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 same1. 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 you2. 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 things3,” 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 partialities4;” 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.
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Footnotes
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[The same foreboding tone of thought is apparent in book v. 79, 16.] ↩
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[Christ. Letter, &c. p. 4. “May wee not trulie say, that under the shewe of inveighing against Puritanes, the chiefest pointes of popish blasphemie are many times and in many places by divers men not obscurelie broached, both in sermons and in writing … . and verelie such a thing offered itselfe unto our eyes, in reading your bookes, and we had not skill howe to judge otherwise of the handling of your penne and of the scope of your matter. Notwithstanding because rash judgement may prejudice honest travailes, and faithfull labourers may have their unadvised slippes, and we could not tell how zeale, love, or glorie, might carie a man of such towardlie and excellent giftes, in the first shewing of himself to the worlde; or that an earnest striving and bending yourselfe in heate of disputation against the one side, might dazell your eyes, and draw your hand at unawares to farre and too favourable to the other side; or else peradventure we might mistake your meaning, and so wee should doe you wrong against our willes. We thought it therefore our parte, in regarde of our dutie to the Church, and most agreeing to charitie, both for your credit and our ease, in all Christian love to intreat you, that as you tender the good estate of Christe’s Church among us, and of thousands converted to the gospel, you would in like publike manner (but plainly and directlie) show unto us and all English protestants your owne true meaning, and how your wordes in divers thinges doe agree with the doctrine established among us.” On which Hooker’s note is, “That because they are loth to prejudice honest travailes by rash judgment, and it might be they mistooke my meaning, they thought it fittest in charity, in great care of my credit, and in all Christian love, to set abroad their suspitions, and to give notise of alarm throughout hir majestie’s dominions, till such time as my mind were explained unto them for satisfaction in their doubtes, whereby they might be the better furnished to satisfy others in my behalf.” ↩
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[1 Thess. v. 21.] ↩
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James ii. 1. ↩