great, as might in the eyes of unpartial men appear sufficient to clear them from all blame of rash and inconsiderate proceeding, if in fervour of zeal they had removed such things. Whereas contrariwise, so reasonable moderation herein used hath freed us from being' deservedly subject unto that bitter kind of obloquy, whereby as the church of Rome doth under the colour of love towards those things which be harmless, maintain extremely most hurtful corruptions; so we peradventure might be upbraided, that under colour of hatred towards those things that are corrupt, we are on the other side as extreme even against most harmless ordinances. And as they are obstinate to

retain that, which no man of any conscience is able well to defend; so we might be reckoned fierce and violent to tear away that, which if our own mouths did condemn, our consciences would storm and repine thereat. The Romans having banished Tarquinius the Proud, and taken a solemn oath that they never would permit any man more to reign, could not herewith content themselves, or think that tyranny was thoroughly extinguished, till they had driven one of their Consuls to depart the city, against whom they found not in the world what to object, saving only that his name was Tarquin, and that the commonwealth could not seem to have recovered perfect freedom, as long as a man of so dangerous a name was left remaining. For the church of England to have done the like in casting out of papal tyranny and superstition; to have shewed greater willingness of accepting the very ceremonies of the Turk, Christ's professed enemy, than of the most indifferent things which the church of Rome approveth; to have left not so much as the names which the church of Rome doth give unto things innocent; to have ejected whatsoever that Church doth make account of, be it never so harmless in itself.2nd of never so ancient continuance, without any other crime to charge it with, than only that it hath been the hap thereof to be used by the church of Rome, and not to be commanded in the word of God: this kind of proceeding might haply have pleased some few men, who having begun such a course themselves must needs be glad to see their example followed by us. But the Almighty which giveth wisdom and inspireth with right understanding whomsoever it pleaseth him, he foreseeing that which man's wit had never been able to reach unto, namely, what tragedies the attempt of so extreme alteration would raise in some parts of the Christian world, did for the endless good of his Church (as we cannot choose but interpret it) use the bridle of his provident restraining hand, to stay those eager affections in some, and to settle their resolution upon a course more calm and moderate: lest as in other most ample and heretofore most flourishing dominions it hath since fallen out, so likewise if in ours it had come to pass, that the adverse part being enraged, and betaking itself to such practices as men are commonly wont to embrace, when they behold things brought to desperate extremities, and no hope left to see any other end, than only the utter oppression and clean extinguishment of one side; by this mean Christendom flaming in all parts of greatest importance at once, they all had wanted that comfort of mutual relief, whereby they are now for the time sustained (and not the least by this our church which they so much impeach) till mutual combustions, bloodsheds, and wastes, (because no other inducement will serve,) may enforce them through very faintness, after the experience of so endless miseries, to enter on all sides at the length into some such consultation, as may tend to the best reestablishment of the whole Church of Jesus Christ. To the singular good whereof it cannot but serve as a profitable direction to teach men what is most likely to prove available, when they shall quietly consider the trial that hath been thus long had of both kinds of reformation; as well this moderate kind which the church of England hath taken, as that other more extreme and rigorous which certain churches elsewhere have better liked. In the meanwhile it may be, that suspense of judgment and exercise of charity were safer and seemlier for Christian men, than the hot pursuit of these controversies, wherein they that are most fervent to dispute be not always the most able to determine. But who are on his side, and who against him, our Lord in his good time shall reveal.

And sith thus far we have proceeded in opening the things that have been done, let not the principal doers themselves be forgotten. When the ruins of the house of God (that house which consisting of religious souls is most immediately the precious temple of the Holy Ghost) were become, not in his sight alone, but in the eyes of the whole world so exceeding great, that very superstition began even to feel itself too far grown: the first that with us made way to repair the decays thereof by beheading superstition, was King Henry the Eighth. The son and successor of which famous king as we know was Edward the Saint: in whom (for so by the event we may gather) it pleased God righteous and just to let England see what a blessing sin and iniquity would not suffer it to enjoy. Howbeit that which the wise man hath said concerning Enoch (whose days were though many in respect of ours, yet scarce as three to nine in comparison of theirs with whom he lived) the same to that admirable child most worthily may be applied, “Though he departed this world soon, yet fulfilled he much time." But what ensued? That work which the one in such sort had begun, and the other so far proceeded in, was in short space so overthrown, as if almost it had never been: till such time as that God, whose property is to shew his mercies then greatest when they are nearest to be utterly despaired of, caused in the depth of discomfort and darkness a most glorious star2 to arise, and on her head settled the crown, whom himself had kept as a lamb from the slaughter of those bloody times; that the experience of his goodness in her own deliverance might cause her merciful disposition to take so much the more delight in saving others, whom the like necessity should press. What in this behalf hath been done towards nations abroad, the pat of Christendom most afflicted scan best testify. That which especially concerneth ourselves, in the present matter we treat of, is the state of reformed religion, a thing at her coming to the crown even raised as it were by miracle from the dead; a thing which we so little hoped to see, that even they which beheld it done, scarcely believed their own senses at the first beholding. Yet being then brought to pass, thus many years it hath continued, standing by no other worldly mean but that one only hand which erected it; that hand which as no kind of imminent danger could cause at the first to withhold itself, so neither have the practices so many so bloody following since been ever able to make weary. Nor can we say in this case so justly, that Aaron and Hur, the ecclesiastical and civil states, have sustained the hand which did lift itself to heaven for them, as that heaven itself hath by this hand sustained them, no aid or help having thereunto been ministered for performance of the work of reformation, other than such kind of help or aid as the Angel in the Prophet Zachary speaketh of, saying, “Neither, by an army nor strength, but by my Spirit, “saith the Lord of Hosts." Which grace and favour of divine assistance having not in one thing or two shewed itself, nor for some few days or years appeared, but in such sort so long continued, our manifold sins and transgressions striving to the contrary; what can we less thereupon conclude, than that God would at leastwise by tract of time teach the world, that the thing which he blesseth, defendeth, keepeth so strangely, cannot choose but be of him? Wherefore, if any refuse to believe us disputing for the verity of religion established, let them believe God himself thus miraculously working for it, and wish life even for ever and ever unto that glorious and sacred instrument whereby he worketh.

BOOK VI. CONTAINING THEIR FIFTH ASSERTION, WHICH IS, THAT OUR LAWS ARE CORRUPT AND REPUGNANT TO THE LAWS OF GOD, IN MATTER BELONGING TO THE POWER OF ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION, IN THAT WE HAVE NOT THROUGHOUT ALL CHURCHES CERTAIN LAYELDERS ESTABLISHED FOR THE EXERCISE OF THAT POWER. THE same men which in heat of contention do hardly either speak or give ear to reason, being after sharp and bitter conflict retired to a calm remembrance of all their former proceedings; the causes that brought them into quarrel, the course which their stirring affections have followed, and the issue whereunto they are come; may peradventure, as troubled waters, in small time, of their own accord, by certain easy degrees settle themselves again, and so recover that clearness of well-advised judgment, whereby they shall stand at the length indifferent, both to yield and admit any reasonable satisfaction, where before they could not endure with patience to be gainsayed. Neither will I despair of the like success in these unpleasant controversies touching ecclesiastical policy; the time of silence which both parts have willingly taken to breathe, seeming now as it were a pledge of all men’s quiet contentment to hear with more indifferency the weightiest and last remains of that cause, Jurisdiction, Dignity, Dominion Ecclesiastical. For, let not any man imagine, that the bare and naked difference of a few ceremonies could either have kindled so much fire, or have caused it to flame so long; but that the parties which herein laboured mightily for change, and (as they say) for Reformation, had somewhat more than this mark only whereat to aim.Having therefore drawn out a complete form, as they supposed, of public service to be done to God, and set down their plot for the office of the ministry in that behalf; they very well knew how little their labours so far forth bestowed would avail them in the end, without a claim of jurisdiction to uphold the fabric which they had erected; and this neither likely to be obtained but by the strong hand of the people, nor the people unlikely to favour it; the mores, if overture were made of their own interest, right, and title thereunto. Whereupon there are many which have conjectured this to be the cause, why in all the projects of their discipline (it being manifest that their drift is to wrest the key of spiritual authority out of the hands of former governors, and equally to possess therewith the pastors of all several congregations) the people, first for surer accomplishment, and then for better defence thereof; are pretended necessary actors in those things, whereunto their ability for the most part is as slender, as their title and challenge unjust.Notwithstanding whether they saw it necessary for them so to persuade the people, without whose help they could do nothing; or else, (which I rather think,) the affection which they bares towards this new form of government made them to imagine it God’s own ordinance, their doctrine is, “that by the law of God, there must be for ever in all congregations certain lay-elders, ministers of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,” inasmuch as our Lord and Saviour by testament (for so they presume) hath left all ministers or pastors in the Church executors equally to the whole power of spiritual jurisdiction, and with them hath joined the people as colleagues. By maintenance of which assertion there is unto that

part apparently gained a twofold advantage; both because the people in this respect are much more easily drawn to favour it, as a matter of their own interest; and for that, if they chance to be crossed by such as oppose against them, the colour of divine authority, assumed for the grace and countenance of that power in the vulgar sort, furnisheth their leaders with great abundance of matter, behoveful for their encouragement to proceed always with hope of fortunate success in the end, considering their cause to be as David’s was, a just defence of power given them from above, and consequently, their adversaries’ quarrel the same with Saul’s by whom the ordinance of God was withstood.Now on the contrary side, if this their surmise prove false; if such, as in justification whereof no evidence sufficient either hath been or can be alleged (as I hope it shall clearly appear after due examination and trial), let them then consider whether those words of Corah, Dathan and Abiram against Moses and against Aaron, “It is too much that ye take upon you, seeing all the congregation is holy,” be not the very true abstract and abridgment of all their published Admonitions, Demonstrations, Supplications, and Treatises whatsoever, whereby they have laboured to void the rooms of their spiritual superiors before authorized, and to advance the new fancied sceptre by lay presbyterial power. II. But before there can be any settled determination, whether truth do rest on their part, or on ours, touching lay-elders; we are to prepare the way thereunto, by explication of some things requisite and very needful to be considered; as first, how besides that spiritual power which is of Order, and was instituted for performance of those duties whereof there hath been speech sufficient’ already had, there is in the Church no less necessary a second kind, which we call the power of Jurisdiction. When the Apostle doth speak of ruling the Church of God, and of receiving accusations, his words have evident reference to the power of jurisdiction. Our Saviour’s words to the power of order, when he giveth his disciples charges, saying, “Preach; baptize; do this in remembrance of me.” “A Bishop” (saith Ignatius) “doth bear the image of God and of Christ; of God in ruling, of Christ in administering, holy things.” By this therefore we see a manifest difference acknowledged between the power of Ecclesiastical Order, and the power of Jurisdiction ecclesiastical.The spiritual power of the Church being such as neither can be challenged by right of nature, nor could by human authority be instituted, because the forces and effects thereof are supernatural and divine; we are to make no doubt or question, but that from him which is the Head it hath descended unto us that are the body now invested therewith. He gave it for the benefit and good of souls, as a mean to keep them in the path which leadeth unto endless felicity, a bridle to hold them within their due and convenient bounds, and if they do go astray, a forcible help to reclaim them. Now although there be no kind of spiritual power, for which our Lord Jesus Christ did not give both commission to exercise, and direction how to use the same, although his laws in that behalf recorded by the holy evangelists be the only ground and foundation, whereupon the practice of the Church must sustain itself: yet, as all multitudes, once grown to the form of societies, are even thereby naturally warranted to enforce upon their own subjects particularly those things which public wisdom shall judge expedient for the common good: so it were

absurd to imagine the Church itself, the most glorious amongst them, abridged of this liberty; or to think that no law, constitution, or canon, can be further made either for limitations or amplification in the practice of our Saviour’s ordinances, whatsoever occasion be offered through variety of times and things, during the state of this unconstant world, which bringing forth daily such new evils as must of necessity by new remedies be redrest, did both of old enforce our venerable predecessors, and will always constrain others, sometime to make, sometime to abrogate, sometime to augment, and again to abridge sometime; in sum, often to vary, alter, and change customs incident into the manner of exercising that power which doth itself continue always one and the same. I therefore conclude, that spiritual authority is a power which Christ hath given to be used over them which are subject unto it for the eternal good of their souls, according to his own most sacred laws and the wholesome positive constitutions of his Church. In doctrines referred unto action and practice, as this is which concerneth spiritual jurisdiction, the first step towards sound and perfect understanding is the knowledge of the end, because thereby both use doth frame, and contemplation judge all things. III. Seeing then that the chiefest cause of spiritual jurisdiction is to provide for the health and safety of men’s souls, by bringing them to see and repent their grievous offences committed against God, as also to reform all injuries offered with the breach of Christian love and charity, towards their brethren, in matters of ecclesiastical cognizance); the use of this power shall by so much the plainlier appear, if first the nature of repentance itself be known. We are by repentance to appease whom we offend by sin. For which cause, whereas all sins deprive us of the favour of Almighty God, our way of reconciliation with him is the inward secret repentance of the heart; which inward repentance alone sufficeth, unless some special thing, in the quality of sin committed, or in the party that hath done amiss, require more. For besides our submission in God’s sight, repentance must not only proceed to the private contentation of men, if the sin be a crime injurious; but also furthers, where the wholesome discipline of God’s Church exacteth a more exemplary and open satisfaction. Now the Church being satisfied with outward repentance, as God is with inward, it shall not be amiss, for more perspicuity, to term this latter always the Virtue, that former the Discipline of Repentance: which discipline hath two sorts of penitents to work upon, inasmuch as it hath been accustomed to lay the offices of repentance on some seeking, others shunning them; on some at their own voluntary request, on others altogether against their wills; as shall hereafter appear by store of ancient examples. Repentance being therefore either in the sight of God alone, or else with the notice also of men: without the one, sometimes throughly performed, but always practised more or less, in our daily devotions and prayers, we have no remedy for any fault; whereas the other is only required in sins of a certain degree and quality: the one necessary for ever, the other so far forth as the laws and orders of God’s Church shall make it requisite: the nature, parts, and effects of the one always the same; the other limited, extended, varied by infinite occasions.

The virtue of repentance in the heart of man is God’s handy work, a fruit or effect of divine grace. Which grace continually offereth itself, even unto them that have forsaken it, as may appear by the words of Christ in St. John’s Revelation, “I stand at the door and knock:” nor doth he only knock without, but also within assist to open, whereby access and entrance is given to the heavenly presence of that saving power, which maketh man a repaired Temple for God’s good Spirit again to inhabit. And albeit the whole train of virtues which are implied in the name of grace be infused at one instant; yet because when they meet and concur unto any effect in man, they have their distinct operations rising orderly one from another; it is no unnecessary thing that we note the way or method of the Holy Ghost in framing man’s sinful heart to repentance. A work, the first foundation whereof is laid by opening and illuminating the eye of faith, because by faith are discovered the principles of this action, whereunto unless the understanding do first assent, there can follow in the will towards penitency no inclination at all. Contrariwise, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment of the world to come, and the endless misery of sinners being apprehended, this worketh fear; such as theirs was, who feeling their own distress and perplexity, in that passion besought our Lord’s Apostles earnestly to give them counsel what they should do. For fear is impotent and unable to advise itself; yet this good it hath, that men are thereby made desirous to prevent, if possibly they may, whatsoever evil they dread. The first thing that wrought the Ninivites’ repentance, was fear of destruction within forty days: signs and miraculous works of God, being extraordinary representations of divine power, are commonly wont to stir any the most wicked with terror, lest the same power should bend itself against them. And because tractable minds, though guilty of much sin, are hereby moved to forsake those evil ways which make his power in such sort their astonishment and fear; therefore our Saviour denounced his curse against Corazin and Bethsaida, saying, that if Tyre and Sidon had seen that which they did, those signs which prevailed little with the one would have brought the other’s repentance. As the like thereunto did in the men given to curious arts, of whom the apostolic history saith, that “fear came upon them, and many which had followed vain sciences, burnt openly the very books out of which they had learned the same.” As fear of contumely and disgrace amongst men, together with other civil punishments, are a bridle to restrain from many heinous acts whereinto men’s outrage would otherwise break; so the fear of divine revenge and punishment, where it taketh place, doth make men desirous to be rid likewise from that inward guiltiness of sin, wherein they would else securely continue.Howbeit, when faith hath wrought a fear of the event of sin, yet repentance hereupon ensueth not, unless our belief conceive both the possibility and means to avert evil: the possibility, inasmuch as God is merciful, and most willing to have sin cured; the means, because he hath plainly taught what is requisite and shall suffice unto that purpose. The nature of all wicked men is, for fear of revenge to hate whom they most wrong; the nature of hatred, to wish that destroyed which it cannot brook; and from hence ariseth the furious endeavourh of godless and obdurate sinners to extinguish in themselves the opinion of God, because they would not have him to be, whom execution of endless woe doth not suffer them to love. Every sin against God abateth, and continuance in sin extinguisheth our love towards him. It was therefore said to the angel of Ephesus having

sinned, “Thou art fallen away from thy first love;” so that, as we never decay in love till we sin, in like sort neither can we possibly forsake sin, unless we first begin again to love. What is love towards God, but a desire of union with God? And shall we imagine a sinner converting himself to God, in whom there is no desire of union with God presupposed? I therefore conclude, that fear worketh no man’s inclination to repentance, till somewhat else have wrought in us love also. Our love and desire of union with God ariseth from the strong conceit which we have of his admirable goodness. The goodness of God which particularly moveth unto repentance, is his mercy towards mankind, notwithstanding sin: for let it once sink deeply into the mind of man, that howsoever we have injuried God, his very nature is averse from revenge, except unto sin we add obstinacy; otherwise always ready to accept our submission as a full discharge or recompense for all wrongs; and can we choose but begin to love him whom we have offended? or can we but begin to grieve that we have offended him whom we now love? Repentance considereth sin as a breach of the law of God, an act obnoxious to that revenge, which notwithstanding may be prevented, if we pacify God in time. The root and beginning of penitency therefore is the consideration of our own sin, as a cause which hath procured the wrath, and a subject which doth need the mercy of God. For unto man’s understanding there being presented, on the one side, tribulation and anguish upon every soul that doth evil; on the other, eternal life unto them which by continuance in well-doing seek glory, and honour, and immortality: on the one hand, a curse to the children of disobedience; on the other, to lovers of righteousness all grace and benediction: yet between these extremes, that eternal God, from whose unspotted justice and undeserved mercy the lot of each inheritance proceedeth, is so inclinable rather to shew compassion than to take revenge, that all his speeches in Holy Scripture are almost nothing else but entreaties of men to prevent destruction by amendment of their wicked lives; all the works of his providence little other than mere allurements of the just to continue steadfast, and of the unrighteous to change their course; all his dealings and proceedings such towards true converts, as have even filled the grave writings of holy men with these and the like most sweet sentences: “Repentance (if I may so speak) stoppeth God in his way, when being provoked by crimes past he cometh to revenge them with most just punishments; yea, it tieth as it were the hands of the avenger, and doth not suffer him to have his will.” Again, “The merciful eye of. God towards men hath no power to withstand penitency, at what time soever it comes in presence.” And again, “God doth not take it so in evil part, though we wound that which he hath required us to keep whole, as that after we have taken hurt there should be in us no desire to receive his help.” Finally, lest I be carried too far in so large a sea, “There was never any man condemned of God but for neglect, nor justified except he had care, of repentance.”From these considerations, setting before our eyes our inexcusable both unthankfulness in disobeying so merciful, and foolishness in provoking so powerful a God, there ariseth necessarily a pensive and corrosive desire that we had done otherwise; a desire which suffereth us to foreslow no time, to feel no quietness within ourselves, to take neither sleep nor food with contentment, never to give over supplications, confessions, and other penitent duties, till the light of God’s reconciled favour shine in our darkened soul.

Fulgentius asking the question, why David’s confession should be held for effectual penitence, and not Saul’s; answereth, that the one hated sin, the other feared only punishment in this world: Saul’s acknowledgment of sin was fear, David’s both fear and also love. This was the fountain of Peter’s tears, this the life and spirit of David’s eloquence, in those most admirable hymns entitled Penitential, where the words of sorrow for sin do melt the very bowels of God remitting it, and the comforts of grace in remitting sin carry him which sorrowed rapt as it were into heaven with ecstasies of joy and gladness. The first motive of the Ninivites unto repentance was their belief in a sermon of fear, but the next and most immediate, an axiom of love; “Who can tell whether God will turn away his fierce wrath, that we perish not?” No conclusion such as theirs, “Let every man turn from his evil way,” but out of premises such as theirs were, fear and love. Wherefore the well-spring of repentance is faith, first breeding fear, and then love; which love causeth hope, hope resolution of attempt; “I will go to my Father, and say, I have sinned against heaven and against thee;” that is to say, I will do what the duty of a convert requireth.Now in a penitent’s or convert’s duty, there are included, first, the aversion of the will from sin; secondly, the submission of ourselves to God by supplication and prayer; thirdly, the purpose of a new life, testified with present works of amendment: which three things do very well seem to be comprised in one definition, by them which handle repentance, as a virtue that hateth, bewaileth, and sheweth a purpose to amend sin. We offend God in thought, word, and deed. To the first of which three, they make contrition; to the second, confession; and to the last, our works of satisfaction, answerable. Contrition doth not here import those sudden pangs and convulsions of the mind which cause sometimes the most forsaken of God to retract their own doings; it is no natural passion or anguish, which riseth in us against our wills, but a deliberate aversion of the will of man from sin; which being always accompanied with grief, and grief oftentimes partly with tears, partly with other external signs, it hath been thought, that in these things contrition doth chiefly consist: whereas the chiefest thing in contrition is that alteration whereby the will, which was before delighted with sin, doth now abhor and shun nothing more. But forasmuch as we cannot hate sin in ourselves without heaviness and grief, that there should be in us a thing of such hateful quality, the will averted from sin must needs make the affection suitable; yea, great reason why it should so do: for sith the will by conceiving sin hath deprived the soul of life; and of life there is no recovery without repentance, the death of sin; repentance not able to kill sin, but by withdrawing the will from it; the will unpossible to be withdrawn, unless it concur with a contrary affection to that which accompanied it before in evil: is it not clear that as an inordinate delight did first begin sin, so repentance must begin with a just sorrow, a sorrow of heart, and such a sorrow as renteth the heart; neither a feigned nor a slights sorrow; not feigned, lest it increase sin; nor slight, lest the pleasures of sin overmatch it.Wherefore of Grace, the highest cause from which man’s penitency doth proceed; of faith, fear, love, hope, what force and efficiency they have in repentance; of parts and duties thereunto belonging, comprehended in the schoolmen’s definitions; finally, of the

first among those duties, contrition, which disliketh and bewaileth iniquity, let this suffice. And because God will have offences by repentance not only abhorred within ourselves, but also with humble supplication displayed before him, and a testimony of amendment to be given, even by present works, worthy repentance, in that they are contrary to those we renounce and disclaim: although the virtue of repentance do require that her other two parts, confession and satisfaction, should here follow; yet seeing they belong as well to the discipline as to the virtue of repentance, and only differ for that in the one they are performed to man, in the other to God alone; I had rather distinguish them in joint handling, than handle them apart, because in quality and manner of practice they are distinct. IV. Our Lord and Saviour in the sixteenth of St. Matthew’s Gospel giveth his Apostles regiment in general over God’s Church’. For they that have the keys of the kingdom of heaven are thereby signified to be stewards of the house of God, under whom they guide, command, judge, and correct his family. The souls of men are God’s treasure, committed to the trust and fidelity of such as must render a strict account for the very least which is under their custody. God hath not invested them with power to make a revenue thereof, but to use it for the good of them whom Jesus Christ hath most dearly bought. And because their office herein consisteth of sundry functions, some belonging to doctrine, some to discipline, all contained in the name of the Keys; they have for matters of discipline, as well litigious as criminal, their courts and consistories erected by the heavenly authority of his most sacred voice, who hath said, Dic Ecclesiae, Tell the Church: against rebellious and contumacious persons which refuse to obey their sentence, armed they are with power to eject such out of the Church, to deprive them of the honours, rights, and privileges of Christian men, to make them as heathen and publicans, with whom society was hateful. Furthermore, lest their acts should be slenderly accounted of, or had in contempt, whether they admit to the fellowship of saints or seclude from it, whether they bind offenders or set them again at liberty, whether they remit or retain sins, whatsoever is done by way of orderly and lawful proceeding, the Lord himself hath promised to ratify. This is that grand original warrant, by force whereof the guides and prelates in God’s Church, first his Apostles, and afterwards others following them successively, did both use and uphold that discipline, the end whereof is to heal men’s consciences, to cure their sins, to reclaim offenders from iniquity, and to make them by repentance just. Neither hath it of ancient time for any other respect been accustomed to bind by ecclesiastical censures, to retain so bound till tokens of manifest repentance appeared, and upon apparent repentance to release, saving only because this was received as a most expedient method for the cure of sin.The course of discipline in former ages reformed open transgressors by putting them unto offices of open penitence; especially confession, whereby they declared their own

crimes in the hearing of the whole Church, and were not from the time of their first convention capable of the holy mysteries of Christ, till they had solemnly discharged this duty. Offenders in secret, knowing themselves altogether as unworthy to be admitted to the Lord’s table, as the others which were withheld, being also persuaded, that if the Church did direct them in the offices of their penitency, and assist them with public prayer, they should more easily obtain that they sought, than by trusting wholly to their own endeavours; finally, having no impediment to stay them from it but bashfulness, which countervailed not the former inducements, and besides was greatly eased by the good construction which the charity of those times gave to such actions, wherein men’s piety and voluntary care to be reconciled to God, did purchase them much more love, than their faults (the testimonies of common frailty) were able to procure disgrace; they made it not nice to use some one of the ministers of God, by whom the rest might take notice of their faults, prescribe them convenient remedies, and in the end after public confession, all join in prayer unto God for them.The first beginners of this custom had the more followers, by means of that special favour which always was with good consideration shewed towards voluntary penitents above the rest. But as professors of Christian belief grew more in number, so they waxed worse, when kings and princes had submitted their dominions unto the sceptre of Jesus Christ, by means whereof persecution ceasing, the Church immediately became subject to those evils which peace and security bringeth forth; there was not now that love which before kept all things in tune, but every where schisms, discords, dissensions amongst men, conventicles of heretics, bent more vehemently against the sounder and better sort than very infidels and heathens themselves; faults not corrected in charity, but noted with delight, and kept for malice to use when deadliest opportunities should be offered. Whereupon, forasmuch as public confessions became dangerous and prejudicial to the safety of well-minded men, and in divers respects advantageous to the enemies of God’s Church, it seemed first unto some, and afterwards generally, requisite, that voluntary penitents should surcease from open confession. Instead whereof, when once private and secret confession had taken place with the Latins, it continued as a profitable ordinance, till the Lateran council had decreed, that all men once in a year at the least should confess themselves to the priest. So that being thus made a things both general and also necessary, the next degree of estimation whereunto it grew, was to be honoured and lifted up to the nature of a sacrament; that as Christ did institute Baptism to give life, and the Eucharist to nourish life, so Penitency might be thought a sacrament ordained to recover life, and Confession a part of the sacrament. They define therefore their private penitency to be “a sacrament of remitting sins after baptism:” the virtue of repentance, “a detestation of wickedness, with full purpose to amend the same, and with hope to obtain pardon at God’s hands.” Wheresoever the Prophets cry Repent, and in the Gospel Saint Peter maketh the same exhortation to the Jews as yet unbaptized, they will have the virtue of repentance only to be understood; the

sacrament, where he adviseth Simon Magus to repent, because the sin of Simon Magus was after baptism. Now although they have only external repentance for a sacrament, internal for a virtue, yet make they sacramental repentance nevertheless to be composed of three parts, contrition, confession, and satisfaction: which is absurd; because contrition, being an inward thing, belongeth to the virtue and not to the sacrament of repentance, which must consist of external parts, if the nature thereof be external. Besides, which is more absurd, they leave out absolution; whereas some of their school-divines, handling penance in the nature of a sacrament, and being not able to espy the least resemblance of a sacrament save only in absolution (for a sacrament by their doctrine must both signify and also confer or bestow some special divine grace), resolved themselves, that the duties of the penitent could be but mere preparations to the sacrament, and that the sacrament itself was wholly in absolution. And albeit Thomas with his followers have thought it safer, to maintain as well the services of the penitent, as the words of the minister, necessary unto the essence of their sacrament; the services of the penitent, as a cause material; the words of absolution, as a formal; for that by them all things else are perfected to the taking away of sin; which opinion now reigneth in all their schools, sithence the time that the council of Trent gave it solemn approbation; seeing they all make absolution, if not the whole essence, yet the very form whereunto they ascribe chiefly the whole force and operation of their sacrament; surely to admit the matter as a part, and not to admit the form, hath small congruity with reason. Again, forasmuch as a sacrament is complete, having the matter and form which it ought, what should lead them to set down any other part of sacramental repentance, than confession and absolution, as Durandus hath done? For touching satisfaction, the end thereof, as they understand it, is a further matter, which resteth after the sacrament administered, and therefore can be no part of the sacrament. Will they draw in contrition with satisfaction, which are no parts, and exclude absolution, a principal part, yea, the very complement, form, and perfection of the rest, as themselves account it?But for their breach of precepts in art, it skilleth not, if their doctrine otherwise concerning penitency, and in penitency, touching confession, might be found true. We say, let no man look for pardon, which doth smother and conceal sin, where in duty it should be revealed. The cause why God requireth confession to be made to him is, that thereby testifying a deep hatred of our own iniquities, the only cause of his hatred and wrath towards us, we might, because we are humble, be so much the more capable of that compassion and tender mercy, which knoweth not how to condemn sinners that condemn themselves. If it be our Saviour’s own principle, that the conceit we have of our debt forgiven, proportioneth our thankfulness and love to him at whose hands we receive pardon, doth not God foresee, that they which with ill-advised modesty seek to hide their sin like Adam, that they which rake it up under ashes, and confess it not, are very unlikely to requite with offices of love afterwards the grace which they shew themselves unwilling to prize at the very time when they sue for it; inasmuch as their not confessing what crimes they have committed, is a plain signification, how loth they are that the benefit of God’s most gracious pardon should seem great? Nothing more true than that of

## Tertullian, “Confession doth as much abate the weight of men’s offences, as concealment doth make them heavier. For he which confesseth hath a purpose to appease God; he, a determination to persist and continue obstinate, which keepeth them secret to himself.” St. Chrysostom almost in the same words, “Wickedness is by being acknowledged lessened, and doth grow by being hid. If men having done amiss let it slip, as though they knew no such matter, what is there to stay them from falling often into one and the same evil? To call ourselves sinners availeth nothing, except we lay our faults in the balance, and take the weight of them one by one. Confess thy crimes to God, disclose thy transgressions before the Judge, by way of humble supplication and suit, if not with tongue, at the least with heart, and in this sort seek mercy. A general persuasion that thou art a sinner will neither so humble nor bridle thy soul, as if the catalogue of thy sins examined severally be continually kept in mind. This shall make thee lowly in thine own eyes, this shall preserve thy feet from falling, and sharpen thy desire towards all good things. The mind I know doth hardly admit such unpleasant remembrances, but we must force it, we must constrain it thereunto. It is safer now to be bitten with the memory, than hereafter with the torment of sin.” The Jews, with whom no repentance for sin is held available without confession, either conceived in mind or uttered; which latter kind they call usually Hebrew text , confession delivered by word of mouth; had first that general confession which once every year was made, both severally by each of the people for himself upon the day of expiation, and by the priest for them all, acknowledging unto Gods the manifold transgressions of the whole nation, his own personal offences likewise, together with the sins, as well of his family, as of the rest of his rank and order. They had again their voluntary confessions, at all k times and seasons, when men, bethinking themselves of their wicked conversation past, were resolved to change their course, the beginning of which alteration was still confession of sins. Thirdly, over and besides these, the law imposed upon them also that special confession which they in their books call Hebrew text , confession of that particular fault for which we namely seek pardon at God’s hands. The words of the laws concerning confession in this kind are as followeth: “When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, and transgress against the Lord, their sin which they have done” (that is to say, the very deed itself in particular) “they shall acknowledge.” In Leviticus, after certain transgressions there mentioned, we read the like: “When a man hath sinned in any one of these things, he shall then confess, how in that thing he hath offended.” For such kind of special sins they had also special sacrifices, wherein the manner was, that the offender should lay his hands on the head of the sacrifice which he brought, and should there make confession to God, sayings, “Now, O Lord, that I have offended, committed sin and done wickedly in thy sight, this or this being my fault; behold I repent me, and am utterly ashamed of my doings; my purpose is, never to return more to the same crime.” Finally, there was no man amongst them at any time, either condemned to suffer death, or corrected, or chastised with stripes, none ever sick and near his end, but they called upon him to repent and confess his sins.

Of malefactors convict by witnesses, and thereupon either adjudged to die, or otherwise chastised, their custom was to exact, as Joshua did of Achan, open confession: “My son, now give glory to the Lord God of Israel; confess unto him, and declare unto me what thou hast committed; conceal it not from me.” Concerning injuries and trespasses which happen between men, they highly commend such as will acknowledge before many. “It is in him which repenteth accepted as an high sacrifice, if he will confess before many, make them acquainted with his oversights, and reveal the transgressions which have passed between him and any of his brethren; saying, I have verily offended this man, thus and thus I have done unto him; but behold I do now repent and am sorry. Contrariwise, whosoever is proud, and will not be known of his faults, but cloaketh them, is not yet come to perfect repentance; for so it is written ` He that hideth his sins shall not prosper:” which words of Salomon they do not further extend, than only to sins committed against men, which are in that respect meet before men to be acknowledged particularly. “But in sins between man and God, there is no necessity that man should himself make any such open and particular recital of them:” to God they are known, and of us it is required, that we cast not the memory of them carelessly and loosely behind our backs, but keep in mind, as near as we can, both our own debt and his grace which remitteth the same.Wherefore, to let pass Jewish confession, and to come unto them which hold confession in the ear of the priest commanded, yea, commanded in the nature of a sacrament, and thereby so necessary that sin without it cannot be pardoned; let them find such a commandment in holy Scripture, and we ask no more. John the Baptist was an extraordinary person; his birth, his actions of life, his office extraordinary. It is therefore recorded for the strangeness of the act, but not set down as an everlasting law for the world, “that to him Jerusalem and all Judaea made confession of their sins;” besides, at the time of this confession, their pretended sacrament of repentance, as they grant, was not yet instituted; neither was it sin after baptism which penitents did there confess. When that which befell the seven sons of Sceva, for using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in their conjurations, was notified to Jews and Grecians in Ephesus, it brought an universal fear upon them, insomuch that divers of them which had believed before, but not obeyed the laws of Christ as they should have done, being terrified by this example, came to the Apostle, and confessed their wicked deeds. Which good and virtuous act no wise man, (as I suppose)} will disallow, but commend highly in them, whom God’s good Spirit shall move to do the like when need requireth. Yet neither hath this example the force of any general commandment or law, to make it necessary for every man to pour into the ears of the priest whatsoever hath been done amiss, or else to remain everlastingly culpable and guilty of sin; in a word, it proveth confession practised as a virtuous act, but not commanded as a sacrament. Now concerning St. James his exhortations, whether the former branch be considered, which saith, “Is any sick amongst you? let him call for the ancients of the Church, and let them make their prayers for him;” or the latter, which stirreth up all Christian men unto mutual acknowledgment of faults among themselves, “Lay open your minds, make your

## confessions one to another;” is it not plain, that the one hath relation to that gift of healing, which our Saviour promised his Church, saying, “They shall lay their hands on the sick, and the sick shall recover health;” relation to that gift of healing, whereby the Apostle imposed his hands on the father of Publius, and made him miraculously a sound man; relation, finally, to that gift of healing, which so long continued in practice after the Apostles’ times, that whereas the Novatianists denied the power of the Church of God in curing sin after baptism, St. Ambrose asked them again, “Why it might not as well prevail with God for spiritual as for corporal and bodily health; yea, wherefore,” saith he, do ye yourselves lay hands on the diseased, and believe it to be a work of benediction or prayer, if happily the sick person be restored to his former safety?” And of the other member, which toucheth mutual confession, do not some of themselves, as namely Cajetan, deny that any other confession is meant, than only that, “which seeketh either association of prayers, or reconciliation, and pardon of wrongs?” Is it not confessed by the greatest part of their own retinue, that we cannot certainly affirm sacramental confession to have been meant or spoken of in this place? Howbeit Bellarmine, delighted to run a course by himself where colourable shifts of wit will but make the way passable, standeth as formally for this place, and no less for that in St. John, than for this. St. John saith, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness;” doth St. John say, If we confess to the priest, God is righteous to forgive; and if not, that our sins are unpardonable? No, but the titles of God, just and righteous , do import that he pardoneth sin only for his promise sake; “And there is not” (they say) “any promise of forgiveness upon confession made to God without the priests.” Not any promise, but with this condition, and yet this condition no where exprest? Is it not strange, that the Scripture speaking so much of repentance, and of the several duties which appertain thereunto, should ever mean, and no where mention, that one condition, without which all the rest is utterly of none effect? or will they say, because our Saviour hath said to his ministers, “Whose sins ye retain,” &c. and because they can remit no more than what the offenders have confest, that therefore, by virtue of this’ promise, it standeth with the righteousness of God to take away no man’s sins, until by auricular confession they be opened unto the priest?They are men that would seem to honour antiquity, and none more to depend upon the reverend judgment thereof. I dare boldly affirm, that for many hundred years after Christ the Fathers held no such opinion; they did not gather by our Saviour’s words any such necessity of seeking the priest’s absolution from sin, by secret and (as they now term it) sacramental confession: public confession they thought necessary by way of discipline, not private confession, as in the nature of a sacrament, necessary. For to begin with the purest times, it is unto them which read and judge without partiality a thing most clear, that the ancient exomologhsiV or Confession, defined by Tertullian to be a discipline of humiliation and submission, framing men’s behaviour in such sort as may be fittest to move pity, the confession which they use to speak of in the exercise of repentance, was made openly in the hearing of the whole both ecclesiastical consistory and assembly. This is the reason wherefore he perceiving that divers were better content their sores should secretly fester and eat inward, than be laid so open to the eyes of many,

blameth greatly their unwise bashfulness, and to reform the same, persuadeth with them, saying, “Amongst thy brethren and fellow-servants, which are partakers with thee of one and the same nature, fear, joy, grief, sufferings; (for of one common Lord and Father we all have received one spirit,) why shouldst thou not think with thyself, that they are but thine ownself? wherefore dost thou avoid them, as likely to insult over thee, whom thou knowest subject to the same haps? At that which grieveth any one part, the whole body cannot rejoice, it must needs be that the whole will labour and strive to help that wherewith a part of itself is molested.” St. Cyprian, being grieved with the dealings of them, who in time of persecution had through fear betrayed their faith, and notwithstanding thought by shift to avoid in that case the necessary discipline of the church, wrote for their. better instruction the book intituled De Lapsis; a treatise concerning such as had openly forsaken their religion, and yet were loth openly to confess their fault in such manner as they should have done: in which book he compareth with this sort of men, certain others which had but a purpose only to have departed from the faith; and yet could not quiet their minds, till this very secret and hidden fault was confest: “How much both greater in faith,” saith St. Cyprian, “and also as touching their fear better are those men, who although neither sacrifice nor libels could be objected against them, yet because they thought to have done that which they should not, even this their intent they dolefully open unto God’s priests; they confess that whereof their conscience accuseth them, the burden that presseth their minds they discover, they foreslow not of smaller and slighter evils to seek remedy.” He saith, they declared their fault, not to one only man in private, but they revealed it to God’s priests; they confest it before the whole consistory of God’s ministers. Salvianus, (for I willingly embrace their conjecture, who ascribe those homilies to him, which have hitherto by common error past under the counterfeit name of Eusebius Emesenus,) I say, Salvianus, though coming long after Cyprian in time, giveth nevertheless the same evidence for this truth, in a case very little different from that before alleged; his words are these: “Whereas, most dearly beloved, we see that penance oftentimes is sought and sued for by holy souls which even from their youth have bequeathed themselves a precious treasure unto God, let us know that the inspiration of God’s good spirit moveth them so to do for the benefit of his Church, and let such as are wounded learn to inquire for that remedy, whereunto the very soundest do thus offer and obtrude as it were themselves, that if the virtuous do bewail small offences, the other cease not to lament great. And surely, when a man that hath less need, performeth sub oculis Ecclesiae, in the view, sight, and beholding of the whole Church, an office worthy of his faith and compunction for sin, the good which others thereby reap is his own harvest, the heap of his rewards groweth by that which another gaineth, and through a kind of spiritual usury, from that amendment of life which others learn by him, there returneth lucre into his coffers.” The same Salvianus, in another of his Homilies, “If faults happily be not great and grievous, (for example, if a man have offended in word, or in desire, worthy of reproof, if in the wantonness of his eye, or the vanity of his heart,) the stains of words and thoughts are by daily prayer to be cleansed, and by private compunction to be scoured out: but if

any man examining inwardly his own conscience, have committed some high and capital offence, as, if by bearing false witness he have quelled and betrayed his faith, and by rashness of perjury have violated the sacred name of truth; if with the mire of lustful uncleanness he have sullied the veil of baptism, and the gorgeous robe of virginity; if by being the cause of any man’s death, he have been the death of the new man within himself; if by conference with soothsayers, wizards, and charmers, he hath enthralled himself to Satan: these and such like committed crimes cannot throughly be taken away with ordinary, moderate, and secret satisfaction; but greater causes do require greater and sharper remedies: they need such remedies as are not only sharp, but solemn, open, and public.” Again “Let that soul,” saith he, “answer me, which through pernicious shamefastness is now so abasht to acknowledge his sin in conspectu fratrum, before his brethren, as he should have been before abasht to commit the same, what he will do in the presence of that Divine tribunal, where he is to stand arraigned in the assembly of a glorious and celestial host?” I will hereunto add but St. Ambrose’s testimony; for the places which I might allege are more than the cause itself needeth. “ There are many,” saith he, “who fearing the judgment that is to come, and feeling inward remorse of conscience, when they have offered themselves unto penitency and are enjoined what they shall do, give back for the only scar which they think that public supplication will put them unto.” He speaketh of them which sought voluntarily to be penanced, and yet withdrew themselves from open confession, which they that were penitents for public crimes could not possibly have done, and therefore it cannot be said he meaneth any other than secret sinners in that place. Gennadius, a Presbyter of Marsiles, in his book touching Ecclesiastical Assertions, maketh but two kinds of confession necessary: the one in private to God alone for smaller offences; the other open, when crimes committed are heinous and great: “Although,” saith he, “a man be bitten with the conscience” of sin, let his will be from thenceforward to sin no more; let him, before he communicate, satisfy with tears and prayers, and then putting his trust in the mercy of Almighty God (whose wont is to yield unto godly confessions) let him boldly receive the sacrament. But I speak this of such as have not burthened themselves with capital sins: them I exhort to satisfy first by public penance, that so being reconciled by the sentence of the priest, they may communicate safely with others.” Thus still we hear of public confessions, although the crimes themselves discovered were not public; we hear that the cause of such confessions was not the openness, but the greatness, of men’s offences; finally, we hear that the same being now not held a by the church of Rome to be sacramental, were the only penitential confessions used in the Church for a long time, and esteemed as necessary remedies against sin. They which will find auricular confessions in St. Cyprian, therefore, must seek out some other passage than that which Bellarmine allegeth; “Whereas in smaller faults which are not committed against the Lord himself, there is a competent time assigned unto penitency, and that confession is made, after that observation and trial had been had of

the penitent’s behaviour, neither may any communicate till the Bishop and clergy have laid their hands upon him; how much more ought all things to be warily and stayedly observed, according to the discipline of the Lord, in those most grievous and extreme crimes.” St. Cyprian’s speech is against rashness in admitting idolaters to the holy Communion, before they had shewed sufficient repentance, considering that other offenders were forced to stay out their time, and that they made not their public confession, which was the last act of penitency, till their life and conversation had been seen into, not with the eye of auricular scrutiny, but of pastoral observation, according to that in the council of Nice, where, thirteen years being set for the penitency of certain offenders, the severity of this decree is mitigated with special caution: “That in all such cases, the mind of the penitent. and the manner of his repentance is to be noted, that as many as with fear and tears and meekness, and the exercise of good works, declared themselves to be converts indeed, and not in outward appearance only, towards them the bishop at his discretion might use more lenity.” If the council of Nice suffice not, let Gratian, the founder of the Canon Law, expound Cyprian, who sheweth that the stint of time in penitency is either to be abridged or enlarged, as the penitent’s faith and behaviour shall give occasion. “I have easilier found out men,” saith St. Ambrose “able to keep themselves free from crimes, than conformable to the rules which in penitency they should observe.” St. Gregory Bishop of Nyse complaineth and inveigheth bitterly against them, who in the time of their penitency lived even as they had done always before s: “Their countenance as cheerful, their attire as neat, their diet as costly, and their sleep as secure as ever, their worldly business purposely followed, to exile pensive thoughts from their minds, repentance pretended, but indeed nothing less exprest: “these were the inspections of life whereunto St. Cyprian alludeth; as for auricular examinations he knew them not.Were the Fathers then without use of private confession as long as public was in use? I affirm no such thing. The first and ancientest that mentioneth this confession is Origen, by whom it may seem that men, being loth to present rashly themselves and their faults unto the view of the whole Church, thought it best to unfold first their minds to some one special man of the clergy, which might either help them himself, or refer them to an higher court, if need were. “Be therefore circumspect,” saith Origen, “in making choice of the party to whom thou meanest to confess thy sin; know thy physician before thou use him: if he find thy malady such as needeth to be made public, that others may be the better by it, and thyself sooner helpt, his counsel must be obeyed and followed.” That which moved sinners thus voluntarily to detect themselves both in private and in public, was fear to receive with other Christian men the mysteries of heavenly grace, till God’s appointed stewards and ministers did judge them worthy. It is in this respect that St. Ambrose findeth fault with certain men which sought imposition of penance, and were not willing to wait their time, but would be presently admitted communicants. “Such people,” saith he “do seek, by so rash and preposterous desires, rather to bring the priest into bonds than to loose themselves.” In this respect it is that St. Augustine hath likewise said “When the wound of sin is so wide, and the disease so far gone, that the medicinable body and blood of our Lord may not be touched, men are by the Bishop’s

authority to sequester themselves from the altar, till such time, as they have repented, and be after reconciled by the same authority.” Furthermore, because the knowledge how to handle our own sores is no vulgar and common art, but we either carry towards ourselves for the most part an over-soft and gentle hand, fearful of touching too near the quick; or else, endeavouring not to be partial, we fall into timorous scrupulosities, and sometimes into those extreme discomforts of mind, from which we hardly do ever lift up our heads again; men thought it the safest way to disclose their secret faults, and to crave imposition of penance from them whom our Lord Jesus Christ hath left in his Church to be spiritual and ghostly physicians, the guides and pastors of redeemed souls, whose office doth not only consist in general persuasions unto amendment of life, but also in the private particular cure of diseased minds. Howsoever the Novatianists presume to plead against the Church, saith Salvianus, that “every man ought to be his own penitentiary, and that it is a part of our duty to exercise, but not of the Church’s authority to impose or prescribe repentance;” the truth is otherwise, the best and strongest of us may need in such cases direction: “What doth the Church in giving penance, but shew the remedies which sin requireth? or what do we in receiving the same, but fulfil her precepts? what else but sue unto God with tears and fasts, that his merciful ears may be opened?” St. Augustine’s exhortation is directly to the same purpose; “‘Let every man while he hath time judge himself, and change his life of his own accord; and when this is resolved upon, let him from the disposers of the holy sacraments’ learn in what manner he is to pacify God’s displeasure.” But the greatest thing which made men forward and willing upon their knees to confess whatsoever they had committed against God, and in no wise to be withheld from the same with any fear of disgrace, contempt, or obloquy, which might ensue, was their fervent desire to be helped and assisted with the prayers of God’s saints. Wherein as St. James doth exhort unto mutual confession, alleging this only for a reason, that just men’s devout prayers are of great avail with God; so it hath been heretofore the use of penitents for that intent to unburthen their minds, even to private persons, and to crave their prayers. Whereunto Cassianus alluding, counselleth “ That if men possest with dulness of spirit be themselves unapt to do that which is required, they should in meek affection seek health at the least by good and virtuous men’s prayers unto God for them.” And to the same effect Gregory, Bishop of Nyss: “Humble thyself, and take unto thee such of thy brethren as are of one mind, and do bear kind affection towards thee, that they may together mourn and labour for thy deliverance. Shew me thy bitter and abundant tears, that I may blend mine own with them.” But because of all men there is or should be none in that respect more fit for troubled and distressed minds to repair unto than God’s ministers, he proceedeth furthers: “Make the priest, as a father, partaker of thy affliction and grief; be bold to impart unto him the things that are most secret, he will have care both of thy safety and of thy credit.”

“Confession,” saith Leo, “is first to be offered to God, and then to the priest, as to one which maketh supplication for the sins of penitent offenders.” Suppose we, that men would ever have been easily drawn, much less of their own accord have come unto public confession, whereby they knew they should sound the trumpet of their own disgrace; would they willingly have done this, which naturally all men are loth to do, but for the singular trust and confidence which they had in the public prayers of God’s Church? “Let thy mother the Church weep for thee,” saith St. Ambrose, “let her wash and bathe thy faults with her tears: our Lord doth love that many should become suppliants for one.” In like sort, long before him, Tertullian, “Some few assembled make a Church, and the Church is as Christ himself; when thou dost therefore put forth thy hands to the knees of thy brethren, thou touchest Christ; it is Christ unto whom thou art a suppliant Y; so when they pour out their tears over them, it is even Christ that taketh compassion; Christ which prayeth when they pray: neither can that be easily denied, for which the Son is himself contented to become a suitor.”Whereas in these considerations therefore, voluntary penitents had been long accustomed, for great and grievous crimes, though secret, yet openly both to repent and confess, as the canons of ancient discipline required; the Greek church first, and in process of time the Latin altered this order, judging it sufficient and more convenient that such offenders should do penance and make confession in private only. The cause why the Latins did, Leo declareth, saying, “Although that ripeness of faith be commendable, which for the fear of God doth not fear to incur shame before all men; yet because every one’s crimes are not such, that it can be free and safe for them to make publication of all things wherein repentance is necessary; let a custom so unfit to be kept be abrogated, lest many forbear to use the remedies of penitency, whilst they either blush or are afraid to acquaint their enemies with those acts for which the laws may take hold upon them. Besides, it shall win the more to repentance, if the consciences of sinners be not emptied into the people’s ears.” And to this only cause doth Sozomen impute the change which the Grecians made, by ordaining throughout all churches certain penitentiaries to take the confessions, and appoint the penances of secret offenders. Socrates (for this also may be true, that moe inducements than one did set forward an alteration so generally made) affirmeth the Grecians (and not unlikely) to have especially respected therein the occasion, which the Novatianists took at the multitude of public penitents, to insult over the discipline of the Church, against which they still cried out wheresoever they had time and place, “He that sheweth sinners favour, doth but teach the innocent to sin.” And therefore they themselves admitted no man to their communion upon any repentance, which once was known to have offended after baptism, making sinners thereby not the fewer, but the closer and the more obdurate, how fair soever their pretence might seem.The Grecians’ canon for some one presbyter in every Church to undertake the charge of penitency, and to receive their voluntary confessions which had sinned after baptism, continued in force for the space of about some hundred years, till Nectarius, and the bishops of churches under him, began a second alteration, abolishing even that confession which their penitentiaries took in private. There came to the penitentiary of the Church of Constantinople a certain gentlewoman, and to him she made particular confession of her faults committed after baptism, whom thereupon he advised to continue in fasting and

prayer, that as with tongue she had acknowledged her sins, so there might appear in her likewise some work worthy of repentance. But the gentlewoman goeth forward, and detecteth herself of a crime, whereby they were forced to disrobe an ecclesiastical person, that is, to degrade a deacon of the same Church. When the matter by this mean came to public notice, the people were in a kind of tumult offended not only at that which was done, but much more, because the Church should thereby endure open infamy and scorn. The clergy perplexed and altogether doubtful what way to take, till one Eudaemon, born in Alexandria, but at that time a priest in the church of Constantinople, considering that the cause of voluntary confession, whether public or private, was especially to seek the Church’s aid, as hath been before declared, lest men should either not communicate with others, or wittingly hazard their souls, if so be they did communicate, and that the inconvenience which grew to the whole Church was otherwise exceeding great, but especially grievous by means of so manifold offensive detections, which must needs be continually more, as the world did itself wax continually worse (for antiquity together with the gravity and severity thereof (saith Sozomen) had already begun by little and little to degenerate into loose and careless living, whereas before offences were less, partly through bashfulness in them which opened their own faults, and partly by means of their great austerity which sate as judges in this business): these things Eudaemon having weighed with himself, resolved easily the mind of Nectarius, that the penitentiaries’ office must be taken away, and for participation in God’s holy mysteries every man be left to his own conscience; which was, as he thought, the only mean to free the Church from danger of obloquy and disgrace. “Thus much,” saith Socrates, “I am the bolder to relate, because I received it from Eudaemon’s own mouth, to whom my answer was at that time; Whether your counsel, sir, have been for the Church’s good, or otherwise, God knoweth: but I see you have given occasion, whereby we shall not now any more reprehend one another’s faults, nor observe that apostolic precept, which saith, Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather be ye also reprovers of them.” With Socrates, Sozomen both agreeth in the occasion of abolishing penitentiaries; and moreover testifieth also, that in his time, living with the younger Theodosius, the same abolition did still continue, and that the bishops had in a manner every where followed the example given them by Nectarius.Wherefore to implead the truth of this history, Cardinal Baronius allegeth that Socrates, Sozomen and Eudwmon were all Novatianists; and that they falsify in saying (for so they report), that as many as held the consubstantial being of Christ, gave their assent to the abrogation of the forerehearsed canon. The sum is, he would have it taken for a fable, and the world to be persuaded that Nectarius did never any such thing. Why then should Socrates first and afterwards Sozomen publish it? To please their pew- fellows, the disciples of Novatian. A poor gratification, and they very silly friends, that would take lies for good turns. For the more acceptable the matter was, being deemed true, the less they must needs (when they found the contrary) either credit or affect him, which had deceived them. Notwithstanding we know that joy and gladness rising from false information, do not only make men forwards to believe that which they first hear, but also apt to scholie upon it, and to report as true whatsoever they wish were true. But so far is Socrates from any such purpose, that the fact of Nectarius, which others did both like and follow, he cloth both, disallow and reprove. His speech to Eudaemon, before set

down, is proof sufficient that he writeth nothing but what was famously known to all, and what himself did wish had been otherwise. As for Sozomen’s correspondence with heretics, having shewed to what end the Church did first ordain penitentiaries, he addeth immediately, that Novatianists, which had no care of repentance, could have no need of this office. Are these the words of a friend or an enemy? Besides, in the entrance of that whole narration, “Not to sin,” saith he, “at all, would require a nature more divine than ours is: but God hath commanded to pardon sinners: yea, although they transgress and offend often.” Could there be any thing spoken more directly opposite to the doctrine of Novatian? Eudaemon was presbyter under Nectarius. To Novatianists the Emperor gave liberty of using their religion quietly by themselves, under a bishop of their own, even within the city, for that they stood with the Church in defence of the Catholic faith against all other heretics besides. Had therefore Eudaemon favoured their heresy, their camps were not pitched so far off, but he might at all times have found easy access unto them. Is there any man that lived with him, and hath touched him that way? if not, why suspect we him more than Nectarius? Their report touching Grecian catholic bishops, who gave approbation to that which was done, and did also the like themselves in their own churches, we have no reason to discredit, without some manifest and clear evidence brought against it. For of Catholic bishops, no likelihood but that their greatest respect to Nectarius, a man honoured in those parts no less than the Bishop of Rome himself in the western churches, brought them both easily and speedily unto conformity with him; Arians, Eunomians, Apollinarians, and the rest that stood divided from the Church, held their penitentiaries as before. Novatianists from the beginning had never any, because their opinion touching penitency was against the practice of the Church therein, and a cause why they severed themselves from the Church: so that the very state of things as they then stood, giveth great show of probability to his speech, who hath affirmed, “That they only which held the Son consubstantial with the Father, and Novatianists which joined with them in the same opinion, had no penitentiaries in their churches, the rest retained them.” By this it appeareth therefore how Baronius, finding the relation plain, that Nectarius did abolish even those private secret confessions, which the people had before been accustomed to make to him that was penitentiary, laboureth what he may to discredit the authors of the report, and to leave it imprinted in men’s minds, that whereas Nectarius did but abrogate public confession, Novatianists have maliciously forged the abolition of private. As if the odds between these two were so great in the balance of their judgment, which equally hated and contemned both; or, as if it were not more clear than light, that the first alteration which established penitentiaries took away the burthen of public confession in that kind of penitents, and therefore the second must either abrogate private, or nothing.Cardinal Bellarmine therefore finding that against the writers of the history it is but in vain to stand upon so doubtful terms and exceptions, endeavoureth mightily to prove, even by their report, no other confession taken away than public, which penitentiaries

used in private to impose upon public offenders. “For why? It is,” saith he, “very certain, that the name of penitents in the Fathers’ writings signifieth only public penitents; certain, that to hear the confessions of the rest was more than one could possibly have done; certain, that Sozomen, to shew how the Latin Church retained in his time what the Greek had clean cast off, declareth the whole order of public penitency used in the Church of Rome, but of private he maketh no mention.” And, in these considerations, Bellarmine will have it the meaning both of Socrates and of’ Sozomen, that the former episcopal constitution, which first did erect penitentiaries, could not concern any other offenders, than such as publicly had sinned after baptism; that only they were prohibited to come to the holy communion, except they did first in secret confess all their sins to the penitentiary, by his appointment openly acknowledge their open crimes, and do public penance for them; that whereas, before Novatian’s uprising, no man was constrainable to confess publicly any sin, this canon enforced public offenders thereunto, till such time as Nectarius thought good to extinguish the practice thereof. Let us examine therefore these subtile and fine conjectures, whether they be able to hold the touch. “It seemed good,” saith Socrates, “to put down the office of these priests which “had charge of penitency;” what charge that was, the kinds of penitency then usual must make manifest. There is often speech in the Fathers’ writings, in their books frequent mention of penitency, exercised within the chambers of our own heart, and seen of God, and not communicated to any other, the whole charge of which penitency is imposed of God, and doth rest upon the sinner himself. But if penitents in secret being guilty of crimes whereby they knew they had made themselves unfit guests for the table of our Lord, did seek direction for their better performance of that which should set them clear; it was in this case the Penitentiary’s office to take their confessions, to advise them the best way he could for their soul’s good, to admonish them, to counsel them, but not to lay upon them more than private penance. As for notorious wicked persons, whose crimes were known, to convent judge, and punish them, was the office of the ecclesiastical consistory; Penitentiaries had their institution to another end. Now unless we imagine that the ancient time knew no other repentance than public, or that they had little occasion to speak of any other repentance, or else that in speaking thereof they used continually some other name, and not the name of repentance, whereby to express private penitency; how standeth it with reason, that wheresoever they write of penitents, it should be thought they meant only public penitents? The truth is, they handle all three kinds, but private and voluntary repentance much oftener, as being of far more general use; whereas public was but incident unto few, and not oftener than once incident unto any. Howbeit, because they do not distinguish one kind of penitency from another by difference of names, our safest way for construction is to follow circumstance of matter, which in this narration will not yield itself appliable only unto public penance, do what they can that would so expound it. They boldly and confidently affirm, that no man being compellable to confess publicly any sin before Novatian’s time, the end of instituting penitentiaries afterward in the Church was, that by them men might be constrained unto public confession. Is there any

record in the world which doth testify this to be true? There is that testifieth the plain contrary. For Sozomen declaring purposely the cause of their institution, saith, “That whereas men openly craving pardon at God’s hands (for public confession, the last act of penitency, was always made in the form of a contrite prayer unto God), it could not be avoided but they must withal confess what their offences were; this in the opinion of their prelates seemed from the first beginning (as we may probably think) to be somewhat burthensome;” not burthensome, I think to notorious offenders; for what more just than in such sort to discipline them? but burthensome, that men whose crimes were unknown should blaze their own faults as it were on a stage, acquainting all the people with whatsoever they had done amiss. And therefore to remedy this inconvenience, they laid the charge upon one only priest, chosen out of such as were of best conversation, a silent and a discreet man, to whom they which had offended might resort and lay open their lives. He according to the quality of every one’s transgressions appointed what they should do or suffer, and left them to execute it upon themselves. Can we wish a more direct and evident testimony, that the office here spoken of was to ease voluntary penitents from the burthen of public confessions, and not to constrain notorious offenders thereunto? That such offenders were not compellable to open confession till Novatian’s time, that is to say, till after the days of persecution under Decius the emperor, they of all men should not so peremptorily avouch; with whom if Fabian bishop of Rome, who suffered martyrdom the first year of Decius, be of any authority and credit, it must enforce them to reverse their sentence, his words are so plain and clear against them’. “For such as commit those crimes, whereof the Apostle hath said, They that do them shall never inherit the kingdom of heaven, must,” saith he, “be forced unto amendment, because they slip down to hell, if ecclesiastical authority stay them not.” Their conceit of impossibility, that one man should suffice to take the general charge of penitency in such a church as Constantinople, hath arisen from a mere erroneous supposal, that the ancient manner of private confession was like the shrift at this day usual in the Church of Rome, which tieth all men at one certain time to make confession; whereas confession was then neither looked for till men did offer it, nor offered for the most part by any other than such as were guilty of heinous transgressions, nor to them any time appointed for that purpose. Finally, the drift which Sozomen had in relating the discipline of Rome, and the form of public penitency there retained even till his time, is not to signify that only public confession was abrogated by Nectarius, but that the West or Latin Church held still one and the same order from the very beginning, and had not, as the Greek, first cut off public voluntary confession by ordaining, and then private by removing Penitentiaries. Wherefore to conclude, it standeth, I hope, very plain and clear, first against the one Cardinal, that Nectarius did truly abrogate confession in such sort as the ecclesiastical history hath reported; and secondly, as clear against them both, that it was not public confession only which Nectarius did abolish.The paradox in maintenance whereof Hassels wrote purposely a book touching this argument, to shew that Nectarius did but put the penitentiary from his office, and not take away the office itself, is repugnant to the whole advice which Eudaemon gave, of leaving the people from that time forward to their own consciences; repugnant to the conference between Socrates and Eudaemon, wherein complaint is made of some inconvenience

which the want of the office would breed; finally, repugnant to that which the history declareth concerning other churches, which did as Nectarius had done before them, not in deposing the same man (for that was impossible) but in removing the same office out of their churches, which Nectarius had banished from his. For which cause Bellarmine doth well reject the opinion of Hessels, howsoever it please Pamelius to admire it as a wonderful happy invention. But in sum, they are all gravelled, no one of them able to go smoothly away, and to satisfy either others or himself with his own conceit concerning Nectarius.Only in this they are stiff, that auricular confession Nectarius did not abrogate, lest if so much should be acknowledged, it might enforce them to grant that the Greek church at that time held not confession, as the Latin now doth, to be the part of a sacrament instituted by our Saviour Jesus Christ, which therefore the Church till the world’s end hath no power to alter. Yet seeing that as long as public voluntary confession of private crimes did continue in either church (as in the one it remained not much above two hundred years, in the other about four hundred) the only acts of such repentance were; first, the offender’s intimation of those crimes to some one presbyter, for which imposition of penance was sought; secondly, the undertaking of penance imposed by the Bishop; thirdly, after the same performed and ended, open confession to God in the hearing of the whole church; whereupon ensued the prayers of the Church; then the Bishop’s imposition of hands; and so the party’s reconciliation or restitution to his former right in the holy sacrament: I would gladly know of them which make only private confession a part of their sacrament of penance, how it could be so in those times. For where the sacrament of penance is ministered, they hold that confession to be sacramental which he receiveth who must absolve; whereas during the fore-rehearsed manner of penance, it can no where be shewed, that the priest to whom secret information was given did reconcile or absolve any; for how could he, when public confession was to go before reconciliation, and reconciliation likewise in public thereupon to ensue? So that if they did account any confessions sacramental, it was surely public, which is now abolisht in the Church of Rome; and as for that which the Church of Rome doth so esteem, the ancient neither had it in such estimation, nor thought it to be of so absolute necessity for the taking away of sin. But (for any thing that I could ever observe out of them) although not only in crimes open and notorious, which made men unworthy and uncapable of holy mysteries, their discipline required first public penance, and then granted that which St. Hierom mentioneth, saying, “The priest layeth his hand upon the penitent, and by invocation entreateth that the Holy Ghost may return to him again, and so after having enjoined solemnly all the people to pray for him, reconcileth to the altar him who was delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be safe in the day of the Lord:”—Although I say not only in such offences being famously known to the world, but also if the same were committed secretly, it was the custom of those times, both that private intimation should be given, and public confession made thereof; in which respect, whereas all men did willingly the one, but would as willingly have withdrawn themselves from the other, had they known how; “ Is it tolerable,” saith St. Ambrose, “that to sue to God thou shouldst be ashamed, which blushest not to seek and sue unto man? Should it

grieve thee to be a suppliant to him from whom thou canst not possibly hide thyself; when to open thy sins to him, from whom, if thou wouldst, thou mightest conceal them, it doth not any thing at all trouble thee? This thou art loth to do in the Church, where, all being sinners, nothing is more opprobrious indeed than concealment of sin, the most humble the best thought of, and the lowliest accounted the justest:”—All this not withstanding, we should do them very great wrong, to father any such opinion upon them, as if they did teach it a thing impossible for any sinner to reconcile himself unto God, without confession unto the priest. Would Chrysostom thus persuaded have said, “Let the inquiry and presentment of thy offences be made in thine own thoughts; let the tribunal whereat thou arraignest thyself be without witness: let God and only God see thee and thy confession?” Would Cassianus, so believing, have given counsel, “That if any were withheld by bashfulness from discovering their faults to men, they should be so much the more instant and constant in opening them by supplication to God himself; whose wont is to help without publication of men’s shame, and not to upbraid them when he pardoneth?” Finally, would Prosper, settled in this opinion, have made it, as touching reconciliation to God, a matter indifferent, “Whether men of ecclesiastical order did detect their crimes by confession, or leaving the world ignorant thereof, would separate voluntarily themselves for a time from the altar, though not in affection, yet in execution of their ministry, and so bewail their corrupt life?” Would he have willed them as he doth “to make bold of it, that the favour of God being either way recovered by fruits of forcible repentance, they should not only receive whatsoever they had lost by sin, but also after this their new enfranchisement, aspire to the endless joys of that supernal city?” To conclude, we every where find the use of confession, especially public, allowed of and commended by the Fathers; but that extreme and rigorous necessity of auricular and private confession, which is at this day so mightily upheld by the church of Rome, we find not. It was not then the faith and doctrine of God’s Church, as of the papacy at this present, 1. That the only remedy for sin after baptism is sacramental penitency. 2. That confession in secret is an essential part thereof. 3. That God himself cannot now forgive sins’’ without the priest. 4. That because forgiveness at the hands of the priest must arise from confession in the offender, therefore to confess unto him is a matter of such necessity, as being not either in deed, or at the least in desire performed, excludeth utterly from all pardon, and must consequently in Scripture be commanded, wheresoever any promise of forgiveness is made. No, no; these opinions have youth in their countenance; antiquity know them not, it never thought nor dreamed of them.But to let pass the papacy. Forasmuch as repentance doth import alteration within the mind of a sinful man, whereby through the power of God’s most gracious and blessed Spirit, he seeth and with unfeigned sorrow acknowledgeth former offences committed against God, hath them in utter detestation, seeketh pardon for them in such sort as a Christian should do, and with a resolute purpose settleth himself to avoid them, leading as near as God shall assist him, for ever after, an unspotted life; and in the order (which Christian religion hath taught for procurement of God’s mercy towards sinners) confession is acknowledged a principal duty; yea, in some cases, confession to man, not to God only; it is not in the reformed churches denied by the learneder sort of divines, but

that even this confession, cleared from all errors, is both lawful and behoveful for God’s people. Confession by man to man being either private or public, private confession to the minister alone touching secret crimes, or absolution thereupon ensuing, as the one, so the other is neither practised by the French discipline, nor used in any of those churches which have been cast by the French mould. Open confession to be made in the face of the whole congregation by notorious malefactors they hold necessary; howbeit not necessary towards the remission of sins, “but only in some sort to content the Church, and that one man’s repentance may seem to strengthen many, which before have been weakened by one man’s fall.” Saxonians and Bohemians in their discipline constrain no man to open confession. Their doctrine is, that whose faults have been public, and thereby scandalous unto the world, such, when God giveth them the spirit of repentance, ought as solemnly to return, as they have openly gone astray: first, for the better testimony of their own unfeigned conversion unto God; secondly, the more to notify their reconcilement unto the church; and lastly, that others may make benefit of their ensample. But concerning confession in private, the churches of Germany as well the rest as Lutherans, agree all that all men should at certain times confess their offences to God in the hearing of God’s ministers, thereby to shew how their sins displease them; to receive instruction for the warier carriage of themselves hereafter; to be soundly resolved, if any scruple or snare of conscience do entangle their minds; and, which is most material, to the end that men may at God’s hands seek every one his own particular pardon, through the power of those keys, which the minister of God using according to our blessed Saviour’s institution in that case, it is their part to accept the benefit thereof as God’s most merciful ordinance for their good, and, without any distrust or doubt, to embrace joyfully his grace so given them, according to the word of our Lord, which hath said, “Whose sins ye remit they are remitted.” So that grounding upon this assured belief, they are to rest with minds encouraged and persuaded concerning the forgiveness of all their sins, as out of Christ’s own word and power, by the ministry of the keys.It standeth with us in the Church of England, as touching public confession, thus: First, seeing day by day we in our Church begin our public prayers to Almighty God with public acknowledgment of our sins, in which confession every man prostrate as it were before his glorious Majesty crieth guilty against himself; and the minister with one sentence pronounceth universally all clear, whose acknowledgment so made hath proceeded from a true penitent mind; what reason is there every man should not under the general terms of confession represent to himself his own particulars whatsoever, and adjoining thereunto that affection which a contrite spirit worketh, embrace to as full effect the words of divine Grace, as if the same were severally and particularly uttered with addition of prayers, imposition of hands, or all the ceremonies and solemnities that might be used for the strengthening of men’s affiance in God’s peculiar mercy towards them? Such complements are helps to support our weakness, and not causes that serve to

procure or produce his gifts. If with us there be “truth in the inward parts,” as David speaketh, the difference of general and particular forms in confession and absolution is not so material, that any man’s safety or ghostly good should depend upon it. And for private confession and absolution it standeth thus with us: The minister’s power to absolve is publicly taught and professed, the Church not denied to have authority either of abridging or enlarging the use and exercise of that power, upon the people no such necessity imposed of opening their transgressions unto men, as if remission of sins otherwise were impossible; neither any such opinion had of the thing itself, as though it were either unlawful or unprofitable, saving only for these inconveniences, which the world hath by experience observed in it heretofore. And in regard thereof, the Church of England hitherto hath thought it the safer way to refer men’s hidden crimes unto God and themselves only; howbeit, not without special caution for the admonition of such as come to the holy Sacrament, and for the comfort of such as are ready to depart the world. First, because there are but few that consider how much that part of divine service which consisteth in partaking the holy Eucharist doth import their souls; what they lose by neglect thereof, and what by devout practice they might attain unto: therefore, lest carelessness of general confession should, as commonly it doth, extinguish all remorse of men’s particular enormous crimes; our custom (whensoever men present themselves at the Lord’s Table) is, solemnly to give them very fearful admonition what woes are perpendicularly hanging over the heads of such as dare adventure to put forth their unworthy hands to those admirable mysteries of life, which have by rare examples been proved conduits of irremediable death to impenitent receivers; whom therefore as we repel being known, so being not known we can but terrify. Yet with us, the ministers of God’s most holy word and sacraments, being all put in trust with the custody and dispensation of those mysteries, wherein our communion is and hath been ever accounted the highest grace that men on earth are admitted unto, have therefore all equally the same power to withhold that sacred mystical food from notorious evil livers, from such as have any way wronged their neighbours, and from parties between whom there doth open hatred and malice appear, till the first sort have reformed their wicked life, the second recompensed them unto whom they were injurious, and the last condescended unto some course of Christian reconciliation, whereupon their mutual accord may ensue. In which cases, for the first branch of wicked life, and the last which is open enmity, there can arise no great difficulty about the exercise of his power: in the second, concerning wrongs, there may, if men shall presume to define or measure injuries according to their own conceits, depraved oftentimes as well by error as partiality, and that no less in the minister himself, than in any other of the people under him. The knowledge therefore which he taketh of wrongs must rise as it doth in the other two, not from his own opinion or conscience, but from the evidence of the fact which is committed; yea, from such evidence as neither doth admit denial nor defence. For if the offender having either colour of law to uphold, or any other pretence to excuse his own uncharitable and wrongful dealings, shall wilfully stand in defence thereof, it serveth as a bar to the power of the minister in this kind. Because (as it is observed by men of very good judgment in

these affairs) “although in this sort our separating of them be not to strike them with the mortal wound of excommunication, but to stay them rather from running desperately headlong into their own harm; yet in us it is note to sever from the holy communion but such as are either found culpable by their own confession, or have been convicted in some public secular, or ecclesiastical court. For who is he that dare take upon him to be any man’s both accuser and judge? Evil persons are not rashly, and as we list, to be thrust from communion with the Church; insomuch that, if we cannot proceed against them by any orderly course of judgment, they are rather to be suffered for the time than molested. Many there are reclaimed, as Peter; many, as Judas, known well enough, and yet tolerated; many, which must remain undescried till the day of His appearance, by whom the secret corners of darkness shall be brought into open light.” Leaving therefore unto his judgment them whom we cannot stay from casting their own souls into so great hazard, we have in the other part of penitential jurisdiction, in our power and authority to release sin, joy on all sides, without trouble or molestation unto any. And if to give be a thing more blessed than to receive, are we not infinitely happier in being authorized to bestow the treasure of God, than when necessity doth constrain to withdraw the same? They which, during life and health, are never destitute of ways to delude” repentance, do notwithstanding oftentimes, when their last hour draweth on, both feel that sting which before lay dead in them, and also thirst after such helps as have been always till then unsavoury. St. Ambrose’s words touching late repentance are somewhat hard, “If a man be penitent and receive absolution (which cannot in that case be denied him) even at the very point of death, and so depart, I dare not affirm he goeth out of the world well; I will counsel no man to trust to this, because I am loth to deceive any man, seeing I know not what to think of it. Shall I judge such a one a castaway? Neither will I avouch him safe. All I am able to say, is, Let his estate be left to the will and pleasure of Almighty God. Wilt thou be therefore clearly: delivered of all doubt? Repent while yet thou art healthy and strong. If thou defer it till time give no longer possibility of sinning, thou canst not be thought to have left sin, but rather sin to have forsaken thee.” Such admonitions may in their time and place be necessary, but in no wise prejudicial to the generality of God’s own high and heavenly promise, “Whensoever a sinner doth repent from the bottom of his heart, I will put out all his iniquity.” And of this, although it hath pleased God not to leave to the world any multitude of examples, lest the careless should too far presume; yet one he hath given, and that most memorable, to withhold from despair in the mercies of God, at what instant soever man’s unfeigned conversion be wrought. Yea, because to countervail the fault of delay, there are in the latest repentance oftentimes the surest tokens of sincere dealing; therefore upon special confession made to the minister of God, he presently absolveth in this case the sick party from all his sins by that authority which Jesus Christ hath committed unto him, knowing that God respecteth not so much what time is spent, as what truth is shewed in repentance.In sum, when the offence doth stand only between God and man’s conscience, the counsel is good which St. Chrysostom giveth: “I wish thee not to bewray thyself publicly, nor to accuse thyself before others. I wish thee to obey the Prophet, who saith, Disclose

thy way unto the Lord, confess thy sin before him, tell thy sins to him that he may blot them out. If thou be abasht to tell unto any other wherein thou hast offended, rehearse them every day between thee and thy soul. I wish thee not to confess them to thy fellow- servant, who may upbraid thee with them; tell them to God, who will cure them; there is no need for thee in the presence of witnesses to acknowledge them; let God alone see thee at thy confession. I pray and beseech you, that you would more often than you do confess to God eternal, and reckoning your trespasses desire his pardon. I carry you not into a theatre or open court of many your fellow-servants, I seek not to detect your crimes before men; disclose your conscience before God, unfold yourselves to him, lay forth your wounds before him, the best physician that is, and desire of him salve for them.” If hereupon it follow, as it did with David, “I thought, I will confess against myself my wickedness unto thee, O Lord, and thou forgavest me the plague of my sin,” we have then” our desire, and there remaineth only thankfulness, accompanied with perpetuity of care to avoid that, which being not avoided we know we cannot remedy without new perplexity and grief. Contrariwise, if peace with God do not follow the pains we have taken in seeking after it, if we continue disquieted, and not delivered from anguish, mistrusting whether that we do be sufficient; it argueth that our sore doth exceed the power of our own skill, and that the wisdom of the pastor must bind up those parts, which being bruised are not able to be recured of themselves. V. There resteth now Satisfaction only to be considered; a point which the Fathers do often touch, albeit they never aspire to such mysteries, as the papacy hath found enwrapped within the folds and plaits thereof. And it is happy for the Church of God, that we have the writings of the Fathers, to shew what their meaning was. The name of Satisfaction, as the ancient Fathers meant it, containeth whatsoever a penitent should do in the humbling himself unto God, and testifying by deeds of contrition the same which confession in words pretendeth. “He which by repentance for sins” (saith Tertullian, speaking of fickle-minded men) “had a purpose to satisfy the Lord, will now by repenting his repentance make Satan satisfaction; and be so much more hateful to God, as he is unto God’s enemy more acceptable.” Is it not plain, that satisfaction doth here include the whole work of penitency, and that God is satisfied when men are restored through sin into favour by repentance? “How canst thou,” saith Chrysostom “move God to pity thee, when thou wilt not seem as much as to know that thou hast offended?” By appeasing, pacifying, and moving God to pity, St. Chrysostom meaneth the very same with the Latin Fathers, when they speak of satisfying God. “We feel,” saith St. Cyprian, “the bitter smart of hiss rod and scourge, because there is in us neither care to please him with our good deeds, nor to satisfy him for our evil.” Again, “Let the eyes which have looked on idols, sponge out their unlawful acts with those sorrowful tears, which have power to satisfy God.” The Master of Sentences allegeth out of St. Augustine that which is plain enough to this purpose: “Three things there are in perfect penitency, compunction, confession, and satisfaction; that as we three ways offend God, namely in heart, word, and deed, so by three duties we may satisfy God.” Satisfaction, as a part, comprehendeth only that which the Baptist meant by works worthy of repentance; and if we speak of the whole work of repentance itself, we may in the phrase of antiquity term it very well satisfaction.

Satisfaction is a work which justice requireth to be done for contentment of persons injured: neither is it in the eye of justice a sufficient satisfaction, unless it fully equal the injury for which we satisfy. Seeing then that sin against God eternal and infinite must needs be an infinite wrong; justice in regard thereof doth necessarily exact an infinite recompense, or else inflict upon the offender infinite punishment. Now because God was thus to be satisfied, and man not able to make satisfaction in such sort, his unspeakable love and inclination to save mankind from eternal death ordained in our behalf a Mediator, to do that which had been for any other impossible. Wherefore all sin is remitted in the only faith of Christ’s passion, and no man without belief thereof justified. Faith alone maketh Christ’s satisfaction ours; howbeit that faith alone which after sin maketh us by conversion his. For inasmuch as God will have the benefit of Christ’s satisfaction both thankfully acknowledged and duly esteemed of all such as enjoy the same, he therefore imparteth so high a treasure unto no man, whose faith hath not made him willing by repentance to do even that, which of itself how unavailable soever, yet being required and accepted with God, we are in Christ made thereby’ capable and fit vessels to receive the fruit m of his satisfaction: yea, we so far please and content God, that because when we have offended he looketh but for repentance at our hands, our repentance and the works thereof are therefore termed satisfactory, not for that so much is thereby done as the justice of God can exact, but because such actions of grief and humility in man after sin are illices divinae misericordiae (as Tertullian speaketh of them), they draw that pity of God towards us, wherein he is for Christ’s sake contented upon our submission to pardon our rebellion against him; and when that little which his law appointeth is faithfully executed, it pleaseth him in tender compassion and mercy to require no more.Repentance is a name which noteth the habit and operation of a certain grace or virtue in us: Satisfaction, the effect which it hath, either with God or man. And it is not in this respect said amiss, that satisfaction importeth acceptation, reconciliation, and amity; because that through satisfaction, on the one part made, and allowed on the other, they which before did reject are now content to receive, they to be won again which were lost, and they to love unto whom just cause of hatred was given. We satisfy therefore in doing that which is sufficient to this effect; and they towards whom we do it are satisfied, if they accept it as sufficient, and require no more: otherwise we satisfy not, although we do satisfy: for so between man and man it oftentimes falleth out, but between man and God, never. It is therefore true, that our Lord Jesus Christ by one most precious and propitiatory sacrifice, which was his body, a gift of infinite worth, offered for the sins of the whole world, hath thereby once reconciled us to God, purchased his general free pardon, and turned away divine indignation from mankind. But we are not for that cause to think any office of penitence either needless or fruitless on our own behalf: for then would not God require any such duties at our hands. Christ doth remain everlastingly a gracious intercessor, even for every particular penitent. Let this assure us, that God, how highly soever displeased and incensed with our sins, is notwithstanding for his sake by our tears pacified, taking that for satisfaction which is due [done?] by us, because Christ hath by his satisfaction made it acceptable. For, as he is the High-priest of our salvation, so he hath made us priests likewise under him, to the end we might offer unto God praise

and thankfulness, while we continue in the way of life, and when we sin, the satisfactory or propitiatory sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart. There is not any thing that. we do that could pacify God, and clear us in his sight from sin, if the goodness and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ were not; whereas now beholding the poor offer of our religious endeavour meekly to submit ourselves as often as we have offended, he regardeth with infinite mercy those services which are as nothing, and with words of comfort reviveth our afflicted minds, saying, “It is I, even I, that take away thine iniquities for mine own sake.” Thus doth repentance satisfy God, changing his wrath and indignation unto mercy.Anger and mercy are in us passions; but in him not so. “God,” saith St. Basil, “is no ways passionate, but because the punishments which his judgments do inflict are, like effects of indignation, severe and grievous to such as suffer them, therefore we term the revenge which he taketh upon sinners, anger; and the withdrawing of his plagues, mercy.” “His wrath,” saith St. Augustine, “is not as ours, the trouble of a mind disturbed and disquieted with things amiss, but a calm, unpassionate, and just assignation of dreadful punishment to be their portion which have disobeyed; his mercy a free determination of all felicity and happiness unto men, except their sins remain as a bar between it and them.” So that when God doth cease to be angry with sinful men, when he receiveth them into favour, when he pardoneth their offences, and remembereth their iniquities no more (for all these signify but one thing), it must needs follow, that all punishments before due in revenge of sin, whether they be temporal or eternal, are remitted. For how should God’s indignation import only man’s punishment, and yet some punishment remain unto them, towards whom there is now in God no indignation remaining? “God,” saith Tertullian “taketh penitency at men’s hands, and men at his in lieu thereof receive impunity;” which notwithstanding doth not prejudice the chastisements that God after pardon hath laid upon some offenders, as on the people of Israel, on Moses, on Miriam, on David, either for their owns more sound amendment, or for example unto others in this present world (for in the world to come punishments have unto these intents no use, the dead being not in case to be bettered by correction, nor to take warning by executions: pf God’s justice there seen); but assuredly to whomsoever he remitteth sin, their very pardon is in itself a full absolute and perfect discharge for revengeful punishments r; which God doth nowhere threaten, but with purpose of revocation if men repent, nowhere inflict but on them whom impenitency maketh obdurate. Of the one therefore it is said “Though I tell the wicked, Thou shalt die the death, yet if he turns from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live and not die.” Of the other, “Thou according to thine hardness, and heart that will not repent, treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and evident appearance of the just judgment of God.” If God be satisfied and do pardon sin, our justification restored is as perfect as it was at the first bestowed. For so the Prophet Isaiah witnesseth “Though your sins were as crimson, they shall be made as white as snow; though they were all scarlet, they shall be as white as wool.” And can we doubt concerning the punishment of revenge, which was due to sin, but that if God be satisfied and have forgotten his wrath, it must be even as St. Augustin reasoneth, “What God hath covered he will not observe, and what he observeth not he will not punish.” The truth of which doctrine is not to be shifted

off by restraining it unto eternal punishment alone. For then would not David have said, “They are blessed to whom God imputeth no sin;” blessedness having no part or fellowship at all with malediction: whereas to be subject to revenge for sin, although the punishment be but temporal, is to be under the curse of the law: wherefore, as one and the same fire consumeth stubble and refineth gold, so if it please God to lay punishment on them whose sins he hath forgiven, yet is not this done for any destructive end of wasting and eating them out, as in plagues inflicted upon the impenitent, neither is the punishment of the one as of the other proportioned by the greatness of sin past, but according to that future purpose whereunto the goodness of God referreth it, and wherein there is nothing meant to the sufferer but furtherance of all happiness, now in grace, and hereafter in glory. St. Augustine, to stop the mouths of Pelagians arguing, “That if God had imposed death upon Adam and Adam’s posterity, as a punishment of sin, death should have ceased when Christy had procured sinners their pardon;” answereth first, “It is no marvel, either that bodily death should not have happened to the first man, unless he had first sinned (death as a punishment following his sin), or that after sin is forgiven, death notwithstanding befalleth the faithful; to the end that the strength of righteousness might be exercised by overcoming the fear thereof. So that justly God did inflict bodily death on man for committing sin, and yet after sin forgiven took it not away, that his righteousness might still have whereby to be exercised.” He fortifieth this with David’s example, whose sin he forgave, and yet afflicted him for exercise and trial of his humility. Briefly, a general axiom he hath for all such chastisements, “Before forgiveness, they are the punishment of sinners; and after forgiveness, they are exercises and trials of righteous men?” Which kind of proceeding is so agreeable with God’s nature and man’s comfort, that it shewethr even injurious to both, if we should admit those surmised reservations of temporal wrath in God appeased towards reconciled sinners. “As a Father he delights in his children’s conversion, neither doth he threaten the penitent with wrath, or them with punishment which already mourn; but by promise assureth such of indulgence and mercy;” yea, even of plenary pardon, which taketh away all both faults and penalties: there being no reason why we should think him the less just because he sheweth him’ thus merciful; when they which before were obstinate labour to appease his wrath with the pensive meditations’) of contrition, the meek humility which confession expresseth, and the deeds wherewith repentance declareth itself to be an amendment as well of the rotten fruits, as the dried leaves and withered root of the tree. For with these duties by us performed, and presented unto God in heaven by Jesus Christ, whose blood is a continual sacrifice of propitiation for us, we content, please, and satisfy God.Repentance therefore, even the sole virtue of repentance, without either purpose of shrift, or desire of absolution from the priest; repentance, the secret conversion of the heart, in that it consisteth of these three, and doth by these three pacify God, may be without hyperbolical terms most truly magnified, as a recovery of the soul of man from deadly sickness, a restitution of glorious light to his darkened mind, a comfortable reconciliation with God, a spiritual nativity, a rising from the dead, a day-spring from out the depth of obscurity, a redemption from more than the Egyptian thraldom, a grinding of the old Adam even into dust and powder, a deliverance out of the prisons of hell, a full restoration of the seat of grace and throne of glory, a triumph over sin, and a saving victory.

Amongst the works of satisfaction, the most respected have been always these three, Prayers, Fasts, and Almsdeeds: by prayer, we lift up our souls to him from whom sin and iniquity hath withdrawn them; by fasting, we reduce the body from thraldom under vain delights, and make it serviceable for parts of virtuous conversation; by alms, we dedicate to charity theses worldly goods and possessions, which unrighteousness doth neither get nor bestow well: the first, a token of piety intended towards God; the second, a pledge of moderation and sobriety in the carriage of our own persons; the last, a testimony of our meaning to do good to all men. In which three, the Apostle by way of abridgment comprehendeth whatsoever may appertain to sanctimony, holiness, and good life: as contrariwise the very mass of general corruption throughout the world, what is it but only forgetfulness of God, carnal pleasure, immoderate desire after worldly things; profaneness, licentiousness, covetousness? All offices of repentance have these two properties; there is in performance of them painfulness, and in their nature a contrariety unto sin. The one consideration causeth them both in holy Scripture and elsewhere to be termed judgments or revenges taken voluntarily on ourselves, and to be furthermore also preservatives from future evils, inasmuch as we commonly use to keep with the greater care that which with pain we have recovered. And they are in the other respect contrary to sin committed; contrition, contrary to the pleasure; confession, to the error, which is mother of sin; and to the deeds of sin, the works of satisfaction contrary; therefore they all tithe more effectual to cure the evil habit thereof. Hereunto it was that St. Cyprian referred his earnest and vehement exhortations, “That they which had fallen should be instant in prayer, reject bodily ornaments when once they have stripped themselves out of Christ’s attire, abhor all food after Satan’s morsels tasted, follow works of righteousness which wash away sin, and be plentiful in alms-deeds wherewith souls are delivered from death.” Not, as if God did, according to the manner of corrupt judges, take so much money to abate so much in the punishment of malefactors. “These duties must be offered,” saith Salvianus “not in confidence to redeem or buy out sin, but as tokens of meek submission; neither are they with God accepted, because of their value, but for the affection’s sake, which doth thereby shew itself.” Wherefore concerning Satisfaction made to God by Christ only, and of the manner how repentance generally, particularly also, how certain special works of penitency, both are by the Fathers in their ordinary phrase of speech called satisfactory, and may be by us very well so acknowledged; enough hath been spoken.Our offences sometimes are of such nature, as requireth that particular men be satisfied, or else repentance to be utterly void, and of none effect. For, if either through open rapine or cloaked fraud, if through injurious or unconscionable dealings, a man have wittingly wronged others to enrich himself; the first thing evermore in this case required (ability serving) is restitution. For let no man deceive himself: from such offences we are not discharged, neither can be, till recompense and restitution to man accompany the penitent confession we have made to Almighty God. In which case the law of Moses was direct and plain. “If any sin and commit a trespass against the Lord, and deny unto his

neighbour that which was given him to keep, or that which was put unto him of trust; or doth by robbery or by violence oppress his neighbour; or hath found that which was lost, and denieth it, and sweareth falsely: for any of these things that a man doth wherein he sinneth, he that doth thus offend and trespass, shall restore the robbery that he hath taken, or the thing he hath gotten by violence, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found; and for whatsoever he hath sworn falsely, adding perjury to injury, he shall both restore the whole sum, and shall add thereunto a fifth part more, and deliver it unto him, to whom it belongeth, the same day wherein he offereth for his trespass.” Now because men are commonly overslack to perform this duty, and do therefore defer it sometimes till God hath taken the party wronged out of the world; the law providing that trespassers might not under any such pretence gain the restitution which they ought to make, appointeth the kindred surviving to receive what the dead should, if they had continued. “But,” saith Moses, if the party wronged have no kinsman to whom this damage may be restored, it shall then be rendered to the Lord himself for the priests’ use.” The whole order of proceeding herein is in sundry traditional writings set down by their great interpreters and scribes, which taught them that a trespass between a man and his neighbour can never be forgiven, till the offender have by restitution made recompense for wrongs done; yea, they hold it necessary that he appease the party grieved by submitting himself unto him, or, if that will not serve, by using the help and mediation of others: “In this case (say they) for any man to shew himself unappeasable and cruel, were a sin most grievous, considering that the people of God should be easy to relent, as Joseph was towards his brethren.” Finally, if so it fall out, that the death of him which was injured prevent his submission which did offend, let him then (for so they determine that he ought) go accompanied with ten others unto the sepulchre of the dead, and there make confession of the fault, saying, “I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and against this man, to whom I have done such or such injury; and if money be due, let it be restored to his heirs, or in case he have none known, leave it with the house of judgment:” that is to say, with the senators, ancients, and guiders of Israel. We hold not Christian people tied unto Jewish orders for the manner of restitution; but surely restitution we must hold necessary, as well in our own repentance as theirs, for sins of wilful oppression and wrongs.Now although it sufficeb, that the offices wherewith we pacify God or private men be secretly done; yet in cases where the Church must be also satisfied, it was not to this end and purpose unnecessary, that the ancient discipline did further require outward signs of contrition to be shewed, confession of sins to be made openly, and those works to be apparent, which served as testimonies of conversion before men. Wherein, if either hypocrisy did at any time delude their judgment, they knew that God is he whom masks and mockeries cannot blind, that he which seeth men’s hearts would judge them according unto his own evidence, and, as Lord, correct the sentence of his servants concerning matters beyond their reach: or if such as ought to have kept the rules of canonical satisfaction would by sinister means and practices undermine the same, obtruding presumptuously themselves to the participation of Christ’s most sacred mysteries before they were orderly readmitted thereunto, the Church for contempt of holy things held them uncapable of that grace, which God in the Sacrament doth impart to

devout communicants; and no doubt but he himself did retain bound, whom the Church in those cases refused to loose. The Fathers, as may appear by sundry decrees and canons of the primitive Church, were (in matter specially of public scandal) provident that too much facility of pardoning might not be shewed. “He that casteth off his lawful wife,” saith St. Basil, “and doth take another, is adjudged an adulterer by the verdict of our Lord himself; and by our fathers it is canonically ordained, that such for the space of a year shall mourn, for two years’ space hear, three years be prostrate, the seventh year assemble with the faithful in prayer, and after that be admitted to communicate, if with tears they bewail their fault.” Of them which had fallen from their faith in the time of the Emperor Licinius, and were not thereunto forced by any extreme usage, the Nicene synod under Constantine ordained, “That earnestly repenting, they should continue three years hearers, seven years be prostrate, and two years communicate with the people in prayer, before they came to receive the oblation.” Which rigour sometimes they tempered nevertheless with lenity, the selfsame synod having likewise defined, “That whatsoever the cause were, any man desirous at the time of departure out of this life to receive the Eucharist might (with examination and trial ) have it granted him by the bishop.” Yea, besides this case of special commiseration, there is a canon more large, which giveth always liberty to abridge or extend out the time, as the party’s meek or sturdy disposition should require. By means of which discipline, the Church having power to hold them many years in suspense, there was bred in the minds of the penitents, through long and daily practice of such submission, a contrary habit unto that which before had been their ruin, and for ever afterwards wariness not to fall into those snares out of which they knew they could not easily wind themselves. Notwithstanding, because there was likewise hope and possibility of shortening the time, this made them in all the parts and offices of their repentance the more fervent. In the first station, while they only beheld others, passing towards the temple of God, whereunto for themselves to approach it was not lawful; they stood as miserable forlorn men, the very patterns of perplexity and woe. In the second, when they had the favour to wait at the doors of God, where the sound of his comfortable word might be heard; none received it with attention like to theirs. Being taken and admitted to the next degree of prostrates, at the feet yet behind the back of that angel representing God, whom the rest saw face to face; their tears, and entreaties both of Pastor and people, were such as no man could resist. After the fourth step, which gave them liberty to hear and pray with the rest of the people; being so near the haven, no diligence was then slacked which might hasten admission to the heavenly table of Christ, their last desire. It is not therefore a thing to be marvelled at, though St. Cyprian took it in very evils part, when open backsliders from the faith and sacred religion of Christ laboured by sinister practice to procure from imprisoned saints those requests for present absolution, which the Church could neither yield unto with safety of discipline, nor in honour of martyrdom easily deny. For, what would thereby ensue they needed not to conjecture, when they saw how every man which came so commended to the Church by letters thought that now he needed not to crave, but might challenge of duty, his peace; taking the matter very highly, if but any little forbearance or small delay were used.” He

which is overthrown,” saith St Cyprian, “menaceth them that stand, the wounded them that were never toucht; and because presently he hath not the body of our Lord in his foul imbrued hands, nor the blood within his polluted lips, the miscreant fumeth at God’s priests: such is thy madness, O thou furious man; thou art angry with him which laboureth to turn away God’s anger from thee: him thou threatenest, which sueth unto God for grace and mercy on thy behalf.” Touching Martyrs he answereth, “That it ought not in this case to seem offensive, though they were denied, seeing God himself did refuse to yield to the piety of his own righteous saints, making suit for obdurate Jews.” As for the parties, in whose behalf such shifts were used; to have their desire was, in very truth, a way to make them the more guilty: such peace granted contrary to the vigour of the Gospel, contrary to the law of our Lord and God, doth but under colour of merciful relaxation deceive sinners, and by soft handling destroy them; a grace dangerous for the giver, and to him which receiveth it nothing at all available. “The patient expectation that bringeth health is by this means not regarded; recovery of soundness not sought for by the only medicine available, which is satisfaction; penitency thrown out of men’s hearts; the remembrance of that heaviest and last judgment clean banisht; the wounds of dying men, which should be healed, are covered; the stroke of death, which hath gone as deep as any bowels are to receive it, is overcast with the slight show of a cloudy look. From the altars of Satan to the holy of the Lord men are not afraid to come even belching in a manner the sacrificed ‘ morsels they have eaten; yea, their jaws yet breathing out the irksome savour of their former contagious wickedness, they seize upon the blessed body of our Lord, nothing terrified with that dreadful commination, which saith, “Whosoever eateth and drinketh unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of Christ.’ They vainly think it to be peace, which is gotten before they be purged of their faults, before their crime be solemnly confest, before their conscience be cleared by the sacrifice, and imposition of the priests’ hands, and before they have pacified the indignation of God. Why term they that a favour, which is an injury? Wherefore cloak they impiety with the name of charitable indulgence? Such facility giveth not, but rather taketh away peace; and is itself another fresh persecution or trial, whereby that fraudulent enemy maketh a secret havock of such as before he had overthrown; and now to the end he may clean swallow them, he casteth sorrow in a dead sleep, putteth grief to silence, wipeth out the memory of faults newly done, smothereth the sighs that should arise from a contrite spirit, drieth up eyes which ought to send forth rivers of tears, and permitteth not God to be pacified with full repentance, whom heinous and enormous crimes have displeased.” By this then we see, that in St. Cyprian’s judgment, all absolutions are void, frustrate, and of no effect, without sufficient repentance first sheaved; whereas contrariwise, if true and full satisfaction have gone before, the sentence of man here given is ratified of God in heaven, according to our Saviour’s own sacred testimony, “Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted.”By what works in the Virtue, and by what in the Discipline of Repentance, we are said to satisfy either God or men, cannot now be thought obscure. As. for the inventors of

sacramental satisfaction, they have both altered the natural order heretofore kept in the Church, by bringing in a strange preposterous course, to absolve before satisfaction be made, and moreover by this their misordered practice are grown into sundry errors concerning the end whereunto it is referred. They imagine, beyond all conceit of antiquity, that when God doth remit sin and the punishment eternal thereunto belonging, he reserveth the torments of hell-fire, to be nevertheless endured for a time, either shorter or longer, according to the quality of men’s crimes. Yet so that there is between God and man a certain composition (as it were) or contract, by virtue whereof works assigned by the priest to be done after absolution shall satisfy God, as touching the punishment which he otherwise would inflict for sin pardoned and forgiven. Now because they cannot assure any man, that if he perform what the priest appointeth it shall suffice; this (I say) because they cannot do, inasmuch as the priest hath no power to determine or define of equivalency between sins and satisfactions; (and yet if a penitent depart this life, the debt of satisfaction being either in whole or in part undischarged, they steadfastly hold that the soul must remain in unspeakable torment till all be paid:) therefore for help and mitigation in this case, they advise men to set certain copesmates on work, whose prayers and sacrifices may satisfy God for such souls as depart in debt. Hence have arisen the infinite pensions of their priests, the building of so many altars and tombs, the enriching of Churches with so many glorious and costly gifts, the bequeathing of lands and ample possessions to religious companies, even with utter forgetfulness of friends, parents, wife, children all natural affection giving place unto that desire, which men doubtful of their own estate have to deliver their souls from torment after death. Yet behold, even this being also done, how far forth it shall avail they are not sure; and therefore the last upshot unto all their former inventions is, that as every action of Christ did both merit for himself, and satisfy partly for the eternal, and partly for the temporal punishment due unto men for sin; so his saints have obtained the like privilege of grace, making every good work they do, not only meritorious in their own behalf, but satisfactory too for the benefit of others. Or if, having at any time grievously sinned, they do more to satisfy God than he in justice can exact or look for at their hands; the surplusage runneth to a common stock, out of which treasury, containing whatsoever Christ did by way of satisfaction for temporal punishment, together with the satisfactory force which resideth in all the virtuous works of saints, and in their satisfactions whatsoever doth abound, (I say,) “From hence they hold God satisfied for such arrearages as men behind in accompt discharge not by other means; and for disposition hereof, as it is their doctrine that Christ remitteth not eternal death without the priest’s absolution, so without the grant of the Pope they cannot but teach it alike unpossible that souls in hell should receive any temporal release of pain; the sacrament of pardon from him being to this effect no less necessary, than the priest’s absolution to the other.” So that by this postern-gate cometh in the whole mart of papal indulgences; a gain inestimable unto him, to others a spoil; a scorn both to God and man. So many works of satisfaction pretended to be done by Christ, by saints, and martyrs; so many virtuous acts possessed with satisfactory force and virtue; so many supererogations in satisfying beyond the exigence

of their own necessity; and this that the Pope might make a monopoly of all, turning all to his own gain, or at the least to the gain of them which are his own. Such facility they have to convert a pretended sacrament into a true revenue. VI. Sin is not helped but by being assecured of pardon. It resteth therefore to be considered what warrant we have concerning forgiveness, when the sentence of man absolveth us from sin committed against God. At the words of our Saviour, saying to the sick of the palsy, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee,” exception was taken by the Scribes, who secretly reasoned against him, “Is any able to forgive sins, but only God?” Whereupon they condemned his speech as blasphemy; the rest, which believed him to be a Prophet sent from God, saw no cause wherefore he might not as lawfully say, and as truly, to whomsoever amongst them, “God hath taken away thy sins,” as Nathan (they all knew) had used the very like speech; to whom David did not therefore impute blasphemy, but embraced, as became him, the words of truth with joy and reverence. Now there is no controversy but as God in that special case did authorize Nathan, so Christ more generally his Apostles and the ministers of his word in his name to absolve sinners. Their power being equal, all the difference between them can be but only in this, that whereas the one had prophetical evidence, the other have the certainty partly of faith, and partly of human experience, whereupon to ground their sentence: faith, to assure them of God’s most gracious pardon in Heaven unto all penitents; and touching the sincerity of each particular party’s repentance, as much as outward sensible tokens or signs can warrant.It is not to be marvelled that so great a difference appeareth between the doctrine of Rome and ours, when we teach repentance. They imply in the name of repentance much more than we do. We stand chiefly upon the true inward conversion of the heart; they more upon works of external show. We teach, above all things, that repentance which is one and the same from the beginning to the world’s end; they a sacramental penance of their own devising and shaping. We labour to instruct men in such sort, that every soul which is wounded with sin may learn the way how to cure itself; they, clean contrary, would make all sores seem incurable, unless the priest have a hand in them. Touching the force of whose absolution they strangely hold, that whatsoever the penitent doth, his contrition, confession, and satisfaction have no place of right to stand as material parts in this sacrament, nor consequently any such force as to make them available for the taking away of sin, in that they proceed from the penitent’ himself without the privity of the minister, but only, as they are enjoined by the minister’s authority and power. So that no contrition or grief of heart, till the priest exact it; no acknowledgment of sins, but that which he doth demand; no praying, no fasting, no alms, no recompense or restitution for whatsoever we have done, can help, except by him it be first imposed. It is the chain of their own doctrine, no remedy for mortal sin committed after baptism but the sacrament of penance only; no sacrament of penance, if either matter or form be wanting; no ways to make those duties a material part of the sacrament, unless we consider them as required and exacted by the priest. Our Lord and Saviour, they say, hath ordained his priests judges in such sort, that no man which sinneth after

baptism can be reconciled unto God but by their sentence. For why? If there were any other way of reconciliation, the very promise of Christ should be false, in saying, “Whatsoever ye bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven; and whose sins soever ye retain, are retained’’.” Except therefore the priest be willing, God hath by promise so hampered himself, that it is not now in his own power to pardon any man. Let him which bath offended crave as the publican did a; “Lord, be thou merciful to me a sinner;” let him, as David, make a thousand times his supplication, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of thy compassions’’ put away mine iniquities: “all this doth not help, till such time as the pleasure of the priest be known; till he have signed us a pardon, and given us our quietus est, God himself hath no answer to make but such as that of his angel unto Lot, “I can do nothing.”It is true, that our Saviour by those words, “Whose sins ye remit, they are remitted,” did ordain judges over sinful souls, give them authority to absolve from sin, and promise to ratify in heaven whatsoever they should do on earth in execution of this their office; to the end that hereby, as well his ministers might take encouragement to do their duty with all faithfulness, as also his people admonition, gladly with all reverence to be ordered by them; both parts knowing that the functions of the one towards the other have his perpetual assistance and approbation. Howbeit all this with two restraints, which every jurisdiction in the world hath; the one, that the practice thereof proceed in due order; the other, that it do not extend itself beyond due bounds; which bounds or limits have so confined penitential jurisdiction, that although there be given unto it power of remitting sin, yet not such sovereignty of power, that no sin should be pardonable in man without it. Thus to enforce our Saviour’s words, is as though we should gather, that because whatsoever Joseph did command in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh’s grant was, it should be done; therefore he granted that nothing should be done in the land of Egypt but what Joseph did command, and so consequently, by enabling his servant Joseph to command under him, disableth himself to command any thing without Joseph. But by this we see how the papacy maketh all sin unpardonable, which hath not the priest’s absolution; except peradventure in some extraordinary case, where albeit absolution be not had, yet it must be desired.What is then the force of absolution? What is it which the act of absolution worketh in a sinful man? Doth it by any operation derived from itself alter the state of the soul? Doth it really take away sin, or but ascertain us of God’s most gracious and merciful pardon? The latter of which two is our assertion, the former theirs. At the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, saying unto the sick of the palsy, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee,” the Pharisees, which knew him not to be the “Son of the living God,” took secret exception, and fell to reasoning with themselves against him; “Is any able to forgive sins but God only?” “The sins,” saith St. Cyprian, “that are committed against him, he alone bath power to forgive, which took upon him our sins, he which sorrowed and suffered for us, he whom the Father delivered unto death for our offences.” Whereunto may be added that which Clemens Alexandrinus hath, “Our Lord is profitable every way, every way beneficial, whether we respect him as man, or as God; as God

forgiving, as man instructing and learning how to avoid sin.” For it is “I, even I, that putteth away thine iniquities for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” saith the Lord. Now albeit we willingly confess with St. Cyprian, “The sins that are committed against him, he only hath power to forgive, who hath taken upon him our sins, he which hath sorrowed and suffered for us, he whom God hath given for our offences: “yet neither did St. Cyprian intend to deny the power of the minister, otherwise than if he presume beyond his commission to remit sin, where God’s own will is it should be retained; for against such absolutions he speaketh (which being granted to whom they ought to have been denied, are of no validity;) and, if rightly it be considered how higher causes in operation use to concur with inferior means, his grace with our ministry, God really performing the same which man is authorized to act as in his name, there shall need for decision of this point no great labour.To remission of sins there are two things necessary; grace, as the only cause which taketh away iniquity; and repentance, as a duty or condition required in us. To make repentance such as it should be, what doth God demand but inward sincerity joined with fit and convenient offices for that purpose? the one referred wholly to our own consciences, the other best discerned by them whom God hath appointed judges in this court. So that having first the promises of God for pardon generally unto all offenders penitent; and particularly for our own unfeigned meaning, the unfallible testimony of a good conscience; the sentence of God’s appointed officer and vicegerent to approve with unpartial judgment the quality of that we have done, and as from his tribunal, in that respect to assoil us of any crime: I see no cause but that by the rules of our faith and religion we may rest ourselves very well assured touching God’s most merciful pardon and grace; who, especially for the strengthening of weak, timorous, and fearful minds, hath so far endued his church with power to absolve sinners. It pleaseth God that men sometimes should, by missing this help, perceive how much they stand bound to him for so precious a benefit enjoyed. And surely, so long as the world lived in any awe or fear of falling away from God, so dear were his ministers to the people, chiefly in this respect, that being through tyranny and persecution deprived of pastors, the doleful rehearsal of their lost felicities hath not any one thing more eminent, than that sinners distrest should not now know how or where to unlade their burthen. Strange it were unto me, that the Fathers, who so much every where extol the grace of Jesus Christ in leaving unto his Church this heavenly and divine power, should as men whose simplicity had generally been abused, agree all to admire and magnify a needless office. The sentence therefore of ministerial absolution hath two effects: touching sin, it only declareth us frees from the guiltiness thereof, and restored into God’s favour; but concerning right in sacred and divine mysteries, whereof through sin we were made unworthy, as the power of the Church did before effectually bind and retain us from access unto them, so upon our apparent repentance it truly restoreth our liberty, looseth the chains wherewith we were tied, remitteth all whatsoever is past, accepteth us no less, returned, than if we never had gone astray.

For inasmuch as the power which our Saviour gave to his Church is of two kinds, the one to be exercised over voluntary penitents only, the other over such as are to be brought to amendment by ecclesiastical censure; the words wherein he hath given this authority must be so understood, as the subject or matter whereupon it worketh will permit. It doth not permit that in the former kind, (that is to say, in the use of power over voluntary converts,) to bind or loose, remit or retain, should signify any other than only to pronounce of sinners according to that which may be gathered by outward signs; because really to effect the removal or continuance of sin in the soul of any offender, is no priestly act, but a work which far exceedeth their ability. Contrariwise, in the latter kind of spiritual jurisdiction, which by censures constraineth men to amend their lives; it is true, that the minister of God doth more than declare and signify what God hath wrought. And this power, true it is, that the Church of Christ hath invested in it.Howbeit, as other truths, so this hath both by error been oppugned, and depraved through abuse. The first of name, that openly in writing withstood the Church’s authority and power to remit sin, was Tertullian, after he had combined himself with Montanists, drawn to the liking of their heresy through the very sourness of his own nature, which neither his incredible skill and knowledge otherwise, nor the very doctrine of the gospel itself, could but so much alter, as to make him savour any thing which carried with it the taste of lenity. A sponge steeped in wormwood and gall, a man through too much severity merciless, and neither able to endure nor to be endured of any. His book entitled Concerning Chastity, and written professedly against the discipline of the Church, hath many fretful and angry sentences, declaring a mind very much offended with such as would not persuade themselves, that of sins, some be pardonable by the keys of the Church, some uncapable of forgiveness; that middle and moderate offences having received chastisement, may by spiritual authority afterwards be remitted, but greater transgressions must (as touching indulgence) be left to the only pleasure of Almighty God in the world to come; that as idolatry and bloodshed, so likewise fornication and sinful lust are of this nature; that they which so far are fallen from God, ought to continue for ever after barred from access unto his sanctuary, condemned to perpetual profusion of tears, deprived of all expectation and hope to receive any thing at the Church’s hands, but publication of their shame “For,” saith he, “who will fear to waste out that which he hopeth he may recover? Who will be careful for ever to hold that, which he knoweth cannot for ever be withheld from him? He which slackeneth the bridle to sin, doth thereby give it even the spur also Take away fear, and that which presently succeedeth instead thereof is licentious desire. Greater offences therefore are punishable, but not pardonable, by the Church. If any Prophet or Apostle be found to have remitted such transgressions, they did it not by the ordinary course of discipline, but by extraordinary power. For they also raised the dead, which none but God is able to do; they restored impotent’ and lame men, a work peculiar to Jesus Christ; yea, that which Christ would not do, because executions of such severity beseemed not him who came to save and redeem the world by his sufferings, they by their power struck Elymas and Ananias, the one blind, and the other dead. Approve first yourselves to be as they were Apostles or Prophets, and then take upon you to pardon all men. But if the authority you have be only ministerial, and no way sovereign, over-reach not the limits which God bath set you; know that to pardon capital sin is beyond your commission.”

## Howbeit, as oftentimes the vices of wicked men do cause other their commendable qualities to be abhorred, so the honour of great men’s virtues is easily a cloak to their errors. In which respect Tertullian hath past with much less obloquy and reprehension than Novatian; who, broaching afterwards the same opinion, had not otherwise wherewith to countervail the offence he gave, and to procure it the like toleration. Novatian, at the first a stoical philosopher, (which kind of men hath always accounted stupidity the highest top of wisdom, and commiseration the deadliest sin,) became by institution and study the very same which the other had been before through a secret natural distemper, upon his conversion to the Christian faith and recovery from sickness, which moved him to receive the sacrament of Baptism in his bed. The bishop contrary to the canons of the Church would needs in special love towards him ordain him presbyter, which favour satisfied not him who thought himself worthy of greater place and dignity. He closed therefore with a number of well-minded men, and not suspicious what his secret purposes were, and having made them sure unto him by fraud, procureth his own consecration to be their bishop. His prelacy now was able as he thought to countenance what he intended to publish, and therefore his letters went presently abroad to sundry churches, advising them never to admit to the fellowship of holy mysteries such as had after baptism offered sacrifice to idols. There was present at the council of Nice, together with other bishops, one Acesius a Novatianist, touching whose diversity in opinion from the Church the emperor desirous to hear some reason, asked of him certain questions; for answer whereunto Acesius weaveth out a long history of things that happened in the persecution under Decius, and of men, which to save life forsook faith. But the end was a certain bitter canon framed in their own school, “That men which fall into deadly sin after holy baptism, ought never to be again admitted to the communion of divine mysteries; that they are to be exhorted unto repentance, howbeit not to be put in hope that pardon can be had at the priest’s hands; but with God, which hath sovereign power and authority in himself to remit sins, it may be in the end they shall find mercy.” Those followers of Novatian, which gave themselves the title of kaqaroi , clean, pure, and unspotted men, had one point of Montanism more than their master did profess; for amongst sins unpardonable they reckoned second marriages, of which opinion Tertullian making (as his usual manner was) a salt apology, “Such is,” saith he, “our stony hardness, that defaming our Comforter with a kind of enormity in discipline, we dam up the doors of the church no less against twicemarried men than against adulterers and fornicators.” Of this sort therefore it was ordained by the Nicene Synod that if any such did return to the catholic and apostolic unity, they should in writing bind themselves to observe the orders of the Church, and communicate as well with them which had been often married, or had fallen in time of persecution, as with other sorts of Christian people. But further to relate, or at all to refel the errors of misbelieving men concerning this point, is not now to our present purpose greatly necessary.The Church may receive no small detriment by corrupt practice, even there where doctrine concerning the substance of things practised is free from any great or dangerous

corruption. If therefore that which the papacy doth in matter of confessions and absolutions be offensive; if it palpably swerve in the use of the keys; howsoever that which it teacheth in general concerning the Church’s power to retain and forgive sins be admitted true, have they not on the one side as much whereat to be abasht, as on the other wherein to rejoice? They bind all men, upon pain of everlasting condemnation and death, to make confession to their ghostly fathers of every great offence they know, and can remember that they have committed against God. Hath Christ in his Gospel so delivered the doctrine of repentance unto the world? Did his Apostles so preach it to nations? Have the Fathers so believed or so taught? Surely Novatian was not so merciless in depriving the Church of power to absolve some certain offenders, as they in imposing upon all a necessity thus to confess. Novatian would never deny but God might remit that which the Church could not; whereas in the papacy it is maintained, that what we conceal from men, God himself shall never pardon. By which oversight, as they have surcharged the world with multitude, but much abated the weight of confession, so the careless manner of their absolution bath made discipline for the most part amongst them a bare formality; yea, rather a mean of emboldening unto vicious and wicked life, than either any help to prevent future, or medicine to remedy present evils in the soul of man. The Fathers were slow and always fearful to absolve any before very manifest tokens given of a true penitent and contrite spirit. It was not their custom to remit sin first, and then to impose works of satisfaction, as the fashion of Rome is now; insomuch that this their preposterous course, and misordered practice, hath bred in them also an error concerning the end and purpose of these works. For against the guiltiness of sin, and the danger of everlasting condemnation thereby incurred, confession and absolution succeeding the same, are, as they take it, a remedy sufficient; and therefore what their penitentiaries do think good to enjoins farther, whether it be a number of Ave-Maries daily to be scored up, a journey of pilgrimage to be undertaken, some few dishes of ordinary diet to be exchanged, offerings to be made at the shrines of saints, or a little to be scraped off from men’s superfluity for relief of poor people, all is in lieu or exchange with God, whose justice, notwithstanding our pardon, yet oweth us still some temporal punishment, either in this or in the life to come, except we quit it ourselves here with works of the former kind, and continued till the balance of God’s most strict severity shall find the pains we have taken equivalent with the plagues we should endure, or else that the mercy of the pope relieve us. And at this postern gate cometh in the whole mart of papal indulgences, so infinitely strewed, that the pardon of sin, which heretofore was obtained hardly and by much suit, is with them become now almost impossible to be escaped.To set down then the force of this sentence in absolving penitents; there are in sin these three things’: the act which passeth away and vanisheth; the pollution wherewith it leaveth the soul defiled; and the punishment whereunto they are made subject that have committed it. The act of sin, is every deed, word, and thought against the law of God. “For sin is the transgression of the laws;” and although the deed itself do not continue, yet is that bad quality permanent, whereby it maketh the soul unrighteous and deformed in God’s sight. “From the heart come evil cogitations, murders, adulteries, fornications,

thefts, false testimonies, slanders; these are things which defile a man.” They do not only, as effects of impurity, argue the nest to be unclean, out of which they came, but as causes they strengthen that disposition unto wickedness which brought them forth; they are both fruits and seeds of uncleanness, they nourish the root out of which they grow, they breed that iniquity which bred them. The blot therefore of sin abideth, though the act be transitory. And out of both ariseth a present debt, to endure what punishment soever the evil which we have done deserveth; an obligation, in the chains whereof sinners by the justice of Almighty God continue bound till repentance loose them. “Repent this thy wickedness,” saith Peter unto Simon Magus, “beseech God, that if it be possible the thought of thine heart may be pardoned; for I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” In like manner Salomon: “The wicked shall be held fast in the cords of his own sin.” Nor doth God only bind sinners hands and foot by the dreadful determination of his own unsearchable judgment against them; but sometime also the Church bindeth by the censures of her disciplines: so that when offenders upon their repentance are by the same discipline absolved, the Church looseth but her own bands, the chains wherein she had tied them before. The act of sin God alone remitteth, in that his purpose is never to call it to account, or to lay it unto men’s charge; the stain he washeth out by the sanctifying grace of his Spirits; and concerning the punishment of sin, as none else hath power to cast body and soul into hell-fire, so none power to deliver either besides him. As for the ministerial sentence of private absolution, it can be no more than a declaration what God hath done; it hath but the force of the Prophet Nathan’s absolution, “God hath taken away thy sin:” than which construction, especially of words judicial, there is not any thing more vulgar. For example, the publicans are said in the Gospel to have justified Gods; the Jews in Malachi to have blessed proud men, which sin and prosper; not that the one did make God righteous, or the other the wicked happy: but to “bless,” to “justify,” and to “absolve,” are as commonly used for words of judgment or declaration, as of true and real efficacy. Yea even by the opinion of the Master of Sentences, “it may be soundly affirmed and thought that God alone doth remit and retain sins, although he have given the Church power to do both: but he one way, and the Church another. He only by himself forgiveth sin, who cleanseth the soul from inward blemish, and looseth the debt of eternal death. So great a privilege he hath not given unto his priests, who notwithstanding are authorized to loose and bind, that is to say, ton declare who are bound, and who are loosed. For albeit a man be already cleared before God, yet he is not in the face of the Church so taken, but by virtue of the priest’s sentence; who likewise may be said to bind by imposing satisfactions, and to loose by admitting to the holy communion.” Saint Hierome also, whom the Master of the Sentences allegeth for more countenance of his own opinion, doth no less plainly and directly affirm: “That as the priests of the law could only discern, and neither cause nor remove leprosies; so the ministers of the Gospel, when they retain or remit sin, do but in the one judge how long we continue guilty, and in the other declare when we are clear or free.” For there is nothing more apparent, than that the discipline of repentance both public and private was ordained as

an outward mean to bring men to the virtue of inward conversion; so that when this by manifest tokens did seem effected, absolution ensuing (which could not make) served only to declare men innocent.But the cause wherefore they are so stiff, and have forsaken their own master in this point, is for that they hold the private discipline of penitency to be a sacrament, absolution an external sign in this sacrament, the signs external of all sacraments in the New Testament to be both causes of that which they signify, and signs of that which they truly cause. To this opinion concerning sacraments they are now tied by expounding a canon in the Florentine council’ according to a former scholasticalr invention received from Thomas. For his device it was, that the mercy of God, which useth sacraments as instruments whereby to work, endueth them at the time of their administration with supernatural force and ability to induce grace into the souls of men; even as the axe and saw do serve to bring timber into that fashion which the mind of the artificer intendeth. His conceit Scotus, Occam, Petrus Alliacensis, with sundry others, do most earnestly and strongly impugn, shewing very good reason, wherefore no sacrament of the new law can either by virtue which itself hath, or by force supernaturally given it, be properly a cause to work grace; but sacraments are therefore said to work or confer grace, because the will of Almighty God is, although not to give them such efficacy, yet himself to be present in the ministry of theta working that effect, which proceedeth wholly from him without any real operation of theirs, such as can enter into men’s souls.In which construction, seeing that our books and writings have made it known to the world how we join with them, it seemeth very hard and injurious dealing, that Bellarmine throughout the whole course of his second book De Sacramentis in Genere, should so boldly face down his adversaries, as if their opinion were, that sacraments are naked, empty, and uneffectual signs; wherein there is no other force than only such as in pictures to stir up the mind, that so by theory and speculation of things represented, faith may grow: finally, that all the operation which sacraments have, is a sensible and divine instruction. But had it pleased him not to hoodwink his own knowledge, I nothing doubt but he fully saw how to answer himself; it being a matter very strange and incredible, that one which with so great diligence had winnowed his adversaries’ writings, should be ignorant of their minds. For, even as in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ both God and man, when his human nature is by itself considered, we may not attribute that unto him, which we do and must ascribe as oft as respect is had unto both natures combined; so because in sacraments there are two things distinctly to be considered, the outward sign, and the secret concurrence of God’s most blessed Spirit, in which respect our Saviour hath taught that water and the Holy Ghost are combined to work the mystery of new birth; sacraments therefore as signs have only those effects before mentioned; but of sacraments, in that by God’s own will and ordinance they are signs assisted always with the power of the Holy Ghost, we acknowledge whatsoever either the places of Scripture, or the authorities of councils and fathers, or the proofs and arguments of reason which he allegeth, can show to be wrought by them. The elements and words have power of infallible signification, for which they are called seals of God’s truth; the spirit affixed

unto those elements and words, power of operation within the soul, most admirable, divine, and impossible to be exprest. For so God hath instituted and ordained, that, together with due administration and receipt of sacramental signs, there shall proceed ‘ from himself grace effectual to sanctify, to cure, to comfort, and whatsoever is else” for the good of the souls of men. Howbeit this opinion Thomas rejecteth, under pretence that it maketh sacramental words and elements to be in themselves no more than signs, whereas they ought to be held as causes of that they signify. He therefore reformeth it with this addition, that the very sensible parts of the Sacraments do instrumentally effect and produce, not grace (for the schoolmen both of these times and long after did for the most part maintain it untrue, and some of them unpossible, that sanctifying grace should efficiently proceed but from God alone, and that by immediate creation as the substance of the soul doth;) but the phantasy which Thomas had was, that sensible things through Christ and the priest’s benediction receive a certain supernatural transitory force, which leaveth behind it a kind of preparative quality or beauty within the soul, whereupon immediately from God doth ensue the grace that justifieth. Now they which pretend to follow Thomas, differ from him in two points. For first, they make grace an immediate effect of the outward sign, which he for the dignity and excellency thereof was afraid to do. Secondly, whereas he to produce but a preparative quality in the soul, did imagine God to create in the instrument a supernatural gift or ability; they confess, that nothing is created, infused, or any way inherent, either in the word or in the elements; nothing that giveth them instrumental efficacy, but God’s mere motion or application. Are they able to explain unto us, or themselves to conceive, what they mean when they thus speak? For example, let them teach us, in the sacrament of Baptism, what it is for water to be moved till it bring forth grace. The application thereof by the minister is plain to sense; the force which it hath in the mind, as a moral instrument of information or instruction, we know by reason; and by faith we understand how God doth assist it with his Spirit: whereupon ensueth the grace which Saint Cyprian did in himself observe, sayings, “After the bath of regeneration having scoured out the stained foulness of former life, supernatural light had entrance into the breast which was purified and cleansed for it: after that a second nativity had made me another man, by inward receipt of the Spirit from heaven; things doubtful began in marvellous manner to appear certain, that to be open which lay hid, darkness to shine like the clear light, former hardness to be made facility, impossibility easiness: insomuch as it might be discerned how that was earthly, which before had been carnally bred, and lived, given over unto sins; that now God’s own, which the Holy Ghost did quicken.”Our opinion is therefore plain unto every man’s understanding. We take it for a very good speech which Bonaventure hath uttered in saying, “Heed must be taken, that while we ascribe too much to the bodily signs in way of their commendation, we withdraw not the honour which is due to the cause which worketh in them, and the soul which receiveth them:” whereunto we conformably teach, that the outward sign applied hath of itself no natural efficacy towards grace, neither doth God put into it any supernatural

inherent virtue. And, as I think, we thus far avouch no more than they themselves confess to be very true. If any thing displease them, it is because we add to these premisses another assertion; that with the outward sign God joineth his Holy Spirit, and so the whole instrument of God bringeth that to pass, whereunto the baser and meaner part could not extend. As for operations through the motions of signs, they are dark, intricate, and obscure; perhaps possible; howbeit, not proved either true or likely, by alleging that the touch of our Saviour’s garment restored health, clay sight, when he applied it. Although ten thousand such examples should be brought, they overthrow not this one principle; that, where the instrument is without inherent virtues, the effect must necessarily proceed from the only agent’s adherent power. It passeth a man’s conceit how water should be carried into the soul with any force of divine motion, or grace proceed but merely from the influence of God’s Spirit. Notwithstanding if God did himself teach his Church in this case to believe that which he hath not given us capacity to comprehend, how incredible soever it may seem, yet our wits should submit themselves, and reason give place unto faith therein. But they yield it to be no question of faith, how grace doth proceed from sacraments; if in general they be acknowledged true instrumental causes, by the ministry whereof men receive divine grace; and that they which impute grace to the only operation of God himself, concurring with the external sign, do no less acknowledge the true efficacy of the sacrament, than they that ascribe the same to the quality of the sign applied, or to the motion of God applying, and so far carrying it, till grace be thereby not created, but extracted out of the natural possibility of the soul. Nevertheless this last philosophical imagination (if I may call it philosophical,) which useth the terms, but overthroweth the rules of philosophy, and hath no article of faith to support it, but whatsoever it be, they follow it in a manner all; they cast off the first opinion, wherein is most perspicuity and strongest evidence of certain truth. The Council of Florence and Trent, defining that sacraments contain and confer grace, the sense whereof (if it liked them) might so easily conform itself with the same opinion, which they drew without any just cause quite and clean the other way, making grace the issue of bare words in such sacraments as they have framed destitute of any visible element, and holding it the offspring as well of elements as of words in those sacraments where both are, but in no sacrament acknowledging grace to be the fruit of the Holy Ghost working with the outward sign and not by it; in such sort as Thomas himself teacheth; that the Apostle’s imposition of hands caused not the coming of the Holy Ghost, which notwithstanding was bestowed together with the exercise of that ceremony; yea, by it, (saith the Evangelist,) to wit, as by a mean which came between the true agent and the effect, but not otherwise. Many of the ancient Fathers, presupposing that the faithful before Christ had not till the time of his coming that perfect life and salvation which they looked for and we possess, thought likewise their sacraments to be but prefigurations of that which ours in present do exhibit. For which cause the Florentine council comparing the one with the other, saith,

“That the old did only shadow grace, which was afterward to be given through the passion of Jesus Christ.” But the after-wit of later days bath found out another more exquisite distinction, that evangelical sacraments are causes to effect grace, through motion: of signs legal, according to the same signification and sense wherein evangelical sacraments are held by us to be God’s instruments for that purpose. For howsoever Bellarmine hath shrunk up the Lutherans’ sinews, and cut off our doctrine by the skirts; Allen, although he term us heretics, according to the usual bitter venom of his proud style, doth yet ingenuously confess, that the old schoolmen’s doctrine and ours is one concerning sacramental efficacy, derived from God himself assisting by promise those outward signs of elements and words, out of which their schoolmen of the newer mint are so desirous to hatch grace. Where God doth work and use these outward means, wherein he neither findeth nor planteth force and aptness towards his intended purpose, such means are but signs to bring men to the consideration of his owns omnipotent power, which without the use of things sensible would not be marked. At the time therefore when he giveth his heavenly grace, he applieth by the hands of his ministers that which betokeneth the same; nor only betokeneth, but, being also accompanied for ever with such power as doth truly work, is in that respect termed God’s instrument, a true efficient cause of grace; a cause not in itself, but only by connexion of that which is in itself a cause, namely God’s own strength and power. Sacraments, that is to say, the outward signs in sacraments, work nothing till they be blessed and sanctified of God: But what is God’s heavenly benediction and sanctification, saving only the association of his Spirit? Shall we say that sacraments are like magical signs, if thus they have their effect? Is it magic for God to manifest by things sensible what he doth, and to do by his own most glorious Spirit really what he manifesteth in his sacraments? the delivery and administration whereof remaineth in the hands of mortal men, by whom, as by personal instruments, God doth apply signs, and with signs inseparably join his Spirit, and through the power of his Spirit work grace. The first is by way of concomitance and consequence to deliver the rest also that either accompany or ensue. It is not here, as in cases of mutual commerce, where diverse persons have divers acts to be performed in their own behalf; a creditor to shew his bill, and a debtor to pay his money. But God and man do here meet in one action upon a third, in whom, as it is the work of God to create grace, so it is his work by the hand of the minister to apply a sign which should betoken, and his work to annex, that Spirit, which shall effect it. The action therefore is but one, God the author thereof, and man a cooperator by him assigned to work for, with, and under him. God the giver of grace by the outward ministry of man, so far forth as he authorizeth man to apply the sacraments of grace in the soul, which he alone worketh, without either instrument or co-agent.Whereas therefore with us the remission of sin is ascribed unto God, as a thing which proceedeth from him only, and presently followeth upon the virtue of true repentance appearing in man; that which we attribute to the virtue, they do not only impute to the sacrament of repentance, but having made repentance a sacrament, and thinking of sacraments as they do, they are enforced to make the ministry of his priests and their absolution a cause of that which the sole omnipotency of God worketh.

And yet, for mine own part, I am not able well to conceive how their doctrine, that human absolution is really a cause out of which our deliverance from sin doth ensue, can cleave with the council of Trent, defining, “That contrition perfected with charity doth at all times itself reconcile offenders to God, before they come to receive actually the sacrament of penance:” how it can stand with those discourses of the learnedest rabbins, which grant, “That whosoever turneth unto God with his whole heart,. hath immediately his sins taken away; that if a manna be truly converted, his pardon can neither be denied nor delayed:” it doth not stay for the priest’s absolution, but presently followeth. Surely, if every contrite sinner, in whom there is charity and a sincere conversion of heart, have remission of sins given him before he seek it at the priest’s hands; if reconciliation to God be a present and immediate sequel upon every such conversion or change: it must of necessity follow, seeing no man can be a true penitent or contrite which doth not both love God and sincerely abhor sin, that therefore they all before absolution attain forgiveness; whereunto notwithstanding absolution is pretended a cause so necessary, that sin without it, except in some rare extraordinary case, cannot possibly be remitted. Shall absolution be a cause producing and working that effect which is always brought forth without it, and had before absolution be sought? But when they which are thus beforehand pardoned of God shall come to be also assoiled by the priest, I would know what force his absolution hath in this case? Are they able to say here that the priest doth remit any thing? Yet when any of ours ascribeth the work of remission to God, and interpreteth the priest’s sentence to be but a solemn declaration of that which God himself hath already performed, they scorn at it; they urge against it, that if this were true, our Saviour Christ should rather have said, “What is loosed in heaven, ye shall loose on earth,” than as he doth, “Whatsoever ye loose on earth, shall in heaven be loosed.” As if he were to learn of us how to place his words, and not we to crave rather of him a sound and right understanding, lest to his dishonour and our own hurt we misexpound them. It sufficeth, I think, both against their constructions to have proved that they ground an untruth on his speech, and in behalf of our own, that his words without any such transposition do very well admit the sense we give them; which is, that he taketh to himself the lawful proceedings of authority in his name, and that the act of spiritual authority in this case, is by sentence to acquit or pronounce them free from sin whom they judge to be sincerely and truly penitent; which interpretation they themselves do acknowledge, though not sufficient, yet very true. Absolution, they say, declareth indeed, but this is not all, for it likewise maketh innocent; which addition being an untruth proved, our truth granted hath we hope sufficiency without it, and consequently our opinion therein neither to be challenged as untrue, nor as unsufficient.To rid themselves out of these briers, and to make remission of sins an effect of absolution, notwithstanding that which hitherto hath been said, they have two shifts. As first, that in many penitents there is but attrition of heart, which attrition they define to be grief proceeding from fear without love; and to these they say absolution doth give that contrition whereby men are really purged from sin. Secondly, that even where contrition or inward repentance doth cleanse without absolution, the reason why it cometh so to pass is, because such contrites intend and desire absolution, though they have it not. Which two things granted; the one, that absolution given maketh them contrite that are not, the other, that even in them which are contrite, the cause why God remitteth sin is the

purpose or desire they have to receive absolution; we are not to stand against a sequel so clear and manifest as this, that always remission of sin proceedeth from absolution either had or desired. But should a reasonable man give credit to their bare conceit, and because their positions have driven them to imagine absolving of unsufficiently-disposed penitents to be a real creating of further virtue in them, must all other men think it true? Let them cancel henceforward and blot out of all their books those old cautions touching necessity of wisdoms, lest priests should inconsiderately absolve any man in whom there were not apparent tokens of true repentance; which to do was, in Cyprian’s judgments, “pestilent deceit and flattery, not only not available, but hurtful to them that had transgrest; a frivolous, frustrate and false peace, such as caused the unrighteous to trust to a lie, and destroyed them unto whom it promised safety.” What needeth observation whether penitents have worthiness and bring contrition, if the words of absolution do infuse contrition? Have they borne us all this while in hand that contrition is a part of the matter of their sacrament a condition or preparation of the mind towards grace to be received by absolution in the form of their sacrament? and must we now believe that the form doth give the matter? that absolution bestoweth contrition, and that the words do make presently of Saul, David; of Judas, Peter? For what was the penitency of Saul and Judas, but plain attrition; horror of sin through fear of punishment, without any loving sense, or taste of God’s mercy? Their other fiction, imputing remission of sin to desire of absolution from the priest, even in them which are truly contrite, is an evasion somewhat more witty, but no whit more possible for them to prove. Belief of the world and judgment to come, faith in the promises and sufferings of Christ for mankind, fear of his majesty, love of his mercy, grief for sin, hope for pardon, suit for grace; these we know to be the elements of true contrition: suppose that besides all this, God did also command that every penitent should seek his absolution at the priest’s hands; where so many causes are concurring unto one effect, have they any reason to impute the whole effect unto one? any reason in the choice of that one, to pass by faith, fear, love, humility, hope, prayer, whatsoever else, and to enthronize above them all a desire of absolution from the priest, as if, in the whole work of man’s repentance, God did regard and accept nothing, but for and in consideration of this? Why doth the Tridentine council impute it to charity, “that contrites are reconciled in God’s sight before they receive the sacrament of penance,” if desired absolution be the true cause? But let this pass how it will; seeing the question is not, what virtues God may accept in penitent sinners, but what grace absolution actually given doth really bestow upon them. If it were, as they will have it, that God, regarding the humiliation of a contrite spirit, because there is joined therewith a lowly desire of the sacrament of priestly absolution, pardoneth immediately and forgiveth all offences; doth this any thing help to prove that absolution received afterward from the priest, can more than declare him already pardoned which did desire it? To desire absolution, presupposing it commanded, is obedience; and obedience in that case is a branch of the virtue of repentance; which virtue being thereby made effectual to the taking away of sins without the sacrament of

repentance, is it not an argument that the sacrament of absolution hath here no efficacy, but the virtue of contrition worketh all? For how should any effect ensue from causes which actually are not? The sacrament must be applied wheresoever any grace doth proceed from it. So that where it is but desired only, whatsoever may follow upon God’s acceptation of this desire, the sacrament afterwards received can be no cause thereof. Wherefore the further we wade, the better we see it still appear, that the priest doth never in absolution, no not so much as by way of service and ministry, really either forgive the act, take away the uncleanness, or remove the punishment of sin: but if the party penitent come contrite, he hath by their own grant absolution before absolution; if not contrite, although the priest should ten thousand times absolver him, all were in vain. For which cause, the ancienter and better sort of their schooldivines, Abulensis, Alexander Hales, Bonaventure, ascribe the real abolition of sin and eternal punishment to the mere pardon of Almighty God without dependency upon the priest’s absolution as a cause to effect the same. His absolution hath in their doctrine certain other effects specified’ but this denied. Wherefore, having hitherto spoken of the virtue of repentance required; of the discipline of repentance which Christ did establish; and of the sacrament of repentance invented sithence, against the pretended force of human absolution in sacramental penitency: let it suffice thus far to have shewed how God alone doth truly give, the virtue of repentance alone procure, and private ministerial absolution but declare remission of sins. Now the last and sometimes hardest to be satisfied by repentance, are our minds; and our minds we have then satisfied, when the conscience is of guilty become clear. For as long as we are in ourselves privy to our own most heinous crimes, but without sense of God’s mercy and grace towards us, unless the heart be either brutish for want of knowledge, or altogether hardened by wilful atheism, the remorse of sin is in it as the deadly sting of a serpent. Which point sith very infidels and heathens have observed in the nature of sin (for the disease they felt, though they knew no remedy to help it) we are not rashly to despise those sentences which are the testimonies of their experience touching this point. They knew that the eye of a man’s own conscience is more to be feared by evil doers than the presence of a thousand witnesses, inasmuch as the mouths of other accusers are many ways stopt, the ears of the accused not always subject to glowing with contumely and exprobration; whereas a guilty mind being forced to be still both a martyr and a tyrant itself, must of necessity endure perpetual anguish and grief. For, as the body is rent with stripes, so the mind with guiltiness of cruelty, lust, and wicked resolutions. Which furies brought the Emperor Tiberius sometimes into such perplexity, that writing to the senate, his wonted art of dissimulation failed him utterly in this case; and whereas it had been ever his peculiar delight so to speak that no man might be able to sound his meaning, he had not the power to conceal what he felt through the secret scourge of an evil conscience, though no necessity did now enforce to disclose the same. “What to write, or how to write, at this present, if I know,” saith Tiberius, “let those gods and goddesses, who thus continually eat me, only be worse to me than they are.” It was not his imperial dignity and power that could provide a way to protect him against himself; the fears and suspicions which improbity had bred being strengthened by every occasion, and those virtues clean banished which are the only foundation of sound tranquillity of mind. For which cause it hath been truly said, and agreeably with all men’s

experience, that if the righteous did excel in no other privilege, yet far happier they are than the contrary sort of men, for that their hopes be always better. Neither are we to marvel that these things, known unto all, do stay so few from being authors of their own woe. For we see by the ancient example of Joseph’s unkind brethren, how it cometh to remembrance easily when crimes are once past, what the difference is of good from evil, and of right from wrong: but such considerations when they should have prevented sin, were overmatcht by unordinate desires. Are we not bound then with all thankfulness to acknowledge his infinite goodness and mercy, which hath revealed unto us the way how to rid ourselves of these mazes; the way how to shake off that yoke, which no flesh is able to bear; the way how to change most grisly horror into a comfortable apprehension of heavenly joy?Whereunto there are many which labour with so much the greater difficulty, because imbecility of mind doth not suffer them to censure rightly their own doings: some fearful lest the enormity of their crimes be so impardonable that no repentance can do them good; some lest the imperfection of their repentance make it uneffectual to the taking away of sin. The one drive all things to this issue, whether they be not men which have sinned against the Holy Ghost; the other to this, what repentance is sufficient to clear sinners, and to assure them that they are delivered. Such as by error charge themselves of unpardonable sin, must think, it may be they deem that impardonable which is not. Our Saviour speaketh indeed of ah blasphemy which shall never be forgiven. But have they any sure and infallible knowledge what that blasphemy is? If not, why are they unjust and cruel to their own souls, imagining certainty of guiltiness in a crime concerning the very nature whereof they are uncertain? For mine own part, although where this blasphemy is mentioned, the cause why our Saviour spake thereof was the Pharisees’ blasphemy, which were not afraid to say, “He had an unclean spirit, and did cast out spirits by the power of Beelzebub;” nevertheless I dare not precisely deny but that even the very Pharisees themselves might have repented and been forgiven, and that our Lord Jesus Christ peradventure might but take occasion at their blasphemy, which as yet was pardonable, to tell them further of an unpardonable blasphemy, whereinto he foresaw that the Jews would fall. For it is plain that many thousands, at the first professing Christian religion, became afterwards wilful apostates, moved with no other cause of revolt, but mere indignation that the Gentiles should enjoy the benefit of the Gospel as much as they, and yet not be burthened with the yoke of Moses’ law. The Apostles by preaching had won them to Christ, in whose name they embraced with great alacrity the full remission of their former sins and iniquities; they received by imposition of the Apostles’ hands that grace and power of the Holy Ghost whereby they cured diseases, prophesied, spake with tongues: and yet in the end after all this they fell utterly away, renounced the mysteries of Christian faith, blasphemed in their formal abjurations that most glorious and blessed Spirit, the gifts whereof themselves had possest, and by this means sunk their souls in the gulf of that unpardonable sin, whereof as our Lord Jesus Christ had told them beforehand, so the Apostle at the first appearance of such their revolt putteth them in mind again, that falling now to their former

blasphemies, their salvation was irrecoverably gone. It was for them in this case impossible to be renewed by any repentance: because they were now in the state of Satan and his angels, the Judge of quick and dead had passed his irrevocable sentence against them. So great difference there is between infidels unconverted, and backsliders in this manner fallen away, that always we have hope to reclaim the one, which only hate whom they never knew; but to the other, which know and blaspheme, to them that with more than infernal malice accurse both the seen brightness of glory which is in him, and in themselves the tasted goodness of divine grace, as those execrable miscreants did, who first received in extraordinary miraculous manner, and then in outrageous sort blasphemed, the Holy Ghost, abjuring both it and the whole religion, which God by it did confirm and magnify; to such as wilfully thus sine, after so great light of the truth and gifts of the Spirit, there remaineth justly no fruit or benefit to be expected by Christ’s sacrifice. For all other offenders, without exception or stint, whether they be strangers that seek access, or followers that will make return unto God; upon the tender of their repentance, the grant of his grace standeth everlastingly signed with his blood in the book of eternal life. That which in this case over-terrifieth fearful souls, is a misconceit whereby they imagine every act which we do knowing that we do amiss, and every wilful breach or transgression of God’s law, to be mere sin against the Holy Ghost; forgetting that the Law of Moses itself ordained sacrifices of expiation as well for faults presumptuously committed, as things wherein men offend by error.Now there are on the contrary side others, who doubting not of God’s mercy toward all that perfectly repent, remain notwitstanding scrupulous and troubled with continual fear, lest defects in their own repentance be a bar against them. These cast themselves first into very great, and peradventure needless agonies, through misconstruction of things spoken about proportioning our griefs to our sins, for which they never think they have wept and mourned enough; yea, if they have not always a stream of tears at commandment they take it for a sign of a hearty congealed and hardened in sin; when to keep the wound of contrition bleeding, they unfold the circumstances of their transgressions, and endeavour to leave out nothing which may be heavy against themselves. Yet do what they can, they are still fearful, lest herein also they do not that which they ought and might. Come to prayer, their coldness taketh all heart and courage from them; with fasting albeit their flesh should be withered and their blood clean dried up, would they ever the less object, What is this to David’s humiliation’? wherein notwithstanding there was not any thing more than necessary. In works of charity and alms-deeds, it is not all the world can persuade them they did ever reach the poor bounty of the widow’s two mites or by many millions of leagues come near the mark which Comelius touched: so far they are off from the proud surmise of any penitential supererogation in miserable wretched worms of the earth. Notwithstanding, forasmuch as they wrong themselves with over rigorous and extreme exactions, by means whereof they fall sometimes into such perplexities as can hardly be allayed; it hath therefore pleased Almighty God, in tender commiseration over these imbecillities of men, to ordain for their spiritual and ghostly comfort consecrated persons,

which by sentence of power and authority given from above, may as it were out of his very mouth ascertain timorous and doubtful minds in their own particular, ease them of all their scrupulosities, leave them settled in peace and satisfied touching the mercy of God towards them. To use the benefit of this help for our better satisfaction in such cases is so natural, that it can be forbidden no man; but yet not so necessary, that all men should be in case to need it.They are of the two the happier therefore that can content and satisfy themselves by judging discreetly what they perform, and soundly what God doth require of them. For having that which is most material, the substance of penitency rightly bred; touching signs and tokens thereof, we may boldly affirm that they err, which imagine for every offence a certain proportionable degree in the passions and griefs of mind, whereunto whosoever aspireth not, repenteth in vain: that to frustrate men’s confessions and considerations of sin, except every circumstance which may aggravate the same be unript and laid in the balance, is a merciless extremity, although it be true, that as near as we can such wounds must be searched to the very bottom: last of all, that to set down the like stint, and to shut up the doors of mercy against penitents which come short thereof in the devotion’ of their prayers, in the continuance of their fasts, in the largeness and bounty of their alms, or in the course of any other such like duties, is more than God hath himself thought meet, and consequently more than mortal men should presume to do. That which God doth chiefly respect in men’s penitency, is their hearts. The heart is it which maketh repentance sincere, sincerity that which findeth favour in God’s sight, and the favour of God that which supplieth by gracious acceptation whatsoever may seem defective in the faithful, hearty, and true offices of his servants. “Take it” (saith Chrysostom) “upon my credit, such is God’s merciful inclination towards men, that repentance offered with a single and sincere mind he never refuseth; no not although we be come to the very top of iniquity. If there be a will and desire to return, he receiveth, embraceth, omitteth nothing which may restore us to former happiness; yea, that which is yet above all the rest, albeit we cannot in the duty of satisfying him attain what we ought and would, but come far behind our mark, he taketh nevertheless in good worth that little which we do; be it never so mean, we lose not our labour therein.” The least and lowest step of repentance in Saint’ Chrysostom’s judgment severeth and setteth us above them that perish in their sin. I will therefore end with St. Augustin’s conclusion, “Lord, in thy book and volume of life all shall be written, as well the least of thy saints, as the chiefest. Let not therefore the unperfect fear; let them only proceed and go forward.”

I. I HAVE heard that a famous kingdom in the world being solicited to reform such disorders as all men saw the Church exceedingly burdened with, when of each degree great multitudes thereunto inclined, and the number of them did every day so increase that this intended work was likely to take no other effect than all good men did wish and labour for;The state of Bishops although sometime oppugned, and that by such as therein would most seem to please God, yet by his providence upheld hitherto, whose glory it is to maintain that whereof himself is the author. a principal actor herein (for zeal and boldness of spirit) thought it good to shew them betimes what it was which must be effected, or else that there could be no work of perfect reformation accomplished. To this purpose, in a solemn sermon, and in a great assembly, he described unto them the present quality of their public estate by the parable of a tree, huge and goodly to look upon, but without that fruit which it should and might bring forth; affirming that the only way of redress was a full and perfect establishment of Christ’s discipline (for so their manner is to entitle a thing hammered out upon the forge of their own invention), and that to make way of entrance for it, there must be three great limbs cut off from the body of that stately tree of the kingdom: those three limbs were three sorts of men; nobles, whose high estate would make them otherwise disdain to put their necks under that yoke; lawyers, whose courts being not pulled down, the new church consistories were not like to flourish; finally, prelates, whose ancient dignity, and the simplicity of their intended church discipline, could not possibly stand together. The proposition of which device being plausible to active spirits, restless through desire of innovation, whom commonly nothing doth more offend than a change which goeth fearfully on by slow and suspicious paces; the heavier and more experienced sort began presently thereat to pull back their feet again, and exceedingly to fear the stratagem of reformation for ever after. Whereupon ensued those extreme conflicts of the one part with the other, which continuing and increasing to this very day, have now made the state of that flourishing kingdom even such, as whereunto we may most fitly apply those words of the Prophet Jeremiah, “Thy breach is great like the sea, who can heal thee?”Whether this were done in truth, according to the constant affirmation of some avouching the same, I take not upon me to examine; that which I note therein is, how with us that policy hath been corrected. For to the authors of pretended reformation with us, it hath not seemed expedient to offer the edge of the axe to all three boughs at once, but rather to single them, and strike at the weakest first, making show that the lop of that one shall draw the more abundance of sap to the other two, that they may thereby the better prosper. All prosperity, felicity and peace we wish multiplied on each estate, as far as their own hearts’ desire is: but let men know that there is a God, whose eye beholdeth them in all their ways; a God, the usual and ordinary course of whose justice is to return upon the head of malice the same devices which it contriveth against others. The foul practices which have been used for the overthrow of bishops, may perhaps wax bold in process of time to give the like assault even there, from whence at this present they are most seconded.Nor let it over dismay them who suffer such things at the hands of this most unkind

world, to see that heavenly estate and dignity thus conculcated, in regard whereof so many their predecessors were no less esteemed than if they had not been men, but angels amongst men. With former bishops it was as with Job in the days of that prosperity which at large he describeth, saying, “Unto me men gave ear, they waited and held their tongue at my counsel; after my words they replied not; I appointed out their way and did sit as chief; I dwelt as it had been a king in an army.” At this day the case is otherwise with them; and yet no otherwise than with the selfsame Job at what time the alteration of his estate wrested these contrary speeches from him, “But now they that are younger than I mock at me, the children of fools, and offspring of slaves, creatures more base than the earth they tread on, such as if they did shew their heads, young and old would shout at them and chase them through the streets with a cry, their song I am, I am a theme for them to talk on.” An injury less grievous if it were not offered by them whom Satan hath through his fraud and subtilty so far beguiled as to make them imagine herein they do unto God a part of most faithful service. Whereas the lord in truth, whom they serve herein, is as St. Cyprian telleth them, like, not Christ, (for he it is that doth appoint and protect bishops,) but rather Christ’s adversary and enemy of his Church.A thousand five hundred years and upward the Church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of bishops. Neither for so long hath Christianity been ever planted in any kingdom throughout the world but with this kind of government alone; which to have been ordained of God, I am for mine own part even as resolutely persuaded, as that any other kind of government in the world whatsoever is of God. In this realm of England, before Normans, yea before Saxons, there being Christians, the chief pastors of their souls were bishops. This order from about the first establishment of Christian religion, which was publicly begun through the virtuous disposition of King Lucie not fully two hundred years after Christ, continued till the coming in of the Saxons; by whom Paganism being every where else replanted, only one part of the island, whereinto the ancient natural inhabitants the Britons were driven, retained constantly the faith of Christ, together with the same form of spiritual regiment, which their fathers had before received. Wherefore in the histories of the Church we find very ancient mention made of our own bishops. At the council of Ariminum, about the year three hundred and fifty-nine, Britain had three of her bishops present. At the arrival of Augustine the monk, whom Gregory sent hither to reclaim the Saxons from Gentility about six hundred years after Christ, the Britons he found observers still of the selfsame government by bishops over the rest of the clergy; under this form Christianity took root again, where it had been exiled. Under the selfsame form it remained till the days of the Norman conqueror. By him and his successors thereunto sworn, it hath from that time till now by the space of five hundred years more been upheld. O nation utterly without knowledge, without sense! We are not through error of mind deceived, but some wicked thing hath undoubtedly bewitched us, if we forsake that government, the use whereof universal experience hath for so many years approved, and betake ourselves unto a regiment neither appointed of God himself, as they who favour it pretend, nor till yesterday ever heard of among men. By the Jews Festus was much complained of, as being a governor marvellous corrupt, and almost intolerable: such notwithstanding were they who came after him, that men which thought the public

condition most afflicted under Festus, began to wish they had him again, and to esteem him a ruler commendable. Great things are hoped for at the hands of these new presidents, whom reformation would bring in: notwithstanding the time may come, when bishops whose regiment doth now seem a yoke so heavy to bear, will be longed for again even by them that are the readiest to have it taken off their necks. But in the hands of Divine Providence we leave the ordering of all such events, and come now to the question itself which is raised concerning bishops. For the better understanding whereof we must beforehand set down what is meant, when in this question we name a bishop. What a Bishop is, what his name doth import, and what doth belong to his office as he is a Bishop.II. For whatsoever we bring from antiquity, by way of defence in this cause of bishops, it is cast off as impertinent matter, all is wiped away with an odd kind of shifting answer, “That the bishops which now are, be not like unto them which were.” We therefore beseech all indifferent judges to weigh sincerely with themselves how the case doth stand. If it should be at this day a controversy whether kingly regiment were lawful or no, peradventure in defence thereof, the long continuance which it hath had sithence the first beginning might be alleged; mention perhaps might be made what kings there were of old even in Abraham’s time, what sovereign princes both before and after. Suppose that herein some man purposely bending his wit against sovereignty, should think to elude all such allegations by making ample discovery through a number of particularities, wherein the kings that are do differ from those that have been, and should therefore in the end conclude, that such ancient examples are no convenient proofs of that royalty which is now in use. Surely for decision of truth in this case there were no remedy, but only to shew the nature of sovereignty, to sever it from accidental properties, make it clear that ancient and present regality are one and the same in substance, how great odds soever otherwise may seem to be between them. In like manner, whereas a question of late hath grown, whether ecclesiastical regiment by bishops be lawful in the Church of Christ or no: in which question, they that hold the negative, being pressed with that general received order, according whereunto the most renowned lights of the Christian world have governed the same in every age as bishops; seeing their manner is to reply, that such bishops as those ancient were, ours are not; there is no remedy but to shew, that to be a bishop is now the selfsame thing which it hath been; that one definition agreeth fully and truly as well to those elder, as to these latter bishops. Sundry dissimilitudes we grant there are, which notwithstanding are not such that they cause any equivocation in the name, whereby we should think a bishop in those times to have had a clean other definition than doth rightly agree unto bishops as they are now. Many things there are in the state of bishops, which the times have changed; many a parsonage at this day is larger than some ancient bishoprics were; many an ancient bishop poorer than at this day sundry under them in degree. The simple hereupon lacking judgment and knowledge to discern between the nature of things which changeth not, and these outward variable accidents, are made believe that a bishop heretofore and now are things in their very nature so distinct that they cannot be judged the same. Yet to men that have any part of skill, what more evident and plain in bishops, than that augmentation or diminution in their precincts, allowances, privileges, and such like, do make a difference indeed, but no

essential difference between one bishop and another? As for those things in regard whereof we use properly to term them bishops, those things whereby they essentially differ from other pastors, those things which the natural definition of a bishop must contain; what one of them is there more or less appliable unto bishops now than of old?The name Bishop hath been borrowed from the Grecians, with whom it signifieth one which hath principal charge to guide and oversee others. The same word in ecclesiastical writings being applied unto church governors, at the first unto all and not unto the chiefest only, grew in short time peculiar and proper to signify such episcopal authority alone, as the chiefest governors exercised over the rest. For with all names this is usual, that inasmuch as they are not given till the things whereunto they are given have been sometime first observed, therefore generally things are ancienter than the names whereby they are called. Again, sith the first things that grow into general observation, and do thereby give men occasion to find names for them, are those which being in many subjects, are thereby the easier, the oftener, and the more universally noted; it followeth that names imposed to signify common qualities or operations are ancienter, than is the restraint of those names, to note an excellency of such qualities and operations in some one or few amongst others. For example, the name disciple being invented to signify generally a learner, it cannot choose but in that signification be more ancient than when it signifieth as it were by a kind of appropriation, those learners who being taught of Christ were in that respect termed disciples by an excellency. The like is to be seen in the name Apostle, the use whereof to signify a messenger must needs be more ancient than that use which restraineth it unto messengers sent concerning evangelical affairs; yea this use more ancient than that whereby the same word is yet restrained further to signify only those whom our Saviour himself immediately did send. After the same manner the title or name of a Bishop having been used of old to signify both an ecclesiastical overseer in general, and more particularly also a principal ecclesiastical overseer; it followeth, that this latter restrained signification is not so ancient as the former, being more common. Yet because the things themselves are always ancienter than their names; therefore that thing which the restrained use of the word doth import, is likewise ancienter than the restraint of the word is, and consequently that power of chief ecclesiastical overseers, which the term of a bishop importeth, was before the restrained use of the name which doth import it. Wherefore a lame and an impotent kind of reasoning it is, when men go about to prove that in the Apostles’ times there was no such thing as the restrained name of a bishop doth now signify, because in their writings there is found no restraint of that name, but only a general use whereby it reacheth unto all spiritual governors and overseers.But to let go the name, and come to the very nature of that thing which is thereby signified. In all kinds of regiment whether ecclesiastical or civil, as there are sundry operations public, so likewise great inequality there is in the same operations, some being of principal respect, and therefore not fit to be dealt in by every one to whom public actions, and those of good importance, are notwithstanding well and fitly enough committed. From hence have grown those different degrees of magistrates or public persons, even ecclesiastical as well as civil. Amongst ecclesiastical persons therefore

bishops being chief ones, a bishop’s function must be defined by that wherein his chiefty consisteth. A Bishop is a minister of God, unto whom with permanent continuance there is given not only power of administering the Word and Sacraments, which power other Presbyters have; but also a further power to ordain ecclesiastical persons, and a power of chiefty in government over Presbyters as well as Laymen, a power to be by way of jurisdiction a Pastor even to Pastors themselves. So that this office, as he is a Presbyter or Pastor, consisteth in those things which are common unto him with other pastors, as in ministering the Word and Sacraments: but those things incident unto his office, which do properly make him a Bishop, cannot be common unto him with other Pastors. Now even as pastors, so likewise bishops being principal pastors, are either at large or else with restraint: at large, when the subject of their regiment is indefinite, and not tied to any certain place; bishops with restraint are they whose regiment over the Church is contained within some definite, local compass, beyond which compass their jurisdiction reacheth not. Such therefore we always mean when we speak of that regiment by bishops which we hold a thing most lawful, divine and holy in the Church of Christ. In Bishops two things traduced; of which two the one their authority; and in it the first thing condemned, their superiority over other ministers: what kind of superiority in ministers it is which the one part holdeth and the other denieth lawful.III. In our present regiment by bishops two things there are complained of, the one their great authority, and the other their great honour. Touching the authority of our bishops, the first thing which therein displeaseth their adversaries, is their superiority which bishops have over other ministers. They which cannot brook the superiority which bishops have, do notwithstanding themselves admit that some kind of difference and inequality there may be lawfully amongst ministers. Inequality as touching gifts and graces they grant, because this is so plain that no mist in the world can be cast before men’s eyes so thick, but that they needs must discern through it, that one minister of the gospel may be more learneder, holier, and wiser, better able to instruct, more apt to rule and guide them than another: unless thus much were confessed, those men should lose their fame and glory whom they themselves do entitle the lights and grand worthies of this present age. Again, a priority of order they deny not but that there may be, yea such a priority as maketh one man amongst many a principal actor in those things whereunto sundry of them must necessarily concur, so that the same be admitted only during the time of such actions and no longer; that is to say, just so much superiority, and neither more nor less may be liked of, than it hath pleased them in their own kind of regiment to set down. The inequality which they complain of is, “That one minister of the word and sacraments should have a permanent superiority above another, or in any sort a superiority of power mandatory, judicial, and coercive over other ministers.” By us on the contrary side, “inequality, even such inequality as unto bishops being ministers of the word and sacraments granteth a superiority permanent above ministers, yea a permanent superiority of power mandatory, judicial and coercive over them,” is maintained a thing allowable, lawful and good. For superiority of power may be either above them or upon them, in regard of whom it is

termed superiority. One pastor hath superiority of power above another, when either some are authorized to do things worthier than are permitted unto all, [or] some are preferred to be principal agents, the rest agents with dependency and subordination. The former of these two kinds of superiority is such as the high-priest had above other priests of the law, in being appointed to enter once a year the holy place, which the rest of the priests might not do. The latter superiority, such as presidents have in those actions which are done by others with them, they nevertheless being principal and chief therein. One pastor hath superiority of power, not only above but upon another, when some are subject unto others’ commandment and judicial controlment by virtue of public jurisdiction. Superiority in this last kind is utterly denied to be allowable; in the rest it is only denied that the lasting continuance and settled permanency thereof is lawful. So that if we prove at all the lawfulness of superiority in this last kind, where the same is simply denied, and of permanent superiority in the rest where some kind of superiority is granted, but with restraint to the term and continuance of certain actions, with which the same must, as they say, expire and cease; if we can shew these two things maintainable, we bear up sufficiently that which the adverse party endeavoureth to overthrow. Our desire therefore is, that this issue may be strictly observed, and those things accordingly judged of, which we are to allege. This we boldly therefore set down as a most infallible truth, “That the Church of Christ is at this day lawfully, and so hath been sithence the first beginning, governed by Bishops, having permanent superiority, and ruling power over other ministers of the word and sacraments.”For the plainer explication whereof, let us briefly declare first, the birth and original of the same power, whence and by what occasion it grew. Secondly, what manner of power antiquity doth witness bishops to have had more than presbyters which were no bishops. Thirdly, after what sort bishops together with presbyters have used to govern the churches under them, according to the like testimonial evidence of antiquity. Fourthly, how far the same episcopal power hath usually extended, unto what number of persons it hath reached, what bounds and limits of place it hath had. This done, we may afterwards descend unto those by whom the same either hath been heretofore, or is at this present hour gainsaid. From whence it hath grown that the Church is governed by Bishops.IV. The first Bishops in the Church of Christ were his blessed Apostles; for the office whereunto Matthias was chosen the sacred history doth term ἐπισκοπὴν, an episcopal office. Which being spoken expressly of one, agreeth no less unto them all than unto him. For which cause St. Cyprian speaking generally of them all doth call them Bishops. They which were termed Apostles, as being sent of Christ to publish his gospel throughout the world, and were named likewise Bishops, in that the care of government was also committed unto them, did no less perform the offices of their episcopal authority by governing, than of their apostolical by teaching. The word ἐπισκοπὴ, expressing that part of their office which did consist in regiment, proveth not (I grant) their chiefty in regiment over others, because as then that name was common unto the function of their inferiors, and not peculiar unto

theirs. But the history of their actions sheweth plainly enough how the thing itself which that name appropriated importeth, that is to say, even such spiritual chiefty as we have already defined to be properly episcopal, was in the holy Apostles of Christ. Bishops therefore they were at large.But was it lawful for any of them to be a bishop with restraint? True it is their charge was indefinite; yet so, that in case they did all whether severally or jointly discharge the office of proclaiming every where the gospel and of guiding the Church of Christ, none of them casting off his part in their burden which was laid upon them, there doth appear no impediment but that they having received their common charge indefinitely might in the execution thereof notwithstanding restrain themselves, or at leastwise be restrained by the after commandment of the Spirit, without contradiction or repugnancy unto that charge more indefinite and general before given them: especially if it seemed at any time requisite, and for the greater good of the Church, that they should in such sort tie themselves unto some special part of the flock of Jesus Christ, guiding the same in several as bishops. For first, notwithstanding our Saviour’s commandment unto them all to go and preach unto all nations; yet some restraint we see there was made, when by agreement between Paul and Peter, moved with those effects of their labours which the providence of God brought forth, the one betook himself unto the Gentiles, the other unto the Jews, for the exercise of that office of every where preaching. A further restraint of their apostolic labours as yet there was also made, when they divided themselves into several parts of the world; John for his charge taking Asia, and so the residue other quarters to labour in. If nevertheless it seem very hard that we should admit a restraint so particular, as after that general charge received to make any Apostle notwithstanding the bishop of some one church; what think we of the bishop of Jerusalem, James, whose consecration unto that mother see of the world, because it was not meet that it should at any time be left void of some Apostle, doth seem to have been the very cause of St. Paul’s miraculous vocation, to make up the number of the twelve again, for the gathering of nations abroad, even as the martyrdom of the other James, the reason why Barnabas in his stead was called. Finally, Apostles, whether they did settle in any one certain place, as James, or else did otherwise, as the Apostle Paul, episcopal authority either at large or with restraint they had and exercised. Their episcopal power they sometimes gave unto others to exercise as agents only in their stead, and as it were by commission from them. Thus Titus, and thus Timothy, at the first, though afterwards endued with apostolical power of their own.For in process of time the Apostles gave episcopal authority, and that to continue always with them which had it. “We are able to number up them,” saith Irenaeus, “who by the Apostles were made bishops.” In Rome he affirmeth that the Apostles themselves made Linus the first bishop. Again of Polycarp he saith likewise, that the Apostles made him bishop of the church of Smyrna. Of Antioch they made Evodius bishop, as Ignatius witnesseth, exhorting that church to tread in his holy steps, and to follow his virtuous example. The Apostles therefore were the first which had such authority, and all others who have it

after them in orderly sort are their lawful successors, whether they succeed in any particular church, where before them some Apostle hath been seated, as Simon succeeded James in Jerusalem; or else be otherwise endued with the same kind of bishoply power, although it be not where any Apostle before hath been. For to succeed them, is after them to have that episcopal kind of power which was first given to them. “All bishops are,” saith Jerome, “the Apostles’ successors.” In like sort Cyprian doth term bishops, “Praepositos qui Apostolis vicaria ordinatione succedunt.” From hence it may haply seem to have grown, that they whom we now call Bishops were usually termed at the first Apostles, and so did carry their very names in whose rooms of spiritual authority they succeeded.Such as deny Apostles to have any successors at all in the office of their apostleship, may hold that opinion without contradiction to this of ours, if they well explain themselves in declaring what truly and properly apostleship is. In some things every presbyter, in some things only bishops, in some things neither the one nor the other are the Apostles’ successors. The Apostles were sent as special chosen eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ, from whom immediately they received their whole embassage, and their commission to be the principal first founders of an house of God, consisting as well of Gentiles as of Jews. In this there are not after them any other like unto them; and yet the Apostles have now their successors upon earth, their true successors, if not in the largeness, surely in the kind of that episcopal function, whereby they had power to sit as spiritual ordinary judges, both over laity and over clergy, where churches Christian were established. The time and cause of instituting everywhere Bishops with restraint.V. The Apostles of our Lord did according unto those directions which were given them from above, erect churches in all such cities as received the word of truth, the gospel of God. All churches by them erected received from them the same faith, the same sacraments, the same form of public regiment. The form of regiment by them established at first was, that the laity or people should be subject unto a college of ecclesiastical persons, which were in every such city appointed for that purpose. These in their writings they term sometime presbyters, sometime bishops. To take one church out of a number for a pattern what the rest were; the presbyters of Ephesus, as it is in the history of their departure from the Apostle Paul at Miletum, are said to have wept abundantly all, which speech doth shew them to have been many. And by the Apostle’s exhortation it may appear that they had not each his several flock to feed, but were in common appointed to feed that one flock, the church of Ephesus; for which cause the phrase of his speech is this, Attendite gregi, “Look all to that one flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you bishops.” These persons ecclesiastical being termed as then, presbyters and bishops both, were all subject unto Paul as to an higher governor appointed of God to be over them.But forasmuch as the Apostles could not themselves be present in all churches, and as the Apostle St. Paul foretold the presbyters of the Ephesians that there would “rise up from amongst their ownselves, men speaking perverse things to draw disciples after them;” there did grow in short time amongst the governors of each church those emulations, strifes, and contentions, whereof there could be no sufficient remedy

provided, except according unto the order of Jerusalem already begun, some one were endued with episcopal authority over the rest, which one being resident might keep them in order, and have preeminence or principality in those things wherein the equality of many agents was the cause of disorder and trouble. This one president or governor amongst the rest had his known authority established a long time before that settled difference of name and title took place, whereby such alone were named bishops. And therefore in the book of St. John’s Revelation we find that they are entitled angels. It will perhaps be answered, that the angels of those churches were only in every church a minister of the word and sacraments. But then we ask, is it probable that in every of these churches, even in Ephesus itself, where many such ministers were long before, as hath been proved, there was but one such when John directed his speech to the angel of that church? If there were many, surely St. John in naming but only one of them an angel, did behold in that one somewhat above the rest. Nor was this order peculiar unto some few churches, but the whole world universally became subject thereunto; insomuch as they did not account it to be a church which was not subject unto a bishop. It was the general received persuasion of the ancient Christian world, that Ecclesia est in Episcopo, “the outward being of a church consisteth in the having of a bishop.” That where colleges of presbyters were, there was at the first equality amongst them, St. Jerome thinketh it a matter clear; but when the rest were thus equal, so that no one of them could command any other as inferior unto him, they all were controllable by the Apostles, who had that episcopal authority abiding at the first in themselves, which they afterwards derived unto others. The cause wherefore they under themselves appointed such bishops as were not every where at the first, is said to have been those strifes and contentions, for remedy whereof, whether the Apostles alone did conclude of such a regiment, or else they together with the whole Church judging it a fit and a needful policy did agree to receive it for a custom; no doubt but being established by them on whom the Holy Ghost was poured in so abundant measure for the ordering of Christ’s Church, it had either divine appointment beforehand, or divine approbation afterwards, and is in that respect to be acknowledged the ordinance of God, no less than that ancient Jewish regiment, whereof though Jethro were the deviser, yet after that God had allowed it, all men were subject unto it, as to the polity of God, and not of Jethro.That so the ancient Fathers did think of episcopal regiment; that they held this order as a thing received from the blessed Apostles themselves, and authorized even from heaven, we may perhaps more easily prove, than obtain that they all shall grant it who see it proved. St. Augustine setteth it down for a principle, that whatsoever positive order the whole Church every where doth observe, the same it must needs have received from the very Apostles themselves, unless perhaps some general council were the authors of it. And he saw that the ruling superiority of bishops was a thing universally established, not by the force of any council (for councils do all presuppose bishops, nor can there any council be named so ancient, either general, or as much as provincial, sithence the Apostles’ own times, but we can shew that bishops had their authority before it, and not

from it). Wherefore St. Augustine knowing this, could not choose but reverence the authority of bishops, as a thing to him apparently and most clearly apostolical.But it will be perhaps objected that regiment by bishops was not so universal nor ancient as we pretend; and that an argument hereof may be Jerome’s own testimony, who, living at the very same time with St. Augustine, noted this kind of regiment as being no where ancient, saving only in Alexandria; his words are these1: “It was for a remedy of schism that one was afterwards chosen to be placed above the rest; lest every man’s pulling unto himself should rend asunder the Church of Christ. For (that which also may serve for an argument or token hereof), at Alexandria, from Mark the Evangelist, unto Heraclas and Dionysius, the presbyters always chose one of themselves, whom they placed in higher degree, and gave unto him the title of bishop.” Now St. Jerome they say would never have picked out that one church from amongst so many, and have noted that in it there had been bishops from the time that St. Mark lived, if so be the selfsame order were of like antiquity every where; his words therefore must be thus scholied: in the church of Alexandria, presbyters indeed had even from the time of St. Mark the Evangelist always a bishop to rule over them, for a remedy against divisions, factions, and schisms. Not so in other churches, neither in that very church any longer than usque ad Heraclam et Dionysium, “till Heraclas and his successor Dionysius were bishops.”But this construction doth bereave the words construed, partly of wit, and partly of truth; it maketh them both absurd and false. For, if the meaning be that episcopal government in that church was then expired, it must have expired with the end of some one, and not of two several bishops’ days, unless perhaps it fell sick under Heraclas, and with Dionysius gave up the ghost. Besides, it is clearly untrue that the presbyters of that church did then cease to be under a bishop. Who doth not know that after Dionysius, Maximus was bishop of Alexandria, after him Theonas, after him Peter, after him Achillas, after him Alexander: of whom Socrates in this sort writeth: “it fortuned on a certain time that this Alexander in the presence of the presbyters which were under him, and of the rest of the clergy there, discoursed somewhat curiously and subtilly of the holy Trinity, bringing high philosophical proofs, that there is in the Trinity an Unity. Whereupon Arius, one of the presbyters which were placed in that degree under Alexander, opposed eagerly himself against those things which were uttered by the bishop.” So that thus long bishops continued even in the church of Alexandria. Nor did their regiment here cease, but these also had others their successors till St. Jerome’s own time, who living long after Heraclas and Dionysius had ended their days, did not yet live himself to see the presbyters of Alexandria otherwise than subject unto a bishop. So that we cannot with any truth so interpret his words as to mean, that in the church of Alexandria there had been bishops endued with superiority over presbyters from St. Mark’s time only till the time of Heraclas and of Dionysius.Wherefore that St. Jerome may receive a more probable interpretation than this, we answer, that generally of regiment by bishops, and what term of continuance it had in the church of Alexandria, it was no part of his mind to speak, but to note one only

circumstance belonging to the manner of their election, which circumstance is, that in Alexandria they use to choose their bishops altogether out of the college of their own presbyters, and neither from abroad nor out of any other inferior order of the clergy; whereas oftentimes elsewhere the use was to choose as well from abroad as at home, as well inferior unto presbyters as presbyters when they saw occasion. This custom, saith he, the Church of Alexandria did always keep, till in Heraclas and Dionysius they began to do otherwise. These two were the very first not chosen out of their college of presbyters. The drift and purpose of St. Jerome’s speech doth plainly shew what his meaning was: for whereas some did over extol the office of the deacon in the church of Rome, where deacons being grown great, through wealth, challenged place above presbyters; St. Jerome to abate this insolency, writing to Evagrius diminisheth by all means the deacon’s estimation, and lifteth up presbyters as far as possible the truth might bear. “An attendant,” saith he, “upon tables and widows proudly to exalt himself above them at whose prayers is made the Body and Blood of Christ; above them, between whom and bishops there was at the first for a time no difference neither in authority nor in title. And whereas afterward schisms and contentions made it necessary that some one should be placed over them, by which occasion the title of bishop became proper unto that one, yet was that one chosen out of the presbyters, as being the chiefest, the highest, the worthiest degree of the clergy, and not out of deacons: in which consideration also it seemeth that in Alexandria even from St. Mark to Heraclas and Dionysius bishops there, the presbyters evermore have chosen one of themselves, and not a deacon at any time, to be their bishop. Nor let any man think that Christ hath one church in Rome and another in the rest of the world; that in Rome he alloweth deacons to be honoured above presbyters, and otherwise will have them to be in the next degree to the bishop. If it be deemed that abroad where bishops are poorer, the presbyters under them may be the next unto them in honour, but at Rome where the bishop hath ample revenues, the deacons whose estate is nearest for wealth, may be also for estimation the next unto him: we must know that a bishop in the meanest city is no less a bishop than he who is seated in the greatest; the countenance of a rich and the meanness of a poor estate doth make no odds between bishops: and therefore, if a presbyter at Eugubium be the next in degree to a bishop, surely, even at Rome it ought in reason to be so likewise, and not a deacon for wealth’s sake only to be above, who by order should be, and elsewhere is, underneath a presbyter. But ye will say that according to the custom of Rome a deacon presenteth unto the bishop him which standeth to be ordained presbyter, and upon the deacon’s testimony given concerning his fitness, he receiveth at the Bishop’s hands ordination: so that in Rome the deacon having this special preeminence, the presbyter ought there to give place unto him. Wherefore is the custom of one city brought against the practice of the whole world? The paucity of deacons in the church of Rome hath gotten the [them?] credit; as unto presbyters their multitude hath been cause of contempt: howbeit even in the Church of Rome, presbyters sit, and deacons stand; an argument as strong against the superiority of deacons, as the fore-alleged reason doth seem for it. Besides, whosoever is promoted must needs be raised from a lower degree to an higher; wherefore either let him which is presbyter be made a deacon, that so the deacon may appear to be the greater; or if of deacons presbyters be made, let them know themselves to be in regard of deacons, though below in gain, yet above in office. And to the end we may understand that those

apostolical orders are taken out of the Old Testament, what Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the temple, the same in the Church may bishops and presbyters and deacons challenge unto themselves.”This is the very drift and substance, this the true construction and sense of St. Jerome’s whole discourse in that epistle: which I have therefore endeavoured the more at large to explain, because no one thing is less effectual or more usual to be alleged against the ancient authority of bishops; concerning whose government St. Jerome’s own words otherwhere are sufficient to shew his opinion, that this order was not only in Alexandria so ancient, but even as ancient in other churches. We have before alleged his testimony touching James the bishop of Jerusalem. As for bishops in other churches, on the first of the Epistle to Titus thus he speaketh, “Till through instinct of the Devil there grew in the Church factions, and among the people it began to be professed, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, churches were governed by the common advice of presbyters; but when every one began to reckon those whom himself had baptized his own and not Christ’s, it was decreed in the whole world that one chosen out of the presbyters should be placed above the rest, to whom all care of the Church should belong, and so the seeds of schism be removed.” If it be so, that by St. Jerome’s own confession this order was not then begun when people in the apostles’ absence began to be divided into factions by their teachers, and to rehearse, “I am of Paul,” but that even at the very first appointment thereof [it] was agreed upon and received throughout the world; how shall a man be persuaded that the same Jerome thought it so ancient no where saving in Alexandria, one only church of the whole world?A sentence there is indeed of St. Jerome’s, which being not thoroughly considered and weighed may cause his meaning so to be taken, as if he judged episcopal regiment to have been the Church’s invention long after, and not the apostles’ own institution; as namely, when he admonisheth bishops in this manner: “As therefore presbyters do know that the custom of the Church makes them subject to the Bishop which is set over them; so let bishops know that custom, rather than the truth of any ordinance of the Lord’s maketh them greater than the rest, and that with common advice they ought to govern the Church.” To clear the sense of these words therefore, as we have done already the former: laws which the Church from the beginning universally hath observed were some delivered by Christ himself, with a charge to keep them to the world’s end, as the law of baptizing and administering the holy eucharist; some brought in afterwards by the apostles, yet not without the special direction of the Holy Ghost, as occasions did arise. Of this sort are those apostolical orders and laws whereby deacons, widows, virgins, were first appointed in the Church. * [This answer to St. Jerome seemeth dangerous; I have qualified it as I may by addition of some words of restraint: yet I satisfy not myself, in my judgment it would be altered.] “Now whereas Jerome doth term the government of bishops by restraint an apostolical tradition, acknowledging thereby the same to have been of the apostles’ own institution, it may be demanded how these two will stand together; namely, that the apostles by divine instinct should be, as Jerome confesseth, the authors of that regiment; and yet the custom of the Church be accounted (for so by Jerome it may seem

to be in this place accounted) the chiefest prop that upholdeth the same? To this we answer, That forasmuch as the whole body of the Church hath power to alter, with general consent and upon necessary occasions, even the positive laws of the apostles, if there be no command to the contrary, and it manifestly appears to her, that change of times have clearly taken away the very reasons of God’s first institution; as by sundry examples may be most clearly proved: what laws the universal Church might change, and doth not, if they have long continued without any alteration, it seemeth that St. Jerome ascribeth the continuance of such positive laws, though instituted by God himself, to the judgment of the Church. For they which might abrogate a law and do not, are properly said to uphold, to establish it, and to give it being. The regiment therefore whereof Jerome speaketh being positive, and consequently not absolutely necessary, but of a changeable nature, because there is no divine voice which in express words forbiddeth it to be changed; he might imagine both that it came by the apostles by very divine appointment at the first, and notwithstanding be, after a sort, said to stand in force, rather by the custom of the Church, choosing to continue in it, than by the necessary constraint of any commandment from the word, requiring perpetual continuance thereof.” So that St. Jerome’s admonition is reasonable, sensible, and plain, being contrived to this effect: The ruling superiority of one bishop over many presbyters in each church, is an order descended from Christ to the Apostles, who were themselves bishops at large, and from the Apostles to those whom they in their steads appointed bishops over particular countries and cities; and even from those ancient times, universally established, thus many years it hath continued throughout the world; for which cause presbyters must not grudge to continue subject unto their bishops, unless they will proudly oppose themselves against that which God himself ordained by his apostles, and the whole Church of Christ approveth and judgeth most convenient. On the other side bishops, albeit they may avouch with conformity of truth that their authority hath thus descended even from the very apostles themselves, yet the absolute and everlasting continuance of it they cannot say that any commandment of the Lord doth enjoin; and therefore must acknowledge that the Church hath power by universal consent upon urgent cause to take it away, if thereunto she be constrained through the proud, tyrannical, and unreformable dealings of her bishops, whose regiment she hath thus long delighted in, because she hath found it good and requisite to be so governed. Wherefore lest bishops forget themselves, as if none on earth had authority to touch their states, let them continually bear in mind, that it is rather the force of custom, whereby the Church having so long found it good to continue under the regiment of her virtuous bishops, doth still uphold, maintain, and honour them in that respect, than that any such true and heavenly law can be shewed, by the evidence whereof it may of a truth appear that the Lord himself hath appointed presbyters for ever to be under the regiment of bishops, in what sort soever they behave themselves. Let this consideration be a bridle unto them, let it teach them not to disdain the advice of their presbyters, but to use their authority with so much the greater humility and moderation, as a sword which the Church hath power to take from them. In all this there is no let why St. Jerome might not think the authors of episcopal regiment to have been the very blessed apostles themselves, directed therein by the special motion of the Holy Ghost, which the ancients all before and besides him and himself also elsewhere being known to hold, we are not without better evidence than this to think him in judgment divided both from himself and from them.

Another argument that the regiment of churches by one Bishop over many presbyters hath been always held apostolical, may be this. We find that throughout all those cities where the apostles did plant Christianity, the history of times hath noted succession of pastors in the seat of one, not of many (there being in every such Church evermore many pastors), and the first one in every rank of succession we find to have been, if not some Apostle, yet some Apostle’s disciple. By Epiphanius the bishops of Jerusalem are reckoned down from James to Hilarion then Bishop. Of them which boasted that they held the same things which they received of such as lived with the apostles themselves, Tertullian speaketh after this sort: “Let them therefore shew the beginnings of their churches, let them recite their bishops one by one, each in such sort succeeding other, that the first bishop of them have had for his author and predecessor some Apostle, or at least some apostolical person who persevered with the apostles. For so apostolical churches are wont to bring forth the evidence of their estates. So doth the Church of Smyrna, having Polycarp whom John did consecrate.” Catalogues of bishops in a number of other churches, * (bishops, and succeeding one another) from the very apostles’ times, are by Eusebius and Socrates collected; whereby it appeareth so clear, as nothing in the world more, that under them and by their appointment this order began, which maketh many presbyters subject unto the regiment of some one bishop. For as in Rome while the civil ordering of the commonwealth was jointly and equally in the hands of two consuls, historical records concerning them did evermore mention them both, and note which two as colleagues succeeded from time to time; so there is no doubt but ecclesiastical antiquity had done the very like, had not one pastor’s place and calling been always so eminent above the rest in the same church.And what need we to seek far for proofs that the apostles, who began this order of regiment of bishops, did it not but by divine instinct, when without such direction things of far less weight and moment they attempted not? Paul and Barnabas did not open their mouths to the Gentiles, till the Spirit had said, “Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have sent them.” The eunuch by Philip was neither baptized nor instructed before the angel of God was sent to give him notice that so it pleased the Most High. In Asia, Paul and the rest were silent, because the Spirit forbade them to speak. When they intended to have seen Bithynia they stayed their journey, the Spirit not giving them leave to go. Before Timothy was employed in those episcopal affairs of the Church, about which the Apostle St. Paul used him, the Holy Ghost gave special charge for his ordination, and prophetical intelligence more than once, what success the same would have. And shall we think that James was made bishop of Jerusalem, Evodius bishop of the church of Antioch, the Angels in the churches of Asia bishops, that bishops every where were appointed to take away factions, contentions, and schisms, without some like divine instigation and direction of the Holy Ghost? Wherefore let us not fear to be herein bold and peremptory, that if any thing in the Church’s government, surely the first institution of bishops was from heaven, was even of God, the Holy Ghost was the author of it. What manner of power Bishops from the first beginning have had.VI. “A Bishop,” saith St. Augustine, “is a Presbyter’s superior:” but the question is now, wherein that

superiority did consist. The Bishop’s preeminence we say therefore was twofold. First he excelled in latitude of the power of order, secondly in that kind of power which belongeth unto jurisdiction. Priests in the law had authority and power to do greater things than Levites, the high-priest greater than inferior priests might do; therefore Levites were beneath priests, and priests inferior to the high-priest, by reason of the very degree of dignity, and of worthiness in the nature of those functions which they did execute, and not only for that the one had power to command and control the other. In like sort presbyters having a weightier and a worthier charge than deacons had, the deacon was in this sort the presbyter’s inferior; and where we say that a bishop was likewise ever accounted a presbyter’s superior, even according unto his very power of order, we must of necessity declare what principal duties belonging unto that kind of power a bishop might perform, and not a presbyter.The custom of the primitive Church in consecrating holy virgins and widows unto the service of God and his Church, is a thing not obscure, but easy to be known, both by that which St. Paul himself concerning them hath, and by the latter consonant evidence of other men’s writings. Now a part of the preeminence which bishops had in their power of order, was that by them only such were consecrated.Again, the power of ordaining both deacons and presbyters, the power to give the power of order unto others, this also hath been always peculiar unto bishops. It hath not been heard of, that inferior presbyters were ever authorized to ordain. And concerning ordination, so great force and dignity it hath, that whereas presbyters, by such power as they have received for administration of the sacraments, are able only to beget children unto God; bishops having power to ordain, do by virtue thereof create fathers to the people of God, as Epiphanius fitly disputeth. There are which hold that between a bishop and a presbyter, touching power of order, there is no difference. The reason of which conceit is, for that they see presbyters no less than bishops authorized to offer up the prayers of the Church, to preach the gospel, to baptize, to administer the holy Eucharist; but they considered not withal as they should, that the presbyter’s authority to do these things is derived from the bishop which doth ordain him thereunto, so that even in those things which are common unto both, yet the power of the one is as it were a certain light borrowed from the others’ lamp. The apostles being bishops at large, ordained every where presbyters. Titus and Timothy having received episcopal power, as apostolic ambassadors or legates, the one in Greece [Crete], the other in Ephesus, they both did by virtue thereof likewise ordain throughout all churches deacons and presbyters within the circuits allotted unto them. As for bishops by restraint, their power this way incommunicable unto presbyters which of the ancients do not acknowledge?I make not confirmation any part of that power which hath always belonged only unto bishops, because in some places the custom was that presbyters might also confirm in the absence of a bishop; albeit for the most part none but only bishops were thereof the allowed ministers.Here it will perhaps be objected that the power of ordination itself was not every where peculiar and proper unto bishops, as may be seen by a council of Carthage, which

sheweth their church’s order to have been, that presbyters should together with the bishop lay hands upon the ordained. But the answer hereunto is easy; for doth it hereupon follow that the power of ordination was not principally and originally in the bishop? Our Saviour hath said unto his Apostles, “With me ye shall sit and judge the twelve tribes of Israel;” yet we know that to him alone it belongeth to judge the world, and that to him all judgment is given. With us even at this day presbyters are licensed to do as much as that council speaketh of, if any be present. Yet will not any man thereby conclude that in this church others than bishops are allowed to ordain. The association of presbyters is no sufficient proof that the power of ordination is in them; but rather that it never was in them we may hereby understand, for that no man is able to shew either deacon or presbyter ordained by presbyters only, and his ordination accounted lawful in any ancient part of the Church; every where examples being found both of deacons and of presbyters ordained by bishops alone oftentimes, neither ever in that respect thought unsufficient.Touching that other chiefty, which is of jurisdiction; amongst the Jews he which was highest through the worthiness of peculiar duties incident unto his function in the legal service of God, did bear always in ecclesiastical jurisdiction the chiefest sway. As long as the glory of the temple of God did last, there were in it sundry orders of men consecrated unto the service thereof, one sort of them inferior unto another in dignity and degree; the Nathiners subordinate unto the Levites, the Levites unto the Priests, the rest of the priests to those twenty-four which were chief priests, and they all to the High Priest. If any man surmise that the difference between them was only by distinction in the former kind of power, and not in this latter of jurisdiction, are not the words of the law manifest which make Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest chief captain of the Levites, and overseer of them unto whom the charge of the sanctuary was committed? Again, at the commandment of Aaron and his sons are not the Gersonites themselves required to do all their service in the whole charge belonging unto the Gersonites, being inferior priests as Aaron and his sons were high priests? Did not Jehoshaphat appoint Amarias the priest to be chief over them who were judges for the cause of the Lord in Jerusalem? “Priests,” saith Josephus, “worship God continually, and the eldest of the stock are governors over the rest. He doth sacrifice unto God before others, he hath care of the laws, judgeth controversies, correcteth offenders, and whosoever obeyeth him not is convict of impiety against God.”But unto this they answer, that the reason thereof was because the high priest did prefigure Christ, and represent to the people that chiefty of our Saviour which was to come; so that Christ being now come there is no cause why such preeminence should be given unto any one. Which fancy pleaseth so well the humour of all sorts of rebellious spirits, that they all seek to shroud themselves under it. Tell the Anabaptist, which holdeth the use of the sword unlawful for a Christian man, that God himself did allow his people to make wars; they have their answer round and ready, “Those ancient wars were figures of the spiritual wars of Christ.” Tell the Barrowist what sway David and others the kings of Israel did bear in the ordering of spiritual affairs, the same answer again serveth, namely, “That David and the rest of the kings of Israel prefigured Christ.” Tell the Martinist of the high priest’s great authority and jurisdiction amongst the Jews, what other thing doth serve his turn but the selfsame shift; “By the power of the high priest the

universal supreme authority of our Lord Jesus Christ was shadowed.” The thing is true, that indeed high priests were figures of Christ, yet this was in things belonging unto their power of order; they figured Christ by entering into the holy place, by offering for the sins of all the people once a year, and by other the like duties: but that to govern and to maintain order amongst those that were subject to them, is an office figurative and abrogated by Christ’s coming in the ministry; that their exercise of jurisdiction was figurative, yea figurative in such sort, that it had no other cause of being instituted, but only to serve as a representation of somewhat to come, and that herein the Church of Christ ought not to follow them; this article is such as must be confirmed, if any way, by miracle, otherwise it will hardly enter into the heads of reasonable men, why the high priest should more figure Christ in being a Judge than in being whatsoever he might be besides. St. Cyprian deemed it no wresting of Scripture to challenge as much for Christian bishops as was given to the high priest among the Jews, and to urge the law of Moses as being most effectual to prove it. St. Jerome likewise thought it an argument sufficient to ground the authority of bishops upon. “To the end,” saith he, “we may understand Apostolical traditions to have been taken from the Old Testament; that which Aaron and his sons and the Levites were in the temple, Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons in the Church may lawfully challenge to themselves.”In the office of a Bishop Ignatius observeth these two functions, ἱερατεύειν καὶ ἄρχειν: concerning the one, such is a [the?] preeminence of a bishop, that he only hath the heavenly mysteries of God committed originally unto him, so that otherwise than by his ordination, and by authority received from him, others besides him are not licensed therein to deal as ordinary ministers of God’s church. And touching the other part of their sacred function, wherein the power of their jurisdiction doth appear, first how the Apostles themselves, and secondly how Titus and Timothy had rule and jurisdiction over presbyters, no man is ignorant. And had not Christian bishops afterwards the like power? Ignatius bishop of Antioch being ready by blessed martyrdom to end his life, writeth unto his presbyters, the pastors under him, in this sort: Οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, ποιµάνατε τὸ ἐν ὑµι̑ν ποιµνίον, ἕως ἀναδείξῃ ὁ Θεὸς τὸν µέλλοντα ἄρχειν ὑµω̑ν. Ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδοµαι. After the death of Fabian bishop of Rome, there growing some trouble about the receiving of such persons into the Church as had fallen away in persecution, and did now repent their fall, the presbyters and deacons of the same church advertised St. Cyprian thereof, signifying, “That they must of necessity defer to deal in that cause till God did send them a new bishop which might moderate all things.” Much we read of extraordinary fasting usually in the Church. And in this appeareth also somewhat concerning the chiefty of bishops. “The custom is,” saith Tertullian, “that bishops do appoint when the people shall all fast.” “Yea, it is not a matter left to our own free choice whether bishops shall rule or no, but the will of our Lord and Saviour is,” saith Cyprian, “that every act of the Church be governed by her bishops.” An argument it is of the bishop’s high preeminence, rule and government over all the rest of the clergy, even that the sword of persecution did strike, especially, always at the bishop as at the head, the rest by reason of their lower estate being more secure, as the selfsame Cyprian noteth; the very manner of whose speech unto his own both deacons and presbyters who remained safe, when himself then bishop was driven into exile, argueth likewise his eminent

authority and rule over them. “By these letters,” saith he, “I both exhort and command that ye whose presence there is not envied at, nor so much beset with dangers, supply my room in doing those things which the exercise of religion doth require.” Unto the same purpose serve most directly those comparisons, than which nothing is more familiar in the books of the ancient Fathers, who as oft as they speak of the several degrees in God’s clergy, if they chance to compare presbyters with Levitical priests of the law, the bishop they compare unto Aaron the high priest; if they compare the one with the Apostles, the other they compare (although in a lower proportion) sometime to Christ, and sometime to God himself, evermore shewing that they placed the bishop in an eminent degree of ruling authority and power above other presbyters. Ignatius comparing bishops with deacons, and with such ministers of the word and sacraments as were but presbyters, and had no authority over presbyters; “What is,” saith he, “the bishop, but one which hath all principality and power over all, so far forth as man may have it, being to his power a follower even of God’s own Christ?”Mr. Calvin himself, though an enemy unto regiment by bishops, doth notwithstanding confess, that in old time the ministers which had charge to teach, chose of their company one in every city, to whom they appropriated the title of bishop, lest equality should breed dissension. He added farther, that look, what duty the Roman consuls did execute in proposing matters unto the senate, in asking their opinions, in directing them by advice, admonition, exhortation, in guiding actions by their authority, and in seeing that performed which was with common consent agreed on, the like charge had the bishop in the assembly of other ministers. Thus much Calvin being forced by the evidence of truth to grant, doth yet deny the bishops to have been so in authority at the first as to bear rule over other ministers: wherein what rule he doth mean, I know not. But if the bishops were so far in dignity above other ministers, as the consuls of Rome for their year above other senators, it is as much as we require. And undoubtedly if as the consuls of Rome, so the bishops in the Church of Christ had such authority, as both to direct other ministers, and to see that every of them should observe that which their common consent had agreed on, how this could be done by the bishop not bearing rule over them, for mine own part I must acknowledge that my poor conceit is not able to comprehend.One objection there is of some force to make against that which we have hitherto endeavoured to prove, if they mistake it not who allege it. St. Jerome, comparing other presbyters with him unto whom the name of bishop was then appropriate, asketh, “What a bishop by virtue of his place and calling may do more than a presbyter, except it be only to ordain?” In like sort Chrysostom having moved a question, wherefore St. Paul should give Timothy precept concerning the quality of bishops, and descend from them to deacons, omitting the order of presbyters between, he maketh thereunto this answer, “What things he spake concerning bishops, the same are also meet for presbyters, whom bishops seem not to excel in any thing but only in the power of ordination.” Wherefore seeing this doth import no ruling superiority, it follows that bishops were as then no rulers over that part of the clergy of God. Whereunto we answer, that both St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom had in those their

speeches an eye no further than only to that function for which presbyters and bishops were consecrated unto God. Now we know that their consecration had reference to nothing but only that which they did by force and virtue of the power of order, wherein sith bishops received their charge, only by that one degree, to speak of, more ample than presbyters did theirs, it might be well enough said that presbyters were that way authorized to do, in a manner, even as much as bishops could do, if we consider what each of them did by virtue of solemn consecration: for as concerning power of regiment and jurisdiction, it was a thing withal added unto bishops for the necessary use of such certain persons and people, as should be thereunto subject in those particular churches whereof they were bishops, and belonged to them only as bishops of such or such a church; whereas the other kind of power had relation indefinitely unto any of the whole society of Christian men, on whom they should chance to exercise the same, and belonged to them absolutely, as they were bishops wheresoever they lived. St. Jerome’s conclusion thereof is, “That seeing in the one kind of power there is no greater difference between a presbyter and a bishop, bishops should not because of their preeminence in the other too much lift up themselves above the presbyters under them.” St. Chrysostom’s collection, “That whereas the Apostle doth set down the qualities whereof regard should be had in the consecration of bishops, there was no need to make a several discourse how presbyters ought to be qualified when they are ordained; because there being so little difference in the functions, whereunto the one and the other receive ordination, the same precepts might well serve for both; at leastwise by the virtues required in the greater, what should need in the less might be easily understood. As for the difference of jurisdiction, the truth is, the Apostles yet living, and themselves where they were resident exercising the jurisdiction in their own persons, it was not every where established in bishops.” When the Apostles prescribed those laws, and when Chrysostom thus spake concerning them, it was not by him at all respected, but his eye was the same way with Jerome’s; his cogitation was wholly fixed on that power which by consecration is given to bishops more than to presbyters, and not on that which they have over presbyters by force of their particular accessary jurisdiction. Wherein if any man suppose that Jerome and Chrysostom knew no difference at all between a presbyter and a bishop, let him weigh but one or two of their sentences. The pride of insolent bishops hath not a sharper enemy than Jerome, for which cause he taketh often occasions most severely to inveigh against them, sometimes for shewing disdain and contempt of the clergy under them; sometime for not suffering themselves to be told of their faults, and admonished of their duty by inferiors; sometime for not admitting their presbyters to teach, if so be themselves were in presence; sometimes for not vouchsafing to use any conference with them, or to take any counsel of them. Howbeit never doth he in such wise bend himself against their disorders, as to deny their rule and authority over presbyters. Of Vigilantius being a presbyter, he thus writeth: “Miror sanctum episcopum in cujus parochia presbyter esse dicitur, acquiescere furori ejus, et non virga apostolica virgaque ferrea confringere vas inutile:” “I marvel that the holy bishop under whom Vigilantius is said to be a presbyter, doth yield to his fury, and not break that unprofitable vessel with his apostolic and iron rod.” With this agreeth most fitly the grave advice he giveth to Nepotian: “Be thou subject unto thy bishop, and receive him as the father of thy soul. This also I say, that bishops should know

themselves to be priests and not lords; that they ought to honour the clergy as beseemeth the clergy to be honoured, to the end their clergy may yield them the honour which as bishops they ought to have. That of the orator Domitius is famous: ‘Wherefore should I esteem of thee as of a prince, when thou makest not of me that reckoning which should in reason be made of a senator?’ Let us know the bishop and his presbyters to be the same which Aaron sometime and his sons were.” Finally writing against the heretics which were named Luciferians, “The very safety of the Church,” saith he, “dependeth on the dignity of the chief priest, to whom unless men grant an exceeding and an eminent power, there will grow in churches even as many schisms as there are persons which have authority.” Touching Chrysostom, to shew that by him there was also acknowledged a ruling superiority of bishops over presbyters, both then usual, and in no respect unlawful, what need we allege his words and sentences, when the history of his own episcopal actions in that very kind is till this day extant for all men to read that will? For St. Chrysostom of a presbyter in Antioch, grew to be afterwards bishop of Constantinople; and in process of time when the emperor’s heavy displeasure had through the practice of a powerful faction against him effected his banishment, Innocent the bishop of Rome understanding thereof wrote his letters unto the clergy of that Church, “That no successor ought to be chosen in Chrysostom’s room: nec ejus Clerum alii parere Pontifici, nor his clergy obey any other bishop than him.” A fond kind of speech, if so be there had been as then in bishops no ruling superiority over presbyters. When two of Chrysostom’s presbyters had joined themselves to the faction of his mortal enemy Theophilus, Patriarch in the Church of Alexandria, the same Theophilus and other bishops which were of his conventicle, having sent those two amongst others to cite Chrysostom their lawful bishop, and to bring him into public judgment, he taketh against this one thing special exception, as being contrary to all order, that those presbyters should come as messengers and call him to judgment, who were a part of that clergy whereof himself was ruler and judge. So that bishops to have had in those times a ruling superiority over presbyters, neither could Jerome nor Chrysostom be ignorant; and therefore hereupon it were superfluous that we should any longer stand. After what sort Bishops together with presbyters have used to govern the churches which were under them.VII. Touching the next point, how bishops together with presbyters have used to govern the churches which were under them: it is by Zonaras somewhat plainly and at large declared, that the bishop had his seat on high in the church above the residue which were present; that a number of presbyters did always there assist him; and that in the oversight of the people those presbyters were after a sort the bishop’s coadjutors. The bishops [bishop?] and presbyters who together with him governed the Church, are for the most part by Ignatius jointly mentioned. In the epistle to them of Trallis, he saith of presbyters that they are σύµβουλοι καὶ συνέδρευται του̑ ἐπισκόπου, “counsellors and assistants of the bishop;” and concludeth in the end, “He that should disobey these were a plain atheist, and an irreligious person, and one that did set Christ himself and his own ordinances at nought.” Which order making presbyters or priests the bishop’s assistants doth not import that they were of equal authority with him, but rather so adjoined that they also were subject, as hath been proved. In the writings of St.

Cyprian nothing is more usual than to make mention of the college of presbyters subject unto the bishop, although in handling the common affairs of the Church they assisted him. But of all other places which open the ancient order of episcopal presbyters the most clear is that epistle of Cyprian unto Cornelius, concerning certain Novatian heretics received again upon their conversion into the unity of the Church. “After that Urbanus and Sidonius, confessors, had come and signified unto our presbyters, that Maximus a confessor and presbyter did together with them desire to return into the Church, it seemed meet to hear from their own mouths and confessions that which by message they had delivered. When they were come, and had been called to account by the presbyters touching those things they had committed, their answer was, that they had been deceived, and did request that such things as there they were charged with might be forgotten. It being brought unto me what was done, I took order that the presbytery might be assembled. There were also present five bishops, that upon settled advice it might be with consent of all determined what should be done about their persons.” Thus far St. Cyprian. Wherein it may be peradventure demanded, whether he and other bishops did thus proceed with advice of their presbyters in all such public affairs of the Church, as being thereunto bound by ecclesiastical canons, or else that they voluntarily so did, because they judged it in discretion as then most convenient. Surely the words of Cyprian are plain, that of his own accord he chose this way of proceeding, “Unto that,” saith he, “which Donatus, and Fortunatus, and Novatus, and Gordius, our com-presbyters, have written, I could by myself alone make no answer, forasmuch as at the very first entrance into my bishoprick I resolutely determined not to do any thing of mine own private judgment, without your counsel and the people’s consent.” The reason whereof he rendereth in the same epistle, saying, “When by the grace of God myself shall come unto you,” (for St. Cyprian was now in exile,) “of things which either have been or must be done we will consider, sicut honor mutuus poscit, as the law of courtesy which one doth owe to another of us requireth.” And at this very mark doth St. Jerome evermore aim in telling bishops that presbyters were at the first their equals, that in some churches for a long time no bishop was made but only such as the presbyters did choose out amongst themselves, and therefore no cause why the bishop should disdain to consult with them, and in weighty affairs of the Church to use their advice. Sometime to countenance their own actions, or to repress the boldness of proud and insolent spirits, that which bishops had in themselves sufficient authority and power to have done, notwithstanding they would not do alone, but craved therein the aid and assistance of other bishops, as in the case of those Novatian heretics, before alleged, Cyprian himself did. And in Cyprian we find of others the like practice. Rogatian a bishop, having been used contumeliously by a deacon of his own church, wrote thereof his complaint unto Cyprian and other bishops. In which case their answer was, “That although in his own cause he did of humility rather shew his grievance, than himself take revenge, which by the vigour of his apostolical office and the authority of his chair he might have presently done, without any further delay;” yet if the party should do again as before, their judgments were, “fungaris circa eum potestate honoris tui, et eum vel deponas vel abstineas;”—“use on him that power which the honour of thy place giveth thee, either to depose him or exclude him from access unto holy things.”The bishop for his assistance and ease had under him, to guide and direct deacons in

their charge, his archdeacon, so termed in respect of care over deacons, albeit himself were not deacon but presbyter. For the guidance of presbyters in their function the bishop had likewise under him one of the selfsame order with them, but above them in authority, one whom the ancients termed usually an arch-presbyter, we at this day name him dean. For most certain truth it is that churches cathedral and the bishops of them are as glasses, wherein the face and very countenance of apostolical antiquity remaineth even as yet to be seen, notwithstanding the alterations which tract of time and the course of the world hath brought. For defence and maintenance of them we are most earnestly bound to strive, even as the Jews were for their temple and the high priest of God therein: the overthrow and ruin of the one, if ever the sacrilegious avarice of Atheists should prevail so far, which God of his infinite mercy forbid, ought no otherwise to move us than the people of God were moved, when having beheld the sack and combustion of his sanctuary in most lamentable manner flaming before their eyes, they uttered from the bottom of their grieved spirits those voices of doleful supplication, “Exsurge Domine et miserearis Sion; Servi tui diligunt lapides ejus, pulveris ejus miseret eos.” How far the power of Bishops hath reached from the beginning in respect of territory or local compass.VIII. How far the power which bishops had did reach, what number of persons was subject unto them at the first, and how large their territories were, it is not for the question we have in hand a thing very greatly material to know. For if we prove that bishops have lawfully of old ruled over other ministers, it is enough, how few soever those ministers have been, how small soever the circuit of place which hath contained them. Yet hereof somewhat, to the end we may so far forth illustrate church antiquities.A law imperial there is, which sheweth that there was great care had to provide for every Christian city a bishop as near as might be, and that each city had some territory belonging unto it, which territory was also under the bishop of the same city; that because it was not universally thus, but in some countries one bishop had subject unto him many cities and their territories, the law which provided for establishment of the other orders, should not prejudice those churches wherein this contrary custom had before prevailed. Unto the bishop of every such city, not only the presbyters of the same city, but also of the territory thereunto belonging, were from the first beginning subject. For we must note that when as yet there were in cities no parish churches, but only colleges of presbyters under their bishop’s regiment, yet smaller congregations and churches there were even then abroad, in which churches there was but some one only presbyter to perform among them divine duties. Towns and villages abroad receiving the faith of Christ from cities whereunto they were adjacent, did as spiritual and heavenly colonies by their subjection honour those ancient mother churches out of which they grew. And in the Christian cities themselves, when the mighty increase of believers made it necessary to have them divided into certain several companies, and over every of those companies one only pastor to be appointed for the ministry of holy things; between the first and the rest after it there could not but be a natural inequality, even as between the temple and synagogues in Jerusalem. The clergy of cities were termed urbici, to shew a difference between them and the clergies of the towns, of villages, of castles abroad. And how many soever these parishes or congregations were in number, which did depend on any one principal city church, unto the bishop of that one church they and their several sole presbyters were all

subject.For if so be, as some imagine, every petty congregation or hamlet had had his own particular bishop, what sense could there be in those words of Jerome concerning castles, villages, and other places abroad, which having only presbyters to teach them and to minister unto them the sacraments, were resorted unto by bishops for the administration of that wherewith their presbyters were not licensed to meddle. To note a difference of that one church where the bishop hath his seat, and the rest which depend upon it, that one hath usually been termed cathedral, according to the same sense wherein Ignatius speaking of the Church of Antioch termeth it his throne; and Cyprian making mention of Evaristus, who had been bishop and was now deposed, termeth him cathedrae extorrem, one that was thrust besides his chair. The church where the bishop is set with his college of presbyters about him we call a see; the local compass of his authority we term a diocess. Unto a bishop within the compass of his own both see and diocess, it hath by right of his place evermore appertained to ordain presbyters, to make deacons, and with judgment to dispose of all things of weight. The apostle St. Paul had episcopal authority, but so at large that we cannot assign unto him any one certain diocess. His positive orders and constitutions churches every where did obey. Yea, “a charge and a care,” saith he, “I have even of all the churches.” The walks of Titus and Timothy were limited within the bounds of a narrow precinct. As for other bishops, that which Chrysostom hath concerning them, if they be evil, could not possibly agree unto them, unless their authority had reached farther than to some one only congregation. “The danger being so great as it is, to him that scandalizeth one soul, what shall he,” saith Chrysostom, speaking of a bishop, “what shall he deserve, by whom so many souls, yea, even whole cities and peoples, men, women, and children, citizens, peasants, inhabitants, both of his own city, and of other towns subject unto it, are offended?” A thing so unusual it was for a bishop not to have ample jurisdiction, that Theophilus, patriarch of Alexandria, for making one a bishop of a small town, is noted as a proud despiser of the commendable orders of the Church with this censure: “Such novelties Theophilus presumed every where to begin, taking upon him, as it had been, another Moses.”Whereby is discovered also their error, who think that such as in ecclesiastical writings they find termed Chorepiscopos were the same in the country which the bishop was in the city: whereas the old Chorepiscopi are they that were appointed of the bishopa to have, as his vicegerentsb, some oversight of those churches abroad, which were subject unto his see; in which churches they had also power to make subdeacons, readers, and such like petty church officers. With which power so stinted, they not contenting themselves, but adventuring at the length to ordain even deacons and presbyters also, as the bishop himself did, their presumption herein was controlled and stayed by the ancient edict of councils. For example that of Antioch, “It hath seemed good to the holy synod that such in towns and countries as are called Chorepiscopi do know their limits and govern the churches under them, contenting themselves with the charge thereof, and with authority to make readers, sub-deacons, exorcists, and to be leaders or guiders of them; but not to meddle with the ordination either of a presbyter or of a deacon, without the bishop of that city, whereunto the Chorepiscopus and his territory also is subject.” The same synod appointed likewise that those Chorepiscopi shall be made by none but the

bishop of that city under which they are. Much might hereunto be added, if it were further needful to prove that the local compass of a bishop’s authority and power was never so straitly listed, as some men would have the world to imagine.But to go forward; degrees there are and have been of old even amongst bishops also themselves; one sort of bishops being superiors unto presbyters only, another sort having preeminence also above bishops. It cometh here to be considered in what respect inequality of bishops was thought at the first a thing expedient for the Church, and what odds there hath been between them, by how much the power of one hath been larger, higher, and greater than of another. Touching the causes for which it hath been esteemed meet that bishops themselves should not every way be equals; they are the same for which the wisdom both of God and man hath evermore approved it as most requisite, that where many governors must of necessity concur for the ordering of the same affairs, of what nature soever they be, one should have some kind of sway or stroke more than all the residue. For where number is, there must be order, or else of force there will be confusion. Let there be divers agents, of whom each hath his private inducements with resolute purpose to follow them (as each may have); unless in this case some had preeminence above the rest, a chance it were if ever any thing should be either begun, proceeded in, or brought unto any conclusion by them; deliberations and counsels would seldom go forward, their meetings would always be in danger to break up with jars and contradictions. In an army a number of captains, all of equal power, without some higher to oversway them; what good would they do? In all nations where a number are to draw any one way, there must be some one principal mover. Let the practice of our very adversaries themselves herein be considered; are the presbyters able to determine of church affairs, unless their pastors do strike the chiefest stroke and have power above the rest? Can their pastoral synod do any thing, unless they have some president amongst them? In synods they are forced to give one pastor preeminence and superiority above the rest. But they answer, that he who being a pastor according to the order of their discipline is for the time some little deal mightier than his brethren, doth not continue so longer than only during the synod. Which answer serveth not to help them out of the briers; for by their practice they confirm our principle touching the necessity of one man’s preeminence wheresoever a concurrency of many is required unto any one solemn action: this nature teacheth, and this they cannot choose but acknowledge. As for the change of his person to whom they give this preeminence, if they think it expedient to make for every synod a new superior, there is no law of God which bindeth them so to [do]; neither any that telleth them that they might [not?] suffer one and the same man being made president even to continue so during life, and to leave his preeminence unto his successors after him, as by the ancient order of the Church, archbishops, presidents amongst bishops, have used to do.The ground therefore of their preeminence above bishops is the necessity of often concurrency of many bishops about the public affairs of the Church, as consecrations of bishops, consultations of remedy of general disorders, audience judicial, when the actions of any bishop should be called in question, or appeals are made from his sentence by such as think themselves wronged. These and the like affairs usually requiring that many

bishops should orderly assemble, begin, and conclude somewhat; it hath seemed in the eyes of reverend antiquity a thing most requisite, that the Church should not only have bishops, but even amongst bishops some to be in authority chiefest.Unto which purpose, the very state of the whole world, immediately before Christianity took place, doth seem by the special providence of God to have been prepared. For we must know, that the countries where the Gospel was first planted, were for the most part subject to the Roman empire. The Romans’ use was commonly, when by war they had subdued foreign nations, to make them provinces, that is, to place over them Roman governors, such as might order them according to the laws and customs of Rome. And, to the end that all things might be the more easily and orderly done, a whole country being divided into sundry parts, there was in each part some one city, whereinto they about did resort for justice. Every such part was termed a diocess. Howbeit, the name diocess is sometime so generally taken, that it containeth not only mored such parts of a province, but even more provinces also than one; as the diocess of Asia contained eight, the diocess of Africa seven. Touching diocesses according unto a stricter sense, whereby they are taken for a part of a province, the words of Livy do plainly shew what order the Romans did observe in them. For at what time they had brought the Macedonians into subjection, the Roman governor, by order from the senate of Rome, gave charge that Macedonia should be divided into four regions or diocesses. “Capita regionum ubi concilia fierent, primae sedis Amphipolim, secundae Thessalonicen, tertiae Pellam, quartae Pelagoniam fecit. Eo concilia suae cujusque regionis indici, pecuniam conferri, ibi magistratus creari jussit.” This being before the days of the emperors, by their appointment Thessalonica was afterwards the chiefest, and in it the highest governor of Macedonia had his seat. Whereupon the other three diocesses were in that respect inferior unto it, as daughters unto a mother city; for not unto every town of justice was that title given, but was peculiar unto those cities wherein principal courts were kept. Thus in Macedonia the mother city was Thessalonica; in Asia, Ephesus; in Africa, Carthage; for so Justinian in his time made it. The governors, officers, and inhabitants of these mother cities were termed for difference’ sake metropolites, that is to say, mother city men; than which nothing could possibly have been devised more fit to suit with the nature of that form of spiritual regiment under which afterward the Church should live. Wherefore if the prophet saw cause to acknowledge unto the Lord that the light of his gracious providence did shine no where more apparently to the eye than in preparing the land of Canaan to be [a] e receptacle for that Church which was of old, “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen and planted it, thou madest room for it, and when it had taken root it filled the land:” how much more ought we to wonder at the handy-work of Almighty God who to settle the kingdom of his dear Son did not cast out any one people, but directed in such sort the politic counsels of them who ruled far and wide over all, that they throughout all nations, people and countries upon earth, should unwittingly prepare the field wherein the vine which God did intend, that is to say, the Church of his dearly-beloved Son was to take root? For unto nothing else can we attribute it, saving only unto the very incomprehensible force of Divine providence, that the world was in so marvellous fit sort divided, levelled and laid out before-hand. Whose work could it be but his alone to make such provision for the direct implantation

of his Church?Wherefore inequality of Bishops being found a thing convenient for the Church of God, in such consideration as hath been shewed, when it came secondly in question which bishops should be higher and which lower, it seemed herein not to the civil monarch only, but to the most, expedient that the dignity and celebrity of mother cities should be respected. They which dream that if civil authority had not given such preeminence unto one city more than another, there had never grown an inequality amongst bishops, are deceived: superiority of one bishop over another would be requisite in the Church although that civil distinction were abolished: other causes having made it necessary even amongst bishops to have some in degree higher than the rest, the civil dignity of place was considered only as a reason wherefore this bishop should be preferred before that: which deliberation had been likely enough to have raised no small trouble, but that such was the circumstance of place, as being followed in that choice, besides the manifest conveniency thereof, took away all show of partiality, prevented secret emulations, and gave no man occasion to think his person disgraced in that another was preferred before him.Thus we see upon what occasion metropolitan bishops became archbishops. Now while the whole Christian world in a manner still continued under one civil government, there being oftentimes within some one more large territory divers and sundry mother churches, the metropolitans whereof were archbishops; as for order’s sake it grew hereupon expedient there should be a difference also amongst them, so no way seemed in those times more fit than to give preeminence unto them whose metropolitan sees were of special desert or dignity: for which cause these as being bishops in the chiefest mother churches were termed primates, and at the length by way of excellency, patriarchs. For ignorant we are not, how sometimes the title of patriarch is generally given to all metropolitan bishops. They are mightily therefore to blame which are so bold and confident, as to affirm that for the space of above four hundred and thirty years after Christ, all metropolitan bishops were in every respect equals, till the second council of Constantinople exalted certain metropolitans above the rest. True it is, they were equals as touching the exercise of spiritual power within their diocesses, when they dealt with their own flock. For what is it that one of them might do within the compass of his own precinct, but another within his might do the same? But that there was no subordination at all of one of them unto another; that when they all, or sundry of them, were to deal in the same causes, there was no difference of first and second in degree, no distinction of higher and lower in authority acknowledged amongst them; is most untrue. The great council of Nice was after our Saviour Christ but three hundred twenty-four years, and in that council certain metropolitans are said even then to have had an ancient preeminence and dignity above the rest; namely the primate of Alexandria, of Rome, and of Antioch. Threescore years after this there were synods under the emperor Theodosius; which synod was the first at Constantinople, whereat one hundred and fifty bishops were assembled: at which council it was decreed that the bishop of Constantinople should not

only be added unto the former primates, but also that his place should be second amongst them, the next to the bishop of Rome in dignity. The same decree again renewed concerning Constantinople, and the reason thereof laid open in the council of Chalcedon: at the length came that second of Constantinople, whereat were six hundred and thirty bishops, for a third confirmation thereof. Laws imperial there are likewise extant to the same effect. Herewith the bishop of Constantinople being overmuch puffed up, not only could not endure that see to be in estimation higher, whereunto his own had preferment to be the next, but he challenged more than ever any Christian bishop in the world before either had, or with reason could have. What he challenged, and was therein as then refused by the bishop of Rome, the same the bishop of Rome in process of time obtained for himself, and having gotten it by bad means, hath both upheld and augmented it, and upholdeth it by acts and practices much worse.But primates, according to their first institution, were all, in relation unto archbishops, the same by prerogative which archbishops were being compared unto bishops. Before the council of Nice, albeit there were both metropolitans and primates, yet could not this be a means forcible enough to procure the peace of the Church, but all things were wonderful tumultuous and troublesome, by reason of one special practice common unto the heretics of those times; which was, that when they had been condemned and cast out of the Church by the sentence of their own bishops, they contrary to the ancient received orders of the Church, had a custom to wander up and down, and to insinuate themselves into favour where they were not known, imagining themselves to be safe enough, and not to be clean cut off from the body of the Church, if they could any where find a bishop which was content to communicate with them; whereupon ensued, as in that case there needs must, every day quarrels and jars unappeasable amongst bishops. The Nicene council for redress hereof considered the bounds of every archbishop’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction, what they had been in former times, and accordingly appointed unto each grand part of the Christian world some one primate, from whose judgment no man living within his territory might appeal, unless it were to a council general of all bishops. The drift and purpose of which order was, that neither any man oppressed by his own particular bishop might be destitute of a remedy through appeal unto the more indifferent sentence of some other ordinary judge; nor yet every man be left at such liberty as before, to shift himself out of their hands for whom it was most meet to have the hearing and determining of his cause. The evil, for remedy whereof this order was taken, annoyed at that present especially the church of Alexandria in Egypt, where Arianism begun. For which cause the state of that church is in the Nicene canons concerning this matter mentioned before the rest. The words of their sacred edict are these: “Let those customs remain in force which have been of old, the customs of Egypt and Libya, and Pentapolis; by which customs the bishop of Alexandria hath authority over all these; the rather for that this hath also been the use of the bishop of Rome, yea the same hath been kept in Antioch and in other provinces.” Now because the custom likewise had been that great honour should be done to the bishop of AElia or Jerusalem, therefore lest their decree concerning the primate of Antioch should any whit prejudice the dignity and honour of that see, special provision is made, that although it were inferior in degree, not only unto Antioch the chief of the East, but even unto Caesarea too, yet such preeminence it should retain as belonged to a mother city, and

enjoy whatsoever special prerogative or privilege it had besides. Let men therefore hereby judge of what continuance this order which upholdeth degrees of bishops must needs have been, when a general council of three hundred and eighteen bishops living themselves within three hundred years after Christ doth reverence the same for antiquity’s sake, as a thing which had been even then of old observed in the most renowned parts of the Christian world.Wherefore needless altogether are those vain and wanton demands, “No mention of an archbishop in Theophilus bishop of Antioch? None in Ignatius? None in Clemens of Alexandria? None in Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian? None in all those old historiographers, out of which Eusebius gathereth his story? None till the time of the council of Nice, three hundred and twenty years after Christ?” As if the mention which is thereof made in that very council, where so many bishops acknowledge archiepiscopal dignity even then ancient, were not of far more weight and value than if every of those Fathers had written large discourses thereof. But what is it which they will blush at, who dare so confidently set it down, that in the council of Nice some bishops being termed metropolitans, no more difference is thereby meant to have been between one bishop and another, than is shewed between one minister and another, when we say such a one is a minister in the city of London, and such a one minister in the town of Newington? So that to be termed a metropolitan bishop did in their conceit import no [moref ] preeminence above other bishops, than we mean that a girdler hath over others of the same trade, if we term him which doth inhabit some mother city for difference’ sake a metropolitan girdler. But the truth is too manifest to be so deluded; a bishop at that time had power in his own diocess over all other ministers there, and a metropolitan bishop sundry preeminences above other bishops, one of which preeminences was in the ordination of bishops, to have κυ̑ρος τω̑ν γινοµένων, the chief power of ordering all things done. Which preeminence that council itself doth mention, as also a greater belonging unto the patriarch or primate of Alexandria, concerning whom it is there likewise said, that to him did belong ἐξουσία, authority and power over all Egypt, Pentapolis, and Libya: within which compass sundry metropolitan sees to have been, there is no man ignorant, which in those antiquities have [hath?] any knowledge.Certain prerogatives there are wherein metropolitans excelled other bishops, certain also wherein primates excelled other metropolitans. Archiepiscopal or metropolitan prerogatives are those mentioned in old imperial constitutions, to convocate the holy bishops under them within the compass of their own provinces, when need required their meeting together for inquisition and redress of public disorders; to grant unto bishops under them leave and faculty of absence from their own diocesses, when it seemed necessary that they should otherwhere converse for some reasonable while; to give notice unto bishops under them of things commanded by supreme authority; to have the hearing and first determining of such causes as any man had against a bishop; to receive the appeals of the inferior clergy, in case they found themselves overborne by the bishop their immediate judge. And lest haply it should be imagined that canons ecclesiastical we want to make the selfsame thing manifest; in the council of Antioch it was thus decreed1: “The bishops in every province must know, that he which is bishop in the mother city

hath not only charge of his own parish or diocess, but even of the whole province also.” Again: “It hath seemed good that other bishops without him should do nothing more than only that which concerns each one’s parish and the places underneath it.” Further by the selfsame council all councils provincial are reckoned void and frustrate, unless the bishop of the mother city within that province where such councils should be, were present at them. So that the want of his presence, and in canons for church-government, want of his approbation also, did disannul them: not so the want of any others. Finally, concerning elections of bishops, the council of Nice hath this general rule, that the chief ordering of all things here, is in every province committed to the metropolitan.Touching them, who amongst metropolitans were also primates, and had of sundry united provinces the chiefest metropolitan see, of such that canon in the council of Carthage was eminent, whereby a bishop is forbidden to go beyond seas without the license of the highest chair within the same bishop’s own country; and of such which beareth the name of apostolical, is that ancient canon likewise, which chargeth the bishops of each nation, to know him which is first amongst them, and to esteem of him as an head, and to do no extraordinary thing but with his leave. The chief primates of the Christian world were the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. To whom the bishop of Constantinople being afterwards added, St. Chrysostom the bishop of that see is in that respect said to have had the care and charge not only of the city of Constantinople, “sed etiam totius Thraciae, quae sex praefecturis est divisa, et Asiae totius, quae ab undecim praesidibus regitur.” The rest of the East was under Antioch, the South under Alexandria, and the West under Rome. Whereas therefore John the bishop of Jerusalem being noted of heresy, had written an apology for himself unto the bishop of Alexandria, named Theophilus; St. Jerome reproveth his breach of the order of the Church herein, saying, “Tu qui regulas quaeris ecclesiasticas, et Niceni concilii canonibus uteris, responde mihi, ad Alexandrinum episcopum Palaestina quid pertinet? Ni fallor, hoc ibi decernitur, ut Palaestinae metropolis Caesarea sit, et totius Orientis Antiochia. Aut igitur ad Caesariensem episcopum referre debueras; aut si procul expetendum judicium erat, Antiochiam potius literae dirigendae.” Thus much concerning that Local Compass which was anciently set out to bishops; within the bounds and limits whereof we find that they did accordingly exercise that episcopal authority and power which they had over the Church of Christ. In what respects episcopal regiment hath been gainsaid of old by Aërius.IX. The first whom we read to have bent themselves against the superiority of bishops were Aërius and his followers. Aërius seeking to be made a bishop, could not brook that Eustathius was thereunto preferred before him. Whereas therefore he saw himself unable to rise to that greatness which his ambitious pride did affect, his way of revenge was to try what wit being sharpened with envy and malice could do in raising a new seditious opinion, that the superiority which bishops had was a thing which they should not have, that a bishop might not ordain, and that a bishop ought not any way to be distinguished from a presbyter. For so doth St. Augustine deliver the opinion of Aërius: Epiphanius not so plainly nor so directly, but after a more rhetorical sort. “His speech was rather furious than convenient for man to use: What is,” saith he, “a bishop more than a presbyter? The one doth differ from the other nothing. For their order is one, their honour one, one their dignity. A bishop imposeth his hands, so doth a presbyter. A bishop baptizeth, the like

doth a presbyter. The bishop is a minister of divine service, a presbyter is the same. The bishop sitteth as judge in a throne, even the presbyter sitteth also.” A presbyter therefore doing thus far the selfsame thing which a bishop did, it was by Aërius enforced that they ought not in any thing to differ.Are we to think Aërius had wrong in being judged an heretic for holding this opinion? Surely if heresy be an error falsely fathered upon Scriptures, but indeed repugnant to the truth of the Word of God, and by the consent of the universal Church, in the councils, or in her contrary uniform practice throughout the whole world, declared to be such; and the opinion of Aërius in this point be a plain error of that nature: there is no remedy, but Aërius, so schismatically and stiffly maintaining it, must even stand where Epiphanius and Augustine have placed him. An error repugnant unto the truth of the Word of God is held by them, whosoever they be, that stand in defence of any conclusion drawn erroneously out of Scripture, and untruly thereon fathered. The opinion of Aërius therefore being falsely collected out of Scripture, must needs be acknowledged an error repugnant unto the truth of the word of God. His opinion was that there ought not to be any difference between a bishop and a presbyter. His grounds and reasons for this opinion were sentences of Scripture. Under pretence of which sentences, whereby it seemed that bishops and presbyters at the first did not differ, it was concluded by Aërius that the Church did ill in permitting any difference to be made.The answer which Epiphanius maketh unto some part of the proofs by Aërius alleged, was not greatly studied or laboured; for through a contempt of so base an error (for this himself did perceive and profess) yieldeth he thereof expressly this reason: Men that have wit do evidently see that all this is mere foolishness. But how vain and ridiculous soever his opinion seemed unto wise men, with it Aërius deceived many; for which cause somewhat was convenient to be said against it. And in that very extemporal slightness which Epiphanius there useth, albeit the answer made to Aërius be in part but raw, yet ought not hereby the truth to find any less favour than in other causes it doth, where we do not therefore judge heresy to have the better, because now and then it allegeth that for itself, which defenders of the truth do not always so fully answer. Let it therefore suffice, that Aërius did bring nothing unanswerable. The weak solutions which the one doth give, are to us no prejudice against the cause, as long as the other’s oppositions are of no greater strength and validity. Did not Aërius, trow you, deserve to be esteemed as a new Apollos, mighty and powerful in the word, which could for maintenance of his cause bring forth so plain divine authorities, to prove by the Apostles’ own writings that bishops ought not in any thing to differ from other presbyters? For example, where it is said that presbyters made Timothy bishop, is it not clear that a bishop should not differ from a presbyter, by having power of ordination? Again, if a bishop might by order be distinguished from a presbyter, would the Apostle have given as he doth unto presbyters the title of bishops? These were the invincible demonstrations wherewith Aërius did so fiercely assault bishops.But the sentence of Aërius perhaps was only, that the difference between a bishop and a presbyter hath grown by the order and custom of the Church, the word of God not appointing that any such difference should be. Well, let Aërius then find the favour to

have his sentence so construed; yet his fault in condemning the order of the Church, his not submitting himself unto that order, the schism which he caused in the Church about it, who can excuse? No, the truth is, that these things did even necessarily ensue, by force of the very opinion which he and his followers did hold. His conclusion was, that there ought to be no difference between a presbyter and a bishop. His proofs, those Scripture sentences which make mention of bishops and presbyters without any such distinction or difference. So that if between his conclusion and the proofs whereby he laboured to strengthen the same, there be any show of coherence at all, we must of necessity confess, that when Aërius did plead, There is by the Word of God no difference between a presbyter and a bishop, his meaning was not only, that the Word of God itself appointeth not, but that it enforceth on us the duty of not appointing nor allowing that any such difference should be made. In what respects episcopal regiment is gainsaid by the authors of pretended reformation at this day.X. And of the selfsame mind are the enemies of government by bishops, even at this present day. They hold as Aërius did, that if Christ and his Apostles were obeyed, a bishop should not be permitted to ordain; that between a presbyter and a bishop the word of God alloweth not any inequality or difference to be made; that their order, their authority, their power, ought to be one; that it is but by usurpation and corruption that the one sort are suffered to have rule of the other, or to be any way superior unto them. Which opinion having now so many defenders, shall never be able while the world doth stand to find in some [so many?] , believing antiquity, as much as one which hath given it countenance, or borne any friendly affection towards it.Touching these men therefore, whose desire is to have all equal, three ways there are whereby they usually oppugn the received order of the Church of Christ. First, by disgracing the inequality of pastors, as a new and mere human invention, a thing which was never drawn out of Scripture, where all pastors are found (they say) to have one and the same power both of order and jurisdiction: Secondly, by gathering together the differences between that power which we give to bishops, and that which was given them of old in the Church; so that albeit even the ancient took more than was warrantable, yet so far they swerved not as ours have done: Thirdly, by endeavouring to prove, that the Scripture directly forbiddeth, and that the judgment of the wisest, the holiest, the best in all ages, condemneth utterly the inequality which we allow. Their arguments in disgrace of regiment by Bishops, as being a mere invention of man, and not found in Scripture, answered.XI. That inequality of pastors is a mere human invention, a thing not found in the word of God, they prove thus: i. “All the places of Scripture where the word Bishop is used, or any other derived of that name, signify an oversight in respect of some particular congregation only, and never in regard of pastors committed unto his oversight. For which cause the names of bishops, and presbyters, or pastoral elders, are used indifferently, to signify one and the selfsame thing. Which so indifferent and common use of these words for one and the selfsame office, so constantly and perpetually in all places, declareth that the word Bishop in the Apostles’ writing importeth not a pastor of higher power and authority over other

pastors.” ii. “All pastors are called to their office by the same means of proceeding; the Scripture maketh no difference in the manner of their trial, election, ordination: which proveth their office and power to be by Scripture all one.” iii. “The Apostles were all of equal power, and all pastors do alike succeed the Apostles in their ministry and power, the commission and authority whereby they succeed being in Scripture but one and the same that was committed to the Apostles, without any difference of committing to one pastor more, or to another less.” iv. “The power of the censures and keys of the Church, and of ordaining and ordering ministers (in which two points especially this superiority is challenged), is not committed to any one pastor of the Church more than to another; but the same is committed as a thing to be carried equally in the guidance of the Church. Whereby it appeareth, that Scripture maketh all pastors, not only in the ministry of the word and sacraments, but also in all ecclesiastical jurisdiction and authority, equal.” v. “The council of Nice doth attribute this difference, not unto any ordination of God, but to an ancient custom used in former times, which judgment is also followed afterwards by other councils: Concil. Antioch. cap. 9.” vi. Upon these premises, their summary collection and conclusion is, “That the ministry of the Gospel, and the functions thereof, ought to be from heaven and of God (John i. 23); that if they be of God, and from heaven, then are they set down in the word of God; that if they be not in the word of God, (as by the premises it doth appear, they say, that our kind of bishops are not,) it followeth, they are invented by the brain of men, and are of the earth, and that consequently they can do no good in the Church of Christ, but harm.” Answer.Our answer hereunto is, first, that their proofs are unavailable to shew that Scripture affordeth no evidence for the inequality of pastors: Secondly, that albeit the Scripture did no way insinuate the same to be God’s ordinance, and the Apostles to have brought it in, albeit the Church were acknowledged by all men to have been the first beginner thereof a long time after the Apostles were gone; yet is not the authority of bishops hereby disannulled, it is not hereby proved unfit or unprofitable for the Church.First, that the word of God doth acknowledge no inequality of power amongst pastors of the Church, neither doth it appear by the signification of this word bishop, nor by the indifferent use thereof. For concerning signification, first it is clearly untrue, that no other thing is thereby signified, but only an oversight in respect of a particular church and congregation. For, I beseech you, of what parish or particular congregation was Matthias bishop? his office Scripture doth term episcopal: which being no other than was common unto all the Apostles of Christ, forasmuch as in that number there is not any to whom the oversight of many pastors did not belong by force and virtue of that office; it followeth that the very

word doth sometimes even in Scripture signify an oversight, such as includeth charge over pastors themselves. And if we look to the use of the word, being applied with reference unto some one church, as Ephesus, Philippi, and such like, albeit the guides of those churches be interchangeably in Scripture termed sometime bishops, sometime presbyters, to signify men having oversight and charge, without relation at all unto other than the Christian laity alone; yet this doth not hinder, but that Scripture may in some place have other names, whereby certain of those presbyters or bishops are noted to have the oversight and charge of pastors, as out of all peradventure they had whom St. John doth entitle angels.Secondly, as for those things which the Apostle hath set down concerning trial, election, and ordination of pastors, that he maketh no difference in the manner of their calling, this also is but a silly argument to prove their office and their power equal by the Scripture. The form of admitting each sort unto their offices, needed no particular instruction: there was no fear, but that such matters of course would easily enough be observed. The Apostle therefore toucheth those things wherein judgment, wisdom and conscience is required, he carefully admonisheth of what quality ecclesiastical persons should be, that their dealing might not be scandalous in the Church. And forasmuch as those things are general, we see that of deacons there are delivered in a manner the selfsame precepts which are given concerning pastors, so far as concerneth their trial, election, and ordination. Yet who doth hereby collect that Scripture maketh deacons and pastors equal? If notwithstanding it be yet demanded, “Wherefore he which teacheth what kind of persons deacons and presbyters should be, hath nothing in particular about the quality of chief presbyters, whom we call bishops?” I answer briefly, that there it was no fit place for any such discourse to be made, inasmuch as the Apostle wrote unto Timothy and Titus, who having by commission episcopal authority, were to exercise the same in ordaining, not bishops (the apostles themselves yet living, and retaining that power in their own hands) but presbyters, such as the apostles at the first did create throughout all churches. Bishops by restraint (only James at Jerusalem excepted) were not yet in being.Thirdly, about equality amongst the apostles there is by us no controversy moved. If in the rooms of the apostles, which were of equal authority, all pastors do by Scripture succeed alike, where shall we find a commission in Scripture which they speak of, which appointed all to succeed in the selfsame equality of power, except that commission which doth authorize to preach and baptize should be alleged, which maketh nothing to the purpose, for in such things all pastors are still equal. We must, I fear me, wait very long before any other will be shewed. For howsoever the Apostles were equals amongst themselves, all other pastors were not equals with the Apostles while they lived, neither are they any where appointed to be afterward each other’s equal. Apostles had, as we know, authority over all such as were no Apostles; by force of which their authority they might both command and judge. It was for the singular good and benefit of those disciples whom Christ left behind him, and of the pastors which were afterwards chosen; for the great good, I say, of all sorts, that the Apostles were in power above them. Every

day brought forth somewhat wherein they saw by experience, how much it stood them in stead to be under controlment of those superiors and higher governors of God’s house. Was it a thing so behoveful that pastors should be subject unto pastors in the Apostles’ own times? and is there any commandment that this subjection should cease with them, and that the pastors of the succeeding ages should be all equals? No, no, this strange and absurd conceit of equality amongst pastors (the mother of schism and of confusion) is but a dream newly brought forth, and seen never in the Church before.Fourthly, power of censure and ordination appeareth even by Scripture marvellous probable to have been derived from Christ to his Church, without this surmised equality in them to whom he hath committed the same. For I would know whether Timothy and Titus were commanded by St. Paul to do any thing more than Christ hath authorized pastors to do? And to the one it is Scripture which saith, “Against a presbyter receive thou no accusation, saving under two or three witnesses;” Scripture which likewise hath said to the other, “For this very cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest redress the things that remain, and shouldest ordain presbyters in every city, as I appointed thee.” In the former place the power of censure is spoken of, and the power of ordination in the latter. Will they say that every pastor there was equal to Timothy and Titus in these things? If they do, the Apostle himself is against it, who saith that of their two very persons he had made choice, and appointed in those places them, for performances of those duties: whereas if the same had belonged unto others no less than to them, and not principally unto them above others, it had been fit for the Apostle accordingly to have directed his letters concerning these things in general unto them all which had equal interest in them; even as it had been likewise fit to have written those epistles in St. John’s Revelation unto whole ecclesiastical senates, rather than only unto the angels of each church, had not some one been above the rest in authority to order the affairs of the church. Scripture therefore doth most probably make for the inequality of pastors, even in all ecclesiastical affairs, and by very express mention as well in censures as ordinations.Fifthly, In the Nicene council there are confirmed certain prerogatives and dignities belonging unto primates or archbishops, and of them it is said that the ancient custom of the Church had been to give them such preeminence, but no syllable whereby any man should conjecture that those fathers did not honour [did honour?] the superiority which bishops had over other pastors only upon ancient custom, and not as a true apostolical, heavenly, and divine ordinance.Sixthly, Now although we should leave the general received persuasion held from the first beginning, that the Apostles themselves left bishops invested with power above other pastors; although, I say, we should give over this opinion, and embrace that other conjecture which so many have thought good to follow, and which myself did sometimes judge a great deal more probable than now I do, merely that after the Apostles were deceased, churches did agree amongst themselves for preservation of peace and order, to make one presbyter in each city chief over the rest, and to translate into him that power by force and virtue whereof the Apostles, while they were alive, did preserve and uphold order in the Church, exercising spiritual jurisdiction partly by themselves and partly by evangelists, because they could not always every where themselves be present: this order

taken by the Church itself (for so let us suppose that the Apostles did neither by word nor deed appoint it) were notwithstanding more warrantable than that it should give place and be abrogated, because the ministry of the Gospel and the functions thereof ought to be from heaven.There came chief priests and elders unto our Saviour Christ as he was teaching in the temple, and the question which they moved unto him was this, “By what authority doest thou these things, and who gave thee this authority?” Their question he repelled with a counter-demand, “The baptism of John, whence was it, from heaven, or of men?” Hereat they paused, secretly disputing within themselves, “If we shall say, From heaven, he will ask, Wherefore did ye not then believe him? and if we say, Of men, we fear the people, for all hold John a prophet.” What is it now which hereupon these men would infer? That all functions ecclesiastical ought in such sort to be from heaven, as the function of John was? No such matter here contained. Nay, doth not the contrary rather appear most plainly by that which is here set down? For when our Saviour doth ask concerning the baptism, that is to say the whole spiritual function, of John, whether it were “from heaven, or of men,” he giveth clear to understand that men give authority unto some, and some God himself from heaven doth authorize. Nor is it said, or in any sort signified, that none have lawful authority which have it not in such manner as John, from heaven. Again when the priests and elders were loth to say that John had his calling from men, the reason was not because they thought that so John should not have had any good or lawful calling, but because they saw that by this means they should somewhat embase the calling of John; whom all men knew to have been sent from God, according to the manner of prophets, by a mere celestial vocation. So that out of the evidence here alleged, these things we may directly conclude: first that whoso doth exercise any kind of function in the Church, he cannot lawfully so do except authority be given him; secondly that if authority be not given him from men, as the authority of teaching was given unto Scribes and Pharisees, it must be given him from heaven, as authority was given unto Christ, Elias, John Baptist, and the prophets. For these two only ways there are to have authority. But a strange conclusion it is, God himself did from heaven authorize John to bear witness of the light, to prepare a way for the promised Messias, to publish the nearness of the kingdom of God, to preach repentance, and to baptize (for by this part, which was in the function of John most noted, all the rest are together signified), therefore the Church of God hath no power upon new occurrences to appoint, to ordain an ecclesiastical function, as Moses did upon Jethro’s advice devise a civil.All things we grant which are in the Church ought to be of God. But forasmuch as they may be two ways accounted such, one if they be of his own institution and not of ours, another if they be of ours, and yet with his approbation: this latter way there is no impediment but that the same thing which is of men may be also justly and truly said to be of God, the same thing from heaven which is from earth. Of all good things God himself is author, and consequently an approver of them. The rule to discern when the actions of men are good, when they are such as they ought to be, is more ample and large than the law which God hath set particular down in his holy word; the Scripture is but a part of that rule, as hath been heretofore at large declared. If therefore all things be of God which are well done, and if all things be well done which are according to the rule of

well-doing, and if the rule of well-doing be more ample than the Scripture: what necessity is there, that every thing which is of God should be set down in holy Scripture? True it is in things of some one kind; true it is that what we are now of necessity for ever bound to believe or observe in the special mysteries of salvation, Scripture must needs give notice of it unto the world; yet true it cannot be, touching all things that are of God. Sufficient it is for the proof of lawfulness in any thing done, if we can shew that God approveth it. And of his approbation the evidence is sufficient, if either himself have by revelation in his word warranted it, or we by some discourse of reason find it good of itself, and unrepugnant unto any of his revealed laws and ordinances. Wherefore injurious we are unto God, the author and giver of human capacity, judgment, and wit, when because of some things wherein he precisely forbiddeth men to use their own inventions, we take occasion to disauthorize and disgrace the works which he doth produce by the hand either of nature or of grace in them. We offer contumely even unto him, when we scornfully reject what we list, without any other exception than this, “The brain of man hath devised it.” Whether we look into the church or commonweal, as well in the one as in the other, both the ordination of officers, and the very institution of their offices may be truly derived from God, and approved of him, although they be not always of him in such sort as those things are which are in Scripture. Doth not the Apostle term the law of nature, even as the evangelist doth the law of Scripture, δικαίωµα του̑ Θεου̑, God’s own righteous ordinance? The law of nature then being his law, that must needs be of him which it hath directed men unto. Great odds I grant there is between things devised by men, although agreeable with the law of nature, and things in Scripture set down by the finger of the Holy Ghost. Howbeit the dignity of these is no hinderance, but that those be also reverently accounted of in their place.Thus much they very well saw, who although not living themselves under this kind of church polity, yet being through some experience more moderate, grave and circumspect in their judgment, have given hereof their sounder and better advised sentence. “That which the holy Fathers,” saith Zanchius, “have by common consent without contradiction of Scripture received, for my part I neither will nor dare with good conscience disallow. And what more certain than that the ordering of ecclesiastical persons, one in authority above another, was received into the church by the common consent of the Christian world? What am I that I should take upon me to control the whole Church of Christ in that which is so well known to have been lawfully, religiously, and to notable purpose instituted?” Calvin making mention even of primates that have authority above bishops: “It was,” saith he, “the institution of the ancient church, to the end that the bishops might by this bond of concord continue the faster linked amongst themselves.” And lest any man should think that as well he might allow the papacy itself, to prevent this he addeth, “Aliud est moderatum gerere honorem, quam totum terrarum orbem immenso imperio complecti.” These things standing as they do, we may conclude, that albeit the offices which bishops execute had been committed unto them only by the Church, and that the superiority which they have over other pastors were not first by Christ himself given to the Apostles,

and from them descended to others, but afterwards in such consideration brought in and agreed upon as is pretended; yet could not this be a just or lawful exception against it. Their arguments to prove there was no necessity of instituting Bishops in the Church.XII. But they will say, “There was no necessity of instituting bishops; the Church might have stood well enough without them; they are as those superfluous things, which neither while they continue do good, nor do harm when they are removed, because there is not any profitable use whereunto they should serve. For first, in the primitive Church their pastors were all equal, the bishops of those days were the very same which pastors of parish churches at this day are with us, no one at commandment or controlment by any other’s authority amongst them. The Church therefore may stand and flourish without bishops. If they be necessary, wherefore were they not sooner instituted? “Again, if any such thing were needful for the Church, Christ would have set it down in Scripture, as he did all kind of officers needful for Jewish regiment. He which prescribed unto the Jews so particularly the least thing pertinent unto their temple, would not have left so weighty offices undetermined of in Scripture, but that he knew the Church could never have any profitable use of them.” “Furthermore, it is the judgment of Cyprian, that equity requireth every man’s cause to be heard, where the fault he is charged with was committed: and the reason he allegeth is, forasmuch as there they may have both accusers and witnesses in their cause. Sith therefore every man’s cause is meetest to be handled at home by the judges of his own parish, to what purpose serveth their device, which have appointed bishops unto whom such causes may be brought, and archbishops to whom they may be also from thence removed?” The forealleged arguments answered.XIII. What things have necessary use in the Church, they of all others are the most unfit to judge, who bend themselves purposely against whatsoever the Church useth, except it please themselves to give it the grace and countenance of their favourable approbation; which they willingly do not yield unto any part of church polity, in the forehead whereof there is not the mark of that new-devised stamp. But howsoever men like or dislike, whether they judge things necessary or needless in the house of God, a conscience they should have, touching that which they boldly affirm or deny.(1.) “In the primitive Church no bishops, no pastors having power over other pastors, but all equals, every man supreme commander and ruler within the kingdom of his own congregation or parish? The bishops that are spoken of in the time of the primitive Church, all such as parsons or rectors of parishes are with us?” If thus it have been in the prime of the Church, the question is, how far they will have that prime to extend? and where the latter spring of that new supposed disorder to begin? That primitive Church, wherein they hold that amongst the Fathers all which had pastoral charge were equal, they must of necessity so far enlarge as to contain some hundred of years, because for proof hereof they allege boldly and confidently St. Cyprian, who suffered martyrdom about two hundred and threescore years after our blessed Lord’s incarnation. A bishop,

they say, such as Cyprian doth speak of, had only a church or congregation, such as the ministers and pastors with us, which are appointed unto several towns. Every bishop in Cyprian’s time was pastor of one only congregation, assembled in one place to be taught of one man. A thing impertinent, although it were true. For the question is about personal inequality amongst governors of the Church. Now to shew there was no such thing in the Church at such time as Cyprian lived, what bring they forth? Forsooth that bishops had then but a small circuit of place for the exercise of their authority. Be it supposed, that no one bishop had more than one only town to govern, one only congregation to rule: doth it by Cyprian appear, that in any such town or congregation being under the care and charge of some one bishop, there were not besides that one bishop others also ministers of the word and sacraments, yet subject to the power of the same bishop? If this appear not, how can Cyprian be alleged for a witness that in those times there were no bishops which did differ from other ministers, as being above them in degree of ecclesiastical power? But a gross and a palpable untruth it is, that “bishops with Cyprian were as ministers are with us in parish churches; and that each of them did guide some parish without any other pastors under him.” St. Cyprian’s own person may serve for a manifest disproof hereof. Pontius being deacon under Cyprian noteth, that his admirable virtues caused him to be bishop with the soonest; which advancement therefore himself endeavoured for a while to avoid. It seemed in his own eyes too soon for him to take the title of so great honour, in regard whereof a bishop is termed Pontifex, Sacerdos, Antistes Dei. Yet such was his quality, that whereas others did hardly perform that duty whereunto the discipline of their order, together with the religion of the oath they took at their entrance into the office, even constrained them; him the chair did not make but receive such a one as behoved that a bishop should be. But soon after followed that proscription, whereby being driven into exile, and continuing in that estate for the space of some two years, he ceased not by letters to deal with his clergy, and to direct them about the public affairs of the Church. They unto whom those epistles were written, he commonly entitleth the presbyters and deacons of that church. If any man doubt whether those presbyters of Carthage were ministers of the word and sacraments or no, let him consider but that one only place of Cyprian, where he giveth them his careful advice, how to deal with circumspection in the perilous times of the Church, that neither they which were for the truth’s sake imprisoned might want those ghostly comforts which they ought to have, nor the Church by ministering the same unto them incur unnecessary danger and peril. In which epistle it doth expressly appear, that the presbyters of whom he speaketh did offer, that is to say, administer the Eucharist; and that many there were of them in the Church of Carthage, so as they might have every day change for performance of that duty. Nor will any man of sound judgment I think deny, that Cyprian was in authority and power above the clergy of that church, above those presbyters unto whom he gave direction. It is apparently therefore untrue, that in Cyprian’s time ministers of the word and sacraments were all equal, and that no one of them had either title more excellent than the rest, or authority and government over the rest. Cyprian being bishop of Carthage was clearly superior unto all other ministers there: yea Cyprian was by reason of the dignity of his see an archbishop, and so consequently superior unto bishops.

Bishops we say there have been always, even as long as the Church of Christ itself hath been. The Apostles who planted it, did themselves rule as bishops over it; neither could they so well have kept things in order during their own times, but that episcopal authority was given them from above, to exercise far and wide over all other guides and pastors of God’s Church. The Church indeed for a time continued without bishops by restraint, every where established in Christian cities. But shall we thereby conclude that the Church hath no use of them, that without them it may stand and flourish? No, the cause wherefore they were so soon universally appointed was, for that it plainly appeared that without them the Church could not have continued long. It was by the special providence of God no doubt so disposed, that the evil whereof this did serve for remedy might first be felt, and so the reverend authority of bishops be made by so much the more effectual, when our general experience had taught men what it was for churches to want them. Good laws are never esteemed so good, nor acknowledged so necessary, as when precedent crimes are as seeds out of which they grow. Episcopal authority was even in a manner sanctified unto the Church of Christ by that little better [bitter?] g experience which it first had of the pestilent evil of schisms. Again, when this very thing was proposed as a remedy, yet a more suspicious and fearful acceptance it must needs have found, if the selfsame provident wisdom of Almighty God had not also given beforehand sufficient trial thereof in the regiment of Jerusalem, a mother church, which having received the same order even at the first, was by it most peaceably governed, when other churches without it had trouble. So that by all means the necessary use of episcopal government is confirmed, yea strengthened it is and ratified, even by the not establishment thereof in all churches every where at the first.(2.) When they further dispute, “That if any such thing were needful, Christ would in Scripture have set down particular statutes and laws, appointing that bishops should be made, and prescribing in what order, even as the law doth for all kind of officers which were needful in the Jewish regiment;” might not a man that would bend his wit to maintain the fury of the Petrobrusian heretics, in pulling down oratories, use the selfsame argument with as much countenance of reason? “If it were needful that we should assemble ourselves in churches, would that God which taught the Jews so exactly the frame of their sumptuous temple, leave us no particular instructions in writing, no not so much as which way to lay any one stone?” Surely such kind of argumentation doth not so strengthen the sinews of their cause, as weaken the credit of their judgment which are led therewith.(3.) And whereas thirdly, in disproof [of] that use which episcopal authority hath in judgment of spiritual causes, they bring forth the verdict of Cyprian, who saith, that “equity requireth every man’s cause to be heard, where the fault he was charged with was committed, forasmuch as there they may have both accusers and witnesses in the cause;” this argument grounding itself on principles no less true in civil than in ecclesiastical causes, unless it be qualified with some exceptions or limitations, overturneth the highest tribunal seats both in Church and commonwealth; it taketh utterly away all appeals; it secretly condemneth even the blessed Apostle himself, as having transgressed the law of equity, by his appeal from the court of Judaea unto those higher which were in Rome. The

generality of such kind of axioms deceiveth, unless it be construed with such cautions as the matter whereunto they are appliable doth require. An usual and ordinary transportation of causes out of Africa into Italy, out of one kingdom into another, as discontented persons list, which was the thing that Cyprian disalloweth, may be unequal and unmeet; and yet not therefore a thing unnecessary to have the courts erected in higher places, and judgment committed unto greater persons, to whom the meaner may bring their causes either by way of appeal or otherwise, to be determined according to the order of justice; which hath been always observed every where in civil states, and is no less requisite also for the state of the Church of God. The reasons which teach it to be expedient for the one, will shew it to be for the other at leastwise not unnecessary. Inequality of pastors is an ordinance both divine and profitable: their exceptions against it in these two respects we have shewed to be altogether causeless, unreasonable, and unjust. An answer unto those things which are objected, concerning the difference between that power which Bishops now have, and that which ancient Bishops had, more than other presbyters.XIV. The next thing which they upbraid us with, is the difference between that inequality of pastors which hath been of old, and which now is. For at length they grant, that “the superiority of bishops and of archbishops is somewhat ancient, but no such kind of superiority as ours have.” By the laws of our discipline a bishop may ordain without asking the people’s consent, a bishop may excommunicate and release alone, a bishop may imprison, a bishop may bear civil office in the realm, a bishop may be a counsellor of state; these things ancient bishops neither did nor might do. Be it granted that ordinarily neither in elections nor deprivations, neither in excommunicating nor in releasing the excommunicate, in none of the weighty affairs of government, bishops of old were wont to do any thing without consultation with their clergy and consent of the people under them. Be it granted that the same bishops did neither touch any man with corporal punishment, nor meddle with secular affairs and offices, the whole clergy of God being then tied by the strict and severe canons of the Church to use no other than ghostly power, to attend no other business than heavenly. Tarquinius was in the Roman commonwealth deservedly hated, of whose unorderly proceedings the history speaketh thus: “Hic regum primus traditum a prioribus morem de omnibus senatum consulendi solvit; domesticis consiliis rempub. administravit; bellum, pacem, foedera, societates, per seipsum, cum quibus voluit, injussu populi ac senatus, fecit diremitque.” Against bishops the like is objected, “That they are invaders of other men’s rights, and by intolerable usurpation take upon them to do that alone, wherein ancient laws have appointed that others, not they only, should bear sway.”Let the case of bishops be put, not in such sort as it is, but even as their very heaviest adversaries would devise it. Suppose that bishops at the first had encroached upon the Church; that by sleights and cunning practices they had appropriated ecclesiastical, as Augustus did imperial power; that they had taken the advantage of men’s inclinable affections, which did not suffer them for revenue’s sake to be suspected of ambition; that in the meanwhile their usurpation had gone forward by certain easy and unsensible degrees; that being not discerned in the growth, when it was thus far grown as we now

see it hath proceeded, the world at length perceiving there was just cause of complaint, but no place of remedy left, had assented unto it by a general secret agreement to bear it now as a helpless evil; all this supposed for certain and true, yet surely a thing of this nature, as for the superior to do that alone unto which of right the consent of some other inferiors should have been required by them; though it had an indirect entrance at the first, must needs, through continuance of so many ages as this hath stood, be made now a thing more natural to the Church, than that it should be oppressed with the mention of contrary orders worn so many ages since quite and clean out of ure.But with bishops the case is otherwise; for in doing that by themselves which others together with them have been accustomed to do, they do not any thing but that whereunto they have been upon just occasions authorized by orderly means. All things natural have in them naturally more or less the power of providing for their own safety: and as each particular man hath this power, so every politic society of men must needs have the same, that thereby the whole may provide for the good of all parts therein. For other benefit we have not any by sorting ourselves into politic societies, saving only that by this mean each part hath that relief which the virtue of the whole is able to yield it. The Church therefore being a politic society or body, cannot possibly want the power of providing for itself; and the chiefest part of that power consisteth in the authority of making laws. Now forasmuch as corporations are perpetual, the laws of the ancienter Church cannot choose but bind the latter, while they are in force. But we must note withal, that because the body of the Church continueth the same, it hath the same authority still, and may abrogate old laws, or make new, as need shall require. Wherefore vainly are the ancient canons and constitutions objected as laws, when once they are either let secretly to die by disusage, or are openly abrogated by contrary laws.The ancient had cause to do no otherwise than they did; and yet so strictly they judged not themselves in conscience bound to observe those orders, but that in sundry cases they easily dispensed therewith, which I suppose they would never have done, had they esteemed them as things whereunto everlasting, immutable, and undispensable observation did belong. The bishop usually promoted none which were not first allowed as fit, by conference had with the rest of his clergy and with the people: notwithstanding, in the case of Aurelius, St. Cyprian did otherwise. In matters of deliberation and counsel, for disposing of that which belongeth generally to the whole body of the Church, or which being more particular, is nevertheless of so great consequence, that it needeth the force of many judgments conferred; in such things the common saying must necessarily take place, “An eye cannot see that which eyes can.” As for clerical ordinations, there are no such reasons alleged against the order which is, but that it may be esteemed as good in every respect as that which hath been; and in some considerations better; at leastwise (which is sufficient to our purpose) it may be held in the Church of Christ without transgressing any law, either ancient or late, divine or human, which we ought to observe and keep.The form of making ecclesiastical officers hath sundry parts, neither are they all of equal moment.

When Deacons having not been before in the Church of Christ, the Apostles saw it needful to have such ordained, they first, assemble the multitude, and shew them how needful it is that deacons be made: secondly, they name unto them what number they judge convenient, what quality the men must be of, and to the people they commit the care of finding such out: thirdly, the people hereunto assenting, make their choice of Stephen and the rest; those chosen men they bring and present before the Apostles: howbeit, all this doth not endue them with any ecclesiastical power. But when so much was done, the Apostles finding no cause to take exception, did with prayer and imposition of hands make them deacons. This was it which gave them their very being; all other things besides were only preparations unto this.Touching the form of making Presbyters, although it be not wholly of purpose any where set down in the Apostles’ writings, yet sundry speeches there are which insinuate the chiefest things that belong unto that action: as when Paul and Barnabas are said to have fasted, prayed, and made presbyters: when Timothy is willed to “lay hands suddenly on no man,” for fear of participating with other men’s sins. For this cause the order of the primitive Church was, between choice and ordination to have some space for such probation and trial as the Apostle doth mention in deacons, saying, “Let them first be proved, and then minister, if so be they be found blameless.” Alexander Severus beholding in his time how careful the Church of Christ was, especially for this point; how after the choice of their pastors they used to publish the names of the parties chosen, and not to give them the final act of approbation till they saw whether any let or impediment would be alleged; he gave commandment that the like should also be done in his own imperial elections, adding this as a reason wherefore he so required, namely, “For that both Christians and Jews being so wary about the ordination of their priests, it seemed very unequal for him not to be in like sort circumspect, to whom he committed the government of provinces, containing power over men’s both estates and lives.” This the canon itself doth provide for, requiring before ordination scrutiny: “Let them diligently be examined three days together before the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath [i.e. Saturday] let them be presented unto the bishop.” And even this in effect also is the very use of the church of England, at all solemn ordaining of ministers; and if all ordaining were solemn, I must confess it were much the better.The pretended disorder of the church of England is, that bishops ordain them to whose election the people give no voices, and so the bishops make them alone; that is to say, they give ordination without popular election going before, which ancient bishops neither did nor might do. Now in very truth, if the multitude have hereunto a right, which right can never be translated from them for any cause, then is there no remedy but we must yield, that unto the lawful making of ministers the voice of the people is required; and that according to the adverse party’s assertion, such as make ministers without asking the people’s consent, do but exercise a certain tyranny. At the first erection of the commonwealth of Rome, the people (for so it was then fittest) determined of all affairs: afterwards this growing troublesome, their senators did that for them which themselves before had done: in the end all came to one man’s hands, and the

emperor alone was instead of many senators. In these things the experience of time may breed both civil and ecclesiastical change from that which hath been before received, neither do latter things always violently exclude former, but the one growing less convenient than it hath been, giveth place to that which is now become more. That which was fit for the people themselves to do at the first, might afterwards be more convenient for them to do by some other: which other is not thereby proved a tyrant, because he alone doth that which a multitude were wont to do, unless by violence he take that authority upon him, against the order of law, and without any public appointment; as with us if any did, it should (I suppose) not long be safe for him so to do.This answer (I hope) will seem to be so much the more reasonable, in that themselves, who stand against us, have furnished us therewith. For whereas against the making of ministers by bishops alone, their use hath been to object, what sway the people did bear when Stephen and the rest were ordained deacons; they begin to espy how their own platform swerveth not a little from that example wherewith they control the practice of others. For touching the form of the people’s concurrence in that action, they observe it not; no, they plainly profess that they are not in this point bound to be followers of the Apostles. The Apostles ordained whom the people had first chosen. They hold, that their ecclesiastical senate ought both to choose, and also to ordain. Do not themselves then take away that which the Apostles gave the people, namely, the privilege of choosing ecclesiastical officers? They do. But behold in what sort they answer it. “By the sixth and the fourteenth of the Acts ” (say they) “it doth appear that the people had the chiefest power of choosing. Howbeit that, as unto me it seemeth, was done upon special cause which doth not so much concern us, neither ought it to be drawn unto the ordinary and perpetual form of governing the Church. For as in establishing commonweals, not only if they be popular, but even being such as are ordered by the power of a few the chiefest, or as by the sole authority of one, till the same be established, the whole sway is in the people’s hands, who voluntarily appoint those magistrates by whose authority they may be governed; so that afterward not the multitude itself, but those magistrates which are chosen by the multitude, have the ordering of public affairs: after the selfsame manner it fared in establishing also the Church; when there was not as yet any placed over the people, all authority was in them all; but when they all had chosen certain to whom the regiment of the Church was committed, this power is not now any longer in the hands of the whole multitude, but wholly in theirs who are appointed guides of the Church. Besides, in the choice of deacons, there was also another special cause wherefore the whole Church at that time should choose them. For inasmuch as the Grecians murmured against the Hebrews, and complained that in the daily distribution which was made for relief of the poor, they were not indifferently respected, nor such regard had of their widows as was meet; this made it necessary that they all should have to deal in the choice of those unto whom that care was afterwards to be committed, to the end that all occasion of jealousies and complaints might be removed. Wherefore that which was done by the people for certain causes, before the Church was fully settled, may not be drawn out and applied unto a constant and perpetual form of ordering the Church.”

Let them cast the discipline of the church of England into the same scales where they weigh their own, let them give us the same measure which here they take, and our strifes shall soon be brought to a quiet end. When they urge the Apostles as precedents; when they condemn us of tyranny, because we do not in making ministers the same which the Apostles did; when they plead, “That with us one alone doth ordain, and that our ordinations are without the people’s knowledge, contrary to that example which the blessed Apostles gave:” we do not request at their hands allowance as much as of one word we speak in our own defence, if that which we speak be of our own; but that which themselves speak, they must be contented to listen unto. To exempt themselves from being over far pressed with the Apostles’ example, they can answer, “That which was done by the people once upon special causes, when the Church was not yet established, is not to be made a rule for the constant and continual ordering of the Church.” In defence of their own election, although they do not therein depend on the people so much as the Apostles in the choice of deacons, they think it a very sufficient apology, that there were special considerations why deacons at that time should be chosen by the whole Church, but not so now. In excuse of dissimilitudes between their own and the Apostles’ discipline, they are contented to use this answer, “That many things were done in the Apostles’ times, before the settling of the Church, which afterward the Church was not tied to observe.” For countenance of their own proceedings, wherein their governors do more than the Apostles, and their people less than under the Apostles the first Churches are found to have done, at the making of ecclesiastical officers, they deem it a marvellous reasonable kind of pleading to some [say?] “That even as in commonweals, when the multitude have once chosen many or one to rule over them, the right which was at the first in the whole body of the people is now derived into those many or that one which is so chosen; and that this being done, it is not the whole multitude, to whom the administration of such public affairs any longer appertaineth, but that which they did, their rulers may now do lawfully without them: after the selfsame manner it standeth with the Church also.” How easy and plain might we make our defence, how clear and allowable even unto them, if we could but obtain of them to admit the same things consonant unto equity in our mouths, which they require to be so taken from their own! If that which is truth, being uttered in maintenance of Scotland and Geneva, do not cease to be truth when the church of England once allegeth it, this great crime of tyranny wherewith we are charged hath a plain and an easy defence.“Yea, but we do not at all ask the people’s approbation, which they do, whereby they shew themselves more indifferent and more free from taking away the people’s right.” Indeed, when their lay-elders have chosen whom they think good, the people’s consent thereunto is asked, and if they give their approbation, the thing standeth warranted for sound and good. But if not, is the former choice overthrown? No, but the people is to yield to reason; and if they which have made the choice, do so like the people’s reason, as to reverse their own deed at the hearing of it, then a new election to be made; otherwise the former to stand, notwithstanding the people’s negative and dislike. What is this else but to deal with the people, as those nurses do with infants, whose mouths they besmear with the backside of the spoon, as though they had fed them, when

they themselves devour the food? They cry in the ears of the people, that all men’s consent should be had unto that which concerns all; they make the people believe we wrong them, and deprive them of their right in making ministers, whereas with us the people have commonly far more sway and force than with them. For inasmuch as there are but two main things observed in every ecclesiastical function, Power to exercise the duty itself, and some charge of People whereon to exercise the same; the former of these is received at the hands of the whole visible catholic Church. For it is not any one particular multitude that can give power, the force whereof may reach far and wide indefinitely, as the power of order doth, which whoso hath once received, there is no action which belongeth thereunto but he may exercise effectually the same in any part of the world without iterated ordination. They whom the whole Church hath from the beginning used as her agents in conferring this power, are not either one or more of the laity, and therefore it hath not been heard of that ever any such were allowed to ordain ministers: only persons ecclesiastical, and they, in place of calling, superiors both unto deacons and unto presbyters; only such persons ecclesiastical have been authorized to ordain both, and to give them the power of order, in the name of the whole Church. Such were the Apostles, such was Timothy, such was Titus, such are bishops. Not that there is between these no difference, but that they all agree in preeminence of place above both presbyters and deacons, whom they otherwise might not ordain.Now whereas hereupon some do infer, that no ordination can stand but only such as is made by bishops, which have had their ordination likewise by other bishops before them, till we come to the very Apostles of Christ themselves; in which respect it was demanded of Beza at Poissie, “By what authority he could administer the holy sacraments, being not thereunto ordained by any other than Calvin, or by such as to whom the power of ordination did not belong, according to the ancient orders and customs of the Church; sith Calvin and they who joined with him in that action were no bishops:” and Athanasius maintaineth the fact of Macarius a presbyter, which overthrew the holy table whereat one Ischyras would have ministered the blessed Sacrament, having not been consecrated thereunto by laying on of some bishop’s hands, according to the ecclesiastical canons; as also Epiphanius inveigheth sharply against divers for doing the like, when they had not episcopal ordination: to this we answer, that there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. The whole Church visible being the true original subject of all power, it hath not ordinarily allowed any other than bishops alone to ordain: howbeit, as the ordinary course is ordinarily in all things to be observed, so it may be in some cases not unnecessary that we decline from the ordinary ways. Men may be extraordinarily, yet allowably, two ways admitted unto spiritual functions in the Church. One is, when God himself doth of himself raise up any, whose labour he useth without requiring that men should authorize them; but then he doth ratify their calling by manifest signs and tokens himself from heaven: and thus even such as believed not our Saviour’s teaching, did yet acknowledge him a lawful teacher sent from God: “Thou art a teacher sent from God, otherwise none could do those things which thou doest.” Luther did but reasonably therefore, in declaring that the senate of Mulheuse

should do well to ask of Muncer, from whence he received power to teach, who it was that had called him; and if his answer were that God had given him his charge, then to require at his hands some evident sign thereof for men’s satisfaction: because so God is wont, when he himself is the author of any extraordinary calling. Another extraordinary kind of vocation is, when the exigence of necessity doth constrain to leave the usual ways of the Church, which otherwise we would willingly keep: where the church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a bishop to ordain; in case of such necessity, the ordinary institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give, place. And therefore we are not simply without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination. These cases of inevitable necessity excepted, none may ordain but only bishops: by the imposition of their hands it is, that the Church giveth power of order, both unto presbyters and deacons.Now when that power so received is once to have any certain subject whereon it may work, and whereunto it is to be tied, here cometh in the people’s consent, and not before. The power of order I may lawfully receive, without asking leave of any multitude; but that power I cannot exercise upon any one certain people utterly against their wills; neither is there in the church of England any man, by order of law, possessed with pastoral charge over any parish, but the people in effect do choose him thereunto. For albeit they choose not by giving every man personally his particular voice, yet can they not say that they have their pastors violently obtruded upon them, inasmuch as their ancient and original interest therein hath been by orderly means derived into the patron who chooseth for them. And if any man be desirous to know how patrons came to have such interest, we are to consider, that at the first erection of churches, it seemed but reasonable in the eyes of the whole Christian world to pass that right to them and their successors, on whose soil and at whose charge the same were founded. This all men gladly and willingly did, both in honour of so great piety, and for encouragement of many others unto the like, who peradventure else would have been as slow to erect churches or to endow them, as we are forward both to spoil them and to pull them down. It is no true assertion therefore in such sort as the pretended reformers mean it, “That all ministers of God’s word ought to be made by consent of many, that is to say, by the people’s suffrages; that ancient bishops neither did nor might ordain otherwise; and that ours do herein usurp a far greater power than was, or than lawfully could have been granted unto bishops which were of old.”Furthermore, as touching spiritual jurisdiction, our bishops, they say, do that which of all things is most intolerable, and which the ancient never did. “Our bishops excommunicate and release alone, whereas the censures of the Church neither ought, nor were wont to be administered otherwise than by consent of many.” Their meaning here, when they speak of many, is not as before it was; when they hold that ministers should be made with consent of many, they understand by many, the multitude, or common people; but in requiring that many should evermore join with the bishop in the administration of church censures, they mean by many, a few lay-elders chosen out of the rest of the people

to that purpose. This they say is ratified by ancient councils, by ancient bishops this was practised. And the reason hereof, as Beza supposeth, was, “Because if the power of ecclesiastical censures did belong unto any one, there would this great inconveniency follow, ecclesiastical regiment should be changed into mere tyranny, or else into a civil royalty: therefore no one, either bishop or presbyter, should or can alone exercise that power, but with his ecclesiastical consistory he ought to do it, as may appear by the old discipline.” And is it possible, that one so grave and judicious should think it in earnest tyranny for a bishop to excommunicate, whom law and order hath authorized so to do? or be persuaded that ecclesiastical regiment degenerateth into civil regality, when one is allowed to do that which hath been at any time the deed of more? Surely, far meaner witted men than the world accounteth Mr. Beza do easily perceive, that tyranny is power violently exercised against order, against law; and that the difference of these two regiments, ecclesiastical and civil, consisteth in the matter about which the actions of each are conversant; and not in this, that civil royalty admitteth but one, ecclesiastical government requireth many supreme correctors. Which allegation, were it true, would prove no more than only that some certain number is necessary for the assistance of the bishop; but that a number of such as they do require is necessary, how doth it prove? Wherefore albeit bishops should now do the very same which the ancients did, using the college of presbyters under them as their assistants when they administer church- censures, yet should they still swerve utterly from that which these men so busily labour for, because the agents whom they require to assist in those cases are a sort of lay-elders, such as no ancient bishop ever was assisted with. Shall these fruitless jars and janglings never cease? shall we never see end of them? How much happier were the world if those eager taskmasters whose eyes are so curious and sharp in discerning what should be done by many and what by few, were all changed into painful doers of that which every good Christian man ought either only or chiefly to do, and to be found therein doing when that great and glorious Judge of all men’s both deeds and words shall appear? In the meanwhile, be it one that hath this charge, or be they many that be his assistants, let there be careful provision that justice may be administered, and in this shall our God be glorified more than by such contentious disputes. XV. Of which nature that also is, wherein Bishops are over and besides all this accused “to have much more excessive power than the ancient, inasmuch as unto their ecclesiastical authority, the civil magistrate for the better repressing of such as contemn ecclesiastical censures,Concerning the civil power and authority which our Bishops have. hath for divers ages annexed civil. The crime of bishops herein is divided into these two several branches; the one, that in causes ecclesiastical they strike with the sword of secular punishments; the other, that offices are granted them, by virtue whereof they meddle with civil affairs.”Touching the one, it reacheth no farther than only unto restraint of liberty by imprisonment (which yet is not done but by the laws of the land, and by virtue of authority derived from the prince). A thing which being allowable in priests amongst the Jews, must needs have received some strange alteration in nature since, if it be now so

pernicious and venomous to be coupled with a spiritual vocation in any man which beareth office in the Church of Christ. Shemaiah writing to the college of priests which were in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the principal of them, told them they were appointed of God, “that they might be officers in the house of the Lord, for every man which raved, and did make himself a prophet,” to the end that they might by the force of this their authority “put such in prison and in the stocks.” His malice is reproved, for that he provoketh them to shew their power against the innocent. But surely, when any man justly punishable had been brought before them, it could be no unjust thing for them even in such sort then to have punished.As for offices by virtue whereof bishops have to deal in civil affairs, we must consider that civil affairs are of divers kinds, and as they be not all fit for ecclesiastical persons to meddle with, so neither is it necessary, nor at this day haply convenient, that from meddling with any such thing at all they all should without exception be secluded. I will therefore set down some few causes, wherein it cannot but clearly appear unto reasonable men that civil and ecclesiastical functions may be lawfully united in one and the same person. First therefore, in case a Christian society be planted amongst their professed enemies, or by toleration do live under some certain state whereinto they are not incorporated, whom shall we judge the meetest man to have the hearing and determining of such mere civil controversies as are every day wont to grow between man and man? Such being the state of the church of Corinth, the Apostle giveth them this direction, “Dare any of you having business against another be judged by the unjust, and not under saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? If the world then shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge the angels? how much more things that appertain to this life? If then ye have judgment of things pertaining to this life, set up them which are least esteemed in the Church. I speak it to your shame; is it so that there is not a wise man amongst you? no not one that can judge between his brethren, but a brother goeth to law with a brother and that under the infidels? Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another; why rather suffer ye not wrong, why rather sustain ye not harm?” In which speech there are these degrees: better to suffer and to put up injuries, than to contend; better to end contention by arbitrement, than by judgment; better by judgment before the wisest of their own, than before the simpler; better before the simplest of their own, than the wisest of them without; So that if judgment of secular affairs should be committed unto wise men, unto men of chiefest credit and account amongst them, when the pastors of their souls are such, who more fit to be also their judges for the ending of strifes? The wisest in things divine may be also in things human the most skilful. At leastwise they are by likelihood commonly more able to know right from wrong than the common unlettered sort. And what St. Augustine did hereby gather, his own words do sufficiently shew. “I call God to witness upon my soul,” saith he, “that according to the order which is kept in well-ordered monasteries, I could wish to have every day my hours of labouring with my hands, my hours of reading and of praying, rather than to endure these most tumultuous

perplexities of other men’s causes, which I am forced to bear while I travel in secular businesses, either by judging to discuss them, or to cut them off by entreaty: unto which toils that Apostle, who himself sustained them not, for any thing we read, hath notwithstanding tied us not of his own accord, but being thereunto directed by that Spirit which speaks in him. His own apostleship which drew him to travel up and down, suffered him not to be any where settled to this purpose; wherefore the wise, faithful and holy men which were seated here and there, and not them which travelled up and down to preach, he made examiners of such businesses. Whereupon of him it is no where written, that he had leisure to attend these things, from which we cannot excuse ourselves although we be simple: because even such he requireth, if wise men cannot be had, rather than the affairs of Christians should be brought into public judgment. Howbeit not without comfort in our Lord are these travels undertaken by us, for the hope’s sake of eternal life, to the end that with patience we may reap fruit.” So far is St. Augustine from thinking it unlawful for pastors in such sort to judge civil causes, that he plainly collecteth out of the Apostle’s words a necessity to undertake that duty; yea himself he comforteth with the hope of a blessed reward, in lieu of travel that way sustained.Again, even where whole Christian kingdoms are, how troublesome were it for universities and other greater collegiate societies, erected to serve as nurseries unto the Church of Christ, if every thing which civilly doth concern them were to be carried from their own peculiar governors, because for the most part they are (as fittest it is they should be) persons of ecclesiastical calling? It was by the wisdom of our famous predecessors foreseen how unfit this would be, and hereupon provided by grant of special charters that it might be as now it is in the universities; where their vice-chancellors, being for the most part professors of divinity, are nevertheless civil judges over them in the most of their ordinary causes.And to go yet some degrees further; a thing impossible it is not, neither altogether unusual, for some who are of royal blood to be consecrated unto the ministry of Jesus Christ, and so to be nurses of God’s Church, not only as the Prophet did foretell, but also as the Apostle St. Paul was. Now in case the crown should by this mean descend unto such persons, perhaps when they are the very last, or perhaps the very best of their race, so that a greater benefit they are not able to bestow upon a kingdom than by accepting their right therein: shall the sanctity of their order deprive them of that honour whereunto they have right by blood? or shall it be a bar to shut out the public good that may grow by their virtuous regiment? If not, then must they cast off the office which they received by divine imposition of hands; or, if they carry a more religious opinion concerning that heavenly function, it followeth, that being invested as well with the one as the other, they remain God’s lawfully anointed both ways. With men of skill and mature judgment there is of this so little doubt, that concerning such as at this day are under the archbishops of Mentz, Colen, and Trevers, being both archbishops and princes of the empire; yea such as live within the Pope’s own civil territories, there is no cause why any should deny to yield them civil obedience in any thing which they command, not repugnant to Christian piety; yea, even that civilly for such as are under them not to obey them, were but the part of seditious persons. Howbeit for persons ecclesiastical thus to exercise civil dominion of their own, is more than when they only sustain some public office, or deal in some

business civil, being thereunto even by supreme authority required.As nature doth not any thing in vain, so neither grace. Wherefore if it please God to bless some principal attendants on his own sanctuary, and to endue them with extraordinary parts of excellency, some in one kind, some in another, surely a great derogation it were to the very honour of him who bestowed so precious graces, except they on whom he hath bestowed them should accordingly be employed, that the fruit of those heavenly gifts might extend itself unto the body of the commonwealth wherein they live; which being of purpose instituted (for so all commonwealths are) to the end that all might enjoy whatsoever good it pleaseth the Almighty to endue each one man with, must needs suffer loss, when it hath not the gain which eminent civil ability in ecclesiastical persons is now and then found apt to afford. Shall we then discommend the people of Milan for using Ambrose their bishop as an ambassador about their public and politic affairs; the Jews for electing their priests sometimes to be leaders in war; David for making the high-priest his chiefest counsellor of state: finally, all Christian kings and princes which have appointed unto like services bishops or other of the clergy under them? No, they have done in this respect that which most sincere and religious wisdom alloweth.Neither is it allowable only, when either a kind of necessity doth cast civil offices upon them, or when they are thereunto preferred in regard of some extraordinary fitness; but further also when there are even of right annexed unto some of their places, or of course imposed upon certain of their persons, functions of dignity and account in the commonwealth; albeit no other consideration be had therein save this, that their credit and countenance may by such means be augmented. A thing if ever to be respected, surely most of all now, when God himself is for his own sake generally no where honoured, religion almost no where, no where religiously adored, the ministry of the word and sacraments of Christ a very cause of disgrace in the eyes both of high and low, where it hath not somewhat besides itself to be countenanced with. For unto this very pass things are come, that the glory of God is constrained even to stand upon borrowed credit, which yet were somewhat the more tolerable, if there were not that dissuade to lend it him. No practice so vile, but pretended holiness is made sometime as a cloak to hide it. The French king Philip Valois in his time made an ordinance that all prelates and bishops should be clean excluded from parliaments where the affairs of the kingdom were handled; pretending that a king with good conscience cannot draw pastors, having cure of souls, from so weighty a business, to trouble their heads with consultations of state. But irreligious intents are not able to hide themselves, no not when holiness is made their cloak. This is plain and simple truth, that the councils of wicked men hate always the presence of them, whose virtue, though it should not be able to prevail against their purposes, would notwithstanding be unto their minds a secret corrosive: and therefore, till either by one shift or another they can bring all things to their own hands alone, they are not secure.Ordinances holier and better there stand as yet in force by the grace of Almighty

God, and the works of his providence amongst us. Let not envy so far prevail, as to make us account that a blemish, which if there be in us any spark of sound judgment, or of religious conscience, we must of necessity acknowledge to be one of the chiefest ornaments unto this land: by the ancient laws whereof, the clergy being held for the chief of those three estates, which together make up the entire body of this commonwealth, under one supreme head and governor, it hath all this time ever borne a sway proportionable in the weighty affairs of the land; wise and virtuous kings condescending most willingly thereunto, even of reverence to the Most High; with the flower of whose sanctified inheritance, as it were with a kind of Divine presence, unless their chiefest civil assemblies were so far forth beautified as might be without any notable impediment unto their heavenly functions, they could not satisfy themselves as having shewed towards God an affection most dutiful. Thus, first, in defect of other civil magistrates; secondly, for the ease and quietness of scholastical societies; thirdly, by way of political necessity; fourthly, in regard of quality, care, and extraordinancy; fifthly, for countenance unto the ministry; and lastly, even of devotion and reverence towards God himself: there may be admitted at leastwise in some particulars well and lawfully enough a conjunction of civil and ecclesiastical power, except there be some such law or reason to the contrary, as may prove it to be a thing simply in itself naught.Against it many things are objected, as first, “That the matters which are noted in the holy Scriptures to have belonged to the ordinary office of any ministers of God’s holy word and sacraments, are these which follow, with such like, and no other; namely, the watch of the sanctuary, the business of God, the ministry of the word and sacraments, oversight of the house of God, watching over his flock, prophecy, prayer, dispensations of the mysteries of God, charge and care of men’s souls.” If a man would shew what the offices and duties of a chirurgeon or physician are, I suppose it were not his part so much as to mention any thing belonging to the one or the other, in case either should be also a soldier or a merchant, or an housekeeper, or a magistrate: because the functions of these are different from those of the former, albeit one and the same man may haply be both. The case is like, when the Scripture teacheth what duties are required in an ecclesiastical minister; in describing of whose office, to touch any other thing than such as properly and directly toucheth his office that way, were impertinent.Yea, “but in the Old Testament the two powers civil and ecclesiastical were distinguished, not only in nature, but also in person; the one committed unto Moses, and the magistrates joined with him; the other to Aaron and his sons. Jehoshaphat in his reformation doth not only distinguish causes ecclesiastical from civil, and erecteth divers courts for them, but appointeth also divers judges.” With the Jews these two powers were not so distinguished, but that sometimes they might and did concur in one and the same person. Was not Eli both priest and judge? after their return from captivity, Esdras a priest, and the same their chief governor even in civil affairs also?

These men which urge the necessity of making always a personal distinction of these two powers, as if by Jehoshaphat’s example the same person ought not to deal in both causes, yet are not scrupulous to make men of civil place and calling presbyters and ministers of spiritual jurisdiction in their own spiritual consistories. If it be against the Jewish precedents for us to give civil power unto such as have ecclesiastical; is it not as much against the same for them to give ecclesiastical power unto such as have civil? They will answer perhaps, that their position is only against conjunction of ecclesiastical power of order, and the power of civil jurisdiction in one person. But this answer will not stand with their proofs, which make no less against the power of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in one person; for of these two powers Jehoshaphat’s example is: besides, the contrary example [examples?] of Eli and of Ezra, by us alleged, do plainly shew, that amongst the Jews even the power of order ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction were sometimes lawfully united in one and the same person.Pressed further we are with our Lord and Saviour’s example, who “denieth his kingdom to be of this world, and therefore, as not standing with his calling, refused to be made a king, to give sentence in a criminal cause of adultery, and in a civil of dividing an inheritance.” The Jews imagining that their Messiah should be a potent monarch upon earth, no marvel, though when they did otherwise wonder at Christ’s greatness, they sought forthwith to have him invested with that kind of dignity, to the end he might presently begin to reign. Others of the Jews, which likewise had the same imagination of the Messiah, and did somewhat incline to think that peradventure this might be he, thought good to try whether he would take upon him that which he might do, being a king, such as they supposed their true Messiah should be. But Christ refused to be a king over them, because it was no part of the office of their Messiah, as they did falsely conceive; and to intermeddle in those acts of civil judgment he refused also, because he had no such jurisdiction in that commonwealth, being in regard of his civil person a man of mean and low calling. As for repugnancy between ecclesiastical and civil power, or any inconvenience that these two powers should be united, it doth not appear that this was the cause of his resistance either to reign or else to judge.What say we then to the blessed Apostles, who teach, “that soldiers entangle not themselves with the business of this life, but leave them, to the end they may please him who hath chosen them to serve, and that so the good soldiers of Christ ought to do.” “The Apostles which taught this, did never take upon them any place or office of civil power. No, they gave over the ecclesiastical care of the poor, that they might wholly attend upon the word and prayer.” St. Paul indeed doth exhort Timothy after this manner: “Suffer thou evil as a noble soldier of Jesus Christ: no man warring is entangled with the affairs of life, because he must serve such as have pressed him unto warfare.” The sense and meaning whereof is plain, that soldiers may not be nice and tender, that they must be able to endure hardness, that no man betaking himself unto wars continueth entangled with such kind of businesses as tend only unto the ease and quiet felicity of this life, but if the service of him who hath taken them under his banner require the hazard, yea the loss of their lives,

to please him they must be content and willing with any difficulty, any peril, be it never so much against the natural desire which they have to live in safety. And at this point the clergy of God must always stand; thus it behoveth them to be affected as oft as their Lord and captain leadeth them into the field, whatsoever conflicts, perils, or evils they are to endure. Which duty being not such, but that therewith the civil dignities which ecclesiastical persons amongst us do enjoy may enough stand; the exhortation of Paul to Timothy is but a slender allegation against them. As well might we gather out of this place, that men having children or wives are not fit to be ministers, (which also hath been collected, and that by sundry of the ancient), and that it is requisite the clergy be utterly forbidden marriage: for as the burden of civil regiment doth make them who bear it the less able to attend their ecclesiastical charge;. even so St. Paul doth say, that the married are careful for the world, the unmarried freer to give themselves wholly to the service of God. Howbeit, both experience hath found it safer, that the clergy should bear the cares of honest marriage, than be subject to the inconveniences which single life imposed upon them would draw after it: and as many as are of sound judgment know it to be far better for this present age, that the detriment be borne which haply may grow through the lessening of some few men’s spiritual labours, than that the clergy and commonwealth should lack the benefit which both the one and the other may reap through their dealing in civil affairs. In which consideration, that men consecrated unto the spiritual service of God be licensed so far forth to meddle with the secular affairs of the world, as doth seem for some special good cause requisite, and may be without any grievous prejudice unto the Church, surely there is not in the Apostles being rightly understood, any let.That no Apostle did ever bear office, may it not be a wonder, considering the great devotion of the age wherein they lived, and the zeal of Herod, of Nero the great commander of the known world, and of other kings of the earth at that time, to advance by all means Christian religion. Their deriving unto others that smaller charge of distributing of the goods which were laid at their feet, and of making provision for the poor, which charge, being in part civil, themselves had before (as I suppose lawfully) undertaken, and their following of that which was weightier, may serve as a marvellous good example for the dividing of one man’s office into divers slips, and the subordinating of inferiors to discharge some part of the same, when by reason of multitude increasing that labour waxeth great and troublesome which before was easy and light; but very small force it hath to infer a perpetual divorce between ecclesiastical and civil power in the same persons.The most that can be said in this case is, “That sundry eminent canons, bearing the name of apostolical, and divers councils likewise there are, which have forbidden the clergy to bear any secular office; and have enjoined them to attend altogether upon reading, preaching, and prayer: whereupon the most of the ancient fathers have shewed great dislikes that these two powers should be united in one person.” For a full and final answer whereunto, I would first demand, whether the commixtion and

separation of these two powers be a matter of mere positive law, or else a thing simply with or against the law immutable of God and nature? That which is simply against this latter law can at no time be allowable in any person, more than adultery, blasphemy, sacrilege, and the like. But conjunction of power ecclesiastical and civil, what law is there which hath not at some time or other allowed as a thing convenient and meet? In the law of God we have examples sundry, whereby it doth most manifestly appear how of him the same hath oftentimes been approved. No kingdom or nation in the world, but hath been thereunto accustomed without inconvenience and hurt. In the prime of the world, kings and civil rulers were priests for the most part all. The Romans note it as a thing beneficial in their own commonwealth, and even to them apparently forcible for the strengthening of the Jews’ regiment under Moses and Samuel. I deny not but sometime there may be, and hath been perhaps, just cause to ordain otherwise. Wherefore we are not so to urge those things which heretofore have been either ordered or done, as thereby to prejudice those orders, which upon contrary occasion and the exigence of the present time by like authority have been established. For what is there which doth let but that from contrary occasions contrary laws may grow, and each be reasoned and disputed for by such as are subject thereunto, during the time they are in force; and yet neither so opposite to other, but that both may laudably continue, as long as the ages which keep them do see no necessary cause which may draw them unto alteration? Wherefore in these things, canons, constitutions, and laws, which have been at one time meet, do not prove that the Church should always be bound to follow them. Ecclesiastical persons were by ancient order forbidden to be executors of any man’s testament, or to undertake the wardship of children. Bishops by the imperial law are forbidden to bequeath by testament or otherwise to alienate any thing grown unto them after they were made bishops. Is there no remedy but that these or the like orders must therefore every where still be observed?The reason is not always evident, why former orders have been repealed and other established in their room. Herein therefore we must remember the axiom used in the civil laws, “That the prince is always presumed to do that with reason, which is not against reason being done, although no reason of his deed be expressed.” Which being in every respect as true of the Church, and her divine authority in making laws, it should be some bridle unto those malapert and proud spirits, whose wits not conceiving the reason of laws that are established, they adore their own private fancy as the supreme law of all, and accordingly take upon them to judge that whereby they should be judged. But why labour we thus in vain? For even to change that which now is, and to establish instead thereof that which themselves would acknowledge the very selfsame which hath been, to what purpose were it, sith they protest, “that they utterly condemn as well that which hath been as that which is; as well the ancient as the present superiority, authority and power of ecclesiastical persons.” The arguments answered, whereby they would prove that the law of God and the judgment of the best in all ages condemneth the ruling superiority of one minister over another.XVI. Now where they lastly allege, “That the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, and

the judgment of the best in all ages, condemn all ruling superiority of ministers over ministers;” they are in this, as in the rest, more bold to affirm, than able to prove the things which they bring for support of their weak and feeble cause. “The bearing of dominion or the exercising of authority (they say), is that wherein the civil magistrate is severed from the ecclesiastical officer, according to the words of our Lord and Saviour, ‘Kings of nations bear rule over them, but it shall not be so with you:’ therefore bearing of dominion doth not agree to one minister over another.”This place hath been, and still is, although most falsely, yet with far greater show and likelihood of truth, brought forth by the anabaptists, to prove that the Church of Christ ought to have no civil magistrates, but [to be] ordered only by Christ. Wherefore they urge the opposition between heathens and them unto whom our Saviour speaketh. For sith the Apostles were opposite to heathens, not in that they were Apostles, but in that they were Christians, the anabaptists’ inference is, “that Christ doth here give a law, to be for ever observed by all true Christian men, between whom and heathens there must be always this difference, that whereas heathens have their kings and princes to rule, Christians ought not in this thing to be like unto them.” Wherein their construction hath the more show, because that which Christ doth speak to his Apostles is not found always agreeable unto them as Apostles, or as pastors of men’s souls, but oftentimes it toucheth them in generality, as they are Christians; so that Christianity being common unto them with all believers, such speeches must be so taken that they may be applied unto all, and not only unto them.They which consent with us, in rejecting such collections as the anabaptist maketh with more probability, must give us leave to reject such as themselves have made with less: for a great deal less likely it is, that our Lord should here establish an everlasting difference, not between his Church and pagans, but between the pastors of his Church and civil governors. For if herein they must always differ, that the one may not bear rule, the other may; how did the Apostles themselves observe this difference, the exercise of whose authority, both in commanding and in controlling others, the Scripture hath made so manifest that no gloss can overshadow it? Again, it being, as they would have it, our Saviour’s purpose to withhold his Apostles and in them all other pastors from bearing rule, why should kingly dominion be mentioned, which occasions men to gather, that not all dominion and rule, but this one only form was prohibited, and that authority was permitted them, so it were not regal? Furthermore, in case it had been his purpose to withhold pastors altogether from bearing rule, why should kings of nations be mentioned, as if they were not forbidden to exercise, no not regal dominion itself, but only such regal dominion as heathen kings do exercise?The very truth is, our Lord and Saviour did aim at a far other mark than these men seem to observe. The end of his speech was to reform their particular mispersuasion to whom he spake: and their mispersuasion was, that which was also the common fancy of the Jews at that time, that their Lord being the Messias of the world, should restore unto Israel that kingdom, whereof the Romans had as then bereaved them; they imagined that he should not only deliver the state of Israel, but himself reign as king in the throne of David with all secular pomp and dignity; that he should subdue the rest of the world, and

make Jerusalem the seat of an universal monarchy. Seeing therefore they had forsaken all to follow him, being now in so mean condition, they did not think but that together with him they also should rise in state; that they should be the first and the most advanced by him. Of this conceit it came that the mother of the sons of Zebedee sued for her children’s preferment; of this conceit it grew, that the Apostles began to question amongst themselves which of them should be greatest; and in controlment of this conceit it was that our Lord so plainly told them, that the thoughts of their hearts were vain:” the kings of nations have indeed their large and ample dominions, they reign far and wide, and their servants they advance unto honour in the world; they bestow upon them large and ample secular preferments, in which respect they are also termed many of them benefactors, because of the liberal hand which they use in rewarding such as have done them service: but was it the meaning of the ancient prophets of God that the Messias the king of Israel should be like unto these kings, and his retinue grow in such sort as theirs? “Wherefore ye are not to look for at my hands such preferment as kings of nations are wont to bestow upon their attendants, ‘With you not so.’ Your reward in heaven shall be most ample, on earth your chiefest honour must be to suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake; submission, humility and meekness are things fitter for you to inure your minds withal, than these aspiring cogitations; if any amongst you be greater than other, let him shew himself greatest in being lowliest, let him be above them in being under them, even as a servant for their good. These are affections which you must put on; as for degrees of preferment and honour in this world, if ye expect any such thing at my hands ye deceive yourselves, for in the world your portion is rather the clear contrary.”Wherefore they who allege this place against episcopal authority abuse it, they many ways deprave and wrest it, clean from the true understanding wherein our Saviour himself did utter it. For first, whereas he by way of mere negation had said, “With you it shall not be so,” foretelling them only that it should not so come to pass as they vainly surmised; these men take his words in the plain nature of a prohibition, as if Christ had thereby forbidden all inequality of ecclesiastical power. Secondly, whereas he did but cut off their idle hope of secular advancements; all standing superiority amongst persons ecclesiastical these men would rase off with the edge of his speech. Thirdly, whereas he in abating their hope even of secular advancements spake but only with relation unto himself, informing them that he would be no such munificent Lord unto them in their temporal dignity and honour, as they did erroneously suppose; so that any Apostle might afterwards have grown by means of others to be even emperor of Rome, for any thing in those words to the contrary: these men removing quite and clean the hedge of all such restraints, enlarge so far the bounds of his meaning, as if his very precise intent and purpose had been not to reform the error of his Apostles conceived as touching him, and to teach what himself would not be towards them, but to prescribe a special law both to them and their successors for ever; a law determining what they should not be in relation of one to another, a law forbidding that any such title should be given to any minister as might import or argue in him a superiority over other ministers.Being thus defeated of that succour which they thought their cause might have had

out of the words of our Saviour Christ, they try their adventure in seeking what aid man’s testimony will yield them: “Cyprian objecteth it to Florentinus as a proud thing, that by believing evil reports, and misjudging of Cyprian, he made himself bishop of a bishop, and judge over him whom God had for the time appointed to be judge.” “The endeavour of godly men to strike at these insolent names may appear in the council of Carthage: where it was decreed, that the bishop of the chief see should not be entitled the exarch of priests, or the highest priest, or any other thing of like sense, but only the bishop of the chiefest see2; whereby are shut out the name of archbishop, and all other such haughty titles.” In these allegations it fareth, as in broken reports snatched out of the author’s mouth, and broached before they be half either told on the one part, or on the other understood. The matter which Cyprian complaineth of in Florentinus was thus: Novatus misliking the easiness of Cyprian to admit men into the fellowship of believers after they had fallen away from the bold and constant confession of Christian faith, took thereby occasion to separate himself from the Church, and being united with certain excommunicate persons, they joined their wits together, and drew out against Cyprian their lawful bishop sundry grievous accusations; the crimes such, as being true, had made him uncapable of that office whereof he was six years as then possessed; they went to Rome, and to other places, accusing him every where as guilty of those faults of which themselves had lewdly condemned him, pretending that twenty-five African bishops (a thing most false) had heard and examined his cause in a solemn assembly, and that they all had given their sentence against him, holding his election by the canons of the church void. The same factious and seditious persons coming also unto Florentinus, who was at that time a man imprisoned for the testimony of Jesus Christ, but yet a favourer of the error of Novatus, their malicious accusations he over-willingly hearkened unto, gave them credit, concurred with them, and unto Cyprian in fine wrote his letters against Cyprian: which letters he justly taketh in marvellous evil part, and therefore severely controlleth his so great presumption in making himself a judge of a judge, and, as it were, a bishop’s bishop, to receive accusations against him, as one that had been his ordinary. “What height of pride is this (saith Cyprian), what arrogancy of spirit, what a puffing up of mind, to call guides and priests to be examined and sifted before him! So that unless we shall be cleared in your court, and absolved by your sentence, behold for these six years’ space neither shall the brotherhood have had a bishop, nor the people a guide, nor the flock a shepherd, nor the Church a governor, nor Christ a prelate, nor God a priest.” This is the pride which Cyprian condemneth in Florentinus, and not the title or name of archbishop; about which matter there was not at that time so much as the dream of any controversy at all between them. A silly collection it is, that because Cyprian reproveth Florentinus for lightness of belief and presumptuous rashness of judgment, therefore he held the title of archbishop to be a vain and a proud name.Archbishops were chief amongst bishops, yet archbishops had not over bishops that full authority which every bishop had over his own particular clergy: bishops were not subject unto their archbishop as an ordinary, by whom at all times they were to be judged, according to the manner of inferior pastors, within the compass of each diocess. A bishop might suspend, excommunicate, depose, such as were of his own clergy without any other bishops assistants; not so an archbishop the bishops that were in his own province, above whom divers prerogatives were given him, howbeit no such authority and power as

alone to be judge over them. For as a bishop could not be ordained, so neither might he be judged by any one only bishop, albeit that bishop were his metropolitan. Wherefore Cyprian, concerning the liberty and freedom which every bishop had, spake in the council of Carthage, whereat fourscore and seven bishops were present, saying, “It resteth that every of us declare what we think of this matter, neither judging nor severing from the right of communion any that shall think otherwise: for of us there is not any which maketh himself a bishop of bishops, or with tyrannical fear constraineth his colleagues unto the necessity of obedience, inasmuch as every bishop, according to the reach of his liberty and power, hath his own free judgment, and can no more have another his judge, than himself be judge to another.” Whereby it appeareth, that amongst the African bishops none did use such authority over any as the bishop of Rome did afterwards claim over all, forcing upon them opinions by main and absolute power. Wherefore unto the bishop of Rome the same Cyprian also writeth concerning his opinion about baptism: “These things we present unto your conscience, most dear brother, as well for common honour’s sake, as of single and sincere love, trusting that as you are truly yourself religious and faithful, so those things which agree with religion and faith will be acceptable unto you: howbeit we know, that what some have over drunk in, they will not let go, neither easily change their mind, but with care of preserving whole amongst their brethren the bond of peace and concord, retaining still to themselves certain their own opinions wherewith they have been inured; wherein we neither use force, nor prescribe a law unto any, knowing that in the government of the Church every ruler hath his own voluntary free judgment, and of that which he doth shall render unto the Lord himself an account.”As for the council of Carthage, doth not the very first canon thereof establish with most effectual terms all things which were before agreed on in the council of Nice? and that the council of Nice did ratify the preeminence of metropolitan bishops, who is ignorant? The name of an archbishop importeth only a bishop having chiefty of certain prerogatives above his brethren of the same order. Which thing, sith the council of Nice doth allow, it cannot be that the other of Carthage should condemn it, inasmuch as this doth yield unto that a Christian unrestrained approbation. The thing provided for by the synod of Carthage can be no other therefore, than only that the chiefest metropolitan, where many archbishops were within any greater province, should not be termed by those names, as to import the power of an ordinary jurisdiction belonging in such degree and manner unto him over the rest of the bishops and archbishops, as did belong unto every bishop over other pastors under him. But much more absurd it is to affirm, that both Cyprian and the council of Carthage condemn even such superiority also of bishops themselves over pastors their inferiors, as the words of Ignatius imply, in terming the bishop “a prince of priests.” Bishops to be termed arch-priests, in regard of their superiority over priests, is in the writings of the ancient Fathers a thing so usual and familiar, as almost no one thing more. At the council of Nice, saith Theodoret, three hundred and eighteen arch-priests were present. Were it the meaning of the council of Carthage, that the title of chief priests and such like ought not in any sort at all to be given unto any Christian Bishop, what excuse should we make for so many ancient both Fathers, and synods of Fathers, as have generally applied the

title of arch-priest unto every bishop’s office?High time I think it is, to give over the obstinate defence of this most miserable forsaken cause; in the favour whereof neither God, nor amongst so many wise and virtuous men as antiquity hath brought forth, any one can be found to have hitherto directly spoken. Irksome confusion must of necessity be the end whereunto all such vain and ungrounded confidence doth bring, as hath nothing to bear it out but only an excessive measure of bold and peremptory words, holpen by the start of a little time, before they came to be examined. In the writings of the ancient Fathers, there is not any thing with more serious asseveration inculcated, than that it is God which maketh bishops, that their authority hath divine allowance, that the bishop is the priest of God, that he is judge in Christ’s stead, that according to God’s own law the whole Christian fraternity standeth bound to obey him. Of this there was not in the Christian world of old any doubt or controversy made, it was a thing universally every where agreed upon. What should move men to judge that now so unlawful and naught, which then was so reverendly esteemed? Surely no other cause but this, men were in those times meek, lowly, tractable, willing to live in dutiful awe and subjection unto the pastor of their souls: now we imagine ourselves so able every man to teach and direct all others, that none of us can brook it to have superiors; and for a mask to hide our pride, we pretend falsely the law of Christ, as if we did seek the execution of his will, when in truth we labour for the mere satisfaction of our own against his. The second malicious thing wherein the state of Bishops suffereth obloquy is their honour.XVII. The chiefest cause of disdain and murmur against bishops in the Church of England is that evil-affected eye wherewith the world looked upon them, since the time that irreligious profaneness, beholding the due and just advancements of God’s clergy, hath under pretence of enmity unto ambition and pride proceeded so far, that the contumely of old offered unto Aaron in the like quarrel may seem very moderate and quiet dealing, if we compare it with the fury of our own times. The ground and original of both their proceedings one and the same; in declaration of their grievances they differ not; the complaints as well of the one as the other are, “Wherefore lift ye up yourselves” thus far “above the congregation of the Lord? It is too much which you take upon you;” too much power, and too much honour. Wherefore as we have shewed that there is not in their power any thing unjust or unlawful, so it resteth that in their honour also the like be done. The labour we take unto this purpose is by so much the harder, in that we are forced to wrestle with the stream of obstinate affection, mightily carried by a wilful prejudice, the dominion whereof is so powerful over them in whom it reigneth, that it giveth them no leave, no not so much as patiently to hearken unto any speech which doth not profess to feed them in this their bitter humour. Notwithstanding, forasmuch as I am persuaded that against God they will not strive, if they perceive once that in truth it is he against whom they open their mouths, my hope is their own confession will be at the length, “Behold, we have done exceeding foolishly; it was the Lord, and we knew it not; him in his ministers we have despised, we have in their honour impugned his.” But the alteration of men’s hearts must be his good and gracious work, whose most omnipotent power framed them.

Wherefore to come to our present purpose, honour is no where due, saving only unto such as have in them that whereby they are found, or at the least presumed, voluntarily beneficial unto them of whom they are honoured. Wheresoever nature seeth the countenance of a man, it still presumeth that there is in him a mind willing to do good, if need require, inasmuch as by nature so it should be; for which cause men unto men do honour, even for very humanity’s sake: and unto whom we deny all honour, we seem plainly to take from them all opinion of human dignity, to make no account or reckoning of them, to think them so utterly without virtue, as if no good thing in the world could be looked for at their hands. Seeing therefore it seemeth hard that we should so hardly think of any man, the precept of St. Peter is, “Honour all men.” Which duty of every man towards all doth vary according to the several degrees whereby they are more or less beneficial, whom we do honour. “Honour the physician,” saith the wise man: the reason why, because for necessities’ sake God created him. Again, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the person of the aged:” the reason why, because the younger sort have great benefit by their gravity, experience, and wisdom; for which cause, these things the wise man termeth the crown or diadem of the aged. Honour due to parents: the reason why, because we have our beginning from them; “Obey the father that hath begotten thee, the mother that bare thee despise thou not.” Honour due unto kings and governors: the reason why, because God hath set them “for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.” Thus we see by every of these particulars, that there is always some kind of virtue beneficial, wherein they excel who receive honour; and that degrees of honour are distinguished according to the value of those effects which the same beneficial virtue doth produce.Nor is honour only an inward estimation, whereby they are reverenced and well thought of in the minds of men; but honour whereof we now speak, is defined to be an external sign, by which we give a sensible testification that we acknowledge the beneficial virtue of others. Sarah honoured her husband Abraham; this appeareth by the title she gave him. The brethren of Joseph did him honour in the land of Egypt; their lowly and humble gesture sheweth it. Parents will hardly persuade themselves that this intentional honour, which reacheth no farther than to the inward conception only, is the honour which their children owe them. Touching that honour which mystically agreeing unto Christ, was yielded literally and really unto Solomon, the words of the Psalmist concerning it are, “Unto him they shall give of the gold of Sheba, they shall pray for him continually, and daily bless him.”Weigh these things in themselves, titles, gestures, presents, other the like external signs wherein honour doth consist, and they are matters of no great moment. Howbeit, take them away, let them cease to be required, and they are not things of small importance, which that surcease were likely to draw after it. Let the lord mayor of London, or any other unto whose office honour belongeth, be deprived but of that title which in itself is a matter of nothing; and suppose we that it would be a small maim unto the credit, force, and countenance of his office? It hath not without the singular wisdom of God been provided, that the ordinary outward tokens of honour should for the most part be in themselves things of mean account; for to the end they might easily follow as

faithful testimonies of that beneficial virtue whereunto they are due, it behoved them to be of such nature, that to himself no man might over-eagerly challenge them, without blushing; nor any man where they are due withhold them, but with manifest appearance of too great malice or pride.Now forasmuch as according to the ancient orders and customs of this land, as of the kingdom of Israel, and of all Christian kingdoms through the world, the next in degree of honour unto the chief sovereign are the chief prelates of God’s Church; what the reason hereof may be, it resteth next to be inquired. What good doth publicly grow from the Prelacy.XVIII. Other reason there is not any, wherefore such honour hath been judged due, saving only that public good which the prelates of God’s clergy are authors of. For I would know which of these things it is whereof we make any question, either that the favour of God is the chiefest pillar to bear up kingdoms and states; or that true religion publicly exercised is the principal mean to retain the favour of God; or that the prelates of the Church are they without whom the exercise of true religion cannot well and long continue. If these three be granted, then cannot the public benefit of prelacy be dissembled.And of the first or second of these I look not for any professed denial; the world at this will blush, not to grant at the leastwise in word as much as heathens themselves have of old with most earnest asseveration acknowledged, concerning the force of divine grace in upholding kingdoms. Again, though his mercy doth so far strive with men’s ingratitude, that all kind of public iniquities deserving his indignation, their safety is through his gracious providence many times nevertheless continued to the end that amendment might if it were possible avert their envy; so that as well commonweals as particular persons both may and do endure much longer, when they are careful, as they should be, to use the most effectual means of procuring his favour on whom their continuance principally dependeth: yet this point no man will stand to argue, no man will openly arm himself to enter into set disputation against the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, for making unto their laws concerning religion this preface, “Decere arbitramur nostrum imperium, subditos nostros de religione commonefacere. Ita enim et pleniorem acquiri Dei ac Salvatoris nostri Jesu Christi benignitatem possibile esse existimamus, si quando et nos pro viribus ipsi placere studuerimus, et nostros subditos ad eam rem instituerimus:” or against the emperor Justinian, for that he also maketh the like profession: “Per sanctissimas ecclesias et nostrum imperium sustineri, et communes res clementissimi Dei gratia muniri credimus.” And in another place, “Certissime credimus, quia Sacerdotum puritas et decus, et ad Dominum Deum ac salvatorem nostrum Jesum Christum fervor, et ab ipsis missae perpetuae preces, multum favorem nostrae reipublicae et incrementum praebent.”Wherefore only the last point is that which men will boldly require us to prove; for no man feareth now to make it a question, “whether the prelacy of the Church be any thing available or no to effect the good and long continuance of true religion?” Amongst the principal blessings wherewith God enriched Israel, the prophet in the Psalm acknowledgeth especially this for one, “Thou didst lead thy people like sheep by the

hands of Moses and Aaron.” That which sheep are if pastors be wanting, the same are the people of God if so be they want governors: and that which the principal civil governors are in comparison of regents under them, the same are the prelates of the Church being compared with the rest of God’s clergy. Wherefore inasmuch as amongst the Jews the benefit of civil government grew principally from Moses, he being their principal civil governor; even so the benefit of spiritual regiment grew from Aaron principally, he being in the other kind their principal rector, although even herein subject to the sovereign dominion of Moses. For which cause, these two alone are named as the heads and well- springs of all. As for the good which others did in service either of the commonwealth or of the sanctuary, the chiefest glory thereof did belong to the chiefest governors of the one sort and of the other, whose vigilant care and oversight kept them in their due order. Bishops are now as high priests were then, in regard of power over other priests: and in respect of subjection unto high priests, what priests were then, the same now presbyters are by way of their place under bishops. The one’s authority therefore being so profitable, how should the other’s be thought unnecessary? Is there any man professing Christian religion which holdeth it not as a maxim, that the Church of Jesus Christ did reap a singular benefit by apostolical regiment, not only for other respects, but even in regard of that prelacy whereby they had and exercised power of jurisdiction over lower guides of the Church? Prelates are herein the Apostles’ successors, as hath been proved.Thus we see that prelacy must needs be acknowledged exceedingly beneficial in the Church; and yet for more perspicuity’s sake, it shall not be pains superfluously taken, if the manner how be also declared at large. For this one thing not understood by the vulgar sort, causeth all contempt to be offered unto higher powers, not only ecclesiastical, but civil: whom when proud men have disgraced, and are therefore reproved by such as carry some dutiful affection of mind, the usual apologies which they make for themselves are these: “What more virtue in these great ones than in others? We see no such eminent good which they do above other men.” We grant indeed, that the good which higher governors do is not so immediate and near unto every of us, as many times the meaner labours of others under them, and this doth make it to be less esteemed. But we must note, that it is in this case as in a ship; he that sitteth at the stern is quiet, he moveth not, he seemeth in a manner to do little or nothing in comparison of them that sweat about other toil, yet that which he doth is in value and force more than all the labours of the residue laid together. The influence of the heavens above worketh infinitely more to our good, and yet appeareth not half so sensible as the force doth of things below. We consider not what it is which we reap by the authority of our chiefest spiritual governors, nor are likely to enter into any consideration thereof, till we want them; and that is the cause why they are at our hands so unthankfully rewarded.Authority is a constraining power, which power were needless if we were all such as we should be, willing to do the things we ought to do without constraint. But because generally we are otherwise, therefore we all reap singular benefit by that authority which permitteth no men, though they would, to slack their duty. It doth not suffice, that the lord of an household appoint labourers what they should do, unless he set over them some chief workmen to see they do it. Constitutions and canons made for the ordering of

church affairs are dead taskmasters. The due execution of laws spiritual dependeth most upon the vigilant care of the chiefest spiritual governors, whose charge is to see that such laws be kept by the clergy and people under them: with those duties which the law of God and the ecclesiastical canons require in the clergy, lay governors are neither for the most part so well acquainted, nor so deeply and nearly touched. Requisite therefore it is, that ecclesiastical persons have authority in such things; which kind of authority maketh them that have it prelates. If then it be a thing confessed, as by all good men it needs must be, to have prayers read in all churches, to have the sacraments of God administered, to have the mysteries of salvation painfully taught, to have God every where devoutly worshipped, and all this perpetually, and with quietness, bringeth unto the whole Church, and unto every member thereof, inestimable good; how can that authority which hath been proved the ordinance of God for preservation of these duties in the Church, how can it choose but deserve to be held a thing publicly most beneficial?It were to be wished, and is to be laboured for, as much as can be, that they who are set in such rooms may be furnished with honourable qualities and graces, every way fit for their calling: but be they otherwise, howsoever, so long as they are in authority, all men reap some good by them, albeit not so much good as if they were abler men. There is not any amongst us all, but is a great deal more apt to exact another man’s duty, than the best of us is to discharge exactly his own; and therefore prelates, although neglecting many ways their duty unto God and men, do notwithstanding by their authority great good, in that they keep others at the leastwise in some awe under them. It is our duty therefore in this consideration, to honour them that rule as prelates; which office if they discharge well, the Apostle’s own verdict is, that the honour they have they be worthy of, yea though it were double. And if their government be otherwise, the judgment of sage men hath ever been this, that albeit the dealings of governors be culpable, yet honourable they must be, in respect of that Authority by which they govern. Great caution must be used that we neither be emboldened to follow them in evil, whom for authority’s sake we honour; nor induced in authority to dishonour them, whom as examples we may not follow. In a word, not to dislike sin, though it should be in the highest, were unrighteous meekness; and proud righteousness it is to contemn or dishonour highness, though it should be in the sinfullest men that live.But so hard it is to obtain at our hands, especially as now things stand, the yielding of honour to whom honour in this case belongeth, that by a brief declaration only what the duties of men are towards the principal guides and pastors of their souls, we cannot greatly hope to prevail, partly for the malice of their open adversaries, and partly for the cunning of such as in a sacrilegious intent work their dishonour under covert, by more mystical and secret means. Wherefore requisite and in a manner necessary it is, that by particular instances we make it even palpably manifest what singular benefit and use public the nature of prelates is apt to yield. First, no man doubteth but that unto the happy condition of commonweals it is a principal help and furtherance, when in the eye of foreign states their estimation and credit is great. In which respect, the Lord himself commending his own laws unto his people, mentioneth this as a thing not meanly to be accounted of, that their careful obedience

yielded thereunto should purchase them a great good opinion abroad, and make them every where famous for wisdom. Fame and reputation groweth especially by the virtue, not of common ordinary persons, but of them which are in each estate most eminent by occasion of their higher place and calling. The mean man’s actions, be they good or evil, they reach not far, they are not greatly inquired into, except perhaps by such as dwell at the next door: whereas men of more ample dignity are as cities on the tops of hills, their lives are viewed afar off; so that the more there are which observe aloof what they do, the greater glory by their well-doing they purchase, both unto God whom they serve, and to the state wherein they live. Wherefore if the clergy be a beautifying unto the body of this commonweal in the eyes of foreign beholders, and if in the clergy the prelacy be most exposed unto the world’s eye, what public benefit doth grow from that order, in regard of reputation thereby gotten to the land from abroad, we may soon conjecture. Amongst the Jews (their kings excepted) who so renowned throughout the world as their high priest? Who so much or so often spoken of as their prelates?(2.) Which order is not for the present only the most in sight, but for that very cause also the most commended unto posterity. For if we search those records wherein there hath descended from age to age whatsoever notice and intelligence we have of those things which were before us, is there any thing almost else, surely not any thing so much, kept in memory, as the successions, doings, sufferings, and affairs of prelates. So that either there is not any public use of that light which the Church doth receive from antiquity; or if this be absurd to think, then must we necessarily acknowledge ourselves beholding more unto prelates than unto others their inferiors, for that good of direction which ecclesiastical actions recorded do always bring.Thirdly, But to call home our cogitations, and more inwardly to weigh with ourselves what principal commodity that order yieldeth, or at leastwise is of its own disposition and nature apt to yield: kings and princes, partly for information of their own consciences, partly for instruction what they have to do in a number of most weighty affairs, entangled with the cause of religion, having, as all men know, so usual occasion of often consultations and conferences with their clergy; suppose we, that no public detriment would follow upon the want of honourable personages ecclesiastical to be used in those cases? It will be haply said, “That the highest might learn to stoop, and not to disdain the advice of some circumspect, wise and virtuous minister of God, albeit the ministry were not by such degrees distinguished.” What princes in that case might or should do, it is not material. Such difference being presupposed therefore, as we have proved already to have been the ordinance of God, there is no judicious man will ever make any question or doubt, but that fit and direct it is for the highest and chiefest order in God’s clergy to be employed before others about so near and necessary offices as the sacred estate of the greatest on earth doth require. For this cause Joshua had Eleazar; David, Abiathar; Constantine, Hosius, bishop of Corduba; other emperors and kings their prelates, by whom in private (for with princes this is the most effectual way of doing good) to be admonished, counselled, comforted, and if need were, reproved. Whensoever sovereign rulers are willing to admit these so necessary private conferences for their spiritual and ghostly good, inasmuch as they do for the time while they take advice grant a kind of superiority unto them of whom they receive it, albeit haply they can be contented even so

far to bend to the gravest and chiefest persons in the order of God’s clergy; yet this of the very best being rarely and hardly obtained, now that there are whose greater and higher callings do somewhat more proportion them unto that ample conceit and spirit wherewith the minds of so powerable persons are possessed; what should we look for, in case God himself not authorizing any by miraculous means, as of old he did his prophets, the equal meanness of all did leave, in respect of calling, no more place of decency for one than for another to be admitted? Let unexperienced wits imagine what pleaseth them, in having to deal with so great personages these personal differences are so necessary that there must be regard had of them.Fourthly, Kingdoms being principally (next unto God’s Almightiness, and the sovereignty of the highest under God) upheld by wisdom and by valour, as by the chiefest human means to cause continuance in safety with honour (for the labours of them who attend the service of God, we reckon as means divine, to procure our protection from heaven); from hence it riseth, that men excelling in either of these, or descending from such as for excellency either way have been ennobled, or possessing howsoever the rooms of such as should be in politic wisdom or in martial prowess eminent, are had in singular recommendation. Notwithstanding, because they are by the state of nobility great, but not thereby made inclinable to good things; such they oftentimes prove even under the best princes, as under David certain of the Jewish nobility were. In polity and counsel the world had not Achitophel’s equal, nor hell his equal in deadly malice. Joab the general of the host of Israel, valiant, industrious, fortunate in war, but withal headstrong, cruel, treacherous, void of piety towards God; in a word, so conditioned, that easy it is not to define, whether it were for David harder to miss the benefit of his warlike ability, or to bear the enormity of his other crimes. As well for the cherishing of those virtues therefore, wherein if nobility do chance to flourish, they are both an ornament and a stay to the commonwealth wherein they live; as also for the bridling of those disorders, which if they loosely run into, they are by reason of their greatness dangerous; what help could there ever have been invented more divine, than the sorting of the clergy into such degrees, that the chiefest of the prelacy being matched in a kind of equal yoke, as it were, with the higher, the next with the lower degree of nobility, the reverend authority of the one might be to the other as a courteous bridle, a mean to keep them lovingly in awe that are exorbitant, and to correct such excesses in them, as whereunto their courage, state and dignity maketh them over-prone? O that there were for encouragement of prelates herein, that inclination of all Christian kings and princes towards them, which sometime a famous king of this land either had, or pretended to have, for the countenancing of a principal prelate under him in the actions of spiritual authority! “Let my lord archbishop know,” saith he, “that if a bishop, or earl, or any other great person, yea if my own chosen son, shall presume to withstand or to hinder his will and disposition, whereby he may be withheld from performing the work of the embassage committed unto him; such a one shall find, that of his contempt I will shew myself no less a persecutor and revenger, than if treason were committed against mine own very crown and dignity.” Sith therefore by the fathers and first founders of this commonweal it hath upon great experience and forecast being judged most for the good of all sorts, that as the whole body politic wherein we live should be for strength’s sake a threefold cable, consisting of the king as a supreme head over all, of peers and nobles under him, and of the people under them; so

likewise, that in this conjunction of states, the second wreath of that cable should, for important respects, consist as well of lords spiritual as temporal: nobility and prelacy being by this mean twined together, how can it possibly be avoided, but that the tearing away of the one must needs exceedingly weaken the other, and by consequent impair greatly the good of all?(Fifthly.) The force of which detriment there is no doubt but that the common sort of men would feel to their helpless woe, how goodly a thing soever they now surmise it to be, that themselves and their godly teachers did all alone without controlment of their prelate. For if the manifold jeopardies whereto a people destitute of pastors is subject be unavoidable without government; and if the benefit of government, whether it be ecclesiastical or civil, do grow principally from them who are principal therein, as hath been proved out of the prophet, who albeit the people of Israel had sundry inferior governors, ascribeth not unto them the public benefit of government, but maketh mention of Moses and Aaron only, the chief prince and chief prelate, because they were the wellspring of all the good which others under them did: may we not boldly conclude, that to take from the people their prelate is to leave them in effect without guides, as leastwise without those guides which are the strongest hands that God doth direct them by? “Thou didst lead thy people like sheep,” saith the Prophet, “by the hands of Moses and Aaron.” If now there arise any matter of grievance between the pastor and the people that are under him, they have their ordinary, a judge indifferent to determine their causes, and to end their strife. But in case there were no such appointed to sit and to hear both, what would then be the end of their quarrels? They will answer perhaps, “That for such purposes their synods shall serve.” Which is as if in the commonwealth the higher magistrates being removed, every township should be a state, altogether free and independent; and the controversies which they cannot end speedily within themselves, to the contentment of both parties, should be all determined by solemn parliaments. Merciful God! where is the light of wit and judgment, which this age doth so much vaunt of and glory in, when unto these such odd imaginations so great not only assent, but also applause is yielded?(Sixthly.) As for those in the clergy whose place and calling is lower, were it not that their eyes are blinded lest they should see the thing that of all others is for their good most effectual, somewhat they might consider the benefit which they enjoy by having such in authority over them as are of the selfsame profession, society and body with them; such as have trodden the same steps before; such as know by their own experience the manifold intolerable contempts and indignities which faithful pastors, intermingled with the multitude, are constrained every day to suffer in the exercise of their spiritual charge and function, unless their superiors, taking their causes even to heart, be by a kind of sympathy drawn to relieve and aid them in their virtuous proceedings, no less effectually than loving parents their dear children. Thus therefore prelacy, being unto all sorts so beneficial, ought accordingly to receive honour at the hands of all; but we have just cause exceedingly to fear that those miserable times of confusion are drawing on, wherein “the people shall be oppressed one of

another;” inasmuch as already that which prepareth the way thereunto is come to pass, “children presume against the ancient, and the vile against the honourable:” Prelacy, the temperature of excesses in all estates, the glue and soder of the public weal, the ligament which tieth and connecteth the limbs of this body politic each to other, hath instead of deserved honour, all extremity of disgrace. The foolish every where plead, that unto the wise in heart they owe neither service, subjection, nor honour. What kinds of honour be due unto Bishops.XIX. Now that we have laid open the causes for which honour is due unto prelates, the next thing we are to consider is, what kinds of honour be due. The good government either of the Church or the commonwealth dependeth scarcely on any one external thing so much as on the public marks and tokens, whereby the estimation that governors are in is made manifest to the eyes of men. True it is, that governors are to be esteemed according to the excellency of their virtues; the more virtuous they are, the more they ought to be honoured, if respect be had unto that which every man should voluntarily perform unto his superiors. But the question is now, of that honour which public order doth appoint unto church-governors, in that they are governors; the end whereof is, to give open sensible testimony, that the place which they hold is judged publickly in such degree beneficial, as the marks of their excellency, the honours appointed to be done unto them do import. Wherefore this honour we are to do them, without presuming ourselves to examine how worthy they are, and withdrawing it if by us they be thought unworthy. It is a note of that public judgment which is given of them; and therefore not tolerable that men in private should by refusal to do them such honour reverse as much as in them lieth the public judgment. If it deserve such grievous punishment, when any particular person adventureth to deface those marks whereby is signified what value some small piece of coin is publickly esteemed at; is it sufferable that honours, the characters of that estimation which publickly is had of public estates and callings in the Church or commonwealth, should at every man’s pleasure be cancelled?Let us not think that without most necessary cause the same have been thought expedient. The first authors thereof were wise and judicious men; they knew it a thing altogether impossible, for each particular in the multitude to judge what benefit doth grow unto them from their prelates, and thereupon uniformly to yield them convenient honour. Wherefore that all sorts might be kept in obedience and awe, doing that unto their superiors of every degree, not which every man’s special fancy should think meet, but which being beforehand agreed upon as meet, by public sentence and decision, might afterwards stand as a rule for each in particular to follow; they found that nothing was more necessary, than to allot unto all degrees their certain honour, as marks of public judgment concerning the dignity of their places; which mark when the multitude should behold, they might be thereby given to know, that of such or such estimation their governors are, and in token thereof do carry those notes of excellency. Hence it groweth, that the different notes and signs of honour do leave a correspondent impression in the minds of common beholders. Let the people be asked who are the chiefest in any kind of calling? who most to be listened unto? who of greatest account and reputation? and see if the very discourse of their minds lead them not unto those sensible marks, according to the difference whereof they give their suitable judgment, esteeming them the worthiest

persons who carry the principal note and public mark of worthiness. If therefore they see in other estates a number of tokens sensible, whereby testimony is given what account there is publickly made of them, but no such thing in the clergy; what will they hereby, or what can they else conclude, but that where they behold this, surely in that commonwealth, religion and they that are conversant about it are not esteemed greatly beneficial? Whereupon in time the open contempt of God and godliness must needs ensue: “Qui bona fide Deum colit, amat et sacerdotes,” saith Papinius. In vain doth that kingdom or commonwealth pretend zeal to the honour of God, which doth not provide that his clergy also may have honour.Now if all that are employed in the service of God should have one kind of honour, what more confused, absurd, and unseemly? Wherefore in the honour which hath been allotted unto God’s clergy, we are to observe, how not only the kinds thereof, but also in every particular kind, the degrees do differ. The honour which the clergy of God hath hitherto enjoyed, consisteth especially in the preeminence of Title, Place, Ornament, Attendance, Privilege, Endowment. In every of which it hath been evermore judged meet, that there should be no small odds between prelates and the inferior clergy. Honour in Title, Place, Ornament, Attendancy, and Privilege.XX. Concerning title, albeit even as under the law all they whom God hath severed to offer him sacrifice were generally termed priests, so likewise the name of pastor or presbyter be now common unto all that serve him in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ; yet both then and now the higher orders, as well of the one sort as of the other, have by one and the same congruity of reason their different titles of honour, wherewith we find them in the phrase of ordinary speech exalted above others. Thus the heads of the twenty-four companies of priests are in Scripture termed arch-priests; Aaron and the successors of Aaron being above those arch-priests, themselves are in that respect further entitled high and great. After what sort antiquity hath used to style Christian bishops, and to yield them in that kind honour more than were meet for inferior pastors, I may the better omit to declare, both because others have sufficiently done it already, and in so slight a thing it were but a loss of time to bestow further travel. The allegation of Christ’s prerogative to be named an arch-pastor simply, in regard of his absolute excellency over all, is no impediment but that the like title in an unlike signification may be granted unto others besides him, to note a more limited superiority, whereof men are capable enough without derogation from his glory, than which nothing is more sovereign. To quarrel at syllables, and to take so poor exceptions at the first four letters in the name of an archbishop, as if they were manifestly stolen goods whereof restitution ought to be made to the civil magistrate toucheth no more the prelates that now are, than it doth the very blessed Apostle, who giveth unto himself the title of an archbuilder. As for our Saviour’s words alleged against the title of lordship and grace, we have before sufficiently opened how far they are drawn from their natural meaning, to bolster up a cause which they nothing at all concern. Bishops Theodoret entitleth “most honourable.” Emperors writing unto bishops, have not disdained to give them their appellations of honour, “Your holiness,” “Your blessedness,” “Your amplitude,” “Your highness,” and the like: such as purposely have done otherwise are noted of insolent singularity and

pride.Honour done by giving preeminence of place unto one sort before another, is for decency, order, and quietness’ sake so needful, that both imperial laws and canons ecclesiastical have made their special provisions for it. Our Saviour’s invective against the vain affectation of superiority, whether in title or in place, may not hinder these seemly differences usual in giving and taking honour, either according to the one or the other.Something there is even in the ornaments of honour also; otherwise idle it had been for the wise man speaking of Aaron, to stand so much upon the circumstance of his priestly attire, and to urge it as an argument of such dignity and greatness in him2: “An everlasting covenant God made with Aaron, and gave him the priesthood among the people, and made him blessed through his comely ornament, and clothed him with the garment of honour.” The robes of a judge do not add to his virtue; the chiefest ornament of kings is justice; holiness and purity of conversation do much more adorn a bishop, than his peculiar form of clothing. Notwithstanding, both judges, through the garments of judicial authority, and through the ornaments of sovereignty, princes; yea bishops through the very attire of bishops, are made blessed, that is to say, marked and manifested they are to be such as God hath poured his blessing upon, by advancing them above others, and placing them where they may do him principal good service. Thus to be called is to be blessed, and therefore to be honoured with the signs of such a calling must needs be in part a blessing also; for of good things even the signs are good.Of honour, another part is attendancy; and therefore in the visions of the glory of God, angels are spoken of as his attendants. In setting out the honour of that mystical queen, the prophet mentioneth the virgin ladies which waited on her. Amongst the tokens of Solomon’s honourable condition, his servants and waiters the sacred history omitteth not. This doth prove attendants a part of honour: but this as yet doth not shew with what attendancy prelates are to be honoured. Of the high-priest’s retinue amongst the Jews, somewhat the Gospel itself doth intimate. And albeit our Saviour came to minister, and not, as the Jews did imagine their Messias should, to be ministered unto in this world, yet attended on he was by his blessed Apostles, who followed him not only as scholars, but even as servants about him. After that he had sent them, as himself was sent of God, in the midst of that hatred and extreme contempt which they sustained at the world’s hands, by saints and believers this part of honour was most plentifully done unto them. Attendants they had provided in all places where they went; which custom of the Church was still continued in bishops their successors, as by Ignatius it is plain to be seen. And from hence no doubt those Acolythes took their beginning, of whom so frequent mention is made; the bishop’s attendants, his followers they were: in regard of which service the name of Acolythes seemeth plainly to have been given. The custom for bishops to be attended upon by many is as Justinian doth shew ancient: the affairs of regiment, wherein prelates are employed, make it necessary that they always have many about them whom they may command, although no such thing did by way of honour belong unto them.

Some men’s judgment is, that if clerks, students, and religious persons were more, common serving men and lay retainers fewer than they are in bishops’ palaces, the use and the honour thereof would be much more suitable than now. But these things, concerning the number and quality of persons fit to attend on prelates, either for necessity, or for honour’s sake, are rather in particular discretion to be ordered, than to be argued of by disputes.As for the vain imagination of some, who teach the original hereof to have been a preposterous imagination of Maximinus the emperor, who being addicted unto idolatry, chose of the choicest magistrates to be priests, and to the end they might be in great estimation, gave unto each of them a train of followers; and that Christian emperors, thinking the same would promote Christianity which promoted superstition, endeavoured to make their bishops encounter and match with those idolatrous priests: such frivolous conceits, having no other ground than conceit, we weigh not so much as to frame any answer unto them; our declaration of the true original of ancient attendancy on bishops being sufficient. Now if that which the light of sound reason doth teach to be fit, have upon like inducements reasonable, allowable, and good, approved itself in such wise as to be accepted, not only of us, but of pagans and infidels also; doth conformity with them that are evil in that which is good, make that thing which is good evil? We have not herein followed the heathens, nor the heathens us, but both we and they one and the selfsame divine rule, the light of a true and sound understanding, which sheweth what honour is fit for prelates, and what attendancy convenient to be a part of their honour. Touching privileges granted for honour’s sake, partly in general unto the clergy, and partly unto prelates the chiefest persons ecclesiastical in particular; of such quality and number they are, that to make but rehearsal of them we scarce think it safe, lest the very entrails of some of our godly brethren, as they term themselves, should thereat haply burst in sunder. Honour by endowment with Lands and Livings.XXI. And yet of all these things rehearsed, it may be there never would have grown any question, had bishops been honoured only thus far forth. But the honouring of the clergy with wealth, this is in the eyes of them which pretend to seek nothing but mere reformation of abuses, a sin that can never be remitted. How soon, O how soon might the Church be perfect, even without any spot or wrinkle, if public authority would at the length say Amen unto the holy and devout requests of those godly brethren, who as yet with outstretched necks groan in the pangs of their zeal to see the houses of bishops rifled, and their so long desired livings gloriously divided amongst the righteous! But there is an impediment, a let, which somewhat hindereth those good men’s prayers from taking effect: they in whose hands the sovereignty of power and dominion over this Church doth rest, are persuaded there is a God; for undoubtedly either the name of Godhead is but a feigned thing, or if in heaven there be a God, the sacrilegious intention of Church robbers, which lurketh under this plausible name of Reformation, is in his sight a thousand times more hateful than the plain professed malice

of those very miscreants, who threw their vomit in the open face of our blessed Saviour.They are not words of persuasion by which true men can hold their own, when they are over beset with thieves. And therefore to speak in this cause at all were but labour lost, saving only in respect of them, who being as yet unjoined unto this conspiracy, may be haply somewhat stayed, when they shall know betimes what it is to see thieves and to run on with them, as the Prophet in the Psalm speaketh; “When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.” For the better information therefore of men which carry true, honest and indifferent minds, these things we will endeavour to make most clearly manifest: First, That in goods and livings of the Church none hath propriety but God himself. Secondly, That the honour which the clergy therein hath, is to be, as it were, God’s Receivers; the honour of prelates, to be his chief and principal Receivers. Thirdly, That from him they have right, not only to receive, but also to use such goods, the lower sort in smaller, and the higher in larger measure. Fourthly, That in case they be thought, yea, or found to abuse the same, yet may not such honour be therefore lawfully taken from them, and be given away unto persons of other calling. That of ecclesiastical goods, and consequently of the lands and livings which Bishops enjoy, the propriety belongeth unto God alone.XXII. Possessions, lands and livings spiritual, the wealth of the clergy, the goods of the Church, are in such sort the Lord’s own, that man can challenge no propriety in them. His they are, and not ours; all things are his, in that from him they have their being. “My corn, and my wine, and mine oil,” saith the Lord. All things his, in that he hath absolute power to dispose of them at his pleasure. “Mine (saith he) are the sheep and oxen of a thousand hills.” All things his, in that when we have them, we may say with Job, “God hath given;” and when we are deprived of them, “The Lord,” whose they are, hath likewise “taken them away” again. But these sacred possessions are his by another tenure; his, because those men who first received them from him have unto him returned them again by way of religious gift or oblation: and in this respect it is, that the Lord doth term those houses wherein such gifts and oblations were laid, “his treasuries.”The ground whereupon men have resigned their own interests in things temporal, and given over the same unto God, is that precept which Solomon borroweth from the law of nature, “Honour the Lord out of thy substance, and of the chiefest of all thy revenue: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and with new wine the fat of thy press shall overflow.” For although it be by one most fitly spoken against those superstitious persons that only are scrupulous in external rites3; “Wilt thou win the favour of God? be virtuous: they best worship him that are his followers:” it is not the bowing of your knees, but of your hearts; it is not the number of your oblations, but the integrity of your lives; not your incense, but your obedience, which God is delighted to be honoured by: nevertheless, we must beware, lest simply understanding this, which comparatively is meant; that is to say, whereas the meaning is, that God doth chiefly respect the inward disposition of the heart; we must take heed we do not hereupon so worship him in spirit, that outwardly we take all worship, reverence and honour from him.

Our God will be glorified both of us himself, and for us by others: to others because our hearts are [not?] known, and yet our example is required for their good, therefore it is not sufficient to carry religion in our hearts, as fire is carried in flint-stones, but we are outwardly, visibly, apparently, to serve and honour the living God; yea to employ that way, as not only our souls but our bodies, so not only our bodies but our goods, yea, the choice, the flower, the chiefest of all thy revenue, saith Solomon. If thou hast any thing in all thy possessions of more value and price than other, to what use shouldest thou convert it, rather than this? Samuel was dear unto Hannah his mother: the child that Hannah did so much esteem, she could not but greatly wish to advance; and her religious conceit was, that the honouring of God with it was the advancing of it unto honour. The chiefest of the offspring of men are the males which be first born: and for this cause, in the ancient world they all were by right of their birth priests to the Most High. By these and the like precedents, it plainly enough appeareth, that in what heart soever doth dwell unfeigned religion, in the same there resteth also a willingness to bestow upon God that soonest which is most dear. Amongst us the law is, that sith gold is the chiefest of metals, if it be any where found in the bowels of the earth, it belongeth in right of honour, as all men know, to the King: whence hath this custom grown but only from a natural persuasion, whereby men judge it decent for the highest persons always to be honoured with the choicest things? “If ye offer unto God the blind,” saith the Prophet Malachi, “it is not evil; if the lame and sick, it is good enough. Present it unto thy prince, and see if he will content himself, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts.” When Abel presented God with an offering, it was the fattest of all the lambs in his whole flock; he honoured God not only out of his substance, but out of the very chiefest therein; whereby we may somewhat judge how religiously they stand affected towards God, who grudge that any thing worth the having should be his.Long it were to reckon up particularly what God was owner of under the Law2: for of this sort was all which they spent in legal sacrifices; of this sort their usual oblations and offerings; of this sort tithes and firstfruits; of this sort that which by extraordinary occasions they vowed unto God; of this sort all that they gave to the building of the tabernacle; of this sort all that which was gathered amongst them for the erecting of the temple, and the adorning of it erected3; of this sort whatsoever their Corban contained, wherein that blessed widow’s deodate was laid up. Now either this kind of honour was prefiguratively altogether ceremonial, and then our Saviour accepteth it not; or if we find that to him also it hath been done, and that with divine approbation given for encouragement of the world, to shew by such kind of service their dutiful hearts towards Christ, there will be no place left for men to make any question at all whether herein they do well or no.Wherefore to descend from the synagogue unto the Church of Christ: albeit sacrifices, wherewith sometimes God was highly honoured, be not accepted as heretofore at the hands of men; yet forasmuch as “Honour God with thy riches” is an edict of the unseparable law of nature, so far forth as men are therein required by such kind of homage to testify their thankful minds, this sacrifice God doth accept still. Wherefore as it was said of Christ, that “all kings should worship him, and all nations do him service;”

so this very kind of worship or service was likewise mentioned, lest we should think that our Lord and Saviour would allow of no such thing. “The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall bring gifts.” And as it maketh not a little to the praise of those sages mentioned in the Gospel, that the first amongst men which did solemnly honour our Saviour on earth were they; so it soundeth no less to the dignity of this particular kind, that the rest by it were prevented; “They fell down and worshipped him, and opened their treasures, and presented unto him gifts; gold, and incense, and myrrh.” Of all those things which were done to the honour of Christ in his lifetime there is not one whereof he spake in such sort, as when Mary to testify the largeness of her affection, seemed to waste away a gift upon him, the price of which gift might, as they thought who saw it, much better have been spent in works of mercy towards the poor: “Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout all the world, there shall also this that she hath done be spoken of for memorial of her.”Of service to God, the best works are they which continue longest: and for permanency what like Donation, whereby things are unto him for ever dedicated? That the ancient lands and livings of the Church were all in such sort given into the hands of God by the just lords and owners of them, that unto him they passed over their whole interest and right therein, the form of sundry the said donations as yet extant most plainly sheweth. And where time hath left no such evidence as now remaining to be seen, yet the same intention is presumed in all donors, unless the contrary be apparent. But to the end it may yet more plainly appear unto all men under what title the several kinds of ecclesiastical possessions are held, “Our Lord himself,” saith St. Augustine, “had coffers to keep those things which the faithful offered unto him. Then was the form of the church treasury first instituted, to the end that withal we might understand that in forbidding to be careful for tomorrow, his purpose was not to bar his saints from keeping money, but to withdraw them from doing God service for wealth’s sake, and from forsaking righteousness through fear of losing their wealth.” The first gifts consecrated unto Christ after his departure out of the world were sums of money, in process of time other moveables were added, and at length goods unmoveable, churches and oratories hallowed to the honour of his glorious name, houses and lands for perpetuity conveyed unto him, inheritance given to remain his as long as the world should endure. “The Apostles,” saith Melchiades, “they foresaw that God would have his Church amongst the Gentiles, and for that cause in Judea they took no lands but price of lands sold.” This he conjectureth to have been the cause why the Apostles did that which the history reporteth of them. The truth is, that so the state of those times did require, as well otherwhere as in Judea. Wherefore when afterwards it did appear much more commodious for the Church to dedicate such inheritances, than the value and price of them being sold; the former custom was changed for this, as for the better. The devotion of Constantine herein all the world even till this very day admireth. They that lived in the prime of the Christian world thought no testament Christianly made, nor any thing therein well bequeathed, unless something were thereby added unto Christ’s patrimony.Touching which men, what judgment the world doth now give I know not; perhaps we deem them to have been herein but blind and superstitious persons. Nay, we in these

cogitations are blind; they contrariwise did with Solomon plainly know and persuade themselves, that thus to diminish their wealth was not to diminish but to augment it, according to that which God doth promise to his own people by the Prophet Malachi, and which they by their own particular experience found true. If Wickliff therefore were of that opinion which his adversaries ascribe unto him (whether truly or of purpose to make him odious I cannot tell, for in his writings I do not find it) namely, “That Constantine and others following his steps did evil, as having no sufficient ground whereby they might gather that such donations are acceptable to Jesus Christ;” it was in Wickliff a palpable error. I will use but one only argument to stand in the stead of many. Jacob taking his journey unto Haran made in this sort his solemn vow1: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this journey which I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothes to put on, so that I come again to my father’s house in safety; then shall the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set up a pillar shall be the house of God, and of all that thou shalt give me will I give the tenth unto thee.” May a Christian man desire as great things as Jacob did at the hands of God? may he desire them in as earnest manner? may he promise as great thankfulness in acknowledging the goodness of God? may he vow any certain kind of public acknowledgment beforehand; or though he vow it not, perform it after in such sort that men may see he is persuaded how the Lord hath been his God? Are these particular kind of testifying thankfulness to God, the erecting of oratories, the dedicating of lands and goods to maintain them, forbidden any where? Let any mortal man living shew but one reason wherefore in this point to follow Jacob’s example should not be a thing both acceptable unto God, and in the eyes of the world for ever most highly commendable. Concerning goods of this nature, goods whereof when we speak we term them τὰ τῳ̑ Θεῳ̑ ἀϕιερωθέντα, the goods that are consecrated unto God, and as Tertullian speaketh, deposita pietatis, things which piety and devotion hath laid up as it were in the bosom of God; touching such goods, the law civil following mere light of nature defineth them to be no man’s, because no mortal man, or community of men, hath right of propriety in them. That ecclesiastical persons are receivers of God’s rents; and that the honour of Prelates is, to be thereof his chief receivers; not without liberty from him granted, of converting the same unto their own use, even in large manner.XXIII. Persons ecclesiastical are God’s stewards, not only for that he hath set them over his family, as the ministers of ghostly food, but even for this very cause also, that they are to receive and dispose his temporal revenues, the gifts and oblations which men bring him. Of the Jews it is plain that their tithes they offered unto the Lord, and those offerings the Lord bestowed upon the Levites. When the Levites gave the tenth of their tithes, this their gift the Law doth term the Lord’s heave-offering, and appoint that the high-priest should receive the same. Of spoils taken in war, that part which they were accustomed to separate unto God, they brought it before the priest of the Lord, by whom it was laid up in the tabernacle of the congregation, for a memorial of their thankfulness towards God, and his goodness towards them in fighting for them against their enemies. As therefore the Apostle magnifieth the honour of Melchisedec, in that he being an high-priest, did receive at the hands of Abraham the tithes which Abraham did honour God with; so it argueth in the Apostles themselves great honour, that at their feet the price of those possessions was laid, which men thought good to bestow on Christ. St. Paul commending the churches

which were in Macedonia for their exceeding liberality this way, saith of them that he himself would bear record, they had declared their forward minds according to their power, yea, beyond their power, and had so much exceeded his expectation of them, that “they seemed as it were even to give away themselves first to the Lord,” saith the Apostle, “and then by the will of God unto us:” to him, as the owner of such gifts; to us, as his appointed receivers and dispensers. The gift of the Church of Antioch, bestowed unto the use of distressed brethren which were in Judea, Paul and Barnabas did deliver unto the presbyters of Jerusalem; and the head of those presbyters was James, he therefore the chiefest disposer thereof. Amongst those canons which are entitled Apostolical, one is this, “We appoint that the Bishop have care of those things which belong to the Church;” the meaning is, of church goods, as the reason following sheweth: “For if the precious souls of men must be committed unto him of trust, much more it behoveth the charge of money to be given him, that by his authority the presbyters and deacons may administer all things to them that stand in need.” So that he which hath done them the honour to be, as it were, his treasurers, hath left them also authority and power to use these treasures, both otherwise, and for the maintenance even of their own estate: the lower sort of the clergy according unto a meaner, the higher after a larger proportion.The use of spiritual goods and possessions hath been a matter much disputed of; grievous complaints there are usually made against the evil and unlawful usage of them, but with no certain determination hitherto, on what things and persons, with what proportion and measure they being bestowed, do retain their lawful use. Some men condemn it as idle, superfluous, and altogether vain, that any part of the treasure of God should be spent upon costly ornaments appertaining unto his service: who being best worshipped, when he is served in spirit and truth, hath not for want of pomp and magnificence rejected at any time those who with faithful hearts have adored him. Whereupon the heretics, termed Henriciani and Petrobrusiani, threw down temples and houses of prayer erected with marvellous great charge, as being in that respect not fit for Christ by us to be honoured in.We deny not, but that they who sometime wandered as pilgrims on earth, and had no temples, but made caves and dens to pray in, did God such honour as was most acceptable in his sight: God did not reject them for their poverty and nakedness’ sake; their sacraments were not abhorred for want of vessels of gold. Howbeit, let them who thus delight to plead, answer me: when Moses first, and afterwards David, exhorted the people of Israel unto matter of charge about the service of God; suppose we it had been allowable in them to have thus pleaded: “Our fathers in Egypt served God devoutly, God was with them in all their afflictions, he heard their prayers, pitied their case, and delivered them from the tyranny of their oppressors; what house, tabernacle, or temple had they?” Such argumentations are childish and fond; God doth not refuse to be honoured at all where there lacketh wealth; but where abundance and store is, he there requireth the flower thereof, being bestowed on him, to be employed even unto the ornament of his service. In Egypt the state of his people was servitude, and therefore his service was accordingly. In the desert they had no sooner aught of their own, but a tabernacle is required; and in the land of Canaan a temple. In the eyes of

David it seemed a thing not fit, a thing not decent, that himself should be more richly seated than God.But concerning the use of ecclesiastical goods bestowed this way, there is not so much contention amongst us, as what measure of allowance is fit for ecclesiastical persons to be maintained with. A better rule in this case to judge things by we cannot possibly have than the wisdom of God himself: by considering what he thought meet for each degree of the clergy to enjoy in time of the Law, what for Levites, what for priests, and what for high priests, somewhat we shall be the more able to discern rightly what may be fit, convenient, and right for the Christian clergy likewise. Priests for their maintenance had those first fruits of cattle, corn, wine, oil, and other commodities of the earth, which the Jews were accustomed yearly to present God with. They had the price which was appointed for men to pay in lieu of the first-born of their children, and the price of the first-born also amongst cattle which were unclean: they had the vowed gifts of the people, or the prices, if they were redeemable by the donors after vow, as some things were: they had the free and unvowed oblations of men: they had the remainder of things sacrificed: with tithes the Levites were maintained; and with the tithe of their tithes the high-priest. In a word, if the quality of that which God did assign to his clergy be considered, and their manner of receiving it without labour, expense, or charge, it will appear that the tribe of Levi, being but the twelfth part of Israel, had in effect as good as four twelfth parts of all such goods as the holy land did yield: so that their worldly estate was four times as good as any other tribe’s in Israel besides. But the high-priests’ condition, how ample! to whom belonged the tenth of all the tithe of this land, especially the law providing also, that as the people did bring the best of all things unto the priests and Levites, so the Levites should deliver the choice and flower of all their commodities to the high-priest, and so his tenth part by that mean be made the very best part amongst ten: by which proportion, if the Levites were ordinarily in all not above thirty thousand men, (whereas when David numbered them10 , he found almost thirty-eight thousand above the age of thirty years,) the high-priest, after this very reckoning, had as much as three or four thousand others of the clergy to live upon. Over and besides all this, lest the priests of Egypt, holding lands, should seem in that respect better provided for than the priests of the true God, it pleased him further to appoint unto them forty and eight whole cities with territories of land adjoining, to hold as their own free inheritance for ever. For to the end they might have all kind of encouragement, not only to do what they ought, but to take pleasure in that they did; albeit they were expressly forbidden to have any part of the land of Canaan laid out whole to themselves, by themselves, in such sort as the rest of the tribes had; forasmuch as the will of God was rather that they should throughout all tribes be dispersed, for the easier access of the people unto knowledge; yet were they not barred altogether to hold a land [hold land?] i, nor yet otherwise the worse provided for, in respect of that former restraint; for God by way of special preeminence undertook to feed them at his own table, and out of his own proper treasury to maintain them, that want and penury they might never feel, except God himself did first receive injury.A thing most worthy our consideration is the wisdom of God herein; for the common

sort being prone unto envy and murmur, little considereth of what necessity, use and importance the sacred duties of the clergy are, and for that cause hardly yieldeth them any such honour without repining and grudging thereat; they cannot brook it, that when they have laboured and come to reap, there should so great a portion go out of the fruit of their labours, and be yielded up unto such as sweat not for it. But when the Lord doth challenge this as his own due, and require it to be done by way of homage unto him, whose mere liberality and goodness had raised them from a poor and servile estate, to place them where they had all those ample and rich possessions; they must be worse than brute beasts if they would storm at any thing which he did receive at their hands. And for him to bestow his own on his own servants (which liberty is not denied unto the meanest of men), what man liveth that can think it other than most reasonable? Wherefore no cause there was, why that which the clergy had should in any man’s eye seem too much, unless God himself were thought to be of an over-having disposition. This is the mark whereat all those speeches drive, “Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren, the Lord is his inheritance;” again, “To the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance, the sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel an inheritance of Levi;” again, “The tithes of the which they shall offer as an offering unto the Lord, I have given the Levites for an inheritance;” and again, “All the heave offerings of the holy things which the children of Israel shall offer unto the Lord, I have given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, to be a duty for ever; it is a perpetual covenant of salt before the Lord.”Now that if such provision be possible to be made, the Christian clergy ought not herein to be inferior unto the Jewish, what sounder proof than the Apostle’s own kind of argument? “Do ye not know that they which minister about the holy things eat of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? so, even so, hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.” Upon which words I thus conclude, that if the people of God do abound, and abounding can so far forth find in their hearts to shew themselves towards Christ their Saviour thankful as to honour him with their riches (which no law of God or nature forbiddeth) no less than the ancient Jewish people did honour God; the plain ordinance of Christ appointeth as large and as ample proportion out of his own treasure unto them that serve him in the gospel as ever the priests of the law did enjoy. What further proof can we desire? It is the blessed Apostle’s testimony, That “even so the Lord hath ordained.” Yea, I know not whether it be sound to interpret the Apostle otherwise than that, whereas he judgeth the presbyters “which rule well in the Church of Christ to be worthy of double honour,” he means double unto that which the priests of the law received; “For if that ministry which was of the letter were so glorious, how shall not the ministry of the spirit be more glorious?” If the teachers of the Law of Moses, which God delivered written with letters in tables of stone, were thought worthy of so great honour, how shall not the teachers of the gospel of Christ be in his sight most worthy, the Holy Ghost being sent from heaven to engrave the gospel on their hearts who first taught it, and whose successors they that teach it at this day are? So that according to the ordinance of God himself, their estate for worldly maintenance ought to be no worse than is granted unto other sorts of men, each according to that degree they were placed in.Neither are we so to judge of their worldly condition, as if they were servants of men,

and at men’s hands did receive those earthly benefits by way of stipend in lieu of pains whereunto they are hired; nay, that which is paid unto them is homage and tribute due unto the Lord Christ. His servants they are, and from him they receive such goods by way of stipend. Not so from men: for at the hands of men, he himself being honoured with such things, hath appointed his servants therewith according to their several degrees and places to be maintained. And for their greater encouragement who are his labourers he hath to their comfort assured them for ever, that they are in his estimation “worthy the hire” which he alloweth them; and therefore if men should withdraw from him the store which those his servants that labour in his work are maintained with, yet he in his word shall be found everlastingly true, their labour in the Lord shall not be forgotten; the hire he accounteth them worthy of, they shall surely have either one way or other answered.In the prime of the Christian world, that which was brought and laid down at the Apostles’ feet, they disposed of by distribution according to the exigence of each man’s need. Neither can we think that they who out of Christ’s treasury made provision for all others, were careless to furnish the clergy with all things fit and convenient for their estate: and as themselves were chiefest in place of authority and calling, so no man doubteth but that proportionably they had power to use the same for their own decent maintenance. The Apostles with the rest of the clergy in Jerusalem lived at that time according to the manner of a fellowship or collegiate society, maintaining themselves and the poor of the Church with a common purse, the rest of the faithful keeping that purse continually stored. And in that sense it is that the sacred history saith, “All which believed were in one place, and had all things common.” In the histories of the Church, and in the writings of the ancient Fathers for some hundreds of years after, we find no other way for the maintenance of the clergy but only this, the treasury of Jesus Christ furnished through men’s devotion, bestowing sometimes goods, sometimes lands that way, and out of his treasury the charge of the service of God was defrayed, the bishop and the clergy under him maintained, the poor in their necessity ministered unto. For which purpose, every bishop had some one of the presbyters under him to be treasurer of the church, to receive, keep, and deliver all; which office in churches cathedral remaineth even till this day, albeit the use thereof be not altogether so large now as heretofore.The disposition of these goods was by the appointment of the bishop. Wherefore Prosper speaking of the bishop’s care herein saith, “It was necessary for one to be troubled therewith, to the end that the rest under him might be the freer to attend quietly their spiritual businesses.” And lest any man should imagine that bishops by this means were hindered themselves from attending the service of God, “Even herein,” saith he, “they do God service; for if those things which are bestowed on the Church be God’s, he doth the work of God, who not of a covetous mind, but with purpose of most faithful administration, taketh care of things consecrated unto God.” And forasmuch as the presbyters of every church could not all live with the bishop, partly for that their number was great, and partly because the people being once divided into parishes, such presbyters as had severally charge of them were by that mean more conveniently to live in the midst each of his own particular flock, therefore a competent number being fed at the same table with the bishop, the rest had their whole allowance

apart, which several allowances were called sportulae, and they who received them, sportulantes fratres. Touching the bishop, as his place and estate was higher, so likewise the proportion of his charges about himself being for that cause in all equity and reason greater, yet forasmuch as his stint herein was no other than it pleased himself to set, the rest (as the manner of inferiors is to think that they which are over them always have too much) grudged many times at the measure of the bishop’s private expense, perhaps not without cause. Howsoever, by this occasion there grew amongst them great heart-burning, quarrel and strife: where the bishops were found culpable, as eating too much beyond their tether, and drawing more to their own private maintenance than the proportion of Christ’s patrimony being not greatly abundant could bear, sundry constitutions hereupon were made to moderate the same, according to the Church’s condition in those times. Some before they were made bishops having been owners of ample possessions, sold them and gave them away to the poor: thus did Paulinus, Hilary, Cyprian, and sundry others. Hereupon they who entering into the same spiritual and high function held their secular possessions still were hardly thought of: and even when the case was fully resolved, that so to do was not unlawful, yet it grew a question, “whether they lawfully might then take any thing out of the public treasury of Christ:” a question, “whether bishops, holding by civil title sufficient to live of their own, were bound in conscience to leave the goods of the Church altogether to the use of others.” Of contentions about these matters there was no end, neither appeared there any possible way for quietness, otherwise than by making partition of church-revenues, according to the several ends and uses for which they did serve, that so the bishop’s part might be certain. Such partition being made, the bishop enjoyed his portion several to himself; the rest of the clergy likewise theirs; a third part was severed to the furnishing and upholding of the church; a fourth to the erection and maintenance of houses wherein the poor might have relief. After which separation made, lands and livings began every day to be dedicated unto each use severally, by means whereof every of them became in short time much greater than they had been for worldly maintenance, the fervent devotion of men being glad that this new opportunity was given of shewing zeal to the house of God in more certain order.By these things it plainly appeareth what proportion of maintenance hath been ever thought reasonable for a bishop; sith in that very partition agreed on to bring him unto his certain stint, as much is allowed unto him alone as unto all the clergy under him, namely, a fourth part of the whole yearly rents and revenues of the church. Nor is it likely, that before those temporalities which now are such eyesores were added unto the honour of bishops, their state was so mean as some imagine: for if we had no other evidence than the covetous and ambitious humour of heretics, whose impotent desires of aspiring thereunto, and extreme discontentment as oft as they were defeated, even this doth shew that the state of bishops was not a few degrees advanced above the rest. Wherefore of grand apostates which were in the very prime of the primitive Church, thus Lactantius above thirteen hundred years sithence testified, “Men of a slippery faith they were, who feigning that they knew and worshipped God, but seeking only that they might grow in wealth and honour, affected the place of the highest priesthood; whereunto when their betters were chosen before them, they thought it better to leave the Church, and to draw

their favourers with them, than to endure those men their governors, whom themselves desired to govern.”Now whereas against the present estate of bishops, and the greatness of their port, and the largeness of their expenses at this day, there is not any thing more commonly objected than those ancient canons, whereby they are restrained unto a far more sparing life, their houses, their retinue, their diet limited within a far more narrow compass than is now kept; we must know, that those laws and orders were made when bishops lived of the same purse which served as well for a number of others as them, and yet all at their disposing. So that convenient it was to provide that there might be a moderate stint appointed to measure their expenses by, lest others should be injured by their wastefulness. Contrariwise there is now no cause wherefore any such law should be urged, when bishops live only of that which hath been peculiarly allotted unto them. They having therefore temporalities and other revenues to bestow for their own private use, according to that which their state requireth, and no other having with them any such common interest therein, their own discretion is to be their law for this matter; neither are they to be pressed with the rigour of such ancient canons as were framed for other times, much less so odiously to be upbraided with unconformity unto the pattern of our Lord and Saviour’s estate, in such circumstances as himself did never mind to require that the rest of the world should of necessity be like him. Thus against the wealth of the clergy they allege how meanly Christ himself was provided for; against bishops’ palaces, his want of a hole to hide his head in; against the service done unto them, that “he came to minister, not to be ministered unto in the world.” Which things, as they are not unfit to control covetous, proud or ambitious desires of the ministers of Christ, and even of all Christians, whatsoever they be; and to teach men contentment of mind, how mean soever their estate is, considering that they are but servants to him, whose condition was far more abased than theirs is, or can be; so to prove such difference in state between us and him unlawful, they are of no force or strength at all. If one convented before their consistories, when he standeth to make his answer, should break out into invectives against their authority, and tell them that Christ, when he was on earth, did not sit to judge, but stand to be judged; would they hereupon think it requisite to dissolve their eldership, and to permit no tribunals, no judges at all, for fear of swerving from our Saviour’s example? If those men, who have nothing in their mouths more usual than the Poverty of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, allege not this as Julian sometime did Beati pauperes unto Christians, when his meaning was to spoil them of that they had; our hope is then, that as they seriously and sincerely wish that our Saviour Christ in this point may be followed, and to that end only propose his blessed example; so at our hands again they will be content to hear with like willingness the holy Apostle’s exhortation made unto them of the laity also, “Be ye followers of us, even as we are of Christ; let us be your example, even as the Lord Jesus Christ is ours, that we may all proceed by one and the same rule.” That for their unworthiness to deprive both them and their successors of such goods, and to convey the same unto men of secular calling, were extreme sacrilegious injustice.XXIV. But beware we of following Christ as thieves follow true men, to take their goods by violence from them. Be it that bishops were all unworthy, not only of

living, but even of life, yet what hath our Lord Jesus Christ deserved, for which men should judge him worthy to have the things that are his given away from him unto others that have no right unto them? For at this mark it is that the head lay-reformers do all aim. Must these unworthy prelates give place? What then? Shall better succeed in their rooms? Is this desired, to the end that others may enjoy their honours, which shall do Christ more faithful service than they have done? Bishops are the worst men living upon earth; therefore let their sanctified possessions be divided: amongst whom? O blessed reformation! O happy men, that put to their helping hands for the furtherance of so good and glorious a work!Wherefore albeit the whole world at this day do already perceive, and posterity be like hereafter a great deal more plainly to discern, not that the clergy of God is thus heaved at because they are wicked, but that means are used to put it into the heads of the simple multitude that they are such indeed, to the end that those who thirst for the spoil of spiritual possessions may till such time as they have their purpose be thought to covet nothing but only the just extinguishment of unreformable persons; so that in regard of such men’s intentions, practices, and machinations against them, the part that suffereth these things may most fitly pray with David, “Judge thou me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according unto mine innocency: O let the malice of the wicked come to an end, and be thou the guide of the just:” notwithstanding, forasmuch as it doth not stand with Christian humility otherwise to think, than that this violent outrage of men is a rod in the ireful hands of the Lord our God, the smart whereof we deserve to feel; let it not seem grievous in the eyes of my reverend lords the Bishops, if to their good consideration I offer a view of those sores which are in the kind of their heavenly function most apt to breed, and which being not in time cured, may procure at the length that which God of his infinite mercy avert.Of bishops in his time St. Jerome complaineth, that they took it in great disdain to have any fault great or small found with them. Epiphanius likewise before Jerome noteth their impatiency this way to have been the very cause of a schism in the Church of Christ; at what time one Audius, a man of great integrity of life, full of faith and zeal towards God, beholding those things which were corruptly done in the Church, told the bishops and presbyters their faults in such sort as those men are wont, who love the truth from their hearts, and walk in the paths of a most exact life. Whether it were covetousness or sensuality in their lives, absurdity or error in their teaching; any breach of the laws and canons of the Church wherein he espied them faulty, certain and sure they were to be thereof most plainly told. Which thing they whose dealings were justly culpable could not bear; but instead of amending their faults bent their hatred against him who sought their amendment, till at length they drove him by extremity of infestation, through weariness of striving against their injuries, to leave both them and with them the Church. Amongst the manifold accusations, either generally intended against the bishops of this our Church, or laid particularly to the charge of any of them, I cannot find that hitherto their spitefullest adversaries have been able to say justly, that any man for telling them their personal faults in good and Christian sort hath sustained in that respect much persecution. Wherefore notwithstanding mine own inferior estate and calling in God’s

Church, the consideration whereof assureth me, that in this kind the sweetest sacrifice which I can offer unto Christ is meek obedience, reverence and awe unto the prelates which he hath placed in seats of higher authority over me, emboldened I am, so far as may conveniently stand with that duty of humble subjection, meekly to crave, my good lords, your favourable pardon, if it shall seem a fault thus far to presume; or if otherwise, your wonted courteous acceptation. * —“Sine me haec haud mollia fatu * “Sublatis aperire dolis.” AEneid. lib. xii.First, In government, be it of what kind soever, but especially if it be such kind of government as prelates have over the Church, there is not one thing publicly more hurtful than that an hard opinion should be conceived of governors at the first: and a good opinion how should the world ever conceive of them for their after-proceedings in regiment, whose first access and entrance thereunto giveth just occasion to think them corrupt men, which fear not that God in whose name they are to rule? Wherefore a scandalous thing it is to the Church of God, and to the actors themselves dangerous, to have aspired unto rooms of prelacy by wicked means. We are not at this day troubled much with that tumultuous kind of ambition wherewith the elections of Damasus in St. Jerome’s age, and of Maximus in Gregory’s time, and of others, were long sithence stained. Our greatest fear is rather the evil which Leo and Anthemius did by imperial constitution endeavour as much as in them lay to prevent. He which granteth, or he which receiveth the office and dignity of a bishop, otherwise than beseemeth a thing divine and most holy; he which bestoweth, and he which obtaineth it after any other sort than were honest and lawful to use, if our Lord Jesus Christ were present himself on earth to bestow it even with his own hands, sinneth a sin by so much more grievous than the sin of Belshazzar, by how much offices and functions heavenly are more precious than the meanest ornaments or implements which thereunto appertain. If it be as the Apostle saith, that the Holy Ghost doth make bishops, and that the whole action of making them is God’s own deed, men being therein but his agents; what spark of the fear of God can there possibly remain in their hearts, who representing the person of God in naming worthy men to ecclesiastical charge, do sell that which in his name they are to bestow; or who standing as it were at the throne of the living God do bargain for that which at his hands they are to receive? Woe worth such impious and irreligious profanations! The Church of Christ hath been hereby made, not “a den of thieves,” but in a manner the very dwelling-place of foul spirits; for undoubtedly such a number of them have been in all ages who thus have climbed into seat of episcopal regiment.Secondly, Men may by orderly means be invested with spiritual authority and yet do harm by reason of ignorance how to use it to the good of the Church. “It is,” saith Chrysostom, “πολλου̑ µὲν ἀξιώµατος, δύσκολον δὲ, ἐπισκοπει̑ν; a thing highly to be accounted of, but an hard thing, to be that which a bishop should be.” Yea a hard and a toilsome thing it is for a bishop to know the things that belong unto a bishop. A right good man may be a very unfit magistrate. And for discharge of a bishop’s office, to be

well-minded is not enough, no not to be well learned also. Skill to instruct is a thing necessary, skill to govern much more necessary in a bishop. It is not safe for the Church of Christ, when bishops learn what belongeth unto government, as empirics learn physic by killing of the sick. Bishops were wont to be men of great learning in the laws both civil and of the Church; and while they were so, the wisest men in the land for counsel and government were bishops.Thirdly, Know we never so well what belongeth unto a charge of so great moment, yet can we not therein proceed but with hazard of public detriment, if we rely on ourselves alone, and use not the benefit of conference with others. A singular mean to unity and concord amongst themselves, a marvellous help unto uniformity in their dealings, no small addition of weight and credit unto that which they do, a strong bridle unto such as watch for occasions to stir against them, finally, a very great stay unto all that are under their government, it could not choose but be soon found, if bishops did often and seriously use the help of mutual consultation.These three rehearsed are things only preparatory unto the course of episcopal proceedings. But the hurt is more manifestly seen which doth grow to the Church of God by faults inherent in their several actions, as when they carelessly ordain, when they institute negligently, when corruptly they bestow church-livings, benefices, prebends, and rooms especially of jurisdiction, when they visit for gain’s sake rather than with serious intent to do good, when their courts erected for the maintenance of good order, are disordered, when they regard not the clergy under them, when neither clergy nor laity are kept in that awe for which this authority should serve, when any thing appeareth in them rather than a fatherly affection towards the flock of Christ, when they have no respect to posterity, and finally when they neglect the true and requisite means whereby their authority should be upheld. Surely the hurt which groweth out of these defects must needs be exceeding great. In a minister, ignorance and disability to teach is a maim; nor is it held a thing allowable to ordain such, were it not for the avoiding of a greater evil which the church must needs sustain, if in so great scarcity of able men, and unsufficiency of most parishes throughout the land to maintain them, both public prayer and the administration of sacraments should rather want, than any man thereunto be admitted lacking dexterity and skill to perform that which otherwise was most requisite. Wherefore the necessity of ordaining such is no excuse for the rash and careless ordaining of every one that hath but a friend to bestow some two or three words of ordinary commendation in his behalf. By reason whereof the Church groweth burdened with silly creatures more than need, whose noted baseness and insufficiency bringeth their very order itself into contempt. It may be that the fear of a Quare impedit doth cause institutions to pass more easily than otherwise they would. And to speak plainly the very truth, it may be that writs of Quare non impedit were for these times most necessary in the other’s place: yet where law will not suffer men to follow their own judgment, to shew their judgment they are not hindered. And I doubt not but that even conscienceless and wicked patrons, of which sort the swarms are too great in the church of England, are the more emboldened to present unto bishops any refuse, by finding so easy acceptation thereof. Somewhat they might

redress this sore, notwithstanding so strong impediments, if it did plainly appear that they took it indeed to heart, and were not in a manner contented with it.Shall we look for care in admitting whom others present, if that which some of yourselves confer be at any time corruptly bestowed? A foul and an ugly kind of deformity it hath, if a man do but think what it is for a bishop to draw commodity and gain from those things whereof he is left a free bestower, and that in trust, without any other obligation than his sacred order only, and that religious integrity which hath been presumed on in him. Simoniacal corruption I may not for honour’s sake suspect to be amongst men of so great place. So often they do not I trust offend by sale, as by unadvised gift of such preferments, wherein that ancient canon should specially be remembered, which forbiddeth a bishop to be led by human affection in bestowing the things of God. A fault no where so hurtful, as in bestowing places of jurisdiction, and in furnishing cathedral churches, the prebendaries and other dignities whereof are the very true successors of those ancient presbyters which were at the first as counsellors unto bishops. A foul abuse it is, that any one man should be loaded as some are with livings in this kind, yea some even of them who condemn utterly the granting of any two benefices unto the same man, whereas the other is in truth a matter of far greater sequel, as experience would soon shew, if churches cathedral being furnished with the residence of a competent number of virtuous, grave, wise and learned divines, the rest of the prebends of every such church were given within the diocess unto men of worthiest desert, for their better encouragement unto industry and travel; unless it seem also convenient to extend the benefit of them unto the learned in universities, and men of special employment otherwise in the affairs of the Church of God. But howsoever, surely with the public good of the Church it will hardly stand, that in any one person such favours be more multiplied than law permitteth in those livings which are with cure.Touching bishops’ visitations, the first institution of them was profitable, to the end that the state and condition of churches being known, there might be for evils growing convenient remedies provided in due time. The observation of church laws, the correction of faults in the service of God and manners of men, these are things that visitors should seek. When these things are inquired of formally, and but for custom’s sake, fees and pensions being the only thing which is sought, and little else done by visitations; we are not to marvel if the baseness of the end doth make the action itself loathsome. The good which bishops may do not only by these visitations belonging ordinarily to their office, but also in respect of that power which the founders of colleges have given them of special trust, charging even fearfully their consciences therewith: the good, I say, which they might do by this their authority, both within their own diocess, and in the well- springs themselves, the universities, is plainly such as cannot choose but add weight to their heavy accounts in that dreadful day if they do it not.In their courts, where nothing but singular integrity and justice should prevail, if palpable and gross corruptions be found, by reason of offices so often granted unto men who seek nothing but their own gain, and make no account what disgrace doth grow by their unjust dealings unto them under whom they deal, the evil hereof shall work more than they which procure it do perhaps imagine.

At the hands of a bishop the first thing looked for is a care of the clergy under him, a care that in doing good they may have whatsoever comforts and encouragements his countenance, authority and place may yield. Otherwise what heart shall they have to proceed in their painful course, all sorts of men besides being so ready to malign, despise and every way oppress them? Let them find nothing but disdain in bishops; in the enemies of present government, if that way they list to betake themselves, all kind of favourable and friendly helps; unto which part think we it likely that men having wit, courage and stomach, will incline? As great a fault is the want of severity when need requireth, as of kindness and courtesy in bishops. But touching this, what with ill usage of their power amongst the meaner, and what with disusage amongst the higher sort, they are in the eyes of both sorts as bees that have lost their sting. It is a long time sithence any great one hath felt, or almost any one much feared the edge of that ecclesiastical severity, which sometime held lords and dukes in a more religious awe than now the meanest are able to be kept.A bishop, in whom there did plainly appear the marks and tokens of a fatherly affection towards them that are under his charge, what good might he do ten thousand ways more than any man knows how to set down? But the souls of men are not loved, that which Christ shed his blood for is not esteemed precious. This is the very root, the fountain of all negligence in church-government.Most wretched are the terms of men’s estate when once they are at a point of wretchedness so extreme, that they bend not their wits any further than only to shift out the present time, never regarding what shall become of their successors after them. Had our predecessors so loosely cast off from them all care and respect to posterity, a Church Christian there had not been about the regiment whereof we should need at this day to strive. It was the barbarous affection of Nero, that the ruin of his own imperial seat he could have been well enough contented to see, in case he might also have seen it accompanied with the fall of the whole world: an affection not more intolerable than theirs, who care not to overthrow all posterity, so they may purchase a few days of ignominious safety unto themselves and their present estates; if it may be termed a safety which tendeth so fast unto their very overthrow that are the purchasers of it in so vile and base manner. Men whom it standeth upon to uphold a reverend estimation of themselves in the minds of others, without which the very best things they do are hardly able to escape disgrace, must before it be over late remember how much easier it is to retain credit once gotten, than to recover it being lost. The executors of bishops are sued if their mansion-house be suffered to go to decay: but whom shall their successors sue for the dilapidations which they make of that credit, the unrepaired diminutions whereof will in time bring to pass, that they which would most do good in that calling shall not be able, by reason of prejudice generally settled in the minds of all sorts against them?By what means their estimation hath hitherto decayed, it is no hard thing to discern. Herod and Archelaus are noted to have sought out purposely the dullest and most ignoble that could be found amongst the people, preferring such to the high priest’s office,

thereby to abate the great opinion which the multitude had of that order, and to procure a more expedite course for their own wicked counsels, whereunto they saw the high priests were no small impediment, as long as the common sort did much depend upon them. It may be there hath been partly some show and just suspicion of like practice in some, in procuring the undeserved preferments of some unworthy persons, the very cause of whose advancement hath been principally their unworthiness to be advanced. But neither could this be done altogether without the inexcusable fault of some preferred before, and so oft we cannot imagine it to have been done, that either only or chiefly from thence this decay of their estimation may be thought to grow. Somewhat it is that the malice of their cunning adversaries, but much more which themselves have effected against themselves.A bishop’s estimation doth grow from the excellency of virtues suitable unto his place. Unto the place of a bishop those high divine virtues are judged suitable, which virtues being not easily found in other sorts of great men, do make him appear so much the greater in whom they are found. Devotion and the feeling sense of religion are not usual in the noblest, wisest, and chiefest personages of state, by reason their wits are so much employed another way, and their minds so seldom conversant in heavenly things. If therefore wherein themselves are defective they see that bishops do blessedly excel, it frameth secretly their hearts to a stooping kind of disposition, clean opposite to contempt. The very countenance of Moses was glorious after that God had conferred with him. And where bishops are, the powers and faculties of whose souls God hath possessed, those very actions, the kind whereof is common unto them with other men, have notwithstanding in them a more high and heavenly form, which draweth correspondent estimation unto it, by virtue of that celestial impression, which deep meditation of holy things, and as it were conversation with God doth leave in their minds. So that bishops which will be esteemed of as they ought, must frame themselves to that very pattern from whence those Asian bishops unto whom St. John writeth were denominated, even so far forth as this our frailty will permit; shine they must as angels of God in the midst of perverse men. They are not to look that the world should always carry the affection of Constantine, to bury that which might derogate from them, and to cover their imbecilities. More than high time it is that they bethink themselves of the Apostle’s admonition, Attende tibi, “Have a vigilant eye to thyself.” They err if they do not persuade themselves that wheresoever they walk or sit, be it in their churches or in their consistories, abroad and at home, at their tables or in their closets, they are in the midst of snares laid for them. Wherefore as they are with the prophet every one of them to make it their hourly prayer unto God, “Lead me O Lord in thy righteousness, because of enemies2;” so it is not safe for them, no not for a moment, to slacken their industry in seeking every way that estimation which may further their labours unto the Church’s good. Absurdity, though but in words, must needs be this way a maim, where nothing but wisdom, gravity and judgment is looked for. That which the son of Sirach hath concerning the writings of the old sages, “Wise sentences are found in them,” should be the proper mark and character of bishops’ speeches, whose lips, as doors, are not to be opened, but for egress of instruction and sound knowledge. If base servility and dejection of mind be ever espied in them, how should men esteem them as worthy the rooms of the great ambassadors of God? A wretched desire to gain by bad and unseemly means standeth not with a mean man’s credit, much less with that reputation which Fathers of the Church

should be in. But if besides all this there be also coldness in works of piety and charity, utter contempt even of learning itself, no care to further it by any such helps as they easily might and ought to afford, no not as much as that due respect unto their very families about them, which all men that are of account do order as near as they can in such sort that no grievous offensive deformity be therein noted; if there still continue in that most reverend order such as, by so many engines, work day and night to pull down the whole frame of their own estimation amongst men, some of the rest secretly also permitting others their industrious opposites every day more and more to seduce the multitude; how should the Church of God hope for great good at their hands?What we have spoken concerning these things, let not malicious accusers think themselves therewith justified, no more than Shimei was by his sovereign’s most humble and meek acknowledgment even of that very crime which so impudent a caitiff’s tongue upbraided him withal; the one in the virulent rancour of a cankered affection, took that delight for the present, which in the end did turn to his own more tormenting woe; the other in the contrite patience even of deserved malediction had yet this comfort, “It may be the Lord will look on mine affliction, and do me good for his cursing this day.” As for us over whom Christ hath placed them to be the chiefest guides and pastors of our souls, our common fault is, that we look for much more in our governors than a tolerable sufficiency can yield, and bear much less than humanity and reason do require we should. Too much perfection over rigorously exacted in them, cannot but breed in us perpetual discontentment, and on both parts cause all things to be unpleasant. It is exceedingly worth the nothing, which Plato hath about the means whereby men fall into an utter dislike of all men with whom they converse2: “This sourness of mind which maketh every man’s dealings unsavoury in our taste, entereth by an unskilful overweening, which at the first we have of one, and so of another, in whom we afterwards find ourselves to have been deceived, they declaring themselves in the end to be frail men, whom we judged demigods. When we have oftentimes been thus beguiled, and that far besides expectation, we grow at the length to this plain conclusion, that there is nothing at all sound in any man. Which bitter conceit is unseemly, and plain to have risen from lack of mature judgment in human affairs; which if so be we did handle with art, we would not enter into dealings with men, otherwise than being beforehand grounded in this persuasion, that the number of persons notably good or bad is but very small; that the most part of good have some evil, and of evil men some good in them.” So true our experience doth find those aphorisms of Mercurius Trismegistus, Ἀδύνατον τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἐνθάδε καθαρεύειν τη̑ς κακίας, “to purge goodness quite and clean from all mixture of evil here is a thing impossible.” Again, Τὸ µὴ λίαν κακὸν ἐνθάδε τὸ ἀγαθόν ἐστι, “when in this world we term a thing good, we cannot by exact construction have any other true meaning, than that the said thing so termed is not noted to be a thing exceedingly evil.” And again, Μόνον, ὡ̑ Ἀσκλήπιε, τὸ ὄνοµα του̑ ἀγαθου̑ ἐν ἀνθρώποις, τὸ δὲ ἔργον οὐδαµου̑, “Amongst men, O AEsculapius, the name of that which is good we find, but no where the very true thing itself.” When we censure the deeds and dealings of our superiors, to bring with us a fore-conceit thus qualified, shall be as well on our part as theirs a thing available unto quietness.But howsoever the case doth stand with men’s either good or bad quality, the

verdict which our Lord and Saviour hath given, should continue for ever sure; “Quae Dei sunt, Deo;” let men bear the burden of their own iniquity; as for those things which are God’s, let not God be deprived of them. For if only to withhold that which should be given be no better than to rob God, if to withdraw any mite of that which is but in propose [purpose?] only bequeathed, though as yet undelivered into the sacred treasure of God, be a sin for which Ananias and Sapphira felt so heavily the dreadful hand of divine revenge; quite and clean to take that away which we never gave, and that after God hath for so many ages therewith been possessed, and that without any other shew of cause, saving only that it seemeth in their eyes who seek it to be too much for them which have it in their hands, can we term it or think it less than most impious injustice, most heinous sacrilege? Such was the religious affection of Joseph, that it suffered him not to take that advantage, no not against the very idolatrous priests of Egypt, which he took for the purchasing of other men’s lands to the king; but he considered, that albeit their idolatry deserved hatred, yet for the honour’s sake due unto priesthood, better it was the king himself should yield them relief in public extremity, than permit that the same necessity should constrain also them to do as the rest of the people did.But it may be men have now found out, that God hath proposed the Christian clergy as a prey for all men freely to seize upon; that God hath left them as the fishes of the sea, which every man that listeth to gather into his net may; or that there is no God in heaven to pity them, and to regard the injuries which man doth lay upon them: yet the public good of this church and commonwealth doth, I hope, weigh somewhat in the hearts of all honestly disposed men. Unto the public good no one thing is more directly available, than that such as are in place, whether it be of civil or of ecclesiastical authority, be so much the more largely furnished even with external helps and ornaments of this life, [by?] how much the more highly they are in power and calling advanced above others. For nature is not contented with bare sufficiency unto the sustenance of man, but doth evermore covet a decency proportionable unto the place which man hath in the body or society of others. For according unto the greatness of men’s calling, the measure of all their actions doth grow in every man’s secret expectation, so that great men do always know that great things are at their hands expected. In a bishop great liberality, great hospitality, actions in every kind great are looked for: and for actions which must be great, mean instruments will not serve. Men are but men, what room soever amongst men they hold. If therefore the measure of their worldly abilities be beneath that proportion which their calling doth make to be looked for at their hands, a stronger inducement it is than perhaps men are aware of unto evil and corrupt dealings for supply of that defect. For which cause we must needs think it a thing necessary unto the common good of the Church, 20. that great jurisdiction being granted unto bishops over others, a state of wealth proportionable should likewise be provided for them. Where wealth is had in so great admiration, as generally in this golden age it is, that without it angelical perfections are not able to deliver from extreme contempt, surely to make bishops poorer than they are, were to make them of less account and estimation than they should be. Wherefore if detriment and dishonour do grow to religion, to God, to his Church, when the public account which is made of the chief of the clergy decayeth, how should it be but in this respect for the good of religion, of God, of his Church, that the wealth of bishops be carefully preserved from further diminution?

The travels and crosses wherewith prelacy is never unaccompanied, they which feel them know how heavy and how great they are. Unless such difficulties therefore annexed unto that estate be tempered by co-annexing thereunto things esteemed of in this world, how should we hope that the minds of men, shunning naturally the burdens of each function, will be drawn to undertake the burden of episcopal care and labour in the Church of Christ? Wherefore if long we desire to enjoy the peace, quietness, order and stability of religion, which prelacy (as hath been declared) causeth, then must we necessarily, even in favour of the public good, uphold those things, the hope whereof being taken away, it is not the mere goodness of the charge, and the divine acceptation thereof, that will be able to invite many thereunto.What shall become of that commonwealth or church in the end, which hath not the eye of learning to beautify, guide and direct it? At the length what shall become of that learning, which hath not wherewith any more to encourage her industrious followers? And finally, what shall become of that courage to follow learning, which hath already so much failed through the only diminution of her chiefest rewards, bishoprics? Surely wheresoever this wicked intendment of overthrowing cathedral churches, or of taking away those livings, lands and possessions which bishops hitherto have enjoyed, shall once prevail, the handmaids attending thereupon will be paganism and extreme barbarity.In the Law of Moses, how careful provision is made that goods of this kind might remain to the Church for ever: “Ye shall not make common the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die, saith the Lord.” Touching the fields annexed unto Levitical cities, the law was plain, they might not be sold; and the reason of the law, this, “for it was their possession for ever:” He which was Lord and owner of it, his will and pleasure was, that from the Levites it should never pass to be enjoyed by any other. The Lord’s own portion, without his own commission and grant, how should any man justly hold? They which hold it by his appointment had it plainly with this condition, “They shall not sell of it, neither change it, nor alienate the first-fruits of the land; for it is holy unto the Lord.” It falleth sometimes out, as the prophet Habakkuk noteth, that the very “prey of savage beasts becometh dreadful unto themselves.” It did so in Judas, Achan, Nebuchadnezzar; their evil-purchased goods were their snare, and their prey their own terror; a thing no where so likely to follow, as in those goods and possessions, which being laid where they should not rest, have by the Lord’s own testimony his most bitter curse their undividable companion.These persuasions we use for other men’s cause, not for theirs with whom God and religion are parts of the abrogated law of ceremonies. Wherefore not to continue longer in the cure of a sore desperate, there was a time when the clergy had almost as little as these good people wish. But the kings of this realm and others whom God had blest, considered devoutly with themselves, as David in like case sometimes had done, “Is it meet that we at the hands of God should enjoy all kinds of abundance, and God’s clergy suffer want?” They considered that of Solomon, “Honour God with thy substance, and the chiefest of all thy revenue; so shall thy barns be filled with corn, and thy vessels shall run over with new wine.” They considered how the care which Jehosaphat had, in providing that the

Levites might have encouragement to do the work of the Lord cheerfully, was left of God as a fit pattern to be followed in the Church for ever. They considered what promise our Lord and Saviour had made unto them, at whose hands his prophets should receive but the least part of the meanest kind of friendliness, though it were but a draught of water; which promise seemeth not [now?] to be taken, as if Christ had made them of any higher courtesy uncapable, and had promised reward not unto such as give them but that, but unto such as leave them but that. They considered how earnest the Apostle is, that if the ministers of the law were so amply provided for, less care then ought not to be had of them, who under the gospel of Jesus Christ possess correspondent rooms in the Church. They considered how needful it is that they who provoke all others unto works of mercy and charity should especially have wherewith to be examples of such things, and by such means to win them, with whom other means without those do commonly take very small effect. In these and the like considerations, the Church revenues were in ancient times augmented, our Lord thereby performing manifestly the promise made to his servants, that they which did “leave either father, or mother, or lands, or goods, for his sake, should receive even in this world an hundred fold.” For some hundreds of years together, they which joined themselves to the Church were fain to relinquish all worldly emoluments and to endure the hardness of an afflicted estate. Afterward the Lord gave rest to his Church, kings and princes became as fathers thereunto, the hearts of all men inclined towards it, and by his providence there grew unto it every day earthly possessions in more and more abundance, till the greatness thereof bred envy, which no diminutions are able to satisfy.For as those ancient nursing Fathers thought they did never bestow enough; even so in the eye of this present age, as long as any thing remaineth, it seemeth to be too much. Our fathers we imitate in perversum, as Tertullian speaketh; like them we are, by being in equal degree the contrary unto that which they were. Unto those earthly blessings which God as then did with so great abundance pour down upon the ecclesiastical state, we may in regard of most near resemblance apply the selfsame words which the prophet hath, “God blessed them exceedingly, and by this very mean turned the hearts of their own brethren to hate them, and to deal politicly with his servants.” Computations are made, and there are huge sums set down, for princes to see how much they may amplify and enlarge their own treasure; how many public burdens they may ease; what present means they may have to reward their servants about them, if they please but to grant their assent, and to accept of the spoil of bishops, by whom church goods are but abused unto pomp and vanity. Thus albeit they deal with one whose princely virtue giveth them small hope to prevail in impious and sacrilegious motions, yet shame they not to move her royal majesty even with a suit not much unlike unto that wherewith the Jewish high priest [priests?] tried Judas, whom they solicited unto treason against his Master, and proposed unto him a number of silver pence in lieu of so virtuous and honest a service. But her sacred majesty disposed to be always like herself, her heart so far estranged from willingness to gain by pillage of that estate, the only awe whereof under God she hath been unto this present hour, as of all other parts of this noble commonwealth, whereof she hath vowed herself a protector till the end of her days on earth, which if nature could permit, we wish, as good cause we have, endless: this her gracious inclination is more than a seven times sealed warrant, upon the same assurance whereof, touchingm any

action so dishonourable as this, we are on her part most secure, not doubting but that unto all posterity it shall for ever appear, that from the first to the very last of her sovereign proceedings there hath not been one authorized deed other than consonant with that Symmachus saith, “Fiscus bonorum principum, non sacerdotum damnis, sed hostium spoliis augeatur:” consonant with that imperial law, “Ea quae ad beatissimae ecclesiae jura pertinent, tanquam ipsam sacrosanctam et religiosam ecclesiam, intacta convenit venerabiliter custodiri; ut sicut ipsa religionis et fidei mater perpetua est, ita ejus patrimonium jugiter servetur illaesum.”As for the case of public burdens, let any politician living make it appear, that by confiscation of bishops’ livings, and their utter dissolution at once, the commonwealth shall ever have half that relief and ease which it receiveth by their continuance as now they are, and it shall give us some cause to think, that albeit we see they are impiously and irreligiously minded, yet we may esteem them at least to be tolerable commonwealth’s-men. But the case is too clear and manifest, the world doth but too plainly see it that no one order of subjects whatsoever within this land doth bear the seventh part of that proportion which the clergy beareth in the burdens of the commonwealth. No revenue of the crown like unto it, either for certainty or for greatness. Let the good which this way hath grown to the commonwealth by the dissolution of religious houses, teach men what ease unto public burdens there is like to grow by the overthrow of the clergy. My meaning is not hereby to make the state of bishoprick and of those dissolved companies alike, the one no less unlawful to be removed than the other. For those religious persons were men which followed only a special kind of contemplative life in the commonwealth, they were properly no portion of God’s clergy (only such amongst them excepted as were also priests), their goods (that excepted which they unjustly held through the pope’s usurped power of appropriating ecclesiastical livings unto them) may in part seem to be of the nature of civil possessions, held by other kinds of corporations, such as the city of London hath divers. Wherefore as their institution was human, and their end for the most part superstitious, they had not therein merely that holy and divine interest which belongeth unto bishops, who being employed by Christ in the principal service of his Church, are receivers and disposers of his patrimony, as hath been shewed, which whosoever shall withhold or withdraw at any time from them, he undoubtedly robbeth God himself.If they abuse the goods of the Church unto pomp and vanity, such faults we do not excuse in them. Only we wish it to be considered whether such faults be verily in them, or else but objected against them by such as gape after spoil, and therefore are no competent judges what is moderate and what excessive in them, whom under this pretence they would spoil. But the accusation may be just. In plenty and fulness it may be we are of God more forgetful than were requisite. Notwithstanding men should remember how not to the clergy alone it was said by Moses in Deuteronomy, “Ne cum manducaveris et biberis et domos optimas aedificaveris.” If the remedy prescribed for this disease be good, let it unpartially be applied. “Interest reipub. ut re sua quisque bene utatur.” Let all states be put to their moderate pensions, let their livings and lands be taken away from them whosoever they be, in whom such ample possessions are found to have been matters of grievous abuse: were this just? would noble families think this

reasonable? The title which bishops have to their livings is as good as the title of any sort of men unto whatsoever we account to be most justly held by them; yea in this one thing the claim of bishops hath preeminence above all secular titles of right, in that God’s own interest is the tenure whereby they hold, even as also it was to the priests of the law an assurance of their spiritual goods and possessions, whereupon, though they many times abused greatly the goods of the Church, yet was not God’s patrimony therefore taken away from them, and made saleable unto other tribes. To rob God, to ransack the Church, to overthrow the whole order of Christian bishops, and to turn them out of land and living, out of house and home, what man of common honesty can think it for any manner of abuse to be a remedy lawful or just? We must confess that God is righteous in taking away that which men abuse: but doth that excuse the violence of thieves and robbers?Complain we will not with St. Jerome, “That the hands of men are so straitly tied, and their liberal minds so much bridled and held back from doing good by augmentation of the Church patrimony.” For we confess that herein mediocrity may be and hath been sometime exceeded. There did want heretofore a Moses to temper men’s liberality, to say unto them who enriched the Church, Sufficit, Stay your hands, lest fervour of zeal do cause you to empty yourselves too far. It may be the largeness of men’s hearts being then more moderate, had been after more durable; and one state by too much overgrowing the rest, had not given occasion unto the rest to undermine it. That evil is now sufficiently cured: the Church treasury, if then it were over full, hath since been reasonable [reasonably?] well emptied. That which Moses spake unto givers, we must now inculcate unto takers away from the Church, Let there be some stay, some stint in spoiling. If “grape-gatherers came unto them,” saith the prophet, “would they not leave some remnant behind?” But it hath fared with the wealth of the Church as with a tower, which being built at the first with the highest, overthroweth itself after by its own greatness; neither doth the ruin thereof cease with the only fall of that which hath exceeded mediocrity, but one part beareth down another, till the whole be laid prostrate. For although the state ecclesiastical, both others and even bishops themselves, be now fallen to so low an ebb, as all the world at this day doth see; yet because there remaineth still somewhat which unsatiable minds can thirst for, therefore we seem not to have been hitherto sufficiently wronged. Touching that which hath been taken from the Church in appropriations known to amount to the value of one hundred twenty-six thousand pounds yearly, we rest contentedly and quietly without it, till it shall please God to touch the hearts of men, of their own voluntary accord, to restore it to him again; judging thereof no otherwise than some others did of those goods which were by Sylla taken away from the citizens of Rome, that albeit they were in truth male capta, unconscionably taken away from the right owners at the first, nevertheless, seeing that such as were after possessed of them held them not without some title, which law did after a sort made good, repetitio eorum proculdubio labefactabat compositam civitatem. What hath been taken away as dedicated unto uses superstitious, and consequently not given unto God, or at the leastwise not so rightly given, we repine not thereat. That which hath gone by means secret and indirect, through corrupt compositions or compacts, we cannot help. What the hardness of men’s hearts doth make them loth to have exacted, though being due by law, even thereof the want we do also bear. Out of that which after all these deductions cometh clearly unto our hands, I hope it will not be said that towards the

public charge we disburse nothing. And doth the residue seem yet excessive? The ways whereby temporal men provide for themselves and their families are fore-closed unto us. All that we have to sustain our miserable life with, is but a remnant of God’s own treasure, so far already diminished and clipped, that if there were any sense of common humanity left in this hard-hearted world, the impoverished estate of the clergy of God would at the length even of very commiseration be spared. The mean gentleman that hath but an hundred pound land to live on, would not be hasty to change his worldly estate and condition with many of these so over abounding prelates; a common artisan or tradesman of the city, with ordinary pastors of the Church.It is our hard and heavy lot, that no other sort of men being grudged at, how little benefit soever the public weal reap by them, no state complained of for holding that which hath grown unto them by lawful means; only the governors of our souls, they that study night and day so to guide us, that both in this world we may have comfort and in the world to come endless felicity and joy (for even such is the very scope of all their endeavours, this they wish, for this they labour, how hardly soever we use to construe of their intents): hard, that only they should be thus continually lifted at for possessing but that whereunto they have by law both of God and man most just title. If there should be no other remedy but that the violence of men in the end must needs bereave them of all succour, further than the inclination of others shall vouchsafe to cast upon them, as it were by way of alms for their relief but from hour to hour; better they are not than their fathers, which have been contented with as hard a portion at the world’s hands: let the light of the sun and moon, the common benefit of heaven and earth be taken from bishops, if the question were whether God should lose his glory, and the safety of his Church be hazarded, or they relinquish the right and interest which they have in the things of this world. But sith the question in truth is whether Levi shall be deprived of the portion of God or no, to the end that Simeon or Reuben may devour it as their spoil, the comfort of the one in sustaining the injuries which the other would offer, must be that prayer poured out by Moses the prince of prophets, in most tender affection to Levi, “Bless, O Lord, his substance, accept thou the work of his hands; smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, and of them which hate him, that they rise no more."

BOOK VIII THEIR SEVENTH ASSERTION, THAT UNTO NO CIVIL PRINCE OR GOVERNOR THERE MAY BE GIVEN SUCH POWER OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOMINION AS BY THE LAWS OF THIS LAND BELONGETH UNTO THE SUPREME REGENT THEREOF. I. State of the Question between the Church of England and its Opponents regarding the King’s Supremacy. II. Principles on which the King’s modified Supremacy is grounded. III. Warrant for it in the Jewish Dispensation. IV. Vindication of the Title, Supreme Head of the Church within his own Dominions. V. Vindication of the Prerogative regarding Church Assemblies. VI. Vindication of the Prerogative regarding Church Legislation. VII. Vindication of the Prerogative regarding Nomination of Bishops. VIII. Vindication of the Prerogative regarding Ecclesiastical Courts. IX. Vindication of the Prerogative regarding Exemption from Excommunication. I. WE come now to the last thing whereof there is controversy moved, namely the power of supreme jurisdiction , which for distinction’s sake we call the power of ecclesiastical dominion . It was not thought fit in the Jews’ commonwealth, that the exercise of supremacy ecclesiastical should be denied unto him, to whom the exercise of chiefty civil did appertain; and therefore their kings were invested with both. This power they gave unto Simon, when they consented that he should be “their prince,” not only “to set men over the works, and cover the country, and over the weapons, and over the fortresses,” but also “to provide for the holy things;” and that he should be obeyed of every man, and that fall the writings in the country should be made in his name, and that it should not be lawful for any of the people or priests to withstand his words, or to call any congregation in the country without him.” And if it be haply surmised, that thus much was given unto Simon, as being both prince and high priest; which otherwise, being only their civil governor, he could not lawfully have enjoyed: we must note, that all this is no more than the ancient kings of that people had, being kings and not priests. By this power David, Asa, Jehosaphat, Ezekias, Josias, and the rest, made those laws and orders which the Sacred History speaketh of, concerning matter of mere religion, the affairs of the temple, and service of God. Finally,

had it not been by the virtue of this power, how should it possibly have come to pass, that the piety or impiety of the king did always accordingly change the public face of religion, which thing the priests by themselves never did, neither could at any time hinder from being done? Had the priests alone been possessed of all power in spiritual affairs, how should any lawn concerning matter of religion have been made but only by them? In them it had been, and not in the king, to change the face of religion at any time. The altering of religion, the making of ecclesiastical laws, with other the like actions belonging unto the power of dominion, are still termed the deeds of the king; to shew that in him was placed supremacy of power even in this kind over all, and that unto their highs priests the same was never committed, saving only at such times as their priests were also kings or princes over them.According to the pattern of which example, the like power in causes ecclesiastical is by the laws of this realm annexed unto the crown. And there are which imagine, that kings, being mere lay persons, do by this means exceed the lawful bounds of their calling. Which thing to the end that they may persuade, they first make a necessary separation perpetual and personal between the Church and the commonwealth. Secondly, they so tie all kind of power ecclesiastical unto the Church, as if it were in every degree their only right which are by proper spiritual functions termed Church-governors, and might not unto Christian princes in any wise appertain. To lurk under shifting ambiguities and equivocations of words in matters of principal weight is childish. A church and a commonwealth we grant are things in nature the one distinguished from the other. A commonwealth is one way, and a church another way, defined. In their opinion the church and the commonwealth are corporations, not distinguished only in nature and definition, but in subsistence perpetually severed; so that they which are of the one can neither appoint nor execute, in whole nor in part, the duties which belong unto them which are of the other, without open breach of the law of God, which hath divided them, and doth require that being son divided they should distinctly and severally work, as depending both upon God, and not hanging one upon the other’s approbation for that which either hath to do. We say that the care of religion being common unto all societies politic, such societies as do embrace the true religion have the name of the Church given unto every of them for distinction from the rest; so that every body politic hath some religion, but the Church that religion which is only true. Truth of religion is that proper difference whereby a church is distinguished from other politic societies of men. We here mean true religion in gross, and not according to every particular: for they which in some particular points of religion do swerve from the truth, may nevertheless most truly, if we compare them to men of an heathenish religion, be said to hold and profess that religion which is true. For which cause, there being of old so many politic societies established throughout’ the world, only the commonwealth of Israel, which had the truth of religion, was in that respect the Church of God: and the Church of Jesus Christ is every such politic society of men, as doth in religion hold that truth which is proper to Christianity. As a politic society it doth maintain religion; as a church, that religion which God hath revealed by Jesus Christ.

With us therefore the name of a church importeth only a society of men, first united into some public form of regiment, and secondly distinguished from other societies by the exercise of Christian religion. With them on the other side the name of the Church in this present question importeth not only a multitude of men so united and so distinguished, but also further the same divided necessarily and perpetually from the body of the commonwealth: so that even in such a politic society as consisteth of none but Christians, yet the Church of Christ and the commonwealth are two corporations, independently each subsisting by itself. We hold, that seeing there is not any man of the Church of England but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not also of the Church of England; therefore as in a figure triangular the base doth differ from the sides thereof, and yet one and the selfsame line is both a base and also a side; a side simply, a base if it chance to be the bottom and underlie the rest: so, albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name of a Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the selfsame multitude may in such sort be both, and is so with us, that no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the other. Contrariwise, unless they against us should hold, that the Church and the commonwealth are two, both distinct and separate societies, of which two, the one comprehendeth always persons not belonging to the other; that which they do they could not conclude out of the difference between the Church and the commonwealth; namely, that bishops may not meddle with the affairs of the commonwealth, because they are governors of another corporation, which is the Church; nor kings with making laws for the Church, because they have government not of this corporation, but of another divided from it, the commonwealth; and the walls of separation between these two must for ever be upheld. They hold the necessity of personal separation, which clean excludeth the power of one man’s dealing in both; we of natural, which doth not hinder but that one and the same person may in both bear a principal sway.The causes of common received error in this point seem to have been especially two: one, that they who embrace true religion living in such commonwealths as are opposite thereunto, and in other public affairs retaining civil communion with such, are constrained, for the exercise of their religion, to have a several communion with those who are of the same religion with them. This was the state of the Jewish Church both in Egypt and in Babylon, the state of Christian Churches a long time after Christ. And in this case, because the proper affairs and actions of the Church, as it is the Church, haven no dependence upon the laws, or upon the governors of the civil state, an opinion hath thereby grown, that even so it should be always. This was it which deceived Allen in the writing of his Apology: “The Apostles,” saith he, “did govern the church in Rome when Nero bare rule, even as at this day in all the Turk’s dominions, the Church hath a spiritual regiment without dependence, and so ought she to have, live she amongst heathens, or with Christians.”

Another occasion of which misconceit is, that things appertaining unto religion are both distinguished from other affairs, and have always had in the Church specials persons chosen to be exercised about them. By which distinction of spiritual affairs and persons therein employed from temporal, the error of personal separation always necessary between the Church and then commonwealth hath strengthened itself. For of every politic society that being true which Aristotle hath, namely, “that the scope thereof is not simply to live, nor the duty so much to provide for life, as for means of living well:” and that even as the soul is the worthier part of man, so human societies are much more to care for that which tendeth properly unto the soul’s estate, than for such temporal things as this life doth stand in need of other proof there needs none to shew that as by all men the kingdom of God is first to be sought for, so in all commonwealths things spiritual ought above temporal to be provided’) for. And of things spiritual, the chiefest is religions. For this cause, persons and things employed peculiarly about the affairs of religion, are by an excellency termed spiritual. The heathen themselves had their spiritual laws, causes, and offices, always severed from their temporal; neither did this make two independent estates among them. God by revealing true religion doth make them that receive it his Church. Unto the Jews he so revealed the truth of religion, that he gave them in special consideration laws, not only for the administration of things spiritual, but also temporal. The Lord himself appointing both the one and the other in that commonwealth, did not thereby distract it into several independent communities, but institute several functions of one and the same community. Some reason therefore must be alleged why it should be otherwise in the Church of Christ. I shall not need to spend any great store of words in answering that which is brought out of holy Scripture to shew that secular and ecclesiastical affairs and offices are distinguished; neither that which hath been borrowed from antiquity, using by phrase of speech to oppose the commonwealth u to the Church of Christ; nor yet them reasons which are wont to be brought forth as witnesses, that the Church and commonwealth are n always distinct. For whether a church and a commonwealth do differ, is not the question we strive for; but our controversy is concerning the kind of distinction, whereby they are severed the one from the other; whether as under heathen kings the Church did deal with her own affairs within herself, without depending at all upon any in civil authority, and the commonwealth in hers, altogether without the privity of the Church; so it ought to continue still, even in such commonwealths as have now publicly embraced the truth of Christian religion; whether they ought to be evermore two societies, in such sort, several and distinct. I ask therefore, what society that was, that was in Rome, whereunto the Apostle did give the name of the Church of Rome in his time? If they answer, as needs they must, that the Church of Rome in those days was that whole society of men which in Rome professed the name of Christ, and not that religion which the laws of the commonwealth did then authorize; we say as much, and therefore grant that the commonwealth of Rome was one society, and the Church of Rome another, in such sort as there was between them no mutual dependency. But when whole Rome became Christian, when they all embraced the gospel, and made laws in the defence thereof, if it be held that the church and the commonwealth of Rome did then remain as before; there is no way how this could be

possible, save only one, and that is, they must restrain the name of the Church in a Christian commonwealth to the clergy, excluding all the residue of believers, both prince and people. For if all that believe be contained in the name of the Church, how should the Church remain by personal subsistence divided from the commonwealth, when the whole commonwealth doth believe? The Church and the commonwealth therefore are in this case personally one society, which society being termed a commonwealth as it liveth under whatsoever form of secular law and regiment, a church as it hath the spiritual law of Jesus Christ; forasmuch as these two laws contain so many and so different offices, there must of necessity be appointed in it some to one charge, and some to another, yet without dividing the whole, and making it two several impaled societies. The difference therefore either of affairs or offices ecclesiastical from secular, is no argument that the Church and the commonwealth are always separate and independent the one on the other: which thing even Allen himself considering somewhat better, doth in this point a little correct his former judgment before mentioned, and confesseth in his Defence of English Catholics, that “the power political hath her princes, laws, tribunals; the spiritual, her prelates, canons, councils, judgments; and those (when the princes are pagans) wholly separate, but in Christian commonwealths joined though not confounded.” Howbeit afterwards his former sting appeareth again; for in a Christian’ commonwealth he holdeth, that the Church ought not to depend at all upon the authority of any civil person whatsoever, as in England he saith it doth.It will be objected, that “the Fathers do oftentimes mention the commonwealth and the Church of God by way of opposition. Can the same thing be opposite unto itself? If one and the same society be both, what sense can there be in that speech which saith, that ‘they suffer and flourish together?’ What sense in that which maketh one thing adjudged to the Church, another to the commonwealth? Finally, in that which putteth a difference between the causes of the province and of the Church? Doth it not hereby appear that the Church and the commonwealth are things evermore personally separate?” No, it doth not hereby appear that there is perpetually any such separation; we may speak of them as two, we may sever the rights and causes of the one well enough from the other, in regard of that difference which we grant there is between them, albeit we make no personal difference. For the truth is, that the Church and the commonwealth are names which import things really different; but those things are accidents, and such accidents as may and should always dwell lovingly together in one subject. Wherefore the real difference between the accidents signified by those names, doth not prove different subjects for them always to reside in. For albeit the subjects wherein they are resident be sometime different, as when the people of God have their being among infidels; yet the nature of them is not such but that their subject may be one, and therefore it is but a changeable accident, in those accidents, when the subjects they are in be diverse. There can be no error in our conceit concerning this point, if we remember still what accident that is, for which a society hath the name of a commonwealth, and what accident

that which doth cause it to be termed a Church. A commonwealth we name it simply in regard of some regiment or policy under which men live; a church for the truth of that religion which they profess. Now names betokening accidents unabstracted, do betoken’) not only those accidents, but also together with them the subjects whereunto they cleave. As when we name a schoolmaster and a physician, these names do not only betoken two accidents, teaching and curing, but also some person or persons in whom these accidents are. For there is no impediment but both may be one mane, as well as they are for the most part diverse. The commonwealth and the Church therefore being such names, they do not only betoken those accidents of civil government and Christian religion which we have mentioned, but. also together with them such multitudes as are the subjects of those accidents. Again, their nature being such that they may well enough dwell together in one subject, it followeth that their names, though always implying that difference of accidents which hath been set down, yet do not always imply different subjects also. When we oppose the Church therefore and the commonwealth in am Christian society, we mean by the commonwealth that society with relation unto all the public affairs thereof, only the matter of true religion excepted; by the Church, the same society with only reference unto the matter of true religion, without any other’ affairs besides: when that society which is both a church and a commonwealth doth flourish in those things which belong unto it as a commonwealth, we then say, “the commonwealth doth flourish;” when in those things which concern it as a church, “the Church doth flourish;” when in both, then “the Church and commonwealth flourish together.” The Prophet Esay, to note corruptions in the commonwealth, complaineth, “That where judgment and justice had lodged now were murderers; princes were become companions of thieves; every one loved gifts and rewards; but the fatherless was not judged, neither did the widow’s cause come before them.” To shew abuses in the Church, Malachy doth make his complaint: “Ye offer unclean bread upon mine altar: if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, it is not amiss? as ye think; if the lame and the sick, nothing is amiss.” The treasures which David did bestow upon the temple do argue the love which he bare to the Church: the pains that Nehemias took for building the walls of the city are tokens of his care for the commonwealth. Causes of the commonwealth, or province, are still as Gallio was content to be judge of: “If it were a matter of wrong, or an evil deed, O ye Jews, I would according to reason maintain you.” Causes of the Church are such as Gallio there rejecteth: “If it be a question of your law, look you unto it, I will be no judge of those things!” In respect of these differences) therefore the Church and the commonwealth may in speech be compared or opposed aptly enough the one to the other; yet this is no argument that they are two independent societies.Some other reasons there are, which seem a little more nearly to make for the purpose, as long as they are but heard and not sifted. For what though a man being severed by excommunication from the Church, be not thereby deprived of freedom in the city; nor being there discommoned, is thereby forthwith excommunicated and excluded from the Church? what though the Church be bound to receive them upon repentance, whom the commonwealth may refuse again to admitg if it chance the same men to be shut out of both? That division of the church and commonwealth, which they contend for, will very hardly hereupon follow.

For we must note that members of a Christian commonwealth have a triple state; a natural, a civil, and a spiritual. No man’s natural estate is cut off otherwise than by that capital execution, after which he that is gone from the body of the commonwealth doth not, I think, remain still in the body of the visible Church. And concerning a man’s civil estate, the same is subject partly to inferior abatements of liberty, and partly unto diminution in the very highest degree, such as banishment is; which, sith it casteth out quite and clean from the body of the commonwealth, musts needs also consequently cast the banished party even out of the very Church he was of before, because that Church and the commonwealth he was of were both one and the same society: so that whatsoever cloth separate utterly r a man’s person from the one, it separateth also from the other. As for such abatements of civil state as take away only some privilege, dignity, or other benefit which a man enjoyeth in the commonwealth, they reach only unto our dealing with public affairs, from which what should’ let but that men may be excluded and thereunto restored again, without diminishing or augmenting the number of persons in whom either church or commonwealth consisteth? He that by way of punishment loseth his voice in a public election of magistrates, ceaseth not thereby to be a citizen. A man disfranchised may notwithstanding enjoy as a subject the common benefit of protection under laws and magistrates. So that these inferior diminutions which touch men civilly, but neither do clean extinguish their estate as they belong to the commonwealth, nor impair a whit their condition as they are of the Church of God: these I say clearly do prove a difference of the affairs of the one from the other, but such a difference as maketh nothing for their surmise of distracted societies. And concerning excommunication, it cutteth off indeed from the Church, and yet not from the commonwealth; howbeit so, that the party excommunicate is not thereby severed from one body which subsisteth in itself, and retained of another in like sort subsisting; but he that before had fellowship with that society whereof he was a member, as well touching things spiritual as civil, is now by force of excommunication, although not severed from the same body in civil affairs, nevertheless for the time cut off from it as touching communion in those things which belong to the said body, as it is the Church. A man which hath both been excommunicated by the Church, and deprived of civil dignity in the commonwealth, is upon his repentance necessarily readunited into the one, but not of necessity into the other. What then? that which he is adunited unto is a communion in things divine, whereof saints are partakers; that from which he is withheld is the benefit of some human privilege or right which other citizens haply enjoy. But are not those Saints and Citizens one and the same people? are they not one and the same society? doth it hereby appear that the Church which receiveth an excommunicate man, can have no dependency of any person which is of chief authority and power, in those things of the commonwealth whereunto the same party is not admitted? [q.] Wherefore to end this point, I conclude: First, that under “dominions of infidels, the Church of Christ, and their commonwealth, were two societies independent. Secondly, that in those commonwealths where the bishop of Rome beareth sway, one society is both

the Church and the commonwealth; but the bishop of Rome doth- divide the body into two diverse bodies, and doth not suffer the Church to depend upon the power of any civil prince or potentate. Thirdly, that within this realm of England the case is neither as in the one, nor as in the other of the former two: but from the state of pagans we differ, in that with us one society is both the Church and commonwealth, which with them it was not; as also from the state of those nations which subjects themselves to the bishop of Rome, in that our Church hath dependency upon the chief in our commonwealth, which it hath not under him. In a word, our estate is according to the pattern of God’s own ancient elect people, which people was not part of them the commonwealth, and part of them the Church of God, but the selfsame people whole and entire were both under one chief Governor, on whose supreme authority they did all depend. II. [I.] Now the drift of all that hath been alleged to prove perpetual separation and independency between the Church and the commonwealth is, that this being held necessary, it might consequently be thoughts, that in a Christian kingdom he whose power is greatest over the commonwealth may not lawfully have supremacy of power also over the Church, as it is a church; that is to say, so far as to order and dispose of spiritual affairs, as the highest uncommanded commander in them. Whereupon it is grown a question, whether power ecclesiastical over the Church, powers of dominion in such degrees as the laws of this land do grant unto the sovereign governor thereof, may by the said supreme Head and Governor lawfully be enjoyed and held? For resolution wherein, we are, first, to define what the power of dominion is: then to shew by what right: after what sort: in what measure: with what conveniency: according unto whose example Christian kings may have it. And when these generalities are opened, to examine afterwards how lawful that is which we in regard of dominion do attribute unto our own: namely, the title of headship over the Church, so far as the bounds of this kingdom do reach: the prerogative of calling and dissolving greater assemblies, about spiritual affairs public: the right of assenting unto all those orders concerning religion, which must after be in force as laws: the advancement of principal church-governors to their rooms of prelacy: judicial authority higher than others are capable of: and exemption from being punishable with such kind of censures as the platform of reformation doth teach that they ought to be subject unto.Without order there is no living in public society, because the want thereof is the mother of confusion, whereupon division of necessity followeth, and out of division, inevitable destructions. The Apostle therefore giving instruction to public societies, requireth that all things be orderly done. Order can have no place in things, unless it be settled amongst the persons that shall by office be conversant about them. And if things or persons be ordered, this doth imply that they are distinguished by degrees. For order is a gradual disposition. The whole world consisting of parts so many, so different, is by this only thing upheld; he which framed them hath set them in order. Yea, the very Deity itself both keepeth and requireth far ever this to be kept as a law, that wheresoever there is a coagmentation of many, the lowest be knit to the highest by that which being interjacent may cause each to cleave unto other% and so all to continue one.

This order of things and persons in public societies is the work of polity, and the proper instrument thereof in every degree is power; power being that ability which we have of ourselves, or receive from others, for performance of any action. If the action which we are to perform be conversant about matters of mere religion, the power of performing it is then spiritual; and if that power be such as hath not any other to overrule it, we term it dominion, or power supreme, so far as the bounds thereof do extend.When therefore Christian kings are said to have spiritual dominion or supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs and causes, the meaning is, that within their own precincts and territories they have authority and power to command even in matters of Christian religion, and that there is no higher nor greater that can in those causes? over-command them, where they are placed to reign as kings. But withal we must likewise note that their power is termed supremacy, as being the highest, not simply without exception of any thing. For what man is there s so brain-sick, as not to except in such speeches God himself, the King of all the kings of the earth? Besides, where the law doth give him dominion, who doubteth but that the king who receiveth it must hold it of and under the law? according to that axiom, “Attribuat rex legi, quod lex attribuit ei, potestatem et dominium:” and again, “Rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege.” Thirdly, whereas it is note altogether without reason, “that kings are judged to have by virtue of their dominion, although greater power than any, yet not than all the states of those societies conjoined, wherein such sovereign rule is given them;” there is not hereunto any thing contrary by us affirmed, no, not when we grant supreme authority unto kings, because supremacy is no otherwise intended or meant than to exclude partly foreign powers, and partly the power which belongeth in several unto others, contained as parts within that politic body over which those kings have supremacy. “Where the king hath power of dominion, or supreme power, there no foreign state or potentate, no state or potentate domestical, whether it consist of one or of many, can possibly have in the same affairs and causes authority higher than the king.” Power of spiritual dominion therefore is in causes ecclesiastical that ruling authority, which neither any foreign state, nor yet any part, of that politic body at home, wherein the same is established, can lawfully overrule.Unto which supreme power in kings two kinds of adversaries there are that have opposed themselves: one sort defending, “that supreme power in causes ecclesiastical throughout the world appertaineth of divine right to the bishop of Rome: another sort, “that the said power belongeth in every national church unto the clergy thereof assembled.” We which defend as well against the one as against the other, “that kings within their own precincts may have it,” must shew by what right it may come unto them.First, unto me it seemeth almost out of doubt and controversy, that every independent multitude, before any certain form of regiment established, hath, under God’s supreme authority, full dominion over itself, even as a man not tied with the bond of subjection as yet unto any other, hath over himself the like power. God creating mankind did endue it naturally with ‘full power to guide itself, in what kind of societies soever he should

choose to live. A man which is born lord of himself may be made another’s servant: and that power which naturally whole societies have, may be derived into many, few, or one, under whom the rest shall then live in subjection. Some multitudes are brought into subjection by force, as they who being subdued are fain to submit their necks unto what yoke it pleaseth their conquerors to lay upon them; which conquerors by just and lawful wars do hold their power over such multitudes as a thing descending unto them, divine providence itself so disposing. For it is God who giveth victory in the day of war. And unto whom dominion in this sort is derived, the same they enjoy according unto that law of nations, which law authorizeth conquerors to reign as absolute lords over them whom they vanquish. Sometimes it pleaseth God himself by special appointment to choose out and nominate such as to whom dominion shall be given, which thing he did often in the commonwealth of Israel. They who in this sort receive power have it immediately from God, by mere divine right; they by human, on whom the same is bestowed according unto men’s discretion, when they are left free by God to make choice of their own governors. By which of these means soever it happen that kings or governors be advanced unto their states, we must acknowledge both their lawful choice to be approved of God, and themselves to be God’s lieutenants, and confess their power his. As for supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs, the word of God doth no where appoint that all kings should have it neither that any should not have it; for which cause it seemeth to stand altogether by human right, that unto Christian kings there is such dominion given.Again, on whom the same is bestowed evens at men’s discretion, they likewise do hold it by divine right. If God in his own revealed word haven appointed such power. to be, although himself extraordinarily bestow it not, but leave the appointment of the persons unto men; yea, albeit God do neither appoint the thing nor assign the person; nevertheless when men have q established both, who doth doubt but that sundry duties and offices depending thereupon are prescribed in the word of God, and consequently by that very right to be exacted? For example’s sake, the power which the Roman emperors had over foreign provinces was not a thing which the law of God did ever institute, neither was Tiberius Caesar by special commission from heaven therewith invested; and yet then payment of tribute unto Caesar being made emperor is the plain law of Jesus Christ. Unto kings by human right, honour by very divine right, is due; man’s ordinances are many times presupposed as grounds in the statutes of God. And therefore of what kind soever the means be whereby governors are lawfully advanced unto their seats, as we by the law of God stand bound meekly to acknowledge them for God’s lieutenants, and to confess their power his, so they by the same lawn are both authorized and required to use that power as far as it may be in any sort available to his honour. The law appointeth no man to be an husband, but if a man hayed betaken himself unto that condition, it giveth him then authority over his own wife. That the Christian world should be ordered by’ kingly regiment, the law of

God doth not any where command; and yet the law of God doth give them rights, which once are exalted to that estate, to exact’ at the hands of their subjects general obediences in whatsoever affairs their power may serve to command. So God doth ratify the works of that sovereign authority which kings have received by men.This is therefore the right whereby kings do hold their power; but yet in what sort the same doth rest and abide in them it somewhat further behoveth to search. Wherein, that we be not enforced to make over-large discourses about the different conditions of sovereign or supreme power, that which we speak of kings shall be with respect to the state and according to the nature of this kingdom, where the people are in no subjection, but such as willingly themselves have condescended unto, for their own most behoof and security. In kingdoms therefore of this quality the highest governor hath indeed universal dominion, but with dependence upon that whole entire body, over the several parts whereof he hath dominion; so that it standeth for an axiom in this case, The king is “major singulis, universis minor.”The king’s dependency we do not construe as some have done, who are of opinion that no man’s birth can make him a king, but every particular person advanced unto such authority hath at his entrance into his reign the same bestowed upon him, as an estate in condition, by the voluntary deed of the people, in whom it doth lie to put by any one, and to prefer some other before him, better liked of, or judged fitter for the place, and that the party so rejected hath herein no injury, no not although this be done in a place where the crown doth go καρα γενος, by succession, and to a person which being capable hath apparently, if blood be respected, the nearest right. They plainly affirm, that “in all well- appointed kingdoms, the custom evermore hath been, and is, that children succeed not their deceased? parents till the people after a sort have created them anew, neither that they grow to their fathers as natural and proper heirs, but are then to be reckoned for kings, when at the hands of such as represent the people’s majesty they have by a sceptre and diadem received as it were the investiture of kingly power.” Their very words are, “That where such power is settled into a family or kindred, the stock itself is thereby chosen, but not the twig that springeth of it. The next of the stock unto him which reigneth are not through nearness of blood made kings, but rather set forth to stand for the kingdom. Where regal dominion is hereditary, it is notwithstanding if ye look to the persons themselves which have it altogether elective.” To this purpose are alleged heaps of Scriptures concerning the solemn coronation or inauguration of Saul, of David, of Solomon, off others, by the nobles, ancients, and people of the commonwealth of Israel; as if these solemnities were a kind of deed, whereby the right of dominion is given. Which strange, untrue, and unnatural conceits, set abroad by seedsmen of rebellion, only to animate unquiet spirits, and to feed them with a possibility of aspiring unto thrones and sceptres, if they can win the hearts of the people, what hereditary title soever any other before them may have, I say, these unjust and insolent positions I would not mention, were it not thereby to make the countenance of truth more orient: for unless we will openly proclaim defiance unto all law, equity, and reason, we must (there is no remedy) acknowledge, that in kingdoms hereditary birth giveth right unto sovereign dominion; and the death of the predecessor putteth the successor by blood in seisin. Those public solemnities before mentioned b do but either serve for an open testification of the

inheritor’s right, or belong to the form of inducting him into possession of that thing he hath right unto. And therefore in case it do happen that without right of blood a man in such wise be possessed, all those things are utterly void, they make him no indefeasible estate, the inheritor by blood may dispossess him as an usurper.The case thus standing, albeit we judge it a thing most true, that kings, even inheritors, do hold their right to the power of dominion, with dependency upon the whole entire body politic over which they rule as kings; yet so it may not be understood, as if such dependency did grow, for that every supreme governor doth personally take from thence his power by way of gift, bestowed of their own free accord upon him at the time of his entrance into his said place of sovereign government. But the cause of dependency is in that first original conveyance, when power was derived by’ the whole into one; to pass from him unto them, whom out of him nature by lawful birth should produce, and no natural or legal inability make uncapable. Neither can any man with reason think, but that the first institution of kings is a sufficient consideration wherefore their power should always depend on that from which it did then flow. Originals influence of power from the body into the king, is cause of the king’s dependency in power upon the body.By dependency we mean subordination and subjection. A manifest token of which dependency may be this: as there is no more certain argument that lands are held under any as lord, than if we see that such lands in defect of heirs do fall by escheat unto him; in like manner it doth rightly follows, that seeing dominion, when there is none to inherit it, returneth unto the body, therefore they which before were inheritors thereof did hold it with dependency upon the body. So that by comparing the body with the head, as touching power, it seemeth always to reside in both; fundamentally ors radically in the one, in the other derivatively; in thee one the habit, in the other the act of power. May then a body politick at all times withdraw in whole or in part that influence of dominion which passeth from it, if inconvenience doth grow thereby? It must be presumed, that supreme governors will not in such case oppose themselves, and be stiff in detaining that, the use whereof is with public detriment: but surely without their consent I see not how the body should be able by any just means to help itself, saving when dominion doth escheat. Such things therefore must be thought upon beforehand, that power may be limited ere it be granted; which is the next thing we are to consider.In power of dominion, all kings have not an equal latitude. Kings by conquest make their own charter: so that how large their power, either civil or spiritual, is, we cannot with any certainty define, further than only to set them in general in the law of God and nature for bounds. Kings by God’s own special appointment have also that largeness of power, which he doth assign or permit with approbation. Touching kings which were first instituted by agreement and composition made with them over whom they reign, how far their power may lawfully extend, the articles of compact between them must shew: not the articles only of compact at the first beginning, which for the most part are either clean worn out of knowledge, or else known unto very few, but whatsoever hath been after in free and voluntary manner condescended unto, whether by express consent, whereof positive laws are witnesses, or else by silent allowance famously notified through custom

reaching beyond the memory of man. By which means of after-agreement, it cometh many times to pass in kingdoms, that they whose ancient predecessors were by violence and force made subject, do grow even by little and little into that most sweet form of kingly government which philosophers define to be “regency willingly sustained and endured, with chiefly of power in the greatest things.”Many of the ancients in their writings do speak of kings with such high and ample terms, as if universality of power, even in regard of things and not of persons only, did appertain to the very being of a king. The reason is, because their speech concerning kings they frame according to the state of those monarchs to whom unlimited authority was given: which some not observing, imagine that all kings, even in that they are kings, ought to have whatsoever power they finds any sovereign ruler lawfully to have enjoyed. But then most judicious philosopher, whose eye scarce any thing did escaper which was to be found in the bosom of nature, he considering how far the power of one sovereign ruler may be different from another’s regal authority, noteth in Spartan kings, “that of all others lawfully reigning they had the most restrained power.” A king which hath not supreme power in the greatest things, is rather entitled a king, than invested with real sovereignty. We cannot properly term him a king, of whom it may not be said, at the leastwise, as touching certain the very chiefest affairs of state, αυτω µεν αρχειν, αρχεσωαι δε υπ ουδενος, “his right in them is to have rule, not subject to any other predominant.” I am not of opinion that simply always in kings the most, but the best limited power is bests: the most limited is, that which may deal in fewest things; the best, that which in dealing is tied unto the soundest, perfectest, and most indifferent rule; which rule is the law; I mean not only the law of nature and of God, but very national or municipal law consonant thereunto. Happier that people whose law is their king in the greatest things, than that whose king is himself their law. Where the king doth guide the state, and the law the king, that commonwealth is like an harp or melodious instrument, the strings whereof are tuned and handled all by one, following as laws the rules and canons of musical science. Most divinely therefore Archytas maketh unto public felicity these four steps, every later whereof doth spring from the former, as from a mother cause; ο µεν βασιλευς νοµιµος ο δε αρχων ακολουθος, ο δε αρχοµενος ελευθερος, α δ ο λα κοινωνια ευδαιµων; adding on the contrary side, that “where this order is not, it cometh by transgression thereof to pass that the king groweth a tyrant; he that ruleth under him abhorreth to be guided and commanded by him; the people subject under both, have freedom under neither; and the whole community is wretched.”In which respect, I cannot choose but commend highly their wisdom, by whom the foundations of this commonwealth have been laid; wherein though no manner person’ or cause be unsubject to the king’s power, yet so is the power of the king over all and in all limited, that unto all his proceedings the law itself is a rule. The axioms of our regal government are these:” Lex facit regem:” the king’s grant of any favour made contrary to the law is void; “Rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest.” Our kings therefore, when they taker possession of the rooms they are called unto, have it painted out before their eyes, even by the very solemnities and rites of their inauguration, to what affairs by the said a law their supreme authority and power reacheth. Crowned we see they are, and

enthronized, and anointed: the crown a sign of military; the throne, of sedentary or judicial; the oil, of religious or sacred power.It is not on any side denied, that kings may have such authority in secular affairs. The question then is, “What power they lawfully may have, and exercise in causes of God.” “A prince, a magistrate, or community,” saith D. Stapleton, “may have power to lay corporal punishment on them which are teachers of perverse things; power to make laws for the peace of the Church; power to proclaim, to defend, and even by revenge to preserve from violation dogmata, very articles of religion themselves.” Others in affection no less devoted unto the papacy, do likewise yield, that “the civil magistrate may by his edicts and laws keep all ecclesiastical persons within the bounds of their duties, and constrain them to observe the canons of the Church, to follow the rules of ancient discipline.” That “if Joas were commended for his care and provision concerning so small a part of religion as the church-treasury; it must needs be both unto Christian kings themselves greater honour, and to Christianity a larger benefit, when the custody of religion wholes and of the worship of God in general is their charge.” If therefore all these things mentioned be most properly the affairs of God, and ecclesiastical causes; if the actions specified be works of power; and if that power be such as kings may use of themselves, without the leave of any other power superior in the same things: it followeth necessarily, that kings may have supreme power, not only in civil, but also in ecclesiastical affairs; and consequently, that they may withstand what bishop or pope soever shall, under the pretended claim of higher spiritual authority, oppose himself against their proceedings. But they which have made us the former grant, will hereunto never condescend. What they yield that princes may do, it is with secret exception always understood, if the bishop of Rome give leave, if he interpose no prohibition: wherefore somewhat it is in shew, in truth nothing, which they grant. Our own reformers do the very like. When they make their discourses in general concerning the authority which magistrates may have, a man would think them far from withdrawing any jot of that which with. reason may be thought due. “The prince and civil magistrate,” saith one of them, “hath to see that the laws of God touching his worship, and touching all matters and orders of the Church be executed, and duly observed; and to see that every ecclesiastical person do that office whereunto he is appointed, and to punish those which fail in their office accordingly.” Another acknowledgeth, that “the magistrate may lawfully uphold all truth by his sword, punish all persons, enforce all to doe their duties unto God and men; maintain by his laws every point of God’s word, punish all vice in all men; see into all causes, visit the ecclesiastical estate, and correct the abuses thereof; finally, to look to his subjects, that under him they may lead their lives in all godliness and honesty.” A third more frankly professeth, that in case their church- discipline were established, so little it shorteneth the arms of sovereign dominion in causes ecclesiastical, that her gracious Majesty, for any thing which they teach or hold to the contrary, may no less than now “remain still over all persons, in all things supreme governess, even with that full and royal authority, superiority, preeminence, supremacy, and prerogative, which the laws already established do give her, and her Majesty’s injunctions, and the articles of the Convocation-house, and other writings apologetical of her royal authority and supreme dignity, do declare and explain.”

Posidonius was wont to say of the Epicure, “That he thought there were no gods, but that those things which he spake concerning the gods were only given out for fear of growing odious amongst men; and therefore that in words he left gods remaining, but in very deed overthrew them, inasmuch as he gave them no kind of motion, no kind of action.” After the very selfsame manner, when we come unto those particular effects and prerogatives of dominion which the laws of this land do grant unto the kings thereof, it will appear how these men, notwithstanding their large and liberal speeches, abate such parcels out of the fore-alleged grand and flourishing sum, that a man comparing the one with the other may half stand in doubt, lest their opinions in very truth be against that authority which by their speeches they seem mightily to uphold, partly for the avoiding of public obloquy, envy, and hatred; partly to the intent they may both in the end, by establishment of their discipline, extinguish the force of supreme power which princes have, and yet in the meanwhile by giving forth these smooth discourses, obtain that their favourers may have somewhat to allege for them by way of apology, and that in such words as sound towards all kind of fulness in powers. But for myself, I had rather construe such their contradictions in the better part, and impute their general acknowledgment of the lawfulness of kingly power unto the force of truth, presenting itself before them sometimes alone; their particular contrarieties, oppositions, denials, unto that error which having so fully possessed their minds, casteth things inconvenient upon them; of which things in their due place.Touching that which is now in hand, we are on all sides fully agreed; first, that there is not any restraint or limitation of matter for regal authority and power to be conversant in, but of religion wholes, and of whatsoever cause thereto appertaineth, kings may lawfully have charge, they lawfully may therein exercise dominion, and use the temporal sword: secondly, that some kinds of actions conversant about such affairs are denied unto kings; as, namely, actions of the power of order, and of that power of jurisdiction, which is with it unseparably joined; power to administer the word and sacraments, power to ordain, to judge as an ordinary, to bind and loose, to excommunicate, and such like: thirdly, that even in these very actions which are proper unto dominion, there must be some certain rule, whereunto kings in all their proceedings ought to be strictly tied; which rule for proceedings in ecclesiastical affairs and causes by regal power, hath not hitherto been agreed upon with so uniform consent and certainty as might be wished. The different sentences of men herein I will note now go about to examine, but it shall be enough to propose what rule doth seem in this case most reasonable.It hath been declared already in general, how “the best established dominion is where the law doth most rule the king:” the true effect whereof particularly is found as well in ecclesiastical as in civil affairs. In these the king, through his supreme power, may do great things and sundry himself, both appertaining unto peace and war, both at home, by commandment and by commerce with states abroad, because so much the law doth permit. Some things on the other side, the king alone hath no power to do without consent of the lords and commons assembled in parliament: the king of himself cannot change the nature of pleas, nor courts, no not so much as restore blood; because the law is a bar unto him; not any law divine or natural for against neither it were though kings of themselves?

might do both, but the positive laws of the realm have abridged therein and restrained the king’s power; which positive laws, whether by custom or otherwise established without repugnancy unto the law of God and nature, ought no less to be of force even in the spiritual affairs of the Church. Wherefore in regard of ecclesiastical laws, we willingly embrace that of Ambrose, “Imperator bonus intra ecclesiam, non supra ecclesiam, est; kings have dominion to exercise in ecclesiastical causes, but according to the laws of the Church.” Whether it be therefore the nature of courts, or the form of pleas, or the kind of governors, or the order of proceedings” in whatsoever spirituals businesses; for the received laws and liberties of the Church the king hath supreme authority and power, but against them, none. What such positive laws have appointed to be done by others than the king, or by others with the king, and in what form they have appointed the doing of it, the same of necessity must be kept, neither is the king’s sole authority to alter it. Yea even as it were a thing unreasonable, if in civil affairs the king (albeit the whole universal body did join with him) should do any thing by their absolute supreme power for the ordering of their state at home, in prejudice of any of those ancient laws of nations which are of force throughout’ the world, because the necessary commerce of kingdoms dependeth on them; so in principal matters belonging to Christian religion, a thing very scandalous and offensive it must needs be thought, if either kings or laws should dispose of the affairs of God, without any respect had to that which of old hath been reverently thought of throughout the world, and wherein there is no law of God which forceth us to swerve from the way wherein so many and so holy ages have gone. Wherefore not without good consideration the very law itself hath provided, “That judges ecclesiastical appointed under the king’s commission shall not adjudge for heresy any thing but that which heretofore hath been so adjudged by the authority of the canonical scriptures, or by the first four general councils, or by some other general council wherein the same hath been declared heresy by the express words of the said canonical scriptures, or such as hereafter shall be termed heresy by the high court of parliament of this realm, with the assent of the clergy in the convocation.” By which words of the law who doth not plainly see, how in that one branch of proceeding by virtue of the king’s supreme authority, the credit which those four general councils have throughout all churches evermore had, was judged by the makers of the foresaid act a just cause wherefore they should be mentioned in that case, as a requisite part of they rule wherewith dominion was to be limited. But of this we shall further consider, when we come unto that which sovereign power may do in making ecclesiastical laws.The cause of deriving supreme power from a whole entire multitude unto some special part thereof, is partly the necessity of expedition in public affairs; partly the inconveniency of confusion and trouble, where a multitude of equals dealeth; and partly the dissipation which must needs ensue in companies, where every man wholly seeketh his own particular (as we all would do, even with other men’s hurt) and haply the very overthrow of ourselves in the end also, if for procurements of the common good of all men, by keeping every several man in order, some were not armed with authority over all,

## and encouraged with prerogatives of honours to sustain the weighty burden of that charge. The good which is proper unto each man belongeth to the common good of all, as a part of the whole’s perfection; but yet these two are things different; for men by that which is proper are severed, united they are by that which is common. Wherefore, besides that which moveth each man in particular to seek his private, there must of necessity in all public societies be also a general mover, directing unto the common good, and framing every man’s particular to it. The end whereunto all government was instituted, was bonum publicum , the universal or common good. Our question is of dominion, for that end and purpose derived into one. Such as in one public state have agreed that the supreme charge of all things should be committed unto one, they I say, considering what inconveniences may grow where states are subject unto sundry supreme authorities, were for fear of those n inconveniences withdrawn from liking to establish many; ouk agawon polukoiranih , the multitude of supreme commanders is troublesome. “No man,” saith our Saviour, “can serve two masters:” surely two supreme masters would make any one man’s service somewhat uneasy in such cases as might fall out. Suppose that to-morrow the power which hath dominion in justice require thee at the court; that which in war, at the field; that which in religion, at the temple: all have equal authority over thee, and impossible it is, that thou shouldest be in such case obedient to all: by choosing any one whom thou wilt obey, certain thou art for thy disobedience to incur the displeasure of the other two. [III.] But there is nothing for which some colourable reason or other may not be found. Are we able to shew any commendable state of government, which by experience and practice hath felt the benefit of being in all causes subject unto the supreme authority of one? Against the polity of Israel, I hope there will no man except, where Moses deriving so great a part of his burden in government unto others, did notwithstanding retain to himself universal supremacy. Jehosaphat appointing one to be chief in the affairs of God, and another in the king’s affairs, did this as having himself a dominion over them in both. If therefore, with approbation from h heaven, the kings of God’s own chosen people had in the affairs of Jewish religion supreme power, why not Christian kings the like power also in Christian religion? Unless men will answer, as some have done, “that touching the Jews, first their religions was of far less perfection and dignity than ours is, ours being that truth whereof theirs was but a shadowish prefigurative resemblance.” Secondly, “That all parts of their religion, their laws, their sacrifices, their rites and ceremonies, being fully set down to their hands, and needing no more but only to be put in execution, the kings might well have highest authority to see that done: whereas with us there are a number of mysteries even in belief, which were not so generally for them, as for us, necessary to be with sound express acknowledgment understood; a number of things belonging unto external regiment, and one manner of serving God, not set down by particular ordinances, and delivered unto us in writing; for which cause the state of the Church doth now require that the spiritual authority of ecclesiastical persons be large, absolute, and not subordinate to regal power.” Thirdly, “that whereas God armeth religion Jewish, with temporal, Christian, with am sword but of spiritual punishment; the one with power to imprison, to scourge, and to put to death, the other with bare authority to censure and excommunicate; there is no reason that the Church, which now hath no visible sword, should in regiment be subject unto any other power, than only unto theirs

which have authority to bind and loose.” Fourthly’, “that albeit whileP the Church was restrained unto one people, it seemed not incommodious to grant their kings the general chiefly of power; yet now, the Church having spread itself over all nations, great inconveniency might thereby grow, if every Christian king in his several territory should have the like power.” Of all these differences, there is not one which doth prove it a thing repugnant unto the law either of God or nature, that all supremacy of external power be in Christian kingdoms granted unto them kings thereof, for preservation of quietness, unity, order, and peace, in such manner as hath been shewed.The service which we do unto the true God who made heaven and earth is far different from that which heathens have done unto their supposed gods, though nothing else were respected but only the odds between their hope and ours. The offices of piety or true religion sincerely performed have the promises both of this life and of the life to come: the practices of superstition have neither. If notwithstanding the heathens, reckoning upon no other reward for all which they did but only protection and favour in the temporal estate and condition of this present life, and perceiving how great good did hereby publicly grow, as long as fear to displease (they knew not what) divine power was some kind of bridle unto them, did therefore provide that the highest degree of care for their religion should be the principal charge of such as having otherwise also the greatest and chiefest power were by so much the more fit to have custody thereof: shall the like kind of provision be in us thought blameworthy? A gross error it is, to think that regal power ought to serve for the good of the body, and not of the soul; for men’s temporal peace, and not for their eternal safety: and if God had ordained kings for no other end and purpose but only to fat up men like hogs, and to see that they have their mast? Indeed, to lead men unto salvation by the hand of secret, invisible, and ghostly regiment, or by the external administration of things belonging unto priestly order, (such as the word and sacraments are,) this is denied unto Christian kings: no cause in the world to think them uncapable of supreme authority in the outward government which disposeth the affairs of religion so far forth as the same are disposable by human authority, and to think them uncapable thereof, only for that the said religion is everlastingly beneficial to them that faithfully continue in it. And even as little cause there is, that being admitted thereunto amongst the Jews, they should amongst the Christians of necessity be delivered from ever exercising any such power, for the dignity and perfection which is in our religion more than in theirs.It may be a question, whether the affairs of Christianity require more wit, more study, more knowledge of divine things in him which shall order them, than the Jewish religion did. For although we deny not the form of external government, together with all other rites and ceremonies, to have been in more particular manner set down: yet withal it must be considered also, that even this very thing did in some respects make the burthen of their spiritual regiment the harder to be borne; by reason of infinite doubts and difficulties which the very obscurity and darkness of their law did breed, and which being not first decided, the law could not possibly have due execution.

Besides, inasmuch as their law did also dispose even of all kind of civil affairs; their clergy, being the interpreters of the whole law, sustained not only the same labour which divines do amongst us, but even the burthen of our lawyers too. Nevertheless, be it granted that moe things do now require to be publicly deliberated and resolved upon with exacter judgment in matters divine than kings for the most part have their personal inability to judge, in such sort as professors do, letteth not but that their regal authority may have the selfsame degree or sway which the kings of Israel had in the affairs of their religion, to rule and command according to the manner of supreme governors.As for the sword, wherewith God armed his Church of old, if that were a reasonable cause why kings might then have dominion, I see not but that it ministreth still as forcible an argument for the lawfulness and expediency of their continuance therein now. As we degrade and excommunicate, even so did the Church of the Jews both separate offenders from the temple, and depose the clergy also from their rooms, when cause required. The other sword of corporal punishment is not by Christ’s own appointment in the hands of the Church of Christ, as God did place it himself in the hands of the Jewish Church. For why? He knew that they whom he sent abroad to gather a people unto him only by persuasive means, were to build up his Church even within the bosom of kingdoms, the chiefest governors whereof would be open enemies unto it every where for the space of many years. Wherefore such commission for discipline he gave them, as they might any where exercise in quiet and peaceable manner; the subjects of no commonwealth being touched in goods or person, by virtue of that spiritual regiment whereunto Christian religion embraced did make them subject. Now when afterwards it came to pass, that whole kingdoms were made Christian, I demand whether that authority, which served before for the furtherance of religion, may not as effectually serve to the maintenance of Christian religion. Christian religion hath the sword of spiritual discipline. But doth that suffice? The Jewish which had it also, did nevertheless stand in need to be aided with the power of the civil sword. The help whereof, although when Christian religion cannot have, it must without it sustain itself as far as the other which it hath will serve; notwithstanding, where both may be had, what forbiddeth the Church to enjoy,the benefit of both? Will any man deny that the Church doth need the rod of corporal punishment to keep her children in obedience withal? Such a law as Macabeus made amongst the Scots, that he which continued an excommunicate two years together, and reconciled not himself to the church, should forfeit all his goods and possessions. Again, the custom which many Christian churches have to fly to the civil magistrate for coercion of those that will not otherwise be reformed,—these things are proof sufficient that even in Christian religion, the power wherewith ecclesiastical persons were endued at the first is unable to do of itself so much as when secular power doth strengthen it; and that, not by way of ministry or service, but of predominancy, such as the kings of Israel in their time exercised over the Church of God.Yea, but the Church of God was then restrained more narrowly to one people and one king, which now being spread throughout all kingdoms, it would be a cause of great

dissimilitude in the exercise of Christian religion if every king should be over the affairs of the church where he reigneth supreme ruler. Dissimilitude in great things is such a thing which draweth great inconvenience after it, a thing which Christian religion must always carefully prevent. And the way to prevent it is, not as some do imagine, the yielding up of supreme power over all churches into one only pastor’s hands; but the framing of their government, especially for matter of substance, every where according to the rule of one only Law, to stand in no less force than the law of nations doth, to be received in all kingdoms, all sovereign rulers to be sworn no otherwise unto it than some are to maintain the liberties, laws, and received customs of the country where they reign. This shall cause uniformity even under several dominions, without those woeful inconveniences whereunto the state of Christendom was subject heretofore, through the tyranny and oppression of that one universal Nimrod who alone did all. And, till the Christian world be driven to enter into the peaceable and true consultation about some such kind of general law concerning those things of weight and moment wherein now we differ, if one church hath not the same order which another hath: let every church keep as near as may be the order it should have, and commend the just defence thereof unto God, even as Juda did, when it differed in the exercise of religion from that form which Israel followed.Concerning therefore the matter whereof we have hitherto spoken, let it stand for our final conclusion, that in a free Christian state or kingdom, where one and the selfsame people are the Church and the commonwealth, God through Christ directing that people to see it for good and weighty considerations expedient that their sovereign lord and governor in causes civil have also in ecclesiastical affairs a supreme power; forasmuch as the light of reason doth lead them unto it, and against it God’s own revealed law hath nothing: surely they do not in submitting themselves thereunto any other than that which a wise and religious people ought to do. It was but a little overflowing of wit in Thomas Aquinas, so to play upon the words of Moses in the Old, and of Peter in the New Testament, as though because the one did term the Jews “a priestly kingdom,” the other us “a kingly priesthood,” those two substantives “kingdom” and “priesthood” should import, that Judaism did stand through the kings’ superiority over priests, Christianity through the priests’ supreme authority over kings. Is it probable, that Moses and Peter had herein so nice and curious conceits? Or else more likely that both meant one and the same thing; namely that God doth glorify and sanctify his, even with full perfection in both; which thing St. John doth in plainer sort express, saying that “Christ hath made us both kings and priests.” [IV.] [I.] These things being thus first considered, it will be the easier to judge concerning our own estate, whether by force of ecclesiastical dominion with us kings have any other kind of prerogative than they may lawfully hold and enjoy. It is as some do imagine too much, that kings of England should be termed Heads, in relation to the Church. That which we understands by headship, is their only supreme power in

## ecclesiastical affairs or causes. That which lawfully princes are, what should make it unlawful for men by special styles or titles to signify? If the having of supreme power be allowed, why is the expressing thereof by the title of head condemned? They seem in words, at then leastwise some of them, now at the length to acknowledge that kings may have supreme government even over all, both persons and causes. We in terming our princes heads of the Church , do but testify that we acknowledge them such governors.Against this peradventure it will be replied, that howsoever we interpret ourselves, it is not fit for a mortal man, and therefore not fit for a civil magistrate, to be entitled head of the Church. Why so? First this title, Head of the Church, was given unto our Saviour Christ, to lift him above all powers, rules, and dominions, either in heaven or in earth. Where if this title belong also to the civil magistrates, then it is manifest that there is a power in earth whereunto our Saviour Christ is not in this point superior. Again, if the civil magistrate may have this title, he may be also termed the first-begotten of all creatures, the first-begotten of the dead, yea the Redeemer of his people. For these are alike given him as dignities whereby he is lifted up above all creatures. Besides this, the whole argument of the Apostle in both places doth lead to shew that this title, Head of the Church, cannot be said of any creature. And further, the very demonstrative article, among the Hebrews especially, whom S. Paul doth follow, serveth to tie that which is verified of one, unto himself alone: so that when the apostle doth say that Christ is we are else in manifest danger to be understood according to that construction and sense wherein such words are usually taken. But here the rarest construction, and most removed from common sense, is that which the word doth import being applied unto Christ; that which we signify by it in giving it unto the magistrate, is a great deal more familiar in the common conceit of men. The word is so fit to signify all kinds of superiority, preeminence, and chiefty, that no one thing is more ordinary than so to use it even in vulgar speech, and in common understanding so to take it. If therefore a Christian king may have any preeminence or chiefty above all other in the Church, (albeit it were less than Theodore Beza giveth, who placeth kings amongst the principal members whereunto public function in the Church belongeth, and denieth not, but that of them which have public function, the civil magistrate’s power hath all the rest at commandment, in regard of that part of his office, which is to procure that peace and good order be especially kept in things concerning the first Table;) even hereupon to term him the Head of that Church which is his kingdom, should nor seem so unfit a thing: which title surely we would not communicate to any other, no not although it should at our hands be exacted with torments, but that our meaning herein is made known to the whole r world, so that no man which will understand can easily be ignorant, that we do not impart to kings, when we term them Heads, the honour which properly is given to our Lord and Saviour Christ, when the blessed Apostles in Scripture do term him the Head of the Church.The power which we signify by that name, differeth in three things plainly from that which Christ doth challenge. It differeth in order, measure, and kind. In order, because God hath given him to his Church for the Head, upper panta , above all, uperanw pashV thV archV , “far above all principality, and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not

in this world only, but also in that which is to come:” whereas the power which others have is subordinate unto his. Again, as he differeth in order, so in measure of power also; because God hath given unto him the ends of the earth for his possession; unto him, dominion from sea to sea; unto him, all powerk in heaven and in earth; unto him, such sovereignty, as doth not only reach over all places, persons, and things, but doth rest in his one only person, and is not by any succession continued: He reigneth as Head and King for ever, nor is there any kind of law which tieth him, but his own proper will and wisdom: his power is absolute, the same jointly over all which it is severally over each; not so the power of any other’s headship. How kings are restrained, and in what sort their authority is limited, we have shewed before. So that unto him is given by the title of Headship over the Church, that largeness of power, wherein neither man nor angel can be matched or compared with him. The last and the weightiest difference between him and them, is in the very kind of their power. The head being of all other parts of man’s body the most divine, hath dominion over all the rest: it is the fountain of sense, of motion; the throne where the guide of the soul doth reign; the court from whence direction of all things human proceedeth. Why Christ is called Head of his Church, these causes they themselves do yield. As the head is the highest part of a man, above which there is none, always joined with the body: so Christ is the highest in his Church, inseparably knit with it. Again, as the head giveth sense and moving to all the body, so he quickeneth, and together with understanding of heavenly things, giveth strength to walk therein. Seeing therefore, that they cannot affirm Christ sensibly present, or always visibly joined unto his body the Church which is on earth, inasmuch as his corporal residence is in heaven; again, seeing they do not affirm (it were intolerable if they should) that Christ doth personally administer the external regiment of outward actions in the Church, but by the secret inward influence of his grace, giveth spiritual life and the strength of ghostly motions thereunto: impossible it is, that they should so close up their eyes, as not to discern what odds there is between that kind of operation which we imply in the headship of princes, and that which agreeth to our Saviour’s dominion over the Church. The headship which we give unto kings is altogether visibly exercised, and ordereth only the external frame of the Church’s affairs here amongst us; so that it plainly differeth from Christ’s, even in very nature and kind. To be in such sort united unto the Church as he is; to work as he worketh, either on the whole Church, or on any particular assembly, or in any one man; doth neither agree, nor hath possibility’ of agreeing, unto any besides him.Against the first distinction or difference it is objected, that to entitle a magistrate Head of the Church, although it be under Christ, is most absurd. For Christ hath a twofold superiority; a superiority over his Church, and a superiority over kingdoms: according to the one, he “hath a superior, which is his Father; according to the other, “none but immediate authority with his Father:” that is to say, of the Church he is Head and Governor only as the Son of man; Head and Governor overt kingdoms only as the Son of God. In the Church, as man, he hath officers under him, which officers are ecclesiastical persons: as for the civil magistrate, his office belongeth unto kingdoms, and commonwealths, neither is he therein an under or subordinate head of Christ; considering

## that his authority cometh from God, simply and immediately, even as our Saviour Christ’s doth.” Whereunto the sum of our answer is, first, that as Christ being Lord or Head over all, doth by virtue of that sovereignty rule all; so he hath no more a superior in governing his Church, than in exercising sovereign dominion upon the rest of the world besides. Secondly, that all authority, as well civil as ecclesiastical, is subordinate unto his. And thirdly, that the civil magistrate being termed Head, by reason of that authority in ecclesiastical affairs which it hath been already declared that themselves do in word acknowledge to be lawful; it followeth that he is an Head even subordinated of, and to Christ. For more plain explication whereof, first unto God we acknowledge daily, that kingdom, power, and glory, are his; that he is the immortal and invisible King of ages, as well the future which shall be, as the present which now is. That which the Father doth work as Lord and king over all, he worketh not without, but by the Son, who through coeternal generation receiveth of the Father that power which the Father bath of himself. And for that cause our Saviour’s words concerning his own dominion are, “To me all power both in heaven and in earth is given.” The Father by the Son both did create, and doth guide all; wherefore Christ bath supreme dominion over the whole universal world. Christ is God, Christ is LogoV , the consubstantial Word of God, Christ is also that consubstantial Word made man. As God, he saith of himself, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end: he which was, which is, and which is to come; even the very Omnipotent.” As the consubstantial Word of God, he had with God before the beginning of the world, that glory which as man he requesteth to have; “Father, glorify thy Son now with that glory which with thee I enjoyed before the world was.” For there is no necessity that all things spoken of Christ should agree unto him either as God, or else as man; but some things as he is the consubstantial Word of God, some things as he is that Word incarnate. The works of supreme dominion which have been since the first beginning wrought by the power of the Son of God, are now most truly and properly the works of the Son of man: the Word made flesh doth sit for ever, and reign as sovereign Lord over all. Dominion belongeth unto the kingly office of Christ, as propitiation and mediation unto his priestly; instruction, unto his pastoral or prophetical office. His works of dominion are in sundry degrees or kinds, according to the different condition of them which are subject unto it: he presently doth govern, and hereafter shall judge the world, entire and wholes, therefore his regal power cannot be with truth restrained unto a portion of the world only. Notwithstanding forasmuch as all do not shew and acknowledge with dutiful submission that obedience which they owe unto him; therefore such as do, their Lord he is termed by way of excellency, no otherwise than the Apostle doth term God, the Saviour generally of all, but especially of the faithful: these being brought to the obedience of faith, are every where spoken of as men translated into that kingdom, wherein whosoever is comprehended, Christ is the author of eternal salvation unto them; they have a high kind of ghostly fellowship with God, and Christ, and saints; or as the Apostle in more ample manner speaketh , “Aggregated they are unto Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the celestial Jerusalem, and to the company of innumerable

angels, and to the congregation of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just and perfect men, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Testament.” In a word, they are of that mystical body, which we term the Church of Christ. As for the rest, we find them accounted “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, men that lay in the kingdom of darkness, and that are in this present world without God.” Our Saviour’s dominion is therefore over these, as over rebels; over them as dutiful subjects. Which things being in holy Scriptures so plain, I somewhat muse at those strange positions, that Christ in the government of the Church, and superiority over the officers of it, hath himself a superior, which is his Father; but in the government of kingdoms and commonwealths, and in the superiority which he hath over kings no superior. Again, “that the civil magistrate cometh from God immediately, as Christ doth, and is not subordinate unto Christ.” In what evangelist, apostle, or prophet, is it found, that Christ, supreme governor of the Church, should be so unequal to himself; as he is supreme governor of kingdoms? The works of his providence for preservations of mankind by upholding of kingdoms, not only obedient unto, but even’ rebellious and obstinate against him, are such as proceed from divine power; and are not the works of his providence for safety of God’s elect, by gathering, inspiring, comforting, and every way preserving his Church, such as proceed from the same power likewise? Surely, if Christ “as God and man have ordained certain means for the gathering and keeping of his Church,” seeing this doth belong to the government of his Church; it must in reason follow, I think, that as God and man he worketh in church regiment, and consequently hath no more therein any superior, than in the government of commonwealths. Again, to “be in the midst of his, wheresoever they are assembled in his name,” and to be “with them till the world’s end,” are comforts which Christ doth perform to his Church as Lord and Governor; yea, such as he cannot perform but by that very power wherein he hath no superior. Wherefore, unless it can be proved, that all the works of our Saviour’s government in the Church are done by the mere and only force of his human nature, there is no remedy but to acknowledge it a manifest error, that Christ in the government of the world is equal unto the Father, but not in the government of the Church. Indeed, to the honour of this dominion it cannot be said that God did exalt him otherwise than only according to that human nature wherein he was made low: for as the Son of God, there could no advancement or exaltation grow unto him: and yet the dominion, whereunto he was in his human nature lifted up, is not without divine power exercised. It is by divine power, that the Son of man who sitteth in heaven, doth work as king and lord upon us which are on earth. The exercise of his dominion over the Church militant cannot choose but cease, when there is no longer any militant Church in the world. And therefore as generals of armies when they have finished their work, are wont to yield up such commissions as were given them for that purpose, and to remain in the state of subjects and not of lords, as concerning their former authority; even so, when the end of all things is come, the Son of

man, who till then reigneth, shall do the like, as touching regiment over the militant Church on earth So that between the Son of man and his brethren, over whom he now reigneth in this their warfare, there shall be then, as touching the exercise of that regiment, no such difference; they not warfaring under him any longer, but he together with them under God receiving the joys of everlasting triumph, that so God may be all in all; all misery in all the wicked through his justice; in all the righteous, through his love, all felicity and bliss. In the meanwhile he reigneth over this world as king, and doth those things wherein none is superior unto him, whether we respect the works of his providence over kingdoms, or of his regiment over the Church. The cause of error in this point doth seem to have been a misconceit, that Christ, as Mediator, being inferior unto his Father, doth, as Mediator, all works of regiment over the Church; when in truth, government. Both belong to his kingly office, mediatorship, to his priestly. For, as the high priest both offered sacrifice for expiation of the people’s sins, and entered into the holy place, there to make intercession for them: so Christ, having finished upon the cross that part of his priestly office which wrought the propitiation for our sins, did afterwards enter into very heaven, and doth there as mediator of the New Testament appear in the sight of God for us. A like slip of judgment it is, when they hold that civil authority is from God, but not mediately through Christ, nor with any subordination unto Christ. For “there is no power,” saith the Apostle, “but from God;” nor doth any thing come from God but by the hands of our Lord Jesus Christy. They deny it not to be said of Christ in the Old Testament, “By me kings reign, and princes decree justices; by me princes rule, and the nobles, and all the judges of the earth.” In the New as much is taught, “That Christ is the Prince of the kings of the earth.” Wherefore to the end it may more plainly appear how all authority of man is derived from God through Christ, and must by Christian men be acknowledged to be no otherwise held than of and under him; we are to note, that because whatsoever hath necessary being, the Son of God doth cause it to be, and those things without which the world cannot well continue, have necessary being in the world; a thing of so great use as government amongst men, and human dominion in government, cannot choose but be originally from him, and have reference also of subordination unto him. Touching that authority which civil magistrates have in ecclesiastical affairs, it being from God by Christ, as all other good things are, cannot choose but be held as a thing received at his hands; and because such power as is of necessary used for the ordering of religion, wherein the essence and very being of the Church consisteth, can no otherwise flow from him, than according to that special care which he hath to guide and govern his own people: it followeth that the said authority is of and under him after a more peculiar manner, namely, in that he is Head of the Church, and not in respect of his general regency over the world. “ All things,” (saith the Apostles speaking unto the Church) “ are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Kings are Christ’s, as saints; and kings are Christ’s, as kings: as saints, because they are of the Church; as kings, because they are in authority over the Church, if not collectively, yet divisively understood; that is over each particular person within that Church where they are kings. Such authority, reaching both unto all men’s

persons, and unto all kinds of causes also, it is not denied but that they lawfully may have and exercise ‘; such authority it is, for which, and for no other in the world, we term them heads; such authority they have under Christ, because he in all things is Lord over all. And even of Christ it is that they have received such authority, inasmuch as of him all lawful powers are: therefore the civil magistrate is, in regard of this power, an under and subordinate head of Christ’s people.It is but idle when they plead, “that although for several companies of men there, may be several heads or governors, differing in the measure of their authority from the chiefest who is head of all; yet so it cannot be in the Church, for that the reason why head-magistrates appoint others for such several places is, because they cannot be present every where to perform the office of a head. But Christ is never from his body, nor from any part of it, and therefore needeth not to substitute any, which may be heads, some over one church and some over another.” Indeed the consideration of man’s imbecillity, which maketh many hands necessary where the burden is too great for one, moved Jethro to be a persuader of Moses, that a number of heads or rulers might be instituted for discharge of that duty by parts, which in whole he saw was troublesome. Now although there be not in Christ any such defect or weakness, yet other causes there may be diverse, moe than we are able to search into, wherefore it might seem to him expedient to divide his kingdom into many portions, and to place many heads over it, that the power which each of them hath in particular with restraint, might illustrate the greatness of his unlimited authority. Besides, howsoever Christ be spiritually always united unto every part of his body, which is the Church; nevertheless we do all know, and they themselves who allege this will, I doubt not, confess also, that from every church here visible, Christ, touching visible and corporal presence, is removed as far as heaven from earth is distant. Visible government is a thing necessary for the Church; and it doth not appear how the exercise of visible government over such multitudes every where dispersed throughout the world should consist without sundry visible governors; whose power being the greatest in that kind so far as it reacheth, they are in consideration thereof termed so far heads. Wherefore, notwithstanding that perpetual conjunction, by virtue whereof our Saviour remaineth always spiritually united unto the parts of his mystical body; Heads endued with supreme power, extending unto a certain compass, are for the exercise of visible regiment not unnecessary. Some other reasons there are belonging unto this branch, which seem to have been objected, rather for the exercise of men’s wits in dissolving sophisms, than that the authors of them could think in likelihood thereby to strengthen their cause. For example, “If the magistrate be head of the Church within his own dominion, then is he none of the Church; for all that Church maketh the body of Christ, and every one of the Church fulfilleth the place of one member of the body. By making the magistrate therefore heads, we do exclude him from being a member subject to the head, and so leave him no place in the Church.” By which reason, the name of a body politic is supposed to be always taken of the inferior sort alone, excluding the principal guides and governors; contrary to all men’s custom of speech. The error riseth by misconstruing of some scripture sentences, where Christ as the head, and the Church as the body, are compared or opposed the one to the other: and because in such comparisons ands oppositions, the

body is taken fork those only parts which are subject to the head, they imagine that whoso is head of any church, he is even thereby excluded from being a part of that church: that the magistrate can be none of the Church, if so be we make him the head of the church in his own dominions. A chief and principal part of the Church, therefore no part; this is surely a strange conclusion. A church doth indeed make the body of Christ, being wholly taken together; and every one in the same church fulfilleth the place of a member in the body, but not the place of an inferior member, he which hath supreme authority and power over all the rest. Wherefore, by making the magistrate head in his own dominions, we exclude him from being a member subject unto any other person which may visibly there rule in place of an head or governor over him; but so far are we off from leaving him by this means no place in the Church, that we grant him the chiefest place. Indeed the heads of those visible bodies, which are many, can be but parts inferior in that spiritual body which is but one; yea, they may from this be excluded clean, who notwithstanding ought to be honoured, as possessing in the other the highest rooms: but for the magistrate to be termed, one way, withint his own dominions, an head, doth not bar him from being either way a part or member of the Church of God. As little to the purpose are those other cavils: “A Church which hath the magistrate for head, is as perfect man without Christ. So that the knitting of our Saviour thereunto should be an addition of that which is too much.” Again, “If the Church be the body of Christ, and of the civil magistrate, it shall have two heads, which being monstrous, is to the great dishonour of Christ and his Church.” Thirdly, If the Church be planted in a popular estate, then, forasmuch as all govern in common, and all have authority, all shall be head, there, and no body at all; which is another monster.” It might be feared what this birth of so many monsters might portend, but that we know how things natural enough in themselves may seem monstrous through misconceit; which error of mind is indeed a monster, and so the skilful in nature’s mysteries have used to term it. The womb of monsters, if any be, is that troubled understanding, wherein, because things lie confusedly mixed together, what they are it appeareth not. A Church perfect without Christ, I know not which way a man should imagine; unless there may be either Christianity without Christ, or else a Church without Christianity. If magistrates be heads of the Church, they are of necessity Christians; if Christians, then is their Head Christ. The adding of Christ thee universal Head over all unto thee magistrate’s particular headship, is no more superfluous in any church than in other societies it is to be both severally each subject unto some head, and to have also a head general for them all to be subject unto. For so in armies and in civil corporations we see it fareth. A body politic in such respects is not like to a natural body; in this, moe heads than one are superfluous; in that, not. It is neither monstrous nor as much as uncomely for a church to have different heads: for if Christian churches be in number many, and every of them a body perfect by itself, Christ being Lord and Head over all; why should we judge it a thing more monstrous for one body to have two heads, than one head so many bodies? Him God hath made the

supreme Head of the whole Church; the Head, not only of that mystical body which the eye of man is not able to discern, but even of every Christian politic society, of every visible Church in the world. And whereas, lastly, it is thought so strange, that in popular states a multitude should to itself be both body and head, all this wonderment doth grow from a little oversight, in deeming that the subject wherein headship is to reside, should be evermore some one person; which thing is not necessary. For in at collective body that hath not derived as yet the principality of power into some one or few, the whole of necessity must be head over each part; otherwise it could not possibly have power to make any one certain person head; inasmuch as the very power of making a head belongeth unto headship. These supposed monsters therefore we see are no such giants, that there should need any Hercules to tame them.For the title or style itself, although the laws of this land have annexed it to the crown, yet so far we would not strive, if so be men were nice and scrupulous in this behalf only, because they do wish that for reverence unto Christ Jesus, the civil magistrate did rather use some other form of speech wherewith to express that sovereign authority which he lawfully hath over all, both persons and causes of the Church. But I see that hitherto they which condemn utterly the name so applied, do it because they mislike that any such power should be given unto civil governors. The greatest exception that Sir Thomas More took against that title, who suffered death for denial of it, was “for that it maketh a lay, or secular person, the head of the state spiritual or ecclesiastical;” as though God himself did not name event Saul the head of all the tribes of Israel; and consequently of that tribe also among the rest, whereunto the state spiritual or ecclesiastical belonged. When the authors of the Centuries reprove it in kings and civil governors, the reason is, “istis non competit iste primatus;” “such kind of power is too high for them, they fit it not.” In excuse of Mr. Calvin, by whom this realm is condemned of blasphemy for entitling Henry the Eighth Supreme Head of this Church under Christ, a charitable conjecture is made, that he spake by misinformation, and thought we had meant thereby far otherwise than we do; howbeit, as he professeth utter dislike of that name, so whether the name be used or no, the very power itself which we give unto civil magistrates he much complaineth of, and testifieth, “That their power over all things was it which had ever wounded him deeply; that unadvised persons had made them too spiritual; that throughout Germany this fault did reign; that in those very parts where Calvin himself was, it prevailed more than were to be wished; that rulers, by imagining themselves so spiritual, have taken away ecclesiastical regiment; that they think they cannot reign unless they abolish all authority of the Church, and be themselves the chief judges, as well in doctrine, as in the whole spiritual regency.” So that in truth the question is, whether the magistrate, by being head in such sense as we term him, do use or exercise any part of that authority, not which belongeth unto Christ, but which other men ought to have.The last difference which we have made between the title of head when we gave it unto Christ, and when we gave it to other governors, is, that the kind of dominion which it importeth is not the same in both. Christ is head as being the fountain of life and ghostly nutriment, the well-spring of spiritual blessings poured into the body of the

Church; they heads, as being his principal instruments for the Church’s outward government: He head, as founder of the house; they, as his chiefest overseers Against this there’ is exceptions especially taken, and our purveyors are herein said to have their provision from the popish shambles: for by Pighius and Harding, to prove that Christ alone is not head of the Church, this distinction they say is brought, that according to the inward influence of grace, Christ only is head; but according to outward government the being head is a thing common with him to others. To raise up falsehoods of old condemned, and to bring that for confirmation of any thing doubtful, which hath already been sufficiently proved an error, and is worthily so taken, this would justly deserve censuring. But shall manifest truth be therefore d reproached, because men in some things convicted of manifest untruth have at any time taught or alleged it? If too much eagerness against their adversaries had not made them forget themselves, they might remember where being charged as maintainers of those very things, for which others before them have been condemned of heresy, yet lest the name of any such heretic holding the same which they do should make them odious, they stick not frankly to profess, “that they are not afraid to consent in some points with Jews and Turks.” Which defence, for all that, were a very weak buckler for such as should consent with Jews and Turks, in that which they have been abhorred and hated for of h the Church. But as for this distinction of headship, spiritual and mystical in Jesus Christ, ministerial and outward in others besides Christ; what cause is to dislike either Harding, or Pighius, or any other besides for it? That which they have been reproved for is, not because they did herein utter an untruth, but such a truth as was not sufficient to bear up the cause which they did thereby seek to maintain. By this distinction they have both truly and sufficiently proved that the name of head, importing power of dominion over the Church, might be given unto others besides Christ, without prejudice unto any part of his honour. That which they should have made manifest was, that the name of Head, importing the power of universal dominion over the whole Church of Christ militant, doth, and that by divine right, appertain unto the Pope of Rome. They did prove it lawful to grant unto others besides Christ the power of headship in a different kind from his; but they should have proved it lawful to challenge, as they did to the bishop of Rome, a power universal in that different kind. Their fault was therefore in exacting wrongfully so great power as they challenged in that kind, and not in making two kinds of power, unless some reason can be shewed for which this distinction of power should be thought erroneous and false.A little they stir, although in vain, to prove that we cannot with truth make any’ such distinction of power, whereof the one kind should agree unto Christ only, and the other be further communicated. Thus therefore they argue: “If there be no head but Christ, in respect of the spiritual government, there is no head but he in respect of the word, sacraments, and discipline, administered by those whom he hath appointed, forasmuch as that is also his spiritual government.” Their meaning is, that whereas we make two kinds of power, of which two, the one being spiritual is proper unto Christ; the other men are capable of, because it is visible and external: we do amiss altogether, they think, in so distinguishing, forasmuch as the visible and external power of regiment over the Church,

is only in relation unto the word, the sacraments, and discipline, administered by such as Christ hath appointed thereunto, and the exercise of this power is also his spiritual government: therefore we do but vainly imagine a visible and external power in the Church differing from his spiritual power. Such disputes as this do somewhat resemble the wonted, practising of well-willers upon their friends in the pangs of death, whose manner is even then to put smoke in their nostrils, and so to fetch them again, although they know it a matter impossible to keep them living. The kind affection which the favourers of this labouring cause bear towards it will not suffer them to see it die, although by what means they should be able to’ make it live, they do not see. But they may see that these wrestlings will not help. Can they be ignorant how little it booteth to overcast so clear a light with some mist of ambiguity in the name of spiritual regiment? To make things therefore so plain that henceforth a child’s capacity may serve rightly to conceive our meaning: we make the spiritual regiment of Christ to be generally that whereby his Church is ruled and governed in things spiritual. Of this general we make two distinct kinds; the one invisibly exercised by Christ himself in his own person; the other outwardly administered by them whom Christ doth allow to be the rulers and guiders of his Church. Touching the former of these two kinds, we teach that Christ in regard thereof is peculiarly termed the Head of the Church of God; neither can any other creature in that sense and meaning be termed head besides him, because it importeth the conduct and government of our souls by the hand of that blessed Spirit wherewith we are sealed and marked, as being peculiarly his. Him only therefore we do acknowledge’ to be that Lord, which dwelleth, liveth and reigneth in our hearts; him only to be that Head, which giveth salvation and life unto his body; him only to be that fountain, from whence the influence of heavenly grace distilleth, and is derived into all parts, whether the word, or sacraments, or discipline, or whatsoever be the mean whereby it floweth. As for the power of administering these things in the Church of Christ, which power we call the power of order, it is indeed both Spiritual and His; Spiritual, because such duties properly concern the Spirit; His, because by him it was instituted. Howbeit neither spiritual, as that which is inwardly and invisibly exercised; nor his, as that which he himself in person doth exercise. Again, that power of dominion which is indeed the point of this controversy, and doth also belong to the second kind of spiritual government namely unto that regiment which is external and visible; this likewise being spiritual in regard of the matter about which it dealeth, and being his, inasmuch as he approveth whatsoever is done by it, must notwithstanding be distinguished also from that power whereby he himself in person administereth the former kind of his own spiritual regiment, because he himself in person doth not administer this. We do not, therefore, vainly imagine, but truly and rightly discern a power external and visible in the Church, exercised by men, and severed in nature from that spiritual power of Christ’s own regiment, which power is termed spiritual, because it worketh secretly, inwardly, and invisibly; his, because none doth or can it personally exercise, either besides or together with him. Sop that him only we may

name our Head, in regard of this, and yet, in regard of that other power differing from this, term others also besides him heads, without any contradiction at all.Which thing may very well serve for answer unto that also which they further allege against the foresaid distinction, namely, “that even in the outward society and assemblies of the Church, where one or two are gathered n in his name, either for hearing of the word, or for prayer, or any other church-exercise, our Saviour Christ being in the midst of them as Mediator, must needs be there as head n: and if he be there not idle, but doing the office of the head fully, it followeth that even in the outward society and meetings of the Church, no mere man can be called the head of it, seeing that our Saviour Christ doing the whole office of the head himself alone, leaveth nothing to men by doing whereof they may obtain that title.” Which objection I take as being made for nothing but only to maintain argument. For they are not so far gone as to argue thus in sooth and right good earnest. “God standeth,” saith the Psalmist, “in the midst of gods;” if God be there present, he must undoubtedly be present as a God; if he be there not idle, but doing the office of a God fully, it followeth, that God himself alone doing the whole office of a God, leaveth nothing in such assemblies unto any other, by doing whereof they may obtain so high a name. The Psalmist therefore hath spoken amiss, and doth ill to call judges gods. Not so; for as God hath his office differing from theirs, and doth fully discharge it even in the very midst of them, so they are not thereby excluded from all kind of duty for which that name should be given unto them also, but in that duty for which it was given them they are encouraged religiously and carefully to order themselves. After the selfsame manner, our Lord and Saviour being in the midst of his Church as Head, is our comfort, without thee abridgment of any one duty, for performance whereof others are termed heads in another kind than he is.If there be of the ancient Fathers which say, “There is but one Head of the Church, Christ; and that the minister which baptizeth cannot be the head of him which is baptized, because Christ is the head of the whole Church: and that Paul could not be the head of the Churches which he planted, because Christ is Head of the whole body;” they understand the name of head in such sort as we grant that it” is not appliable to any other, no not in relation to the least part of the whole Church: he which baptizeth, baptizeth into Christ: he which converteth, converteth unto Christ; he which ruleth, ruleth for Christ. The whole Church can have but one to be head as lord and owner of all: wherefore if Christ be Head in that kind, it followeth, that no other can be sop else either to the whole or to any part. V.The consuls of Rome Polybius affirmeth to have had a kind of regal authority, in that they might call together the senate and people whensoever it pleased them. Seeing therefore the affairs of the Church and Christian religion are public affairs, for the ordering whereof more solemn assemblies sometimes are of as great importance and use, as they are for secular affairs; it seemeth no less an act of supreme authority to call the one than the other. Wherefore amongst sundry other prerogatives of Simon’s dominion over the Jews, this is reckoned as not the least, “that no man might gather any great assembly in the land without him.” For so the manner of Jewish regiment had always

been, that whether the cause for which men assembled themselves in peaceable, good, and orderly course, were ecclesiastical or civil, supreme authority should assemble them. David gathered all Israel together unto Jerusalem, when the ark was to be removed; he assembled the sons of Aaron and the Levites. Solomon did the like at such time as the temple was to be dedicated”: when the Church was to be reformed, Asa in his time did the same: the same upon like occasions done afterwards by Joas, Ezekias, Josias, and others.‘The ancient imperial law forbiddeth such assemblies as the emperor’s authority did not cause to be made. Before emperors became Christian, the Church had never any synod general; their greatest meetings consisted of bishops and others the gravest in each province. As for the civil governor’s authority, it suffered them only as things not regarded or accounted of, at such times as it did suffer them. So that what right a Christian king hath as touching assemblies of that kind we are not able to judge, till we come unto later times, when religion had won the hearts of the highest powers. Constantine (as Pighius doth grant) was not only the first that ever did call any general council together, but even the first that devised the calling of them for consultation about the business of God. After he had once given the example, his successors a long time followed the same; insomuch that S. Jerome, to disprove the authority of a synod which was pretended to be general, useth this as a forcible arguments, “Dic quis imperator hanc synodum jusserit convocari.” Their answer hereunto is no answer, which say, “that emperors did not this without conference had with assembled under the countenance of his authority; who by likelihood considering what inconvenience might thereby grow, inasmuch as it could not be but a meant to incense Valens the more against them, refused himself to be author of, or present at any such assembly; and of this his denial gave them a colourable reason, to wit, that he was although an emperor, yet a secular person, and therefore not able in matters of so great obscurity to sit as a competent judge; but, if they which were bishops and learned men did think good to consult thereof together, they might. Whereupon when they could not obtain that which they most desired, yet that which was granted them they took, and forthwith had a council. Valentinian went on towards Rome, they remaining in consultation till Valens which accompanied him returned back; so that now there was no remedy, but either to incur a manifest contempt, or else at the hands even of Valens himself to seek approbation of that they had done. To him, therefore, they became suitors: his answer was short, “Either Arianism, or else exile, which they would;” whereupon their banishment ensued. Let reasonable men therefore now be judges, how much this example of Valentinian doth make against the authority, which we say that sovereign rulers may lawfully have as concerning synods and meetings ecclesiastical. ‘The clergy, in such wise gathered together, is an ecclesiastical senate, which with us, as in former times the chiefest prelate at his discretion did use to assemble, so afterwards in such considerations as have been before specified, it seemed more meet to annex the said prerogative unto the crown. The plot of reformed discipline not liking hereof’ so well, taketh order that every former assembly before it break up should itself appoint both the time and place of their after meeting again. But because I find not any thing on that side

particularly alleged against us herein, a longer disputation about so plain a cause shall not need. VI.The natural subject of power civil all men confess to be the body of the commonwealth: the good or evil estate whereof dependeth so much upon the power of making laws, that in all well settled states, yea though they be monarchies, yet diligent care is evermore had that the commonwealth do not clean resign up herself and make over this power wholly into the hands of any one. For this cause William, whom we call the Conqueror, making war against England in right of his title to the crown, and knowing that as inheritor thereof he could not lawfully change the laws of the land by himself, for that the English commonwealth had not invested their kings before with the fulness of so great power; therefore he took the style and title of a conqueror. Wherefore, as they themselves cannot choose but grant that the natural subject of power to make laws civil is the commonwealth; so we affirm that in like congruity the true original subject of power also to make church-laws is the whole entire body of that church for which they are made. Equals cannot impose laws and statutes upon their equals. Therefore neither may any one man indifferently impose canons ecclesiastical upon another, nor yet one church upon another. If they go about at any time to do it, they must either shew some commission sufficient for their warrant, or else be justly condemned of presumption in the sight both of God and men. But nature itself doth abundantly authorize the Church to make laws and orders for her children that are within her. For every whole thing, being naturally of greater power than is any part thereof, that which a whole church will appoint may be with reason exacted indifferently of any within the compass of the same church, and so bind all unto strict obedience.The greatest agents of the bishop of Rome’s inordinate sovereignty strive against no one point with such earnestness as against this, that jurisdiction (and in the name of jurisdiction they also comprehend the power of dominion spiritual) should be thought originally to be the right of the whole Church; and that no person hath or can have the same, otherwise than derived from the body of the Church. The reason wherefore they can in no wise brook this opinion is, as friar Soto confesseth, because they which make councils above popes do all build upon this ground, and therefore even with teeth and all they that favour the papal throne must hold the contrary. Which thing they do. For, as many as draw the chariot of the pope’s preeminence, the first conclusion which they contend for is: The power of jurisdiction ecclesiastical doth not rest derived from Christ immediately into the whole body of the Church, but into the prelacy. Unto the prelacy alone it belongeth; as ours also do imagine, unto the governors of the Church alone it was first given, and doth appertain, even of very divine right, in every church established to make such laws concerning orders and ceremonies as occasion doth require.Wherein they err, for want of observing as they should, in what manner the power whereof we speak was instituted. One thing it is to ordain a power, and another thing to bestow the same being ordained: or, to appoint the special subject of it, or the person in whom it shall rest. Nature hath appointed that there should be in a civil society power to

make laws; but the consent of the people (which are that society) hath instituted the prince’s person to be the subject wherein supremacy of that power shall reside. The act of instituting such power may and sometimes doth go in time before the act of conferring or bestowing it. And for bestowing it there may be order two ways taken: namely, either by appointing thereunto some certain person, one or many; or else, without any personal determination, and with appointment only of some determinate condition touching the quality of their persons (whosoever they be that shall receive the same), and for the form or manner of taking it. Now God himself preventeth sometimes these communities, himself nominateth and appointeth sometimes the subject wherein their power shall rest, and by whom either in whole or in part it shall be exercised; which thing he did often in the commonwealth of Israel. Even so Christ having given unto his Church the power whereof we speak, what she doth by her appointed agents, that duty though they discharge, yet is it not theirs peculiarly, but hers; her power it is which they do exercise. But Christ hath sometimes prevented his Church, conferring that power and appointing it unto certain persons himself, which otherwise the Church might have done. Those persons excepted which Christ himself did immediately bestow such power upon, the rest succeeding have not received power as they did, Christ bestowing it upon their persons; but the power which Christ did institute in the Church they from the Church do receive, according to such laws and canons as Christ hath prescribed, and the light of nature or Scripture taught men to institute. But in truth the whole body of the Church being the first original subject of all mandatory and coercive power within itself; in case a monarch of the world together with his whole kingdom under him receive Christianity, the question is whether the monarch of that commonwealth may without offence or breach of the law of God have and exercise power of dominion ecclesiastical within the compass of his own territories, in such’ ample sort as the kings of this land may do by the laws thereof.The cases is not like when such assemblies are gathered together by supreme authority concerning other affairs of the Church, and when they meet about the making of r ecclesiastical laws or statutes. For in the one they are only to advise, in the other they area to decree. The persons which are of the one, the King doth voluntarily assemble, as being in respect of gravity fit to consult withal; them which are of the other he calleth by prescript of law, as having right to be thereunto called. Finally, the one are but themselves, and their sentence bath but the weight of their own judgment; the other represent the whole- clergy, and their voices are as much as if all did give personal verdict. Now the question is, Whether the clergy alone so assembled ought to have the whole power of making ecclesiastical laws, or else consent of the laity may thereunto be made necessary, and the King’s assent so necessary, that his sole denial may be of force to stay them from being laws.If they with whom we dispute were uniform, strong and constant in that which they say, we should not need to trouble ourselves about their persons to whom the power of making laws for the Church belongeth. For they are sometimes very vehement in

contention, that from the greatest thing unto the least about the Church, all must needs be immediately from God. And to this they apply the pattern of the ancient tabernacle which God delivered unto Moses, and was therein so exact, that there was not left so much as the least pin for the wit of man to devise in the framing of it. To this they often apply that strict and severe charge which God so often gave concerning his own law, “Whatsoever I command you, take heed yes do it; thou shalt put nothing thereunto, thou shalt take nothing from it;” nothing, whether it be great or small. Yet sometime bethinking themselves better, they speak as acknowledging that it doth suffice to have received in such sort the principal things from God, and that for other matters the Church hath sufficient authority to make laws. Whereupon they now have made it a question, what persons they are whose right it is to take order for the Church’s affairs, when the institution of any new thing therein is requisite. Laws may be requisite to be made either concerning things that are only to be known and believed in, or else touching that which is to be done by the Church of God. The law of nature and the law of God are sufficient for declaration in both what belongeth unto each man separately, as his soul is the spouse of Christ, yea so sufficient, that they plainly and fully shew whatsoever God doth require by way of necessary introduction unto the state of everlasting bliss. But as a man liveth joined with others in common society, and belongeth unto the outward politic body of the Church, albeit the same law of nature and scripture have in this respect also made manifest the things that are of greatest necessity; nevertheless, by reason of new occasions still arising which the Church having care of souls must taker order for as need requireth, hereby it cometh to pass, that there is and ever will be great use even of human laws and ordinances, deducted by way of discourse as conclusions from the former divine and natural, serving for principles thereunto. No man doubteth, but that for matters of action and practice in the affairs of God, for the manner of divine service, for order in ecclesiastical proceedings about the regiment of the Church, there may be oftentimes cause very urgent to have laws made: but the reason is not so plain wherefore human laws should appoint men what to believe. Wherefore in this we must note two things: First, That in matter of opinion, the law doth not make that to be truth which before was not, as in matter of action it causeth that to be duty which was not before, but it manifesteth only and giveth men notice of that to be truth, the contrary whereunto they ought not before to have believed. Secondly, That as opinions do cleave to the understanding, and are in heart assented unto, it is not in the power of any human law to command them, because to prescribe what men shall think belongeth only unto God. “Corde creditur, ore fit confessio,” saith the Apostle. As opinions are either fit or inconvenient to be professed, so man’s law hath to determine of them. It may for public unity’s sake require men’s professed assent, or prohibit contradiction to special articles, wherein, as there haply hath been controversy what is true, so the same were like to continue still, not without grievous detriment to a number of souls, except law to remedy that evil should set down a certainty which no man is to gainsay. Wherefore as in regard of divine laws, which the Church receiveth from God, we may unto every man apply those words of Wisdom in Solomon, Conserves, fili mi, praecepta patris tui: “My son, keep thou thy father’s precepts;” even so concerning the statutes and ordinances

which the Church itself maketh, we may add thereunto the words that follow, Et ne dimittas legem matris tuae, “And forsake not thou thy mother’s law.”It is undoubtedly a thing even natural, that all free and independent societies should themselves make their own laws, and that this power should belong to the whole, not to any certain part of a politic body, though haply some one part may have greater sway in that action than the rest: which thing being generally fit and expedient in the making of all laws, we see no cause why to think otherwise in laws concerning the service of God; which in all well-ordered states and commonwealths is the first thing that law hath care to provide for. When we speak of the right which naturally belongeth to a commonwealth, we speak of that which needs must belong to the Church of God. For if the commonwealth be Christian, if the people which are of it do publicly embrace the true religion, this very thing doth make it the Church, as hath been shewed. So that unless the verity and purity of religion do take from them which embrace it, that power wherewith otherwise they are possessed; look, what authority, as touching laws for religion, a commonwealth hath simply, it must of necessity being Christian, have the same as touching laws for Christian religion.It will be therefore perhaps alleged, that a part of the verity of Christian religion is to hold the power of making ecclesiastical laws a thing appropriated unto the clergy in their synods; and that whatsoever is by their only voices agreed upon, it needeth no further approbation to give unto it the strength of a law: as may plainly appear by the canons of that first most venerable assembly, where those things which the Apostles and James had concluded, were afterward published and imposed upon the churches of the Gentiles abroad as laws, the records thereof remaining still in the book of God for a testimony, that the power of making ecclesiastical laws belongeth to the successors of the Apostles, the bishops and prelates of the Church of God. To this we answer, that the council of Jerusalem is no argument for the power of the clergy alone to make laws. For first, there hath not been sithence any council of like authority to that in Jerusalem: secondly, the cause why that was of such authority came by a special accident: thirdly, the reason why other councils being not like unto that in nature, the clergy in them should have no power to make laws by themselves alone, is in truth so forcible, that except some commandment of God to the contrary can be shewed, it ought notwithstanding the foresaid example to prevail. The decrees of the council of Jerusalem were not as the canons of other ecclesiastical assemblies, human, but very divine ordinances: for which cause the churches were far and wide commanded every where to see them kept, no otherwise than if Christ himself had personally on earth been the author of them. The cause why that council was of so great authority and credit above all others which have been sithence, is expressed in those words of principal observation, “Unto the Holy Ghost and to us it hath seemed good:” which form of speech, though other councils have likewise used, yet neither could they themselves mean, nor may we so understand them, as if both were in equal sort assisted with the power of the Holy Ghost; but the later had

the favour of that general assistance and presence which Christ cloth promises unto all his, according to the quality of their several estates and callings; the former, that I grace of special, miraculous, rare, and extraordinary illumination, in relation whereunto the Apostle, comparing the Old Testament and the New together, termeth the one a Testament of the letter, for that God delivered it written in stone, the other a Testament of the Spirit, because God imprinted it in the hearts and declared it by the tongues of his chosen Apostles through the power of the Holy Ghost, framing both their conceits and speeches in most divine and incomprehensible manner. Wherefore inasmuch as the council of Jerusalem did chance to consist of men so enlightened, it had authority greater than were meet for any other council besides to challenge, wherein no such kind of persons are.As now the state of the Church doth stand, kings being not then that which now they are, and the clergy not now that which then they were: till it be proved that some special law of Christ hath for ever annexed unto the clergy alone the power to make ecclesiastical laws, we are to hold it a thing most consonant with equity and reason, that no ecclesiastical law, be made in a Christian commonwealth, without consent as well of the laity as of the clergy, but least of all without consent of the highest power. For of this thing no man doubteth, namely, that in all societies, companies, and corporations, what severally each shall be bound unto, it must be with all their assents ratified. Against all equity it were that a man should suffer detriment at the hands of men, for not observing that which he never did either by himself or by others, mediately or immediately, agree unto; much more that a king should constrain all others unto the strict observation of any such human ordinance as passeth without his own approbation. In this case therefore especially that vulgar axiom is of force, “Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari et approbari debet.” Whereupon Pope Nicholas, although otherwise not admitting lay-persons, no not emperors themselves to be present at synods, doth notwithstanding seem to allow of their presence when matters of faith are determined, whereunto all men must stand bound: “Ubinam legistis imperatores, antecessores vestros, synodalibus conventibus interfuisse; nisi forsitan in quibus de fide tractatum est, qum universalis est, qum omnibus communis est, quae non solum ad clericos, verum etiam ad laicos et omnes pertinet Christianos?” A law, be it civil or ecclesiastical, is as a public obligation, wherein seeing that the whole standeth charged, no reason it should pass without his privity and will, whom principally the whole cloth depend upon. “Sicut laici jurisdictionem clericorum perturbare, ita clerici jurisdictionem laicorum non debent imminuere;” saith Innocent, “As the laity should not hinder the clergy’s jurisdiction, so neither is it reason that the laity’s right should be abridged by the clergy.” But were it so that the clergy alone might give laws unto all the rest, forasmuch as every estate doth desire to enlarge the bounds of their own liberties, is it not easy to see how injurious this might prove unto men of other condition? Peace and justice are maintained by preserving unto every order their rights, and by keeping all estates as it were in an even balance. Which thing is no way better done, than if the king, their common parent, whose care is presumed to extend most indifferently over all, do bear the chiefest sway in the making of laws’ which all must be ordered by.

[q.] Wherefore, of them which in this point attribute most to the clergy, I would demand what evidence there is, which way it may clearly be shewed, that, in ancient kingdoms Christian, any canon devised by the clergy alone in their synods, whether provincial, national, or general, hath by mere force of their agreement taken place as a law, making all men constrainable to be obedient thereunto, without any other approbation from the king before or afterwards required in that behalf? But what speak we of ancient kingdoms, when at this day, even in’ the papacy itself, the very Tridentine council hath not every where as yet obtained to have in all points the strength of ecclesiastical law Did not Philip, king of Spain, publishing that council in the Low Countries, add thereunto an express clause of special provision, that the same should in no wise prejudice, hurt, or diminish any kind of privilege which the king or his vassals aforetime had enjoyed, either touching possessory judgments of ecclesiastical livings, or concerning nominations thereunto, or belonging to whatsoever rights they had else in such affairs? If therefore the king’s exception taken against some part of the canons contained in that council, were a sufficient bar to make them of none effect within his territories; it followeth that the like exception against any other part had been also of like efficacy, and so consequently that no part thereof had obtained the strength of a law, if he which excepted against a part had so done against the whole: as, what reason was there but that the same authority which limited might quite and clean have refused that council? Whoso alloweth the said act of the Catholic King for good and lawful, must grant that the canons even of general councils have but the force of wise men’s opinions concerning that whereof they treat, till they be publicly assented unto, where they are to take place as laws; and that, in giving such public assent, as maketh a Christian kingdom subject unto those laws, the king’s authority is the chiefest. That which an University of men, a Company or Corporation doth without consent of their Rector, is as nothing. Except therefore we make the king’s authority over the clergy less in the greatest things, than the power of the meanest governor is in all things over the college or society which is under him; how should we think it a matter decent, that the clergy should impose laws, the supreme governor’s assent not asked?There are which wonder that we should count any statute a law, which the high court of parliament in England hath established about the matter of church regiment; the prince and court of parliament having, as they suppose, no more lawful means to give order to the Church and clergy in these things, than they have to make laws for the hierarchies of angels in heaven: that the parliament being a mere temporal court, can neither by the law of nature, nor of God, have competent power to define of such matters; that supremacy of power in this kind cannot belong unto kings, as kings, because pagan emperors, whose princely power was notwithstanding true sovereignty, never challenged thus much over the Church: that power, in this kind, cannot be the right of any earthly crown, prince, or state, in that they be Christian, forasmuch as if they be Christians, they all owe subjection unto the pastors of their souls: that the prince therefore not having it himself cannot communicate it unto the parliament, and consequently cannot make laws, hear or determine of the Church’s regiment by himself, parliament, or any other court in such sorts subjected unto him.

The parliament of England together with the convocation annexed thereunto, is that whereupon the very essence of all government within this kingdom doth depend; it is even the body of the whole realm; it consisteth of the king, and of all that within the land are subject unto him: for they all are there present, either in person or by such as they voluntarily have derived their very personal right unto. The parliament is a court not so merely temporal as if it might meddle with nothing but only leather and wool. Those days of Queen Mary are not yet forgotten, wherein the realm did submit itself unto the legate of Pope Julius: at which time had they been persuaded as this man seemeth now to be, had they thought that there is no more force in laws made by parliament concerning the Church affairs, than if men shall take upon them to make orders for the hierarchies of angels in heaven, they might have taken all former statutes my that kind as cancelled, and by reason of nullity abrogated in themselves. What need was there that they should bargain with the cardinal, and purchase their pardon by promise made beforehand, that what laws they had made, assented unto, or executed against the bishop of Rome’s supremacy, the same they would in that present parliament effectually abrogate and repeal? Had they power to repeal laws made, and none to make laws concerning the regiment of the Church? Again, when they had by suit obtained his confirmation for such foundations of bishoprics, cathedral churches, hospitals, colleges, and schools; for such marriages before made, for such institutions unto livings ecclesiastical, and for all such judicial processes, as having been ordered according to laws before in force, but contrary to the canons and orders of the church of Rome, were in that respect thought defective; although the cardinal in his letters of dispensation did give validity unto those acts, even apostolicae firmitatis robur, “the very strength of apostolical solidity;” what had all this been without those grave authentical words, “Be it enacted by the authority of this present parliament, that all and singular articles and clauses contained in the said dispensation, shall remain and be reputed and taken to all intents and constructions in the laws of this realm, lawful, good and effectual to be alleged and pleaded in all courts ecclesiastical and temporal, for good and sufficient matter either for the plaintiff or defendant, without any allegation or objection to be made against the validity of them by pretence of any general council, canon, or decree to the contrary.” Somewhat belike they thought there was in this mere temporal court, without which the pope’s own mere ecclesiastical legate’s dispensation had taken small effect in the Church of England; neither did they or the cardinal himself, as then, imagines any thing committed against the law of nature or of God, because they took order for the Church’s affairs, and that even in the court of parliament. The most natural and religious course in making of laws is, that the matter of them be taken from the judgment of the wisest in those things which they are to concern. In matters of God, to set down a form of public prayer, a solemn confession of the articles of Christian; faith, rites and ceremonies meet for the exercise of religion; it were unnatural not to think the pastors and bishops of our souls a great deal more fit, than men of secular trades and callings: howbeit, when all which the wisdom of all sorts can do is done for devising of laws in the Church, it is the general consent of all that giveth them the form and vigour of laws, without which they could be no more unto us than the counsels of physicians to the sick: well might they seem as wholesome admonitions and

instructions, but laws could they never be without consent of the whole Church, which is the only thing that bindeth each member of the Church, to be guided by them. Whereunto both nature and the practice of the Church of God set down in Scripture, is found every way so fully consonant, that God himself would not impose, no not his own laws upon his people by the hand of Moses, without their free and open consent. Wherefore to define and determine even of the church’s affairs by way of assent and approbation, as laws are defined of in that right of power, which doth give them the force of laws; thus to define of our own church’s regiment, the parliament of England hath competent authority. Touching the supremacy of power which our kings have in this case of making laws, it resteth principally in the strength of a negative voice; which not to give them, were to deny them that without which they were but kings by mere title, and not in exercise of dominion. Be it in states of regiment popular, aristocratical, or regal, principality resteth in that person, or those persons, unto whom is given the right of excluding any kind of law whatsoever it be before establishment. This doth belong unto kings, as kings; pagan emperors even Nero himself had note less, but much more than this in the laws of his own empire. That he challenged not any interest in giving voice in the laws of the church, I hope no man will so construe, as if the cause were conscience, and fear to encroach upon the Apostles’ right. If then it be demanded by what right from Constantine downward, the Christian emperors did so far intermeddle with the church’s affairs, either we must herein condemn them utterly, as being over presumptuously bold, or else judge that by a law which is termed Regia, that is to say royal, the people having derived into the emperor their whole power for making of laws, and by that mean his edicts being made laws, what matter soever they did concern, as imperial dignity endowed them with competent authority and power to make laws for religion, so they were taught by Christianity to use their power, being Christians, unto the benefit of the Church of Christ. Was there any Christian bishop in the world which did then judge this repugnant unto the dutiful subjection which Christians do owe to the pastors of their souls? to whom, in respect of their sacred order, it is not by us, neither may be denied, that kings and princes are as much as the very meanest that liveth under them, bound in conscience to shew themselves gladly and willingly obedient, receiving the seals of salvation, the blessed sacraments, at -their hands, as at the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all reverence, not disdaining to be taught and admonished by them, not withholding from them as much as the least part of their due and decent honour. All which, for any thing that hath been alleged, may stand very well without resignation of supremacy of power in making laws, even laws concerning the most spiritual affairs of the Church. Which laws being made amongst us, are not by any of us so taken or interpreted, as if they did receive their force from power which the prince doth communicate unto the parliament, or to any other court under him, but from power which the whole body of this realm being naturally possessed with, hath by free and deliberate assent derived unto him that ruleth over them, so far forth as hath been declared. So that our laws made concerning religion, do take originally their essence from the power of the whole realm

## and church of England, than which nothing can be more consonant unto the law of nature and the will of our Lord Jesus Christ.To let these go, and to return to our own men, “Ecclesiastical governors,” they say, “may not meddle with the making of civil laws, and of laws for the commonwealth; nor the civil magistrate, high or low, with making of orders for the Church.” It seemeth unto me very strange, that those men which are in no cause more vehement and fierce, than where they plead that ecclesiastical persons may not kurieuein , be lords , should hold that the power of making ecclesiastical laws, which thing is of all other most proper unto dominion, belongeth to none but persons ecclesiastical only. Their oversight groweth herein for want of exact observation, what it is to make a law. Tully, speaking of the law of nature, saith, “That thereof God himself was inventor, disceptator, lator , the deviser, the discusser, the deliverer:” wherein he plainly alludeth unto the chiefest parts which then did appertain to this public action. For when laws were made, the first thing was to have them devised; the second, to sift them with as much exactness of judgment as any way might be used; the next, by solemn voice of sovereign authority to pass them, and give them the force of laws. It cannot in any reason seem otherwise than most fit, that unto ecclesiastical persons the care of devising ecclesiastical laws be committed, even as the care of civil unto them which are in those affairs most skilful. This taketh not away from ecclesiastical persons all right of giving voice with others, when civil laws are proposed for regiment of that commonwealth, whereof themselves, (howsoever now the world would have them annihilated,) are notwithstanding as yet a part: much less doth it cut off that part of the power of princes, whereby, as they claim, so we know no reasonable cause wherefore we may not grant them, without offence to Almighty God, so much authority in making of all manner of laws within their own dominions, that neither civil nor ecclesiastical do pass without their royal assent. In devising and discussing of laws, wisdom is specially required: but that which establisheth and maketh them, is power, even power of dominion; the chiefty whereof, amongst us, resteth in the person of the king. Is there any law of Christ’s which forbiddeth kings and rulers of the earth to have such sovereign and supreme power in the making of laws, either civil or ecclesiastical? If there be, our controversy hath an end.Christ in his church hath not appointed any such law concerning temporal power, as God did of old deliver unto the commonwealth of Israel; but leaving that to be at the world’s free choice, his chiefest care was that the spiritual law of the Gospel might be published far and wide. They that received the law of Christ, were for a long time people scattered in sundry kingdoms, Christianity not exempting them from the laws which they had been subject unto, saving only in such cases as those laws did enjoin that which the religion of Christ forbade. Hereupon grew their manifold persecutions throughout all places where they lived: as oft as it thus came to pass, there was no possibility that the emperors and kings under whom they lived, should meddle any whit at all with making laws for the Church. From Christ therefore having received power, who doubteth, but as they did, so they night bind themselves to such orders as seemed fittest for the maintenance of their

religion, without the leave of high or low in the commonwealth; forasmuch as in religion it was divided utterly from them, and they from it? But when the mightiest began to like of the Christian faith; by their means whole free states and kingdoms became obedient unto Christ Now the question is, whether kings by embracing Christianity do therein, receive any such law, as taketh from them the weightiest part of that sovereignty which they had even when they were heathens: whether being infidels they might do more in causes of religion, than now they can by the law of God, being true believers. For whereas in regal states, the king or supreme head of the commonwealth, had before Christianity a supreme stroke in the making of laws for religion: he must by embracing Christian religion utterly thereof deprive himself, and in such causes become a subject to his owns subjects, having even within his own dominions them whose commandment he must obey; unless this power be placed in the hand of some foreign spiritual potentate: so that either a foreign or domestical commander upon earth he must needs admit, more now than before he had, and that in the chiefest things whereupon commonwealths do stand. But apparent it is unto all men which are not strangers in the doctrine of Jesus Christ, that no state in the world receiving Christianity is by any law therein contained bound to resign the power which they lawfully held before: but over what persons and in what causes soever the same hath been in force, it may so remain and continue still. That which as kings they might do in matter of religion, and did in matter of false religion, being idolaters or superstitious kings, the same they are now even in every respect as fully authorized to do in all affairs pertinent unto the state of true Christian religion. And concerning their supreme power of making laws for all persons in all causes to be guided by, it is not to be let pass, that the head enemies of this headship are constrained to acknowledge the king endowed even with this very power, so that he may and ought to exercise the same, taking order for the Church and her affairs of what nature or kind soever, in case of necessity: as when there is no lawful ministry, which they interpret then to be (and this surely is a point very markable), whensoever the ministry is wicked. A wicked ministry no lawful ministry, and in such sort no lawful ministry, that what doth belong to them as ministers by right of their calling, the same to be annihilated in respect of their bad qualities; their wickedness in itself a deprivation of right to deal in the affairs of the Church, and a warrant for others to deal in them which are held to be of a clean other society, the members whereof have been before so peremptorily for ever excluded from power of dealing with the affairs of the Church. They which have once throughly learned this lesson, will quickly be capable perhaps of another equivalent unto it. For if the wickedness of the ministry transfer their right unto the king; in case the king be as wicked as they, to whom then shall the right descend? There is no remedy, all must come by devolution at thee length, even as the family of Brown will have it, unto the godly among the people; for confusion unto the wise and thee great, the poor and the simpler, some Knipperdoling with his retinue, must take the work of the Lord in hand; and the making of church laws and orders must prove to be their right in the end. If not for love of the truth, yet for very shame of so gross absurdities, let these contentions and shifting fancies be abandoned.

The cause which moved them for a time to hold a wicked ministry no lawful ministry; and in this defect of a lawful ministry, kings authorized’ to make laws and orders for the affairs of the Church, till the Church be well established, is surely this: First, they see that whereas the continual dealing of the kings of Israel in the affairs of the Church doth make now very strongly against them, the burden thereof a they shall in time well enough shake off, if it may be obtained that it is for kings lawful indeed to follow those holy examples, howbeit no longer than during the foresaid case of necessity, while the wickedness, and in respect thereof the unlawfulness of the ministry doth continue. Secondly, they perceive right well, that unless they should yield authority unto kings in case of such supposed necessity, the discipline they urge were clean excluded, as long as the clergy of England cloth thereunto remain opposite. To open therefore a door for her entrance, there is no remedy but the tenet must be this: that now when the ministry of England is universally wicked, and, in that respect, hath lost all authority, and is become no lawful ministry, no such ministry as hath the right which otherwise should belong unto them, if they were virtuous and godly as their adversaries are; in this necessity the king may do somewhat for the church: that which we do imply in the name of headship, he may both have and exercise till they be entered which will disburden and ease him of it; till they come, the king is licensed to hold that power which we call headship. But what afterwards? In a church [well?] ordered, that which the supreme magistrate hath, is “to see that the laws of God touching his worship, and touching all matters and orders of the Church, be executed and duly observed; to see that every ecclesiastical person do that office where unto he is appointed; to punish those that fail in their office.” In a word, (that which Allen himself acknowledgeth,) unto the earthly power which God hath given him it doth belong to defend the laws of the Church, to cause them to be executed, and to punish the transgressors of the same. On all sides therefore it is confessed, that to the king belongeth power of maintaining laws made for church regiment, and of causing them to be observed; but principality of power in making them, which is the thing that! we attribute unto kings, this both the one sort and the other do withstand: although not both in such sort but that still it is granted by the one that albeit ecclesiastical councils consisting of church officers did frame the laws whereby the church affairs were ordered in ancient times, yet no canon, no not of any council, had the force of a law in the Church, unless it were ratified and confirmed by the emperor being Christian. Seeing therefore it is acknowledged that it was then the manner of the emperor to confirm the ordinances which were made by the ministers, which is as much in effect to say that the emperor had in church ordinances a voice negative;—and that without his confirmation they had not the strength of public ordinances;—why are we condemned as giving more unto kings than the Church did in those times, we giving them no more but that supreme power which the emperor did then exercise with much larger scope than at this day any Christian king either doth or possibly can use it over the Church? VII. Touching the advancement of prelates unto their rooms by the king; whereas it seemeth in the eyes of many a thing very strange that prelates, the officers of God’s own sanctuary, than which nothing is more sacred, should be made by persons secular; there

are that will not have kings be altogether of the laity, but to participate that sanctified power which God hath endued his clergy with, and that in such respect they are anointed with oil. A shift vain and needless. For as much as, if we speak properly, we cannot say kings do make, but that they only do place, bishops. For in a bishop there are these three things to be considered; the power whereby he is distinguished from other pastors; the special portion of the clergy and peopled over whom he is to exercise that bishoply power; and the place of his seat or throne, together with the profits, preeminences, honours thereunto belonging. The first every bishop hath by consecration; the second his election investeth him with; the third he receiveth of the king alone.With consecration the king intermeddleth not further than only by his letters to present such an elect bishop as shall be consecrated. Seeing therefore that none but bishops do consecrate, it followeth that none but they only do give unto every bishop his being. The manner of uniting bishops as heads, unto the flock and clergy under them, hath often altered. For, if some be not deceived, this thing was sometimes done even without any election at all. At the first (saith he to whom the name of Ambrose is given) the first created in the college of presbyters was still the bishop. He dying, the next senior did succeed him. Sed quia coeperunt sequentes presbyteri indigni inveniri ad primatus tenendos immutata est ratio, prospiciente concilio; ut non ordo sed meritum crearet episcopum multorum sacerdotum judicioh constitutum, ne indignus temere usurparet et esset multis scandalum.” In elections at the beginning the clergy and the people both had to do, although not both after one sort. The people gave their testimony, and sheaved their affection, either of desire or dislike, concerning the party which was to be chosen. But the choice was wholly in the sacred college of presbyters. Hereunto it is that those usual speeches of the ancient do commonly allude: as when Pontius concerning S. Cyprian’s election saith, he was chosen “judicio Dei et populi favore,” “by the judgment of God and favour of the people,” the one branch alluding to the voices of the ecclesiastical senate which with religious sincerity choose him, the other to the people’s affection, who earnestly desired to have him chosen their bishop. Again, Leo; “Nulla ratio sinit, ut inter episcopos habeantur qui nec a clericis sunt electi nec a plebibus expetiti.” No reason cloth grant that they should be reckoned amongst bishops, whom neither clergy hath elected nor laity coveted.” In like sort Honorius; “Let him only be established bishop in the see of Rome whom Divine judgment and universal consent hath chosen.”That difference, which is between the form of electing bishops at this day with us, and that which was usual in former ages, riseth from the ground of that right which the kings of this land do claim in furnishing the place where bishops, elected and consecrated, are to reside as bishops. For considering the huge charges which the ancient famous princes of this land have been at, as well in erecting episcopal sees, as also in endowing them with ample possessions; sure of their religious magnificence and bounty we cannot think but to have been most deservedly honoured with those royal prerogatives, [of] taking the benefit which groweth out of them in their vacancy, and of advancing alone

unto such dignities what persons they judge most fit for the same. A thing over and besides even therefore the more reasonable; for that, as the king most justly hath preeminence to make lords temporal which are not such by right of birth, so the like preeminence of bestowing where pleaseth him the honour of spiritual nobility also, cannot seem hard, bishops being peers of the realm, and by law itself so reckoned. Now, whether we grant so much unto kings in this respect, or in the former consideration whereupon the laws have annexed it unto the crown, it must of necessity being granted, both make void whatsoever interest the people aforetime hath had towards the choice of their own bishop, and also restrain the very act of canonical election usually made by the dean and chapter; as with us in such sort it doth, that they neither can proceed unto any election till leave be granted, nor elect any person but that is named unto them. If they might do the one, it would be in them to defeat the king of his profits; if the other, then were the king’s preeminence of granting those dignities nothing. And therefore, were it not for certain canons requiring canonical election to be before consecration, I see no cause but that the king’s letters patents alone might suffice well enough to that purpose, as by law they do in case those electors should happen not to satisfy the king’s pleasure. Their election is now but a matter of form: it is the king’s mere grant which placeth, and the bishop’s consecration which maketh, bishops.Neither do the kings of this land use herein any other than such prerogatives as foreign nations have been accustomed unto. About the year of our Lord 425, pope Boniface solicited most earnestly the emperor Honorius to take some order that the bishops of Rome might be created without ambitious seeking of the place. A needless petition, if so be the emperor had no right at all in the placing of bishops there. But from the days of Justinian the emperor, about the year 553, Onuphrius himself doth grant that no man was bishop in the see of Rome whom first the emperor by his letters patents did not license to be consecrated. Till in Benedict’s time it pleased the emperor to forego that right; which afterwards was restored to Charles with augmentation, and continued in his successors till such time as Hildebrand took it from Henry IV, and ever since the cardinals have held it as at this day. Had not the right of giving them belonged to the emperors of Rome within the compass of their dominions, what needed pope Leo the fourth to trouble Lotharius and Lodowick with those his letters, whereby, having done them to understand that the church called Reatina was without a bishop, he maketh suit that one Colonus might have the room, or, if that were otherwise disposed of, his next request was, “Tusculanam ecclesiam, quae viduata existit, vestra serenitas dignetur concedere, ut consecratus a nostro praesulatu Deo Omnipotenti vestroque imperio grates peragere valeat.” “May it please your clemencies to grant unto him the church of Tusculum now likewise void; that by our episcopal authority he being after consecrated may be to Almighty God and your highness therefore thankful.”Touching other bishopricks, extant there is a very short but a plain discourse, written almost 500 years since, by occasion of that miserable contention raised between the

emperor Henry IVth and pope Hildebrand, named otherwise Gregory the VIIth, not, as Platina would bear men in hand, for that the bishop of Rome would not brook the emperor’s simoniacal dealings, but because the right, which Christian kings and emperors had to invest bishops, hindered so much his ambitious designments, that nothing could detain him from attempting to wrest it violently out of their hands. This treatise I mention, for that it shortly comprehendeth not only the fore-alleged right of the emperor of Rome acknowledged by six several popes, even with bitter execration against whomsoever of their successors that should by word or deed at any time go about to infringe the same, but also furthers these other specialties appertaining thereunto: First, that the bishops likewise of Spain, England, Scotland, Hungary, had by ancient institution always been invested by their kings, without opposition or disturbance. Secondly, that such was their royal interest, partly for that they were founders of bishopricks, partly because they undertook the defence of them against all ravenous oppressions and wrongs, partly in as much that it was not safe that rooms of so great power and consequence in their estate should without their appointment be held by any under them. And therefore that bishops even then did homage and took their oaths of fealty unto the kings which invested them. Thirdly, that what solemnity or ceremony kings do use in this action it skilleth not, as namely whether they do it by word, or by precept set down in writing, or by delivery of a staff and a ring, or by any other means whatsoever, only that use and custom would, to avoid all offence, be kept. Some base canonists there are, which contend that neither kings nor emperors had ever any right hereunto, saving only by the pope’s either grant or toleration. Whereupon not to spend any further labour, we leave their folly to be controlled by men of more ingenuity and judgment even among themselves, Duarenus, Papon, Choppinus, AEgidius, Magister, Arnulphus Rusaeus, Costlius, Philippus Probus, and the rest, by whom the right of Christian kings and princes herein is maintained to be such as the bishop of Rome cannot lawfully either withdraw or abridge or hinder. But of this thing there is with us no question, although with them there be. The laws and customs of the realm approving such regalities, in case no reason thereof did appear, yet are they hereby abundantly warranted unto us, except some law of God or nature to the contrary could be shewed. How much more, when they have been every where thought so reasonable that Christian kings throughout the world use and exercise, if not altogether, yet surely with very little odds the same. So far that Gregory the Tenth forbidding such regalities to be newly begun where they were not in former times, if any do claim those rights from the first foundation of churches, or by ancient custom, of them he only requireth that neither they nor their agents damnify the Church of God by using the said prerogatives.Now as there is no doubt but the church of England by this means is much eased of some inconveniences, so likewise a special care there is requisite to be had, that other evils no less dangerous may not grow. By the history of former times it doth appear, that when the freedom of elections was most large, men’s dealings and proceedings therein were not the least faulty.

Of the people S. Jerome complaineth that their judgments many times went much awry, and that in allowing of their bishops every man favoured his own quality; every one’s desire was, not so much to be under the regiment of good and virtuous men, as of them which were like himself. What man is there whom it doth not exceedingly grieve to read the tumults, tragedies, and schisms, which were raised by occasion of the clergy at such time as, diverse of them standing for some one place, there was not any kind of practice, though never so unhonest or vile, left unassayed whereby men might supplant their competitors and the one side foil the other. Sidonius, speaking of a bishoprick void in his time, “The decease of the former bishop,” saith he, “was an alarum to such as would labour for the room: whereupon the people, forthwith betaking themselves unto parts, storm on each side: few there are that make suit for the advancement of any other man; many who not only offer, but enforce themselves. All things light, variable, counterfeit: what should I say? I see not any thing plain and open but impudence only.” In the church of Constantinople about the election of S. Chrysostom, by reason that some strove mightily for him and some for Nectarius, the troubles growing had not been small, but that Arcadius the emperor interposed himself: even as at Rome the emperor Valentinian, whose forces were hardly able to establish Damasus bishop, and to compose the strife between him and his competitor Ursicinus, about whose election the blood of a hundred and thirty-seven was already shed. Where things did not break out into so manifest and open flames, yet between them which obtained the place and such as before withstood their promotion, that secret heart burning often grew, which could not afterwards be easily slaked. Insomuch that Pontius doth note it as a rare point of virtue in Cyprian, that whereas some were against his election, he notwithstanding dealt ever after in most friendly manner with them, all men wondering that so good a memory was so easily able to forget.These and other the like hurts accustomed to grow from ancient elections we do not feel. Howbeit, lest the Church in more hidden sort should sustain even as grievous detriment by that order which is now of force, we are most humbly to crave at the hands of our sovereign kings and governors, the highest patrons which this church of Christ hath on earth, that it would please them to be advertised thus much. Albeit these things which have been sometimes done by any sort may afterwards appertain unto others, and so the kind of agents vary as occasions daily growing shall require; yet sundry unremovable and unchangeable burthens of duty there are annexed unto every kind of public action, which burthens in this case princes must know themselves to stand now charged with in God’s sight no less than the people and the clergy, when the power of electing their prelates did rest fully and wholly in them. A fault it had been if they should in choice have preferred any whom desert of most holy life and the gift of divine wisdom did not commend; a fault, if they had permitted long the rooms of the principal pastors of God to continue void; not to preserve the church patrimony as good to each successor as any predecessor did enjoy the same, had been in them a most odious and grievous fault. Simply good and evil do not lose their nature: that which was, is the one or the other, whatsoever the subject of either be. The faults mentioned are in kings by so much greater, for that in what churches they exercise those regalities whereof

we do now entreat, the same churches they have received into their special care and custody, with no less effectual obligation of conscience than the tutor standeth bound in for the person and state of that pupil whom he hath solemnly taken upon him to protect and keep. All power is given unto edification, none to the overthrow and destruction of the Church. Concerning therefore the first branch of spiritual dominion thus much may suffice; seeing that they with whom we contend do not directly oppose themselves against regalities, but only so far forth as generally they hold that no church-dignity should be granted without consent of the common people, and that there ought not to be in the Church of Christ any episcopal rooms for princes to use their regalities in. Of both which questions we have sufficiently spoken before. VIII. Touching the king’s supereminent authority in commanding, and in judging of causes ecclesiastical; First, to explain therein our meaning, It hath been taken as if we did hold, that kings may prescribe what themselves think good to be done in the service of God; how the word shall be taught, how sacraments administered: that kings may personally sit in the consistory where bishops do, hearing and determining what causes soever do appertain unto those courts: that kings and queens in their own proper persons are by judicial sentence to decide the questions which rise about matters of faith and Christian religion: that kings may, excommunicate: finally, that kings may do whatsoever is incident unto the office and duty of an ecclesiastical judge. Which opinion because we count as absurd as they who have fathered the same upon us, we do them to wit that thus our meaning is, and no otherwise: There is not within this realm any ecclesiastical officer, that may by the authority of his own place command universally throughout the king’s dominions; but they of his people whom one may command, are to another’s commandment unsubject: only the king’s royal power is of so large compass, that no man commanded by him according to orders of law, can plead himself to be without the bounds and limits of that authority; I say, according to order of law, because with us the highest have thereunto so tied themselves, that otherwise than so they take not upon them to command any.And, that kings should be in such sort supreme commanders over all men, we hold it requisite, as well for the ordering of spiritual as of civil affairs; inasmuch as without universal authority in this kind, they should not be able when need is, to do as virtuous kings have done. Joas purposing to renew the “house of the Lord, assembled the Priests and Levites, and when they were together, gave them their charge, saying, Go out unto the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year, and haste the things: but the Levites hasted not. Therefore the king called Jehoiada, the chief, and said unto him, Why hast thou not required of the Levites to bring in out of Judah and Jerusalem, the tax of Moses, the servant of the Lord, and of the congregation of Israel, for the tabernacle of the testimony? For wicked Athaliah and her children brake up the house of God, and all the things that were dedicated for the house of the Lord did they bestow upon Baalim. Therefore the king commanded, and they made a chest, and set it at the gate of the house of the Lord without; and they made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring unto the Lord the tax of Moses the

servant of God, laid upon Israel in the wilderness.” Could either he have done this, or after him Ezechias the like concerning the celebration of the passover, but that all sorts of men in all things did owe unto those their sovereign rulers the same obedience which sometime Josua had them by solemn vow and promise bound unto? “Whosoever shall rebel against thy commandments, and will not obey thy words in all that thou commandest him, let him be put to death; only be strong and of a good courage.”Furthermore, judgment ecclesiastical we say is necessary for decision of controversies rising between man and man, and for correction of faults committed in the affairs of God; unto the due execution whereof there are three things necessary, laws, judges, and a supreme governors of judgments. What courts there shall be, and what causes shall belong to each court, and what judges shall determine of every cause, and what order in all judgments shall be kept; of these things the laws have sufficiently disposed: so that his duty which sitteth in every such court is to judge, not of, but after, the said laws): “Imprimis illud observare debet judex, ne aliter judicet quam legibus, aut constitutionibus, aut moribus proditum est.” Which laws (for we mean the positive laws of our owns realm concerning ecclesiastical affairs) if they otherwise dispose of any such thing than according to the law of reason and of God, we must both acknowledge them to be amiss, and endeavour to have them reformed: but touching that point what may be objected shall after appear. Our judges in causes ecclesiastical are either ordinary or commissionary: ordinary, those whom we term Ordinaries; and such by the laws of this land are none but prelates only, whose power to do that which they do is in themselves, and belongeth unto the nature of their ecclesiastical calling. In spiritual causes, a lay person may be no ordinary; a commissionary judge there is no let but that he may be: and that our laws do evermore refer the ordinary judgment of spiritual causes unto spiritual persons, such as are termed Ordinaries, no man which knoweth any thing in h the practice of this realm can easily be ignorant.Now, besides them which are authorized to judge in several territories, there is required an universal power which reacheth over all, importing supreme authority of government over all courts, all judges, all causes; the operation of which power is as well to strengthen, maintain and uphold particular jurisdictions, which haply might else be of small effect; as also to remedy that which they are not able to help, and to redress that wherein they at any time do otherwise than they ought to do. This power being sometime in the bishop of Rome, who by sinister practices had drawn it into his hands, was for just considerations by public consent annexed unto the king’s royal seat and crown. From thence the authors of reformation would translate it into their national assemblies or synods; which synods are the only help which they think lawful to use against such evils in the Church as particular jurisdictions are not sufficient to redress. In which case our laws have provided that the king’s supereminent authority and power shall serve. As namely, when the whole ecclesiastical state, or the principal persons therein, do need visitation and reformation; when, in any part of the Church, errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, enormities, are grown, which men in their several

jurisdictions either do not or cannot help: whatsoever any spiritual authority or power (such as legates from the see of Rome did sometimes exercise) hath done or might heretofore have done for the remedy of those evils in lawful sort (that is to say, without violation of the law of God or nature in the deed done), as much in every degree our laws have fully granted that the king for ever may do, not only by setting ecclesiastical synods on work, that the thing may be their act and the king their motioner unto it, (for so much perhaps the masters of reformation will grant;) but by commissionaries few or many, who having the king’s letters patents, may in the virtue thereof execute the premises as agents in the right, not of their own peculiar and ordinary but of his supereminent power.When men are wronged by inferior judges, or have any just cause to take exception against them, their way for redress is to make their appeal. An appeal is a present delivery of him which maketh it out of the hands of their power and jurisdiction from whence it is made. Pope Alexander having sometimes the king of England at then advantage, caused him, amongst other things, to agree, that as many of his subjects as would, might appeal to the court of Rome. “And thus,” saith one, “that whereunto a mean person at this day would scorn to submit himself, so great a king was content to be subject. Notwithstanding even when the pope,” saith he, “had so great authority amongst princes which were far off, the Romans he could not frame to obedience, nor was able to obtain that himself might abide at Rome, though promising not to meddle with other than ecclesiastical affairs.” So much are things that terrify more feared by such as behold them aloof off than at hand. Reformers I doubt not in some cases will admit appeals, made unto their synods; even as the church of Rome doth allow of them so they be made to the bishop of Rome. As for that kind of appeal which the English laws do approve, from the judge of any particular court unto the king, as the only supreme governor on earth, who by his delegates may give a final definitive sentence, from which no further appeal can be made; will their platform allow of this? Surely, forasmuch as in that estate which they all dream of, the whole Church must be divided into parishes, of which none can have greater or less authority and power than another; again, the king himself must be but as a common member in the body of his own parish, and the causes of that only parish must be by the officers thereof determinable; in case the king had so much preferment, as to be made one of those officers (for otherwise by their positions he were not to meddle any more than the meanest amongst his subjects with the judgment of any ecclesiastical cause), how is it possible they should allow of appeals to be made from any other abroad to the king?To receive appeals from all other judges, belongeth unto the highest in power over all; and to be in power over all, as touching the judgment of ecclesiastical causes, this as they think belongeth only unto synods. Whereas therefore with us, kings do exercise over all kinds of persons and causes, power both of voluntary and litigious jurisdictions; so that according to the one they visit, reform, and command; according to the other, they judge universally, doing both in far other sort than such as have ordinary spiritual power: oppugned herein we are by some colourable shew of argument, as if to grant thus much unto any secular person it were unreasonable. “For sith it is,” say they, “apparent out of

the Chronicles, that judgment in church matters pertaineth unto God; seeing likewise it is evident out of the Apostle, that the high priest is set over those matters in God’s behalf; it must needs follow that the principality or direction of the judgment of them is by God’s ordinance appertaining unto the highs priest, and consequently to the ministry of the Church: and if it be by God’s ordinance appertaining unto them, how can it be translated from them unto the civil magistrate?” Which argument, briefly drawn into form, lieth thus: That which belongeth unto God, may not be translated unto any other than” whom he hath appointed to have it in his behalf: but principality of judgment in church matters appertaineth unto God, which hath appointed the high priest, and consequently the ministry of the Church alone, to have it in this behalf; therefore, it may not from them be translated to the civil magistrate. The first of which threes propositions we grant; as also in the second that branch which ascribeth unto God principality in church matters. But that either he did appoint none but only the high priest to exercise the said principality for him; or that the ministry of the Church may in reason from thence be concluded to have alone the same principality by his appointment: these two points we deny utterly. For concerning the high priest, there is first no such ordinance of God to be found. “Every high priest,” saith the Apostle, “is taken from among men, and is ordained for men in things pertaining to God:” whereupon it may well be gathered, that the priest was indeed ordained of God to have power in things pertaining unto God. For the Apostle doth there mention the power of offering gifts and sacrifices for sins; which kind of power was not only given of God unto priests, but restrained unto priests only. The power of jurisdiction and ruling authority, this also God gave them, but not them alone. For it is held, as all men know, that others of the laity were herein joined by the law with them. But concerning principality in church affairs (for of this our question is, and of no other) the priests neither had it alone, nor at all; but (as hath been already shewed) principality in spiritual affairs was the royal prerogative of kings. Again, though it were so, that God had appointed the high priest to have the said principality of government in those matters; yet how can they who allege this, enforce thereby that consequently the ministry of the Church, and no other, ought to have the same, when they are so far off from allowing as much to the ministry of the Gospel, as the priesthood of the Law had by God’s appointment, that we but collecting thereout a difference in authority and jurisdiction amongst the Clergy, to be for the policyf of the Church not inconvenient, they forthwith think to close up our mouths by answering, “That the Jewish high priests had authority above the rest, only in that they prefigured the sovereignty of Jesus Christ; as for the ministers of the Gospel, it is,” they say, “altogether unlawful to give them as much as the least title, any syllable that any ways may sound towards principality?” And of the regency which may be granted, they hold others even of the laity no less capable than pastors themselves. How shall these things cleave together?The truth is, that they have some reason to think it not all of the fittest for kings to sit as ordinary judges in matters of faith and religion. An ordinary judge must be of that quality which in a supreme judge is not necessary: because the person of the one is

charged with that which the other’s authority dischargeth, without employing personally himself herein. It is an error to think that the king’s authority can have no force or power in the doing of that which himself may not personally do. For first, impossible it is, that at one and the same time the king in person should order so many and so different affairs, as by his power every where present are wont to be ordered both in peace and in war, at home and abroad. Again, the king, in regard of his nonage or minority may be unable to perform that thing wherein years of discretion are requisite for personal action; and yet his authority even then be of force. For which cause we say, that the king’s authority dieth not, but is, and worketh, always alike. Sundry considerations there may be, effectual to withhold the king’s person from being a doer of that which his power must notwithstanding give force unto. Evens in civil affairs, where nothing doth either more concern the duty, or better beseem the majesty of kings, than personally to administer justice unto their people, as most famous princes have done: yet, if it be in case of felony or treason, the learned in the laws of this realm do plainly affirm, that well may the king commit his authority unto another to judge between him and the offender; but the king being himself here a party, he cannot personally sit to give judgment. As therefore the person of the king may, for just considerations, even where the cause is civil, be notwithstanding withdrawn from occupying the seat of judgment, and others under his authority be fit, he unfit himself to judge; so the considerations for which it were haply not convenient for kings to sit and give sentence in spiritual courts, where causes ecclesiastical are usually debated, can be no bar to that force and efficacy which their sovereign power hath over those very consistories, and for which, we hold without any exception that all courts are the king’s. All men are not for all things sufficient; and therefore public affairs being divided, such persons must be authorized judges in each kind, as common reason may presume to be most fit: which cannot of kings and princes ordinarily be presumed in causes merely ecclesiastical; so that even common sense doth rather adjudge this burden unto other men. We see it hereby a thing necessary, to put a difference, as well between that ordinary jurisdiction which belongeth to the clergy alone, and that commissionary wherein others are for just considerations appointed to join with them; as also between both these jurisdictions, and a third, whereby the king hath a transcendent! authority, and that in all causes, over both. Why this may not lawfully be granted unto him, there is no reason.A time there was when kings were not capable of any such power, as namely, while bthey professed themselves open adversaries unto Christ and Christianity. A time there followed, when they, being capable, took sometimes more sometimes less to themselves, as seemed best in their own eyes, because no certainty touching their right was as yet determined. The bishops, who alone were before accustomed to have the ordering of such affairs, saw very just cause of grief, when the highest, favouring heresy, withstood by the strength of sovereign authority religious proceedings. Whereupon they oftentimes, against this new unresistible power, pleaded that use and custom which had been to the contrary; namely, that the affairs of the Church should be dealt in by the clergy, and by no other: unto which purpose, the sentences that then were uttered in defence of unabolished orders and laws, against such as did of their own heads contrary thereunto, are now altogether impertinently brought in opposition against them who use but the’

power which laws have given them, unless men can shew that there is in those laws some manifest iniquity or injustice. Whereas therefore against the force judicial and imperial, which supreme authority hath, it is alleged, how Constantine termeth church-officers, “Overseers of things within the Church,” himself, “of those without the Church:” how Augustine witnesseth, that the emperor not daring to judge of the bishops’ cause, committed it unto the bishops; and was to crave pardon of the bishops, for that by the Donatists’ importunity, which made no end of appealing unto him, he was, being weary of them, drawn to give sentence in a matter of theirs: how Hilary beseecheth the emperor Constance to provide that the governors of his provinces should not presume to take upon them the judgment of ecclesiastical causes, to whom commonwealth matters only belonged: how Ambrose affirmeth, that palaces belong unto the emperor, churches to the minister; that the emperor hath authority over the common walls of the city, and not in holy things; for which cause he never would yield to have “the causes of the Church debated in the prince’s consistory,” but excused himself to the emperor Valentinian, for that being convented to answer concerning church matters in a civil court, he came not:” we may by these testimonies drawn from antiquity, if we list to consider them, discern how requisite it is that authority should always follow received laws in the manner of proceeding. For inasmuch as there was at the first no certain law, determining what force the principal civil magistrate’s authority should be of, how far it should reach, and what order it should observe; but Christian emperors from time to time did what themselves thought most reasonable in those affairs; by this means it cometh to pass that they in their practice vary, and are not uniform. Virtuous emperors, such as Constantine the Great was, made conscience to swerve unnecessarily from the customs which had been used in the Church, even when it lived under infidels. Constantine, of reverence to bishops and their spiritual authority, rather abstained from that which himself might lawfully do, than was willing to claim a power not fit or decent for him to exercise. The order which had’ been before, he ratified, exhorting bishops to look to the Church, and promising that he would do the office of a bishop over the commonwealth: which very Constantine notwithstanding, did not thereby so renounce all authority in judging of spirituals causes, but that sometime he took, as St. Augustine witnesseth, even personal cognition of them; howbeit whether as purposing to give therein judicially any sentence, I stand in doubt. For if the other, of whom St. Augustine elsewhere speaketh, did in such sort judge, surely there was cause why he should excuse it as a thing not usually done. Otherwise there is no let, but that any such great person may hear those causes to and fro debated, and deliver in the end his own opinion of them, declaring on which side himself doth judge that the truth is. But this kind of sentence bindeth no side to stand thereunto; it is a sentence of private persuasion, and not of solemn jurisdiction, albeit a king or an emperor pronounce it. Again, on the contrary part, when governors infected with heresy were possessed of the highest power, they thought they might use it as pleased themselves, to further by all means therewith that opinion which they desired should prevail; they not respecting at all what was meet, presumed to command and judge all men in all causes, without either care of orderly proceeding, or regard to such laws and customs as the Church had been

wont to observe. So that the one sort feared to do even that which they might; and that which the other ought not they boldly presumed upon; the one sort of modesty, excused themselves where they scarce needed; the other, though doing that which wash inexcusable, bare it out with main power, not enduring to be told by any man how far they roved beyond their bounds. So great odds between them whom before we mentioned, and such as the younger Valentinian, by whom St. Ambrose being commanded to yield up one of the churches under him unto the Arians, whereas they which were sent on the message alleged, that the emperor did but use his own right, forasmuch as all things were in his power: the answer which the holy bishop gave them was, “That the Church is the house of God, and that those things which bet God’s are not to be yielded up, and disposed of at the emperor’s will and pleasure; his palaces he might grant unto whomsoever, but God’s own habitations not so.” A cause why many times emperors did more by their absolute authority than could very well stand with reason, was the over great importunity of heretics”, who being enemies to peace and quietness, cannot otherwise than by violent means be supported.In this respect therefore we must needs think the state of our own church much better settled than theirs was; because our laws have with far more certainty prescribed bounds unto each kind of power. All decisions of things doubtful, and corrections of things amiss, are proceeded in by order of law, what person soever he be unto whom the administration of judgment belongeth. It is neither permitted unto prelate nor prince to judge and determine at their own discretion, but law hath prescribed what both shall do. What power the king hath he hath it by law, the bounds and limits of it are known; the entire community giveth general order by law how all things publicly are to be done, and the king as heads thereof, the highest in authority over all, causeth according to the same law every particular to be framed and ordered thereby. The whole body politic maketh laws, which laws give a power unto the king, and the king having bound himself to use according unto law that power, it so falleth out, that the execution of the one is accomplished by the other in most religious and peaceable sort. There is no cause given unto any to make supplication, as Hilary did, that civil governors, to whom commonwealth-matters only belong, might not presume to take upon them the judgment of ecclesiastical causes. If the cause be spiritual, secular courts do not meddle with it: we need not excuse ourselves with Ambrose, but boldly and lawfully we may refuse to answer before any civil judge in a matter which is not civil, so that we do not mistake the nature either of the cause or of the court, as we easily may do both, without some better direction than can be had by the rules of this new-found discipline. But of this most certain we are, that our laws do neither suffer a spiritual court to entertain those causes which by lawn are civil, nor yet if the matter be indeed spiritual, a mere civil court to give judgment of it. Touching supreme power therefore to command all men, in ally manner of causes of judgment to be highest, let thus much suffice as well for declaration of our own meaning, as for defence of the truth therein. IX. The last thing of all which concerns the king’s supremacy is, whether thereby he may be exempted from being subject to that judicial power which ecclesiastical consistories

have over men. It seemeth, first, in most men’s judgments to be requisite that on earth there should not be any alive altogether without standing in awe of some by whom they may be controlled and bridled. The good estate of a commonwealth within itself is thought on nothing to depend more than upon these two special affections, fear and love: fear in the highest governor himself; and love, in the subjects that live under him. The subject’s love for the most part continueth as long as the righteousness of kings doth last; in whom virtue decayeth not as long as they fear to do that which may alienate the loving hearts of their subjects from them. Fear to do evil groweth from the harm which evildoers are to suffer. If therefore private men, which know the danger they are subject unto, being malefactors, do notwithstanding so boldly adventure upon heinous crimes, only because they know it is possible for some transgressor sometimes to escape the danger of law: in the mighty upon earth, (which are not always so virtuous and holy that their own good minds will bridle them,) what may we look for, considering the frailty of man’s nature, if the world do once hold it for a maxim that kings ought to live in no subjection: that, how grievous disorders soever they fall into, none may have coercive power over them? Yet so it is that this we must necessarily admit, as a number of right well learned men are persuaded.Let us therefore set down first, what there is which may induce men so to think; and then consider their several inventions or ways, who judge it a thing necessary, even for kings themselves, to be punishable, and that by men. The question itself we will not determine. The reasons of each opinion being opened, it shall be best for the wise to judge which of them is likeliest to be true. Our purpose being not to oppugn any save only that which reformers hold; and of the rest, rather to inquire than to give sentence. Inducements leading men to think the highest magistrate should not be judged of any, saving God alone, are specially these. 1. First, as there could be in natural bodies no motion of any thing, unless there were some which moveth all things and continueth unmoveable; even so in politic societies there must be some unpunishable, or else no man shall suffer punishment. For sith punishments proceed always from superiors, to whom the administration of justice belongeth, which administration must have necessarily a fountain that deriveth it to all others, and receiveth it not from any; because otherwise the course of justice should go infinitely in a circle, every superior having his superior without end, which cannot be: therefore a wellspring it followeth there is, and a supreme head of justice, whereunto all are subject, but itself in subjection to none. Which kind of preeminence if some ought to have in a kingdom, who but the king should have it? Kings therefore no man can have lawfully power and authority to judge. If private men offend, there is the magistrate over them, which judgeth. If magistrates, they have their prince. If princes, there is Heaven, a tribunal, before which they shall appear: on earth they are not accountable to any. 2. Which thing likewise the very original of kingdoms doth shew. * * * * * *

“His second point, whereby he would make us odious, is, that we think the prince may be subject to excommunication; that is, that he is a brother, that he is not without but within the Church. If this be dangerous, why is it printed and allowed in the famous writings of bishop Jewel: ‘In that the high priest doth his office when he excommunicates and cuts off a dead member from the body, so far forth the prince, be he never so mighty, is inferior to him. Yea not only to a bishop, but to a simple priest?’ Why is it suffered which Mr. Nowell hath written, ‘The prince ought patiently to abide excommunication at the bishop’s hands?’ Why are not the worthy examples of emperors rased out of the histories, seeing they have been subject to his [this] censure?” The Jews were forbidden to choose an alien king over them; inasmuch as there is not any thing more natural than that the head and the body subject thereunto should always, if it were possible, be linked in that bond of nearness also which birth and breeding as it were in the bowels of one common mother usually causeth. Which being true did not greatly need to be alleged for proof that kings are in the Church of God of the same spiritual fraternity with their subjects: a thing not denied nor doubted of. Indeed the king is a brother; but such a brother as unto whom all the rest of the brethren are subject. He is a sheaf of the Lord’s field as the rest are; howbeit, a sheaf which is so far raised up above the rest’ that they all owe reverence unto it. The king is a brother which hath dominion over all his brethren. A strange conclusion to gather hereby, that therefore some of his brethren ought to have the authority of correcting him. We read that God did say unto David, “If Solomon thy son forget my laws, I will punish his transgressions with a rod.” But that he gave dominion unto any of Solomon’s brethren to chastise Solomon, we do not read. It is a thing very much alleged, that the church of the Jews had the sword of excommunication. Is any man able to allege where the same was ever drawn forth against the king? Yet how many of their kings how notoriously spotted? Our Saviour’s words are, “If thy brother offend thee.” And St. Paul’s, “Do ye not judge them that are within?” Both which speeches are but indefinite. So that neither the one nor the other is any let but some brother there may be whose person is exempt from being subject to any such kind of proceeding: some within, yet not therefore under, the jurisdiction of any other. Sentences, indefinitely uttered, must sometimes universally be understood: but not where the subject or matter spoken of doth in particulars admit that difference which may in reason seclude any part from society with the residue of that whole, whereunto one common thing is attributed. As in this case it clearly fareth where the difference between kings and others of the Church is a reason sufficient to separate the one from the other in that which is spoken of brethren, albeit the name of brethren itself do agree to both. Neither doth our Saviour nor the Apostle speak in more general sort’ of ecclesiastical punishments than Moses in his law doth of civil: “If there be found men or the man amongst you that hath served other gods.” Again, “The man that committeth adultery.” The punishment of both which transgressions being death, what man soever did offend therein, why was not Manasses for the one, for the other why not

David accordingly executed? “Rex judicat, non judicatur,” saith one. The king is appointed a judge of all men that live under him; but not any of them his judge. The king is not subject unto laws; that is to say, the punishment which breach of laws doth bring upon inferiors taketh not hold on the king’s person; although the general laws which all mankind is bound unto do tie no less the king than others, but rather more. For the grievousness of sin is aggravated by the greatness of him that committeth it: for which cause it also maketh him by so much the more obnoxious unto Divine revenge, by how much the less he feareth human.Touching Bishop Jewel’s opinion hereof, there is not in the place alleged any one word or syllable against the king’s prerogative royal to be free from the coercive power of all spiritual, both persons and courts, within the compass of his own dominions. “In that,” saith he, “the priest doeth his office, in that he openeth God’s word, or declareth his threats, or rebuketh sin, or excommunicateth and cutteth off a dead member from the body; so far forth the prince, be he never so mighty, is inferior unto him. But in this respect the prince is inferior not only to the pope or bishop, but also to any other simple priest.” He disputeth earnestly against that supremacy which the bishop of Rome did challenge over his sovereign lord the emperor: and by many allegations he laboureth to shew that popes have been always subject unto his supreme dominion, not he to theirs; he supreme judge over them, not they over him. Now whereas it was objected, that within the Church, when the priest doth execute his office, the very prince is inferior to him; so much being granted by Mr. Jewel, he addeth that this doth no more prove the pope than the simplest priest in the Church to be lord and head over kings. For although it doth hereby appear that in those things which belong to his priestly office the pope may do that which kings are not licensed to meddle with; in which respect it cannot be denied but that the emperor himself hath not only less power than the chiefest bishop, but even less than the meanest priest within his empire, and is consequently every priest’s inferior that way: nevertheless, sith this appertaineth nothing at all to judicial authority and power, how doth this prove kings and emperors to be by way of subjection inferior to the pope as to their ecclesiastical judge? Impertinently therefore is the answer, forget the imbecility of that flesh which is covered therewith. Thy subjects (O emperor) are in nature thy colleagues: yea even in her vice [service?] thou art also joined as a fellow with them. For there is one Lord and Emperor, the Maker of this whole assembly of all things. With what eyes therefore wilt thou look upon the habitation of that common Lord? With what feet wilt thou tread upon that sacred floor? How wilt thou stretch forth those hands from which the blood as yet of unrighteous slaughter doth distil? The body of our Lord all holy how wilt thou take into such hands? How wilt thou put his honourable blood unto that mouth, the wrathful word whereof hath caused against all order of law the pouring out of so much blood? Depart therefore, and go not about by after deeds to add to thy former iniquity. Receive that bond wherewith from heaven the Lord of all doth give consent that thou shouldst be tied; a bond which is medicinable, and procureth health.” Hereunto the king submitted himself; (for being brought up in religion he knew very well what belonged unto priests, what unto kings;) and with sobbing tears returned to the court again. Some eight months after, came the feast of our Saviour’s Nativity; but yet the king sat still at home, mourning and emptying the lake of tears: which when Rufinus beheld,

being at that time commander over the king’s house, and by reason of usual access the bolder to speak; he came and asked the cause of those tears. To whom the king, with bitter grief and tears more abundantly gushing out, answered; “Thou, O Ruffin, dalliest, for mine evils thou feelest not: I mourn and bewail mine own wretchedness, considering that servants and beggars go freely to the house of God, and there present themselves before their Lord: whereas both from thence and from heaven also I am excluded. For in my mind I carry that voice of our Lord which saith with express terms, ‘Whomsoever ye shall bind on earth, he in heaven shall be bound also’.” The rest of the history, which concerneth the manner of the emperor’s admission after so earnest repentant, needeth not to be here set down. It now remaineth to be examined whether these alleged examples prove that which they should do, yea or no. The thing which they ought to confirm is, that no less Christian kings than other persons under them ought to be subject to the selfsame coercive authority of Church-governors, and for the same kinds of transgressions, to receive at their hands the same spiritual censure of excommunication judicially inflicted by way of punishment. But in the aforesaid examples, whether we consider the offence itself of the excommunicate, or the persons excommunicating, or the manner of their proceeding; which three comprehend the whole substance of that which was done; it doth not by any of these appear that kings in suchwise should be subject. For, concerning the offences of men, there is no breach of Christian charity, whether it be by deed or by word; no excess, no lightness of speech or behaviour; no fault for which a man in the course of his life is openly noted as blameable; but the same being unamended through admonition ought, (as they say,) with the spiritual censure of excommunication to be punished. Wherefore unless they can shew, that in some such ordinary transgression, kings and princes, upon contempt of the Church’s more mild censure, have been like other men in ancient times excommunicated, what should hinder any man to think but that the rare and unwonted crimes of those two emperors did cause their bishops to try what unusual remedy would work in so desperate diseases? Which opinion is also made more probable, inasmuch as the very histories, which have recorded them, propose them for strange and admirable patterns; the bishops, of boldness; the emperors, of meekness and humility. The [they?] wonder at the one, for adventuring to do it unto emperors; at the other, for taking it in so good part at the hands of bishops. What greater argument that all which was herein done proceeded from extraordinary zeal on both sides, and not from a settled judicial authority which the one was known to have over the other by a common received order in the Church. For at such things who would wonder? Furthermore, if ye consider their persons, whose acts these excommunications were; he which is said to have excommunicated Philip emperor of Rome was Babylas the bishop of Antioch: and he which Theodosius emperor of Constantinople, Ambrose the bishop of Milan. Neither of which two bishops (as I suppose) was ordinary unto either of the two emperors. And therefore they both were incompetent judges, and such as had no authority to punish whom they excommunicated: except we will grant the emperor to have been so much the more subject than his subjects, that whereas the meanest of them was under but some one diocesan, any that would might be judge over him. But the manner of proceeding cloth as yet more plainly evict that these examples make less than nothing for

proof that ecclesiastical governors had at that time judicial authority to excommunicate emperors and kings. For what form of judgment was there observed, when neither judges nor parties judged did once dream of any such matter; till the one by chance repaired unto the place where the others were, and at that very instant suffered a sudden repulse; not only besides their own expectation, but also without any purpose beforehand in them who gave it? Judicial punishment hath at the leastwise sentence going always before execution, whereas all which we read of here is, that the guilty being met in the way were presently turned back, and not admitted to be partakers of those holy things whereof they were famously known unworthy.I therefore conclude, that these excommunications have neither the nature of judicial punishments, nor the force of sufficient arguments to prove ‘that ecclesiastical judges should have authority to call their own sovereign to appear before them into their consistories, there to examine, to judge, and by excommunication to punish them, if so be they be found culpable. But concerning excommunication, such as is only a dutiful, religious, and holy refusal to admit notorious transgressors in so extreme degree unto the blessed communion of saints, especially the mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, till their humbled penitent minds be made manifest: this we grant every king bound to abide at the hands of any minister of God wheresoever through the world. As for judicial authority to punish malefactors, if the king be as the kings of Israel were, and as every of ours is, a supreme Lord, than whom none under God is by way of ruling authority and power higher, where he reigneth, how should any man there have the high place of a judge over him? He must be more than thine equal that hath a chastising power over thee: so far is it off that any under thee should be thy judge. Wherefore, sith the kings of England are within their own dominions the most high, and can have no peer, how is it possible that any, either civil or ecclesiastical person under them should have over them coercive power, when such power would make that person so far forth his superior’s superior, ruler, and judge? It cannot therefore stand with the nature of such sovereign regiment that any subject should have power to exercise on kings so highly authorized the greatest censure of excommunication, according to the platform of Reformed Discipline: but if this ought to take place, the other is necessarily to give place. For which cause, till better reason be brought, to prove that kings cannot lawfully be exempted from subjection unto ecclesiastical courts, we must and do affirm their said exemption lawful.