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access to bring the jarring nobility to Christian peace, or to withstand their disloyal projects: but if a toleration for mass were to be begged of the king for his sister Mary, lest Charles the Fifth should be angry, who but the grave prelates, Cranmer and Ridley, must be sent to extort it from the young king? But out of the mouth of that godly and royal child, Christ himself returned such an awful repulse to those halting and time-serving prelates, that after much bold importunity they went their way not without shame and tears.

Nor was this the first time that they discovered to be followers of this world; for when the protector's brother, Lord Sudley, the admiral, through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life, no man could be found fitter than Bishop Latimer (like another Dr. Shaw) to divulge in his sermon the forged accusations laid to his charge, thereby to defame him with the People who else, it was thought, would take ill the innocent man's death, unless the reverend bishop could warrant them there was no foul play. What could be more impious than to debar the children of the king from their right to the crown? to comply with the ambitious usurpation of a traitor, and to make void the last will of Henry VIII., to which the breakers had sworn observance? Yet Bishop Cranmer, one of the executors, and the other bishops, none refusing (lest they should resist the Duke of Northumberland), could find in their consciences to set their hands to the disenabling and defeating not only the Princess Mary the papist, but of Elizabeth the protestant, and (by the bishops' judgment) the lawful issue of King Henry.

Who then can think, though these prelates had sought a further Reformation, that the least wry face of a politician would not have hushed them? But it will be said, these men were Martyrs. What then? Though every true Christian will be a martyr when he is called to it, not presently does it follow that every one suffering for religion is, without exception. St. Paul writes, that "a man may give his body to be burnt (meaning for religion), and yet not have charity:" he is not therefore above all possibility of erring, because he burns for some points of truth.

Witness the Arians and Pelagians which were slain by the heathen for Christ's sake, yet we take both these for no true friends of Christ. If the Martyrs, saith Cyprian in his 30th epistle, decree one thing, and the Gospel another, either the Martyrs must lose their crown by not observing the Gospel for which they are martyrs, or the majesty of the Gospel must be broken and lie flat, if it can be overtopped by the novelty of any other decree.

And here withal I invoke the Immortal Deity, revealer and judge of secrets, that wherever I have in this book plainly and roundly, though worthily and truly, laid open the faults and blemishes of Fathers, Martyrs, or Christian Emperors, or have otherwise inveighed against error and superstition with vehement expressions, I have done it neither out of malice, nor list to speak evil, nor any vain glory: but of mere necessity to vindicate the spotless truth from an ignominious bondage, whose native worth is now become of such a low esteem, that she is like to find small credit with us for what she can say unless she can bring a ticket from Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; or prove herself a retainer to Constantine, and wear his badge. More tolerable it were for the church of God that all these names were utterly abolished, like the brazen serpent, than that men's fond opinion should thus idolize them, and the heavenly truth be thus captivated.

Now to proceed, whatsoever the bishops were, it seems they themselves were unsatisfied in matters of Religion as they then stood, by that Commission granted to eight bishops, eight other divines, eight civilians, eight common lawyers, to frame ecclesiastical constitutions; which no wonder if it came to nothing, for (as Hayward relates) both their professions and their ends were different. Lastly, we all know by example, that exact Reformation is not perfected at the first push, and those unwieldy times of Edward VI. may hold some plea by this excuse. Now let any reasonable man judge whether that king's reign be a fit time from whence to pattern out the constitution of a church discipline, much less that it should yield occasion from whence to foster and

establish the continuance of imperfection, with the commendatory subscriptions of Confessors and Martyrs, to entitle and engage a glorious name to a gross corruption. It was not episcopacy that wrought in them the heavenly fortitude of martyrdom, as little is it that martyrdom can make good episcopacy; but it was episcopacy that led the good and holy men, through the temptation of the enemy and the snare of this present world, to many blameworthy and opprobrious actions. And it is still episcopacy that before all our eyes worsens and slugs the most learned and seeming religious of our ministers, who no sooner advanced to it but, like a seething pot set to cool, sensibly exhale and reek out the greatest part of that zeal and those gifts which were formerly in them, settling in a skinny congealment of ease and sloth at the top. And if they keep their learning by some potent sway of nature, it is a rare chance; but their devotion most commonly comes to that queasy temper of lukewarmness, that gives a vomit to God himself.

But what do we suffer misshapen and enormous preiatism, as we do, thus to blanch and varnish her deformities with the fair colours, as before of martyrdom, so now of episcopacy? They are not bishops, God and all good men know they are not, that have filled this land with late confusion and violence; but a tyrannical crew and corporation of impostors that have blinded and abused the world so long under that name. He that, enabled with gifts from God and the lawful and primitive choice of the Church assembled in convenient number, faithfully from that time forward feeds his parochial flock, has his coequal and compresbyterial power to ordain ministers and deacons by public prayer and vote of Christ's congregation, in like sort as he himself was ordained, and is a true apostolic bishop. But when he steps up into the chair of pontifical pride, and changes a moderate and exemplary house for a misgoverned and haughty palace, spiritual dignity for carnal precedence, and secular high office and employment for the high negotiations of his heavenly embassage, then he degrades, then he unbishops himself. He that makes him bishop, makes him no bishop. No marvel therefore if St. Martin

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complained to Sulpitius Severus, that since he was bishop he felt
inwardly a sensible decay of those virtues and graces that God
had given him in great measure before; although the same
Sulpitius wrote that he was nothing tainted or altered in his habit,
diet, or personal demeanour from that simple plainness to which
he first betook himself. It was not, therefore, that thing alone
which God took displeasure at in the bishops of those times,
but rather an universal rottenness and gangrene in the whole
function.

From hence then I pass to Queen Elizabeth, the next Protestant
prince, in whose days why Religion attained not a perfect reduce-
ment in the beginning of her reign, I suppose the hindering
causes will be found to be common with some formerly alleged
for King Edward VI. : the greenness of the times, the weak estate
which Queen Mary left the realm in, the great places and offices
executed by papists,-the judges, the lawyers, the justices of peace
for the most part popish, the bishops firm to Rome; from whence.
was to be expected the furious flashing of excommunications, and
absolving the people from their obedience. Next, her private
counsellors, whoever they were, persuaded her (as Camden writes)
that the altering of Ecclesiastical Policy would move sedition.
Then was the Liturgy given to a number of moderate divines, and
Sir Thomas Smith, a statesman, to be purged and physicked.
And surely they were moderate divines indeed, neither hot nor
cold; and Grindal, the best of them, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, lost favour in the court, and I think was discharged
the government of his see, for favouring the ministers, though
Camden seem willing to find another cause. Therefore about her
second year, in a parliament of men and minds some scarce well
grounded others belching the sour crudities of yesterday's popery,
those constitutions of Edward VI.,—which, as you heard before,
no way satisfied the men that made them,—are now established
for best and not to be mended. From that time followed nothing
but imprisonments, troubles, disgraces, on all those that found
fault with the decrees of the Convocation, and straight were they
branded with the name of Puritans. As for the Queen herself,

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she was made believe that by putting down bishops her prerogative would be infringed, of which shall be spoken anon as the course of method brings it in. And why the prelates laboured it should be so thought, ask not them, but ask their bellies. They had found a good tabernacle, they sat under a spreading vine, their lot was fallen in a fair inheritance. And these perhaps were the chief impeachments of a more sound rectifying the church in the queen's time.

From this period I count to begin Our Times, which because they concern us more nearly, and our own eyes and ears can give us the ampler scope to judge, will require a more exact search. And to effect this the speedier, I shall distinguish such as I esteem to be the Hinderers of Reformation into three sorts :--Antiquitarians (for so I had rather call them than antiquaries, whose labours are useful and laudable). 2. Libertines. 3. Politicians.

To the votarists of Antiquity I shall think to have fully answered, if I shall be able to prove out of antiquity, First, that if they will conform our bishops to the purer times, they must mew their feathers, and their pounces, and make but curtailed bishops of them; and we know they hate to be docked and clipped, as much as to be put down outright. Secondly, that those purer times were corrupt, and their books corrupted soon after. Thirdly, that the best of those that then wrote disclaim that any man should repose on them, and send all to the Scriptures.

First therefore, if those that over-affect antiquity will follow the square thereof, their bishops must be elected by the hands of the whole Church. The ancientest of the extant fathers, Ignatius, writing to the Philadelphians, saith "that it belongs to them as to the Church of God to choose a bishop." Let no man cavil, but take the Church of God as meaning the whole consistence of orders and members, as St. Paul's epistles express, and this likewise being read over: besides this, it is there to be marked, that those Philadelphians are exhorted to choose a bishop of Antioch. Whence it seems by the way that there was not that wary limitation of diocese in those times, which is confirmed even by a fast friend of episcopacy, Camden, who cannot but love bishops

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