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P.8. How just cause there is to fear the manifold dangerous events likely to ensue upon this intended reformation, if it did take place.

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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 execution1. 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 brethren2.” 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 word3, 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 consultations4, are now become our professed adversaries, because we think the statute-congregations in England to be no true Christian churches5; 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 Antichrist6; 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 Cæsar 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 not7.’ ” 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 large8.

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 teacher9, 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 wise10;” 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 by11:” 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-mother12; 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 professed13? 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 away14; 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 them15.

Your opinion concerning the law civil is that the knowledge thereof might be spared, as a thing which this land doth not need16. 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 arts17 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 country18.” 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 them19.

A great deal further I might proceed and descend lower. But forasmuch as against all these and the like difficulties your answer is20, 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 example21 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 out22,” 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 went23, 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 flesh24. 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 Christ25. They were solicitors of men to fasts26, 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 them27. 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 lament28.” 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 day29.

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 taught30. 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 hearts31.” 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 fire32. 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 such-like33, 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 truth34,” 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 faith35. 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 contentions36 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 brethren37, 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 God38; the rest their manner was to term disdainfully Scribes and Pharisees39, to account their calling an human creature, and to detain the people as much as might be from hearing them. As touching Sacraments40, 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 scorned41. 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 antiquity42; and partly for that there is no commandment in the gospel of Christ which saith, “Baptize infants43;” 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 both44, 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 death45.” 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 them46.

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 magistracy47, because Christ hath said, “Kings of nations48;” in abolishing the execution of justice49, because Christ hath said, “Resist not evil;” in forbidding oaths, the necessary means of judicial trial50, because Christ hath said, “Swear not at all:” finally, in bringing in community of goods51, 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 evil52!” Luther made request unto Frederick duke of Saxony53, that within his dominion they might be favourably dealt with and spared, for that (their error excepted54) 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 thousands55.

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 away56: 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 them57, 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 prophets58.” 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 them59.

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 association60. 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 answer61, that now the time was come, when according to our Saviour’s promise, “the meek ones must inherit the earth62;” and that their title hereunto was the same which the righteous Israelites had unto the goods of the wicked Egyptians63.

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 no64;” 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 thousands65; 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 ache66. “That things doubtful are to be construed67 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 addicted68. 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 cause69. 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 be70. 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 therefore, 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 book71 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, “72Behold, 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, saying73, “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.

← The matter contained in these eight Books. · Contents · The cause of writing this general Discourse →

Footnotes

  1. [See Strype, Whitg. II. 191; Ann. IV. 127, 136, 187-196, 197, 202, 239, 246. Bancroft, Survey, &c. 340-349. The head of this separation was Robert Browne. See his “Treatise of Reformation without tarrying for any, and of the wickedness of those Preachers, which will not reform themselves and their charge, because they will tarry till the Magistrate command and compel them.” Prefixed to “A Book which sheweth the Life and Manners of all true Christians.” (Bodl. 4°. B. 8. Th. Seld.) Middleburgh, 1582. Also (Bodl. 4°. Crymes, 744.) “Greenwood’s Answer to Giffard,” (who had written a short Treatise against the Donatists of England,) and in the same volume, 2. “A collection of certain slanderous Articles given out by the Bishops;” and 3. “A Collection of certain Letters and Conferences lately passed betwixt certain Preachers and two Prisoners in the Fleet,” (Barrow and Greenwood,) all 1590. In this latter, p. 7, we find the following portion of a dialogue between Barrow and Sperin, a Puritan minister. “Bar. ‘Trow you, are none wicked in all the land, with whom you stand one body? for all are of your church. Will you justify also all the parishes of England?’ Sper. ‘I will justify all those parishes that have preaching ministers.’ Bar. ‘And what think you of those that have unpreaching ministers?’ Sper. ‘I think not such to be true churches.’ (Mr. Sperin was here requested to set down this under his hand, but would not.”) In “An Answer to M. Cartwright his Letter for joining with the English Churches,” (which letter is subjoined in the same pamphlet, Bodl. 4°. S. 58. Th.) we read, p. 12, “Another proof is, as though it were granted him, That where a preaching minister is, there is a church.”] ↩

  2. [Penry, Preface to “A Brief Discovery,” (after speaking of Donatism,) “If any of our poor brethren be carried away, to think otherwise of the congregations of England, which enjoy the word truly preached and the right administration of the sacraments: we cease not to pray that the Lord would reform their judgments. But woe be unto our bishops, which are the cause of this their stumbling, and maintainers of their error. For the poor brethren do hold nothing in this point, but that which the learned fathers, as M. Bancroft calleth them, have decreed.”] ↩

  3. 1 Pet. ii. 2. ↩

  4. Psalm lv. 13. ↩

  5. [See the opinions charged on Barrow and Greenwood before the court of high commission, Nov. 1587, in Paule’s Life of Whitgift; Wordsworth, E. B. IV. 356. One of them is, “That all the precise, which refuse the ceremonies of the Church, and yet preach in the same Church, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; and are close hypocrites, and walk in a left-handed policy: as Master Cartwright, Whiggington, &c.” See the notes on Cranmer’s letter to Hooker, vol. ii. book v. appendix 2.] ↩

  6. Pref. against Dr. Bancr. [Pref. to “a Briefe Discovery of the Untruthes and Slanders (against the true government of the Church of Christ) contained in a Sermon, preached the 8 of Februarie, 1588, by D. Bancroft, and since that time set forth in print, with additions by the said Author.” By Penry, 1590. The passage referred to is, “The visible Church of God, wheresoever it be, hath the power of binding and loosing annexed unto it, as our Saviour Christ teacheth us, Matth. 18, which authority is so essentially tied unto the visible Church, that wheresoever this power is to be found, there the Church of Christ is also visible, and wheresoever there is a visible Church, there this authority cannot be denied to be… . Now the reader cannot be ignorant, that our bishops will never grant that the visible congregations in England ought to have this power of binding and loosing … The crime therefore of schism, and Donatism, which M. Bancroft and the prelates would fasten upon us, doth justly cleave unto themselves… … It shall be proved in the end, that they are the schismatics and not we. It shall appear that they are growing to make a body of their own, wherewith the Church of God in a while (if they hold on their course) can have no more to do, than in times past it had with the schismatical Donatists.”] ↩

  7. Matth. xxiii. 3. ↩

  8. [From this it would seem that the whole treatise was in a manner finished before 1594, when this preface was published.] ↩

  9. [Sutcliffe de Presbyt. 134: “Legibus nostris antiquatis, et hominibus doctis ab Ecclesiæ clavo (quam secundum leges et divinas et humanas administrant) dimotis, presbyteri se ad rem accingent, Deus bone, quales et quanti homines! accedent primo Pastores quidam (si quales apud nos sunt scire cupiatis) adolescentuli plerique novi, rerum imperiti, cui pueros male credideris, aut unum servulum; qui seipsos vix regunt, tantum abest ut principes regere possint. Aderunt etiam (τὸ ἐπὶ τῃ̑ ϕακῃ̑ μυρὸν) Presbyteri, viri bene barbati et tetrici, quorum plurimæ sunt species: eorum enim nonnulli artifices sunt, ut fabri, qui nobis arte Vulcania disciplinam excudent: coqui etiam aderunt, ut aliquid sit in presbyterio insipido condimenti: sutores, ut pugnantes presbyterorum sententias sarciant: sine cæmentariis, arx hæc presbyteralis ædificari non potest: adjungentur præterea aliquot agricolarum et mercatorum centuriæ: pharmacopolæ vero non recte desiderabuntur, multo enim illis opus erit helleboro. Atque istis ita constitutis et consarcinatis, quis non presbyterium istiusmodi omnibus archiepiscopis, episcopis, et reliquis ecclesiæ Anglicanæ moderatoribus præferat?”] ↩

  10. Sap. vi. 24. ↩

  11. Ecclus. xxvi. 28. ↩

  12. [“By studying in corners, many melancholy model-makers, and church-cobblers may be made, but not one sound divine: for scholars profit by mutual conference, disputation, exercise, mutual emulation and example, as much as by hearing and reading: but those helps they lose that teach in corners. There is but small hope that they would make learned men, or semblant that they mean any such matter, when taking away the livings of the clergy, and hope of reward from the learned, they turn men up to live upon pensions, and to stand to the courtesy of unlettered elders and deacons, that think crusts too good for learned men.” Sutcliffe, False Semblant, &c. 134.] ↩

  13. [Technical words, for the three degrees academical in the several faculties: including the faculty of arts; for masters of arts are all, properly speaking, professors or readers.] ↩

  14. [Adm. 16: “The titles of oure universitie, doctors, and bachelors of divinitie, are not only for vayn glory sought and graunted, but there they are the names of course, conferred rather by the prophane judgments of them that know not what office of the Church they belong too,” &c.] ↩

  15. [Decl. of Disc. transl. by T. C. p. 155.] ↩

  16. Humb. Motion to the L. L. p. 50. [“As for the canon law, it is no way hurtful, but good for the state of this realm, if it were abolished: being, as hereafter will appear, not necessary but dangerous to the state… . As for the maintaining of civilians, as the law already maketh no great necessity of them, having little other way to set them on work, but by the canon law: if such men’s studies were converted another way to more profit, in the Church and commonwealth, little or no loss or inconvenience would follow.”] ↩

  17. Acts xix. 19. ↩

  18. Humb. Motion, p. 74. ↩

  19. [Bp. Cooper, Adm. to the people of England, (1588,) p. 86: “The canon law must be utterly taken away, with all offices to the same belonging… . The use and study of the civil law will be utterly overthrown. For the civilians in this realm live not by the use of the civil law, but by the offices of the canon law, and such things as are within the compass thereof. And if you take those offices and functions away, and those matters wherewith they deal in the canon law, you must needs take away the hope of reward, and by that means their whole study.” Sutcliffe, Remonstrance to the Demonstr. of Disc. p. 41: “That which is needless, is unlawful. All courts of record, as chancery and common-pleas, &c. shall be found needless, if the consistory of presbyters and elders were set up: which is only needful in the church or congregation of the faithful brethren, because they may determine all matters wherein any breach of charity may be; as the admonitioner saith: Ergo, all courts of record, as chancery, common pleas, &c. by their reason will be found unlawful:” and see p. 178, where, Udall having said, “Governors of the Church may not meddle but in matters ecclesiastical only, . . in deciding of controversies, in doctrine and manners, as far as appertaineth to the conscience,” Sutcliffe remarks: “This one limit of authority will carry all causes (though most civil in their nature and practice) out of all courts in the land unto their elderships. First, the chancery, that decideth matters of controversy by conscience, is clearly dammed up, and may go pick paigles” (i. e. cowslips). “And are any other civil courts in better case? No verily: for can any controversy be betwixt man and man, but it ‘appertaineth to conscience,’ to give the matter contended for unto him to whom of right it is due?” See also “False Semblant,” &c. page 132, 133.] ↩

  20. Counterp. page 108: “His” (Cosins’s) “first reasons are drawn from the inconveniences, which he thinketh will come into the Church by this means; as requiring rather (like a civilian not a divine) what is safe, than what is according to God his will.”] ↩

  21. [See Abp. Whitgift’s Exhortation prefixed to the Answer to the Admonition. 1st ed. p. 13-16.] ↩

  22. Matth. xv. 13. [See Brandt, Hist. of the Reform. in the Low Countries: B. ii. and vii.] ↩

  23. Guy de Brés contre l’Erreur des Anabaptistes, p. 3. [“La racine, source, et fondement des Anabaptistes ou Rebaptisez de nostre temps: avec tres ample refutation des arguments principaux, par lesquels ils ont accoustumé de troubler l’Eglise de nostre Seigneur Jesus Christ, et seduire les simples. Le tout reduit en trois livres, par Guy de Brés. Chez Pierre de S. Andre, MDXCV,” small 4to pp. 903, no place of publication mentioned. [Originally published 1565. Biog. Univ.] The author was a pastor at Lille and Valenciennes, and with Saravia and three or four others was a principal author of “A Confession of Faith of the Reformed Churches of the Low Countries, 1561 or 1562,” adopted by the States of Holland in 1622. “The said Saravia says in a certain letter, which I myself have seen, that ‘Guido de Brés communicated this Confession to such ministers as he could find, desiring them to correct what they thought amiss in it; so that it was not to be considered as one man’s work; but that none who were concerned in it ever designed it for a rule of faith to others, but only for a scriptural proof of what they themselves believed.’ ” Brandt’s Hist. of the Reform. in the Low Countries, Eng. Transl. I. 142. De Brés was hanged at Valenciennes by the government of Philip II, in 1567. Ibid. p. 250. Anabaptism began by his account in Lower Saxony, about 1521.] ↩

  24. P. 4. ↩

  25. p. 16. ↩

  26. p. 118, 119. ↩

  27. p. 116, 120. ↩

  28. Luke vi. 25. ↩

  29. p. 117. ↩

  30. p. 40. ↩

  31. Jer. xxxi. 33. [De Brés, p. 81, 92.] ↩

  32. p. 27. [and 702.] ↩

  33. [De Brés, l. ii. and iii.] ↩

  34. 2 Tim. iii. 7, p. 65. ↩

  35. p. 66. ↩

  36. p. 135. ↩

  37. p. 25. ↩

  38. p. 71. ↩

  39. p. 124. ↩

  40. p. 764. ↩

  41. p. 748. ↩

  42. p. 514. ↩

  43. p. 722, 726, 688. ↩

  44. p. 518. ↩

  45. p. 38. ↩

  46. p. 122. ↩

  47. p. 841. ↩

  48. [Luke xxii. 25.] ↩

  49. p. 833. ↩

  50. p. 849. ↩

  51. p. 40. ↩

  52. Lactant. de Justit. lib. v. c. 19. [p. 480, ed. Oxon. 1684.] ↩

  53. p. 6. ↩

  54. [So first edition: exempted, 1604, followed by later ones.] 1886. ↩

  55. p. 4, 20, 41, 42. ↩

  56. p. 55. ↩

  57. p. 6, 7. ↩

  58. p. 7. ↩

  59. p. 27. ↩

  60. p. 6. ↩

  61. p. 41. ↩

  62. Matt. v. 5. ↩

  63. Exod. xi. 2. ↩

  64. Mart. in his third Libel. ↩

  65. [Second Adm. p. 59, (misprint for 65,) ed. 1617. “We beseech you to pity this case, and to provide for it; it is the case already of many a thousand in this land; yea, it is the case of as many as seek the Lord aright, and desire to have his own orders restored. Great troubles will come of it, if it be not provided for; even the same God that hath stirred me, a man unknown, to speak, though those poor men which are locked up in Newgate, neither do, nor can be suffered to speak, will daily stir up more.”Str. Whitg. II. 18. (from a MS.) “One of our late libellers” [marg. Martyn] “braggeth of 100,000 hands: and wisheth the parliament to bring in this reformation though it be by withstanding the Queen’s Majesty.”Ibid. 191. In 1592, the Barrowists “were reckoned to amount to 20,000 by Sir W. Raleigh, in a speech of his in the last parliament.”“You are too broad with Martin’s brood, for he hath 100,000 that will set their hands to his articles, and shew the Queen.” Pap with an Hatchet. (Of this pamphlet see before, in a note to the Life of Hooker.)“Let the magistrate once consider what pestilent and dangerous beasts these wretches” (the Bishops) “are unto the civil state. For either by their own confession they are the bishops of the Devil, (and so by that means will be the undoing of the state, if they be continued therein,) or else their places ought to be in this commonwealth whether her Majesty and our State will or no, because they are not (as they say) the Bishops of man. Are they then the Bishops of God? that is, have they such a calling as the Apostles, Evangelists, &c. had? that is, such a calling as ought lawfully to be in a Christian commonwealth (unless the magistrate would injury the Church, yea, maim, deform, and make a monster of the Church) whether the magistrate will or no.” Ha’ ye any Work for a Cooper? p. 28.And in the Epitome, against Dr. Bridges, having quoted a passage from Bp. Aylmer’s “Harborough for faithful Subjects,” in which the Bishop had commended “those that in King Henry VIII. days would not grant him that his proclamations should have the force of a statute,” Penry proceeds, “I assure you, brother John, you have spoken many things worthy the noting, and I would our parliament men would mark this action done in K. Hen. VIII. days, and follow it in bringing in reformation, and putting down Lord Bishops, with all other points of superstition. They may in your judgment not only do any thing against their King’s or Queen’s mind (that is behovefull to the honour of God and the good of the commonwealth) but even withstand the proceedings of their sovereign.”] ↩

  66. Demonstr. in the Pref. [“We have sought to advance the cause of God, by humble suit to the parliament, by supplication to your convocation house, by writing in defence of it, and by challenging to dispute for it: seeing none of these means used by us have prevailed, if it come in by that means, which will make all your hearts to ache, blame yourselves: for it must prevail, maugre the malice of all that stand against it; or such a judgment must overtake this land, as shall cause the ears that hear thereof to tingle, and make us be a by word to all that pass by us.”] ↩

  67. [constered, ed. 1594.] ↩

  68. [In 1567, some of the ministers who had been silenced by the bishops for nonconformity began to set up separate assemblies, using the Geneva Prayer Book. Strype, Parker, I. 478-483. In 1577, the same party, by their “use or rather abuse” (Bishop Cox to Burghley, in Str. Ann. II. ii. 611.) of prophesyings, caused the inhibition of those exercises, (Queen’s letter to the Bishop of Lincoln, ibid. 612.) and the suspension of Archbishop Grindal. (Grind. 342.) In 1585, they are charged with having established synods and classes in various counties, with reordination, unauthorized fast-days, and other schismatical acts. (Articles against Cartwright, in Fuller, C. H. IX. 200, 201, 202.) comp. in Strype’s Whitg. III. 244-256, the bill exhibited against them in the Star Chamber.] ↩

  69. [This seems to have been first started, in a formal and public way, by Cartwright and others, when cited before the ecclesiastical commission in 1590. Strype, Whitg. II. 19, 26, 28-32.] ↩

  70. [The 31st article tendered to Cartwright, (Fuller, ubi sup.) contains this clause, “That they should all teach … . that it is not lawful to take any oath, whereby a man may be driven to discover any thing penal to himself or to his brother; especially if he be persuaded the matter to be lawful, for which the punishment is like to be inflicted: or having taken it in this case, need not discover the very truth.”] ↩

  71. [viz. “Retractationum.”] ↩

  72. Job xl. 4, 5. ↩

  73. Greg. Naz. in Apol. [p. 33, sq. ed. Par. 1609: Ἀγαπητὸν, ὁρω̑ντα τοὺς ἄλλους ἄνω καὶ κάτω ϕερομένους τε καὶ ταρασσομένους, ϕυγόντα ϕυγῃ̑ ἐκ του̑ μέσου, ὑπὸ σκέπην ἀναχωρήσαντα, λαθει̑ν του̑ Πονηρου̑ τὴν ζάλην καὶ τὴν σκοτόμαιναν· ἡνίκα πολεμει̑ μὲν ἀλλήλοις τὰ μέλη, οἴχεται δὲ τη̑ς ἀγάπης εἰ καί τι ἠ̑ν λείψανον… Πάντες δὲ ἐσμὲν εὐσεβει̑ς, ἐξ ἑνὸς μόνου, του̑ καταγινώσκειν ἄλλων ἀσέβειαν … θηρου̑μεν δὲ τὰς ἀλλήλων ἁμαρτίας, οὐκ ἵνα θρηνήσωμεν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα ὀνειδίσωμεν … . Ἐκ δὲ τούτων, ὡς τὸ εἰκὸς, μισούμεθα μὲν ἐν τοι̑ς ἔθνεσι· καὶ, ὃ τούτου χαλεπώτερον, οὐδὲ εἰπει̑ν ἔχομεν, ὡς οὐ δικαίως· διαβεβλήμεθα δὲ καὶ τω̑ν ἡμετέρων τοι̑ς ἐπιεικεστέροις· οὐδὲν γὰρ θαυμαστὸν, εἰ τοι̑ς πλείοσιν, οἳ μόλις ἄν τι καὶ τω̑ν καλω̑ν ἀποδέχοιντο· τεκταίνουσι δὲ ἐπὶ τω̑ν νώτων ἡμω̑ν οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ (Ps. cxxviii. 3, Sept.), καὶ ἃ κατ’ ἀλλήλων ἐπινοου̑μεν, κατὰ πάντων ἔχουσι· καὶ γεγόναμεν θέατρον καινὸν … . . Ταυ̑τα ἡμι̑ν ὁ πρὸς ἀλλήλους πόλεμος· ταυ̑τα οἱ λίαν ὑπὲρ του̑ ἀγαθου̑ καὶ πρᾴου μαχόμενοι. Hooker appears to have translated from Musculus’ Latin, p. 18, 19.] ↩

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