Jer. xx. 31.
Joel ii. 12.

be searched to the very bottom. Last of all, to set down the like stint, and to shut up the doors of mercy against penitents which come short thereof in the devotion of their prayers; in the continuance of their fasts; in the largeness and bounty of their alms, or in the course of any other such like duties, is more than God himself hath thought meet; and consequently, more than mortal men should presume to do.

That which God doth chiefly respect in men's penitency is their hearts. "The heart is it which maketh repentance sincere," sincerity that which findeth favour in God's sight, and the favour of God that which supplieth by gracious acceptation whatsoever may seem defective in the faithful, hearty, and true offices of his servants.

Take it (saith Chrysostom) upon my credit, "such is God's Chrys.de repar. laps. merciful inclination towards men, that repentance offered lib.ad Theo- with a single and sincere mind he never refuseth; no, not alsit, dist. 3. though we be come to the very top of iniquity." If there

dor. Depo

c. Talis.

Aug. in Psal. cxxxviii.

be a will and desire to return, he receiveth, embraceth, and omitteth nothing which may restore us to former happiness; yea, that which is above all the rest, albeit we cannot, in the duty of satisfying him, attain what we ought, and would, but come far behind our mark, he taketh nevertheless in good worth that little which we do; be it never so mean, we lose not our labour therein.

The least and lowest step of repentance in saint Chrysostom's judgment serveth and setteth us above them that perish in their sin: I therefore will end with St. Augustine's conclusion: "Lord, in thy book and volume of life all shall be written, as well the least of thy saints as the chiefest." Let not therefore the unperfect fear: let them only proceed and go forward.

BOOK VII.

Their sixth assertion, That there ought not to be in the church, bishops endued with such authority and honour as ours are.

THE MATTER CONTAINED IN THIS SEVENTH BOOK.

1. The state of bishops, although some time oppugned, and that by such as therein would most seem to please God, yet by his providence upheld hitherto, whose glory it is to maintain that whereof himselfis the author.

2. What a bishop is, what his name doth import, and what doth belong unto his office, as he is a bishop.

3. In bishops two things traduced; of which two, the one their authority, and in it the first thing condemned, their superiority over other ministers: what kind of superiority in ministers it is which the one part holdeth, and the other denieth lawful.

4. From whence it hath grown, that the church is governed by bishops. 5. The time and cause of instituting every where bishops with restraint.

6. What manner of power bishops from the first beginning have had.

7. After what sort bishops, together with presbyters, have used to govern the churches which were under them.

8. How far the power of bishops hath reached from the beginning in respect of territory, or local compass.

9. In what respects episcopal regiment hath been gainsaid of old by Aerius.

10. In what respects episcopal regiment is gainsaid by the authors of pretended reformation at this day.

11. Their arguments in disgrace of regiment by bishops; as being a mere invention

of man, and not found in Scripture, answered.

12. Their arguments to prove, there was no necessity of instituting bishops in the

church.

13. The fore-alleged arguments, answered.

14. An answer unto those things which are objected, concerning the difference between that power which bishops now have, and that which ancient bishops had, more than other presbyters.

15. Concerning the civil power and authority which our bishops have.

16. The arguments answered, whereby they would prove, that the law of God, and the judgment of the best in all ages condemneth the ruling superiority of one minister over another.

17. The second malicious thing wherein the state of bishops suffereth obloquy, is their honour.

18. What good doth publicly grow from the prelacy.

19. What kind of honour be due unto bishops.

20. Honour in title, place, ornament, attendance, and privilege.

21. Honour by endowments of lands and livings.

22. That of ecclesiastical goods, and consequently, of the lands and livings which

bishops enjoy, the propriety belongs unto alone.

23. That ecclesiastical persons are receivers of God's rents, and that the honour of prelates is to be thereof his chief receivers, not without liberty from him granted of converting the same unto their own use, even in large manner.

24. That for their unworthiness to deprive both them and their successors of such goods, and to convey the same unto men of secular callings, is now extreme sacrilegious injustice.

I HAVE heard that a famous kingdom in the world, being so- The state licited to reform such disorders as all men saw the church although

by

therein would most

#ometime exceedingly burdened with, when of each degree great muloppugned, titudes thereunto inclined, and the number of them did every such as day so increase, that this intended work was likely to take no other effect than all good men did wish and labour for; a seem to principal actor herein (for zeal and boldness of spirit) thought please God, yet by his it good to shew them betimes what it was which must be efprovidence fected, or else that there could be no work of perfect reforupheld hitherto, mation accomplished. To this purpose, in a solemn sermon, whose glory and in a great assembly, he described unto them the present quality of their public estate, by the parable of a tree, huge whereof and goodly to look upon, but without that fruit which it the author. should and might bring forth; affirming, that the only way

it is to maintain that,

himself is

of redress was a full and perfect establishment of Christ's discipline (for so their manner is to entitle a thing hammered out upon the forge of their own invention), and that to make way of entrance for it, there must be three great limbs cut off from the body of that stately tree of the kingdom. Those three limbs were three sorts of men; nobles, whose high estate would make them otherwise disdain to put their necks under that yoke; lawyers, whose courts being not pulled down, the new church consistories were not like to flourish: finally, prelates, whose ancient dignity, and the simplicity of their intended church-discipline, could not possibly stand together. The proposition of which device being plausible to active spirits, restless through desire of innovation, whom commonly nothing doth more offend than a change which goeth fearfully on by slow and suspicious paces; the heavier and more experienced sort began presently thereat to pluck back their feet again, and exceedingly to fear the stratagem of reformation for ever after. Whereupon ensued those extreme conflicts of the one part with the other; which continuing and increasing to this very day, have now made the state of that flourishing kingdom even such, as whereunto we may most fitly apply those words of the prophet Jeremiah, "Thy breach is great like the sea, who can heal thee?" Whether this were done in truth, according to the constant affirmation of some avouching the same, I take not upon me to examine; that which I note therein is, how with us that policy hath been corrected. For to the authors of pretended reformation with us, it hath not seemed expedient to offer the edge of the axe unto all three boughs at once, but rather to single them, and strike at the weakest first, making shew that the lop of that one shall draw the more abundance of sap to the other two, that they may thereby the better prosper. All prosperity, felicity and peace, we wish multiplied on each estate, as far as their own hearts' desire is; but let men know that there is a God, whose eye beholdeth them in all their ways; a God, the usual and ordinary course of whose justice, is to return upon the head of malice the same devices which it contriveth against others. The foul practices which have been used for the overthrow of bishops, may perhaps wax bold in process of time to give the like assault even there, from whence at this present they are most seconded. Nor let it over-dismay them who suffer such things at the hands of this most unkind world, to see that heavenly estate and dignity thus conculcated, in regard whereof so many their predecessors were no less esteemed than if they had not been men, but angels amongst men. With former bishops it was as with Job in the days of that prosperity which at large he describeth, saying, "Unto me men gave ear, they waited and held their tongue at my counsel; after my words they replied not, I appointed out their way and did sit as chief, I dwelt as it had been a king in an army." At this day, the case is otherwise with them; and yet no otherwise than with the self-same Job at what time the alteration of his estate wrested these contrary speeches from him; "But now they that are younger than I mock at me, the children of fools, and offspring of slaves, creatures more base than the earth they tread on; such as if they did shew their heads, young and old, would shout at them and chase them through the street with a cry, their song I am, I am a theme for them to talk on." An injury less grievous, if it were not offered by them whom Satan hath through his fraud and subtilty so far beguiled, as to make them imagine herein they do unto God a part of most faithful service. Whereas the Lord in truth, whom they serve herein is, as St. Cyprian telleth them, like Cyp. 1. i. not Christ (for he it is that doth appoint and protect bishops) Ep. 3. but rather Christ's adversary and enemy of his church. A thousand five hundred years and upward the church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred regiment of bishops. Neither for so long hath Christianity been ever planted in any kingdom throughout the world but with this kind of government alone; which to have been ordained of God, I am for mine own part even as resolutely persuaded, as that any other kind

Sulpit. Se

of government (in the world whatsoever is of God. In this realm of England, before Normans, yea before Saxons, there being Christians, the chief pastors of their souls were bishops. This order from about the first establishment of Christian religion, which was publicly begun through the virtuous disposition of King Lucius, not fully two hundred years after Christ, continued till the coming in of the Saxons; by whom paganism being every where else replanted, only one part of the island, whereinto the ancient, natural inhabitants the Britons were driven, retained constantly the faith of Christ; together with the same form of spiritual regiment, which their fathers had before received. Wherefore in the histories of the church we find very ancient mention made of our own bishops. At the council of Ariminum, about the year three hundred and fifty-nine, Britain had three of her bishops

present. At the arrival of Augustine, the monk, whom Beda Eccl. Gregory sent hither to reclaim the Saxons from gentility about six hundred years after Christ, the Britons he found observers still of the self-same government by bishops over the rest of the clergy; under this form Christianity took root again, where it had been exiled. Under the self-same An. 1066. form it remained till the days of the Norman conqueror. By him and his successors thereunto sworn, it hath from that time till now, by the space of five hundred years more, been upheld. O nation utterly without knowledge, without sense! We are not through error of mind deceived, but some wicked thing hath undoubtedly bewitched us, if we forsake that government, the use whereof universal experience hath for so many years approved, and betake ourselves unto a regiment neither appointed of God himself, as they who favour it pretend, nor till yesterday ever heard of among men. By the Jews, Festus was much complained of, as being a governor marvellous corrupt, and almost intolerable: such notwithstanding were they who came after him, that men which thought the public condition most afflicted under Festus, began to wish they had him again, and to esteem him a ruler commendable. Great things are hoped for at the hands of these new presidents, whom reformation would bring in: notwithstanding the time may come, when bishops, whose