gating the evil. And their own conscientious refusal to take the oath ex officio mero, lest they should thus indirectly accuse themselves or their friends, detained them in prison for a considerable time. Cartwright was confined eighteen months *, though he declares that for the last thirteen years he never wrote or procured any thing to be printed which might in any sort be offensive to her majesty and the state t, much less had any hand, or so much as a finger, in the book under Martin's name. In the proceedings against him and others, as they are recorded (June 2) in an authentic document containing the charges and answers to them, given by the prisoners t, there seems to have been a decided party formed for the purpose of altering the government of the church. It was their wish to proceed by legal methods, while there was any hope of success from them; and it may fairly be doubted whether the better sort had any thoughts of employing force; for they declare that to their knowledge no minister had any other intention than that of using prayer, teaching, and humble supplication to her majesty and the parliament g. Yet on the other side it cannot be questioned, but that by holding assemblies, and passing resolutions as their own authorized opinions, they were taking such steps as must probably lead to rebellion || ; and many of the warmer partisans of the presbytery manifestly intended to adopt more forcible measures. When Cartwright was * Strype's Whitgift, ii. 88. + Ibid. iii. 231. No. 1.

Ibid. iii. 242. No. 4. $ Ibid. iii. 258. || Ibid. i. 613.

nothing which he had to advance in his own favour. It is the expressed opinion of some one who seemed to be their counsel, “ that there was no matter “ proved of any meetings or conventicles seditiously “ made and executed by Cartwright and his fel“ lows*.” And the judgment of Popham, the attorney general, does not speak a very different language f.

§. 459. Whatever they might do hereafter, their present plan was to use persuasion; and for this purpose they meant to form a synod, to be held either at one of the universities or London, where their assembling would not attract notice f, and to divide themselves, at other times, into classes, or provincial synods. In the meetings which did take place, it appears that they passed certain resolutions which tended to the subversion of all episcopal discipline; and it is not unlikely that, had they been suffered to continue, and acquire strength, they might have been able to alter the constitution of the church, if not of the state. Such assemblies, therefore, could not be allowed by a wise government; but the methods which were adopted for their prevention, seem to have been calculated rather to exasperate than to convince; and though they had the effect of silencing them for the time, yet they must have produced a feeling among the people very unfavourable to the cause which they were intended to support. The petition of Eusebius Pagit, some time student of Christ Churchs, addressed to the lord admiral, con

* Strype's Whitgift, ii. 84. + Ibid. ii. 83. Ibid. i. 6. § Ibid. iii. 285. No. 11.

seems to stand thus :—When the reformation began, it found episcopacy established in the church of Rome, and possessed of distinctive offices, of which the power of ordination seems to be the most peculiar to it a. One party of the reformers retained it as they found it, but tried to separate it from the abuses with which it had been combined; the other rejected it altogether, and made two orders only in the church, (viz. priests and deacons,) appointing such superior officers as were primi inter pares. The point at issue therefore is, were there three distinct orders b in the primitive church ? and if so,

a The distinctive characteristics of a bishop, as laid down by bishop Davenant, in his beautiful determination on Diversity of Degrees in the Ministers of the Gospel, are three : ist, That, however many presbyters there may be, there is never more than one bishop in a city; and, the power of ordination ; 3rd, the jurisdiction over the clergy. To these may be added, the power of confirming, of consecrating churches, &c. In the whole of this question the reader may be referred to Bingham's Antiquities, a work in which he who seeks for information on any ecclesiastical subject may be almost sure to find it.

b Here, too, there is an equivocal term in the word "order.” At the council of Trent, though there was no question about episcopacy, there was a discussion as to whether bishops were a distinct order, or only a different jurisdiction. (F. Paul, 557.) The Saxon church was governed by bishops, yet the canons declare that there is no essential difference between the two. (Johnson's Canons, 957. 17.) This must always be taken into account in questions with regard to episcopacy. See also §. 117, 280. It is not necessary to suppose that Wiclif and the Erudition intended to reject episcopacy, though they denied the distinctness of the orders. The real point at issue is, whether a person could be ordained in the primitive church without the presence of an apostle, or of one holding a peculiarly delegated authority, i. e. of a bishop. See Bingham, i. p. 81.