and right-affected fon of the church of England, that doth not wish well to liturgy and epifcopacy.

Anfw. If this be not that faucy uncharitablenefs, with which, in the foregoing page, you voluntarily invested yourself, with thought to have fhifted it off, let the parliament judge, who now themselves are deliberating whether liturgy and epifcopacy be to be well wished to, or

no.

Remonft. This they say they cannot but rank amongst my notorious-speak out, masters; I would not have that word ftick in your teeth, or in your throat.

Anfw. Take your fpectacles, fir, it sticks in the paper, and was a pectoral roule we prepared for you to swallow down to your heart.

Remonft. Wanton wits must have leave to play with their own ftern.

Answ. A meditation of yours doubtless obferved at Lambeth from one of the archiepifcopal kittens.

Remonft. As for that form of epifcopal government, furely could thofe look with my eyes, they would fee cause to be ashamed of this their injurious mifconceit.

Anfw. We must call the barber for this wife fentence; one Mr. Ley the other day wrote a treatise of the fabbath, and in his preface puts the wisdom of Balaam's ass upon one of our bishops, bold man for his labour; but we shall have more respect to our Remonftrant, and liken him to the afs's mafter, though the ftory fay he was not fo quickfighted as his beast. Is not this Balaam the son of Beor, the man whofe eyes are open, that said to the parliament, Surely, could those look with my eyes? Boaft not of your eyes, it is feared you have Balaam's disease, a pearl in your eye, Mammon's preftriction.

Remonft. Alas, we could tell you of China, Japan, Peru, Brazil, New England, Virginia, and a thousand others, that never had any bishops to this day.

Anfw. O do not foil your caufe thus, and trouble Ortelius; we can help you, and tell you where they have been ever fince Conftantine's time at leaft, in a place called Mundus alter & idem, in the fpacious and rich, countries of Crapulia, Pamphagonia, Yuronia, and in the dukedom of Orgilia, and Variana, and their metropolis

of

of Ucalegonium. It was an overfight that none of your prime antiquaries could think of these venerable monuments to deduce epifcopacy by; knowing that Mercurius Britannicus had them forthcoming.

SECT. IV.

Remonft. Hitherto they have flourished, now I hope they will ftrike.

Anfw. His former tranfition was in the fair about the jugglers, now he is at the pageants among the whifflers. Remonft. As if arguments were almanacks.

Anfw. You will find fome fuch as will prognofticate your date, and tell you that, after your long fummer folitice, the Equator calls for you, to reduce you to the ancient and equal house of Libra.

Remonft. Truly, brethren, you have not well taken the height of the pole.

Anfw. No marvel, there be many more that do not take well the height of your pole; but will take better the declination of your altitude.

Remonft. He that faid I am the way, faid that the old way was the good way.

Anfw. He bids afk of the old paths, or for the old ways, where or which is the good way; which implies that all old ways are not good, but that the good way is to be fearched with diligence among the old ways, which is a thing that we do in the oldest records we have, the gofpel. And if others may chance to spend more time with you in canvaffing later antiquity, I fuppofe it is not for that they ground themfelves thereon; but that they endeavour by fhowing the corruptions, incertainties, and difagreements of thofe volumes, and the eafinefs of erring, or overflipping in fuch a boundless and vaft search, if they may not convince thofe that are fo ftrongly perfuaded thereof; yet to free ingenuous minds from an overawful esteem of those more ancient than trusty fathers, whom custom and fond opinion, weak principles, and the neglect of founder and fuperiour knowledge hath exalted fo high as to have gained them a blind reverence; whose books in bignefs and number fo endless and imVOL. I. measurable,

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meafurable, I cannot think that either God or nature, either divine or human wifdom, did ever mean fhould be a rule or reliance to us in the decifion of any weighty and pofitive doctrine: for certainly every rule and inftrument of neceffary knowledge that God hath given us, ought to be fo in proportion, as may be wielded and managed by the life of man, without penning him up from the duties of human fociety; and fuch a rule and inftrument of knowledge perfectly is the holy Bible. But he that fhall bind himself to make antiquity his rule, if he read but part, befides the difficulty of choice, his rule is deficient, and utterly unfatisfying; for there may be other writers of another mind, which he hath not feen; and if he undertake all, the length of man's life cannot extend to give him a full and requifite knowledge of what was done in antiquity. Why do we therefore stand worshipping and admiring this unactive and lifelefs Coloffus, that, like a carved giant terribly menacing to children and weaklings, lifts up his club, but ftrikes not, and is fubject to the muting of every sparrow? If you let him reft upon his bafis, he may perhaps delight the eyes of fome with his huge and mountainous bulk, and the quaint workmanship of his maffy limbs; but if ye go about to take him in pieces, ye mar him; and if you think, like pigmies, to turn and wind him whole as he is, befides your vain toil and fweat, he may chance to fall upon your own heads. Go, therefore, and use all. your art, apply your fledges, your levers, and your iron crows, to heave and hale your mighty Polypheme of antiquity to the delufion of novices and unexperienced chriftians. We fhall adhere clofe to the fcriptures of God, which he hath left us as the juft and adequate meafure of truth, fitted and proportioned to the diligent study, memory, and ufe of every faithful man, whofe every part confenting, and making up the harmonious fymmetry of complete inftruction, is able to fet out to us a perfect man of God, or bishop thoroughly furnished to all the good works of his charge: and with this weapon, without ftepping a foot further, we fhall not doubt 10 batter and throw down your Nebuchadnezzar's image, and crumble it like the chaff of the fummer threfhing

floors,

floors, as well the gold of thofe apoftolic fucceffors that you boaft of, as your Conftantinian filver, together with the iron, the brafs, and the clay of thofe muddy and ftrawy ages that follow.

Remonft. Let the boldeft forehead of them all deny that epifcopacy hath continued thus long in our island, or that any till this age contradicted it.

Anfw. That bold forehead you have cleanly put upon yourself, it is you who deny that any till this age contradicted it; no forehead of ours dares do fo much: you have rowed yourself fairly between the Scylla and Charybdis, either of impudence or nonsense, and now betake you to whether you please.

Remonft. As for that fupply of acceffory ftrength, which I not beg.

Anfw. Your whole remonftrance does nothing else but beg it, and your fellow-prelates do as good as whine to the parliament for their fleshpots of Egypt, making fad orations at the funeral of your dear prelacy, like that doughty centurion Afranius in Lucian; who, to imitate the noble Pericles in his epitaphian speech, stepping up after the battle to bewail the flain Severianus, falls into a pitiful condolement, to think of thofe coftly fuppers and drinking banquets, which he must now tafte of no more; and by then he had done, lacked but little to lament the dearloved memory and calamitous lofs of his capon and white broth.

Remonft. But raife and evince from the light of nature, and the rules of just policy, for the continuance of thofe things which long use and many laws have firmly established as neceffary and beneficial.

Anfw. Open your eyes to the light of grace, a better guide than nature. Look upon the mean condition of Chrift and his apoftles, without that acceffory ftrength you take such pains to raise from the light of nature and policy: take divine counfel, " Labour not for the things that perish" you would be the salt of the earth; if that favour be not found in you, do not think much that the time is now come to throw you out, and tread you under foot. Hark, how St. Paul, writing to Timothy, informs a true bishop; "Bifhops (faith he) must not be greedy of

N 2

filthy

filthy lucre; and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content: but they (faith he, meaning, more especially in that place, bishops) that will be rich, fall into temptation and a fnare, and into many foolish and hurtful lufts, which drown men in deftruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while fome coveted after, they have erred from the faith." How can we therefore expect found doctrine, and the folution of this our controversy from any covetous and honour-hunting bishop, that shall plead fo ftiffly for these things, while St. Paul thus exhorts every bishop; "But thou, O man of God, flee thefe things?" As for the juft policy, that long use and cuftom, and those many laws which you fay have conferred thefe benefits upon you; it hath been nothing else but the fuperftitious devotion of princes and great men that knew no better, or the base importunity of begging friars, haunting and haraffing the deathbeds of men departing this life, in a blind and wretched condition of hope to merit Heaven for the building of churches, cloifters, and convents. The most of your vaunted poffeffions, and thofe proud endowments that ye as finfully wafte, what are they but the black revenues of purgatory, the price of abufed and murdered fouls, the damned fimony of Trentals, and indulgences to mortal fin? How can ye choose but inherit the curfe that goes along with fuch a patrimony? Alas! if there be any releasement, any mitigation, or more tolerable being for the fouls of our misguided ancestors; could we imagine there might be any recovery to fome degree of eafe left for as many of them as are loft, there cannot be a better way than to take the misbestowed wealth which they were cheated of, from thefe our prelates, who are the true fucceffors of those that popped them into the other world with this conceit of meriting by their goods, which was their final undoing: and to beftow their beneficent gifts upon places and means of chriftian education, and the faithful labourers in God's harveft, that may inceffantly warn the pofterity of Dives, left they come where their miferable forefather was fent by the cozenage and mifleading of avaricious and worldly prelates.

Remonft.