scourge of Mass-Priests:" and what he did for the reformation of religion, I am as apt to acknowledge and applaud as the forwardest: but, that he preached somewhere in the very streets, and even Quamvis renitente magistratu in St. Peter's Church, was not to be bragged of by himself or his friends. And, in his violent carriage in the animating of the people to the outing of their Bishop, Pet. Palma, though perhaps faulty enough; and the introducing of this new form of government; I wish he had lived and died in his Vapincum d.

His coadjutor in this work was, I perceive, one Antho. Frumentius, a vehement young man, who was set up by the people to preach upon a fish-stall; and, no doubt, equally heartened his auditors to this tumultuous way of proceeding.

But then, when Viret came once into the file, here was, at the least, fervour enough. The spirit of that man is well seen, in his "Dialogue of White Devils."

These were the founders of that Discipline: men of eminence, we must believe, but far inferior to Calvin; who came into Geneva, first as a Lecturer or Preacher, and then became their Pastor insomuch as Zanchy reports; when Calvin preached at St. Peter's, and Viret at St. Gervase's, concurrent sermons, a Frenchman, asked why he did not come sometimes and hear Viret, answered, Si veniret Sanctus Paulas, qui eâdem horâ concionaretur quâ et Calvinus, ego, relicto Paulo, audirem Calvinum: "If St. Paul should come and preach in the same hour with Calvin, I would leave Paul, and hear Calvin :" which was spoken like a good blasphemous zealot: but it is not to be wondered at, in men of such spirits. I told you before what Calvin himself writes to Farell. There was one at Basil, who professed to attribute non minus Farello quàm Paulo, "Not less to Farell, than to St. Paul." O God, whither doth mad zeal hurry men?

It appears then, that Farell and Viret rough-hewed this statue, which Calvin, after, polished. We now know, Consulem ac Diem; and I doubt not, but some do yet live, who might know the man.

For me, although I have not age enough to have known the Father of this Discipline; yet one of the Godfathers of it, I did know who, after his peregrination in Germany at Geneva, undertook for this new-born infant at our English Font; under whose Ministry my younger years were spent: the author of that bitter Dialogue betwixt Miles Monopodius and Bernard Blinkard, one of the hottest and busiest sticklers in these

quarrels at Frankfort. So young is this form of is this form of government; being, until that day, unheard of in the Christian world! In which name, Peter Ramus, though a man censured for affecting innovations in logic and philosophy, is, if we may credit his old friend Carpentarius, said to dislike it; and to frump it by the name of Talmud Subaudicum.

I cannot be ignorant of the common plea of the pretenders, that, so far is this form from novelty, as that it was the most ancient and first model of Church-Government under the Apostles. Thus they say; and they alone say it. All they have to say, more, in colour of reason, for it, is, That the twelve Apostles themselves were all equal. What then? If their pretended form were bred from thence, where hath it lain hid, all this while, till now? That, they can tell you too: under the tyranny and usurpation of Antichrist.

Dear Christians, I hope you now believe it, that the very Apostles themselves, who lived to see and act the establishment of Episcopacy, would betray the Church, at their parting, to that Man of Sin! that all the holy Fathers and Martyrs of the Primitive Church, were, either through ignorance or will, guilty of this sacrilegious treachery! that all the eyes of the whole world were blind, till this city, which was once indeed dedicated to the sun and bears it still for her emblem, enlightened them! and, if ye can believe these strange suggesters, wonder ye at them, while I do no less wonder at you. But, withal, give me leave to put you in mind, that this is a stale plea, for more unholy opinions than one. The Anabaptists, when they are urged with the Church's ancient practice of baptizing of infants, straight pretend, that this ill guise was brought in by Popery, and is a parcel of the Mystery of Iniquity". The New-Arians of our times, hellish heretics, when they are pressed with the distinction of Three Persons in the Deity, and One Infinite Essence, straight cry out of Antichrist; and clamour, that this doctrine was hatched under that secret Mystery of Iniquity. The father of the Familists, H. N. a worse devil, if possible, than they, in his Evangelium Regni, sings the very same note, for his damnable plot of doctrine and government: sadly complaining of Antichrist, and that the light of life hath lain hid under the mask of Popery, until this day of love; and now he comes to erect his Seniores sanctæ intelligenta, "Elders of the holy understanding," and his other rabble.

Beware, therefore, I advise you, how you take up this challenge, but upon better grounds. Disgrace not God's truth

Troubles of the English Church at Frankfort. in marg. The zeal of A. G. Prolæus. Fasciculo, &c.

i Ibid.

with the odious name of Antichristianism. Honour not Antichrist with the claim and title of a holy truth. Confess the device new, and make your best of it.

But, if any man will pretend this government hath been in the world before, though no footsteps remain of it in any history or record, he may as well tell me, there hath been of old a passage from the Teneriff to the moon, though never any but a Gonzaga discovered it.

CONCLUSION.

SECT. 1.

A Recapitulation of the several Heads: and a vehement Exhortation to all Readers: and, first, to our Northern Brethren.

Now, then, I beseech, and adjure you, my dear brethren, by that love you profess to bear to the truth of God, by that tender respect you bear to the peace of his Sion, by your zeal to the Gospel of Christ, by your main care of your happy account one day before the tribunal of the most righteous Judge of the Quick and Dead; lay every of these things seriously together, and lay all to heart.

And, if you find, that the government of Episcopacy established in the Church, is the very same, which, upon the foundation of Christ's institution, was erected by his inspired Apostles; and, ever since, continued unto this day, without interruption, without alteration: if you find, that, not in this part of the Western Church alone, into which the Church of Rome had diffused her errors; but in all the Christian World, far and wide, in Churches of as large extent as the Roman ever was, and never in any submission to her, no other form of government was ever dreamed of from the beginning: if you find, that all the Saints of God ever since the holy Martyrs and Confessors, the Fathers and Doctors, both of the primitive and ensuing Church, have not only admitted, but honoured and magnified this only government, as Apostolical; if all Synods and Councils, that have been in the Church of God, since the Apostles' time, have received and acknowledged none but this alone: you find, that no one man, from the days of the Apostles till this age, ever opened his mouth against it; save only one, who was, for this cause amongst others, branded and discarded for a heretic: if you find, that the ancient Episcopacy, even from Mark Bishop of Alexandria, Timothy Bishop of Ephesus, and Titus of Crete, were altogether in substance the same with ours; in the same altitude of fixed superiority, in the same latitude of spiritual jurisdiction: if you find the Laic-Presbytery an utter stranger to the Scriptures of God; a thing altogether unheard of in the ancient times, yea, in all the following ages of the Church: if you find that invention full of indeterminable un

if

certainties if you find the practice of it necessarily obnoxious to unavoidable imperfections, and to gross absurdities and impossibilities: lastly, if you find the device so new, that the first authors and abettors of it are easily traced to their very form, as those that lived in the days of thousands yet living: if you find all these, as you cannot choose but find them, and many weighty considerations more, being so clearly laid before you; I beseech you, suffer not yourselves to be led by the nose, with an unjust prejudice, or an over-weening opinion of some persons, whom you think you have cause to honour: but, without all respects to flesh and blood, weigh the cause itself impartially, in the balance of God's Sanctuary, and judge of it accordingly.

Upon my soul, except the Holy Scripture, Apostolical acts, the practice of the ancient Church of God, the judgment of all sacred Synods, of all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church, all grounds of faith, reason, policy, may fail us: we are safe, and our cause victorious.

Why, then, Oh why will you suffer yourselves to be thus impetuously carried away, with the false suggestions of some mis-zealous teachers; who have, as I charitably judge of some of them whatsoever grounds the rest might have, overrun the truth in a detestation of error; and have utterly lost peace, in an inconsiderate chace of a feigned perfection.

For you, my Northern Brethren (for such you shall be, when you have done your worst) if there were any foul personal faults found in any of our Church-Governors, as there never wanted aspersions where an extermination is intended, alas! why should not your wisdom and charity have taught you to distinguish, betwixt the calling and the crime? Were the person vicious, yet the function is holy. Why should God and his cause be stricken, because man hath offended; and yet, to this day, no offence proved?

Your Church hath been anciently famous for a holy and memorable Prelacy: and, though it did more lately fall upon the division of Dioceses, so as every Bishop did in every place, as opportunity offered, execute Episcopal offices (which kind of administration continued in your Church till the times of Malcolm the Third); yet this government over the whole Clergy, was no less acknowledged than their sanctimony".

After the settling of those your Episcopal Sees, it is worth your note and our wonder, which your Hector Boetius writes; Sacer Pontificatus Sancti Andreæ tantâ reverentiâ &c: "The Bishopric of St. Andrews was, with so great reverence and innocence of life, from the first institution of it, in a long line of Episcopal succession continued to the very time, wherein we wrote this, that six and thirty, and more, of the Bishops of

a D. Henr. Spelman ex Hectore Boetio. Anno 840.