The rearward of my late 'Defence' was backed by the sound testimony of Dr. Abraham Scultetus, the famous professor of Heidelberg, and the great oracle in his time of the Palatinate; who in both the tenets, of episcopacy by divine right, and the unwarrantableness of lay presbytery, agrees so fully with me as I do with myself; the grounds whereof I dare confidently say are such as no wit of man can overthrow or weaken.

Now what say my Smectymnuans to this? "For brevity's sake we will content ourselves with what that learned Rivet spake, when these two treatises of Scultetus were showed to him by a great prelate amongst us, and his judgment required: Hæc omnia jamdudum sunt protrita et profligata; all these have been long since overworn, and beaten out, and baffled."

In good time, brethren! And why should not I take leave to return the same answer to you in this your tedious velitation of episcopacy? There is not one new point in this your overswoln and unwieldy bulk. No haycock hath been oftener shaken abroad, and tossed up and down in the wind, than every argument of yours hath been agitated by more able pens than mine: Hæc omnia jamdudum sunt protrita et profligata. Why should I abuse my good hours, and spend my last age, devoted to better thoughts, in an unprofitable babbling?

You may perhaps expect to meet with fitter matches that have more leisure. The cause is not mine alone, but common to this whole church, to the whole hierarchy, to all the fathers of the church throughout the world, to all the dutiful sons of those fathers wheresoever. You may not hope that so many learned and eminent divines, who find themselves equally interested in this quarrel, can suffer either so just a cause unseconded, or so high insolence unchastised.

For myself, I remember the story that Plutarch tells of the contestation between Crassus and Deiotarusd; men well stricken in age, and yet attempting several exploits not so proper for their grey hairs. "What," said Crassus to Deiotarus, "dost thou begin to build a city now in the latter end of the day?" "And truly," said Deiotarus to him again, "I think it somewhat with the latest for you to think of conquering the Parthians." Some witty lookers-on will perhaps apply both these to me. It is the city of God, the evangelical Jerusalem, which some factious hands

d Plutarch. in Vita Crassi. [dwdekátns wpas oikodoμeîv ǎpx?. Opp. Francof. P. 553.]

1620.

have miserably demolished: is it for shaking and wrinkled hands to build up again, now in the very setting and shutting in of the day? They are dangerous and not inexpert Parthians who shoot out their arrows, even bitter invectives, against the sacred and apostolical government of the church; and such as know how to fight fleeing: are these fit for the vanquishing of a decrepit leader?

Shortly, then, since I see that our Smectymnuans have vowed, like as some impetuous scolds are wont to do, to have the last word; and have set up a resolution, by taking advantage of their multitude, to tire out their better employed adversary with mere length of discourse, and to do that by bulk of body which by clean strength they cannot; I have determined to take off my hand from this remaining controversy of episcopacy (wherein I have said enough already without the return of answer, and indeed anticipated all those thread-bare objections which are here again regested to the weary reader), and to turn off my combined opposites to matches more meet for their age and quality with this profession notwithstanding, that if I shall find, which I hope I never shall, this just and holy cause, whether out of insensibleness or cautious reservedness, neglected by more able defenders, I shall borrow so much time from my better thoughts as to bestow some strictures where I may not afford a large confutation. I have ever held μέγα βιβλίον μέγα κακόν: which, as it holds in whatsoever matter of discourse, so especially in this so beaten subject of episcopacy, wherein, since I find it impossible for my adversaries to fall upon any but former notions, oft urged, oft answered, "For brevity's sake we will content ourselves with what that learned Rivet spake of the two treatises of Scultetus, Hæc omnia jamdudum sunt protrita et profligata :" with this yet for a conclusion, that if in this their wordy and wearisome volume they shall meet with any one argument which they dare avow for new, they shall expect their answer by the next post.

A MODEST OFFER

OF

SOME MEET CONSIDERATIONS,

TENDERED TO THE

LEARNED PROLOCUTOR, a

AND TO

THE REST OF THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES MET AT WESTMINSTER.

BY A TRUE LOVER OF TRUTH AND PEACE.

LEARNED AND REVEREND BRETHREN:

IF you be now, as is supposed, upon the advice of a form of church government, I beseech you, in the fear of God, setting aside all prejudice, to take into your sad thoughts these considerations following.

It is, I perceive, an usual prayer of many preachers wellaffected to your assembly, that God would now, after sixteen hundred years' universal practice of the whole church of Christ upon earth, show you the pattern in the mount as if, after so long and perfect inquisitions, there could be any new discoveries of the form that was or should be.

Wherein I suppose their well-meaning is not a little injurious both to the known truth and to you: for what revelations can we expect thus late? or what monuments, of either scripture or history, can now be hoped to be brought to light, which your eyes have not seen, and former ages have not inquired into?

Surely ye well know there can be but these three forms of church government possibly devised: either by bishops, or by prebyters, or by the multitude of several and select congregations;

a [Dr. Twiss was the first Prolocutor; and upon his death Mr. Charles Herle succeeded him.]

every of which have both their abettors and their adversaries. The first hath all times and places, since the days of the blessed apostles till this age, to stand for it. The second hath the late persecuted reformed church of France, (which never desired nor meant to make their necessitated form a pattern for others,) the Netherlands, and Scotland, for precedents of it. The third hath the ministers of New England and their associates, commonly styled by the name of Independents, vehemently contending for it. The adversaries of every of these are as well known as their friends; and the pleas which every of them makes for itself are as well known as either.

I suppose it is yet res integra; else I should lay my finger upon my lips. Both the houses of parliament, your assembly, and the whole kingdom, stand yet free and unengaged to any part. For the national covenant, as it is interpreted by some of yourselves, and those other divines whose allowed sermons have commented upon it, intends not to abjure and disclaim episcopacy, as such; but only bends against the whole present fabric of government, as it is built on these arches, these pedestals: so as if it be taken asunder from those, some of them not necessary, appendances, you are no way forestalled in your judgment against it; nor any other that hath lift up his hand in this solemn covenant.

That I may not urge the Latin translation of the same covenant, printed and sent abroad to the Low Countries, and France, and other churches, which ran only upon tyrannicum regimen episcoporum; that only "the tyrannical government of the prelates," not their fatherly and brotherly pre-eminence, is there abjured.

Your wisdoms know well how to distinguish betwixt a calling and the abuses of the execution thereof; betwixt the main substance of a calling, and the circumstantial and separable appurtenances thereunto, from which it may be divested and yet stand entire.

I should be a flatterer of the times past, which is not often seen, if I should take upon me to justify or approve of all the carriages of some that have been entrusted with the keys of ecclesiastical government, or to blanch over the corruptions of consistorial officers: in both these there was fault enough to ground both a complaint and reformation and may that man never prosper that desires not an happy reformation of whatever hath been or is amiss in the church of God!

But this I offer to your serious consideration, whether episcopacy, stripped of all circumstances that may be justly excepted against, and reduced to the primitive estate, may not be thought a form, both better in itself, and more fit for this kingdom and church, than either of the other.

How ancient it is, I need not appeal to any but yourselves; who do well know that there was never yet any history of the church wherein there was not full mention made of bishops as the only governors thereof; neither can any learned adversary deny, that they have continued, with the general allowance of God's church, from the very apostolic times until this present age. And whether it can be safe, and lie not open to much scandal, to exchange so ancient an institution, hitherto perpetuated to the church, for a new, where no necessity enforces us, judge ye.

How universal it is, being the only received government of all the Christian churches over the face of the whole earth, excepting only this small spot of our neighbourhood, ye know as well as the undoubted relation of the "Christianography" can tell you. And how unsafe it may be to depart from the form of all the churches that profess the name of Christ, who do all submit themselves to bishops or superintendents, except the fore-excepted, I leave to your grave judgment.

Besides, how episcopacy is and hath long been settled in this kingdom, and as it were incorporated into it, and inwoven into the municipal laws of this land, so as that it cannot be utterly removed without much alteration in the whole body of our laws; is a matter well worthy of not the least consideration.

But all these would yet seem light upon the balance, if there were not an intrinsical worth in the institution itself that might sway with you.

The covenant binds to the endeavour of such a government as is according to the word of God, and the example of the best reformed churches.

And now, let me appeal to your own hearts, and the hearts of all judicious and unprejudicate readers, whether the rules of church government, laid forth in the epistles to Timothy and Titus, do not suppose and import that very proper jurisdiction which is claimed by episcopacy at this day: which if it were not intended to be left as a perfect pattern to succession, the whole church of Christ should have been left in the dark, without any direction