k.I




i
p


W       - I z -
M MM — -. - - —.




I
-I
I


i      11    II




2?
"'Im b v




'I
I




I
I




t
I
I
J
I




i
I,      — I        - -,
N  i     V,.     -,
A           "i       N,.     SI,"I      1;
I      L      -I  C,.. -
I    I      --       I
'k,,,  /     I
i/..i i
I        I N'. ", 
i             11  -     - -




I 0.
0. *




THE
CARISBROOKE. LIBRARY




THE SIXTH     VOLUME
OF THIS LIBRARY,
PARODIES AND OTHER PIECES OF BURLESQUE,
BY
GEORGE CANNING, GEORGE ELLIS, AND JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE,
Will be Published on the 25St of November 1889.




THE


CARISBROOKE LIBRARY.
T HE UNIVERSAL LIBRARY, now completed in sixty-three
cheap shilling volumes, has included English versions
of the " Iliad," of all extant plays of the Greek tragedians,
and of some plays of A l^ —ophanes, of Sanskrit fables, and
of Virgil's "AEneid."  It has followed the course of time
with English versions of the most famous works of Dante,
Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Rabelais, Cervantes, Moliere, as
recast by English dramatists, of Goethe's " Faust" and of
Schiller's Poems, It has given currency also to a series of
the works of English writers, representative, as far as limits
would allow, of our own literature, from Richard of Bury's
" Philobiblon " to Sheridan's Plays and Emerson's Essays.
In the sequence of publication variety was aimed at, but in
the choice of books to be published there was always the
unity of purpose that now allows the volumes to be arranged
in historical order, illustrating some of the chief epochs of
European literature, and especially of English literature, in
the long course of time.
THE CARISBROOKE LIBRARY, now begun, will continue
the work of its predecessor, with some changes of form
and method.  It will include books for which the volumes
of the former series did not allow sufficient room.  Sometimes in the " Universal Library " a large book-Hobbes's
"Leviathan," for example-was packed into small type.
In the " Carisbrooke Library " there will be no small type.




iv


THE CARISBROOKE LIBRARY


The volumes will be larger; each of about four hundred
and fifty pages. They will be handsome library volumes,
printed with clear type upon good paper, at the price of
half-a-crown, and they will be published in alternate
months.  In the "Universal Library" the editor's introduction to each volume was restricted to four pages, and
there was no annotation.  In the "Carisbrooke Library,"
with larger leisure and a two months' interval between the
volumes, it will be possible for the editor to give more help
towards the enjoyment of each book. There will be fuller
introductions, and there will be notes.
In the " Carisbrooke Library," as in the predecessor of
which it is an extension, there will be order in disorder.
Variety will be still aimed at in sequence of the volumes,
while the choice of books to be issued will be still guided
by the desire to bring home to Englishmen, without unfair
exclusion of any form of earnest thought, as far as may be,
some living knowledge of their literature along its whole
extent, and of its relations with the wisdom and the wit of
the surrounding world.
HENRY MORLEY.
THE   CARISBROOKE        LIBRARY.
VOLUME I. THE TALE OF A TUB, AND OTHER WORKS, BY JONATHAN SWIFT.,   II. TALES OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS, BEING THE
"CONFESSIO AMANTIS" OF JOHN GOWER.
III. THE EARLIER LIFE, AND THE CHIEF EARLIER
WORKS OF DANIEL DEFOE.., IV. EARLY PROSE ROMANCES.,   V. ENGLISH PROSE WRITINGS OF JOHN MILTON.,, VI. (In November) PARODIES AND OTHER PIECES OF
BURLESQUE.




ENGLISH PROSE WRITINGS OF
i       MILTON.




'Zaffauttane -Prex
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON




ENGLISH
PROSE WRITINGS
OF
JOHN MILTON
EDITED BY
HENRY MORLEY, LL.D.


LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND            SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK
1889




p




CONTENTS.
PAGES
INTRODUCTION........    I1-48
GOD AND MAN4"Of Reformation Touching Church Discipline in
England, and the Causes that hitherto have
hindered it. In Two Books. Written to a
Friend..                                49-Io8, The Reason of Church Government urged against
Prelacy. In Two Books.           I 9-I82
-MAN AND WIFEThe Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. In Two
Books. To the Parliament of England, with
the Assembly....,     83-294
MAN AND CHILD-,-   Of Education. A Letter to Samuel Hartlib.    295-308
MAN AND MANAreopagitica: a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.  To  the Parliament of
England.....           39-352
- The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates..       353-392
FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATEA Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. 393-422, —The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, and the Excellence thereof, compared with the Inconveniences and Dangers of
readmitting Kingship in this Nation. First
published in I660....      423-446
5`149




MILTON.
Milton, thou should'st be living at this hour;
England hath need of thee;.... We are selfish men;
Oh, raise us utip, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart:
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.
-WORDSWORTH.




INTRODUCTION.
THIS volume contains all those Prose Writings of Milton in
which he set forth, as he himself thought best, his views on
all that is most vital to the body politic. The people make the
state, and their well-being is dependent chiefly upon their religious life, their home life, the right training of their children
and a civil government adapted to their highest needs. I have
grouped Milton's papers under headings which show that they
cover all this ground, and deal only with these essentials of
citizenship.
There are omitted from this volume all the writings in which
Milton replied to the, opponents of his views. The controversies
of 250 years ago travelled by many paths in which we care no
longer to assert a right of way. At all times, the Reformer who
is answering opponents has his course of argument determined
by the reason or the unreason of other men. Forms of reply
dependent upon accidents of the attack are only to be read with
measured judgment by those who have read the attack also; and
often when we have read both, we have heard a sound of battle
in the air that has appealed to our imaginations and disturbed
our judgment. The battle of opinion rolls forward to new ground
from century to century. The great truths are immutable, the
applications of them vary with the change of time.
But when a writer who looks to the highest aims of life and
is concerned only with its highest interests has resolved to set
forth opinions to the world, and having, as Milton says, summoned




12


INTRODUCTION.


up all his reason and deliberation to assist him, searched, meditated, been industrious, and likely consulted and conferred with
his judicious friends, he arranges the expression of his thought
as he best can, he meets as he goes the objections that are
likely to arise from men of differing opinion, ranging all to the
utmost of his own capacity into one clear enforcement of what
he thinks is for the public good. Of course, also, he applies as
he goes his principles,-immutable, if they be true,-to mutable
condition of the time for which he writes.
In that way Milton wrote the pieces that are here collected.
Of every argument that seemed to strike too boldly against custom
and tradition he had to continue the defence against hot controversialists at a time when controversy was a graceless work. And
even now it is of little grace. We have not learnt yet how much that
most necessary factor in the progress of the world would gain in
reason by the loss of passion, how much force there is in fairness,
and that only poverty of spirit turns debate to quarrel. Milton's
" Eikonoklastes " is an answer to " Eikon Basilike," following that
work section by section. The famous Latin works in defence of
the People of England were replies to attacks. But the defence
in each case is of principles which Milton had set forth in his
own way, and upon his own motion, in his treatise on " The Tenure
of Kings and Magistrates." Only that treatise falls, therefore,
within the plan of this collection of Milton's reasonings upon the
principles that should control the settlement of Church and State.
To bring the whole collection within the compass of one volume
it has been necessary that the suggestion of a plan for the establishment of a Free Commonwealth should be given at the close
of the book in smaller type, and that whatever may be said by
way of annotation should be confined to the Introduction. Inasmuch as the purpose of this volume is to enable many readers
to know clearly for themselves what Milton really taught in his
prose writings, and inasmuch as he wrote with an emphasis that
made his meaning upon each point in the argument entirely clear,
there may, after all, be some advantage in the enforced absence
of notes. Notes might possibly divert too much attention from




INTRODUCTION.


13


the main course of the argument, by establishing a side interest
in many scholarly allusions to books now seldom read and facts
known but to few. Thus we lose the fuller sense of wit and knowledge used for illustration and enforcement of each thought; but
this is partly, perhaps, compensated by the gain of a less broken
attention to the substance and the continuity of reasoning.
All the great books in the world deal with essentials. Those
written in former time are of the past and of the present, as those
written now are of the present and the future. The true reader
of the true old book looks to the soul of it, and while hearing that
speak to the day for which it lived and worked, adapts its voice
also to the changed conditions of the later day in which it may
be still living and working. Custom and tradition have confined
too much the reading of Milton's reasonings on Church and State
within a narrow circle. Much that he battled for has been already
won. The Church of England now leaves conscience free. Our
Monarchy has lost its despotism: were Milton living now how
would he shape to these our days his exhortation to look upward
and be free? Still, if we read them with clear eyes, there is a life
beyond life in the prose writings of John Milton.
Of Milton himself, as he was when he published them, let us
recall first the memory; then, looking at the time for which he
wrote, fix our attention on the purport of his teaching, as it concerned those times and these. We shall not be less loyal subjects
or worse Churchmen, but we shall be stronger men to-day for
taking Milton into council.
John Milton was born in the reign of James the First, at his
father's house in Bread Street, Cheapside, on the 9th of December
i6o8. That was between seven and eight years before the death
of Shakespeare. The Milton family was of Oxfordshire, and in
early times may have been named from the Oxfordshire village
of Great Milton, about eight miles from Oxford near Halton and
Thame. There are some eighteen Miltons in different parts of
England, groups of homesteads that first took this name from the
wind or water mill conspicuous among them. The poet's grandfather was probably a Richard Milton of Stanton St. Johns, about




14


INTRODUCTION.


half a mile from Forest Hill, near the royal forest of Shotover
(Chateau vert). He is also said to have been a John Milton,
living at Holton, which is two miles from Stanton St. Johns, and
to have been underranger of Shotover Forest. He is known to
have remained a Roman Catholic after the Reformation; and
there is record that Richard Milton of Stanton St. Johns was
as late as I60o in the roll of recusants. Twenty pounds a
month being the price of his opinions, he was fined J60 for
absence from his parish church during three months dated from
the 6th of December I6oo, and another ~60 for three months
from the i3th of July I60o, as he had "neither made submission
nor promised to be conformable, pursuant to the act."  Milton's
father, John Milton, whose birth-date may have been very near
to that of Shakespeare, was sent to Oxford for study at Christ
Church, but he accepted the teaching of the Church Reformers,
conformed to the Church as established by Elizabeth, and was
then cast off by his father. At a date near to the time when
Shakespeare came to London, John Milton the elder came to
London, learned the business of a scrivener, and practised it
very successfully in Bread Street. He married, probably, about
the year i600; and he had six children, of whom three died in
infancy. The three who lived were Anne, a few years older than
her brother John; John, born on the 9th of December i608; and
Christopher, who was seven years younger. Between John and
Christopher two daughters were born who died, so that until the
age of seven John Milton was the only son. Bread Street, when
Milton's father settled there, was a street which Stow described
as wholly inhabited by rich merchants, and with divers fair inns
for good receipt of carriers and other travellers. It is clear that,
through family connections now not to be traced, Milton's father
had some money of his own when he was cast out from home.
He could not have traded as a money scrivener without a little
capital from which to make his loans. Milton the poet also had,
in his father's lifetime, when he went to Cambridge, money of
his own.
John Milton the father was, then, a religious man, not without




INTRODUCTION.


IS


university training.  He had suffered for his fidelity to conscience.  His religious character would influence his choice
of friends; but among his friends also were some of the chief
musicians of the day, for the bent of his own genius was
towards music. Seven years before the birth of his poet son he
had contributed one (the eighteenth) to a collection of twentyfive madrigals in praise of Queen Elizabeth —" The Triumphs of
Oriana."  To this work the chief living musicians were contributors, and its editor was Thomas Morley. When his son was
a child of six, John Milton, the father, joined again a company
of chief musicians of the day, by contributing the music Go three
pieces in a volume of (' Teares and Lamentations of a Sorrowfull
Soule." When his son was a boy of thirteen, John Milton, the
father, again joined with chief musicians of the day as one of the
contributors of harmonised tunes for the whole Book of Psalms
from the church psalmody of Europe. The tunes known as
Norwich and York are those which the elder Milton harmonised,
and Sir John Hawkins said in his c" History of Music " that within
memory half the nurses in England were used to sing the tenor
part of York tune by way of lullaby, and that the chimes of many
country churches had played it for many years six or eight times
in four and twenty hours.
So Milton grew up as a child, with his father's earnest life breathing its harmonies about him; in care of a mother of whom we hear
only that her health was delicate and that she was most known
for her charities, and with his sister Anne for a small guide and
senior companion. When he was five years old there was another
sister born, Tabitha, who lived to be two years and a half, and
died five or six months after the birth of Christopher. He had
also as teacher before he was sent to a public school, a graduate
of St. Andrews and licentiate of the Scottish Kirk, Thomas Young
of Loncardy, who had afterwards as a Puritan divine a living in
Suffolk, and was made Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. The
relation with this early tutor became affectionate, and Milton,
writing to him afterwards from college, addressed him as almost
a second father.




INTRODUCTION.


Milton was ten years old when there came to London a young
Dutch painter, Cornelius Jansen, who settled in Blackfriars and
took portraits at five broad pieces a head. Milton the father,
proud of his elder son, had young John Milton's portrait painted
by Cornelius Jansen, and it still remains.
About two years after the painting of the portrait, Milton was
sent in his twelfth year to St. Paul's School, where the headmaster was Dr. Alexander Gill the elder, who had a son of his,
Alexander Gill the younger, to assist him. Young Alexander
Gill had a rough temper, as incidents of his own life show, and
those were days of much severity in teaching.  But here again
there sprang up an affectionate relation between Milton and his
teacher. The boy wrote verses; he has allowed us to see no more
than a few attempts at versifying psalms, and wisely destroyed all
other of his schoolboy rhymes. Alexander Gill the younger was,
possibly, the best writer of Latin and Greek verse in his time.
Here was a ground of fellowship; and we afterwards find Milton
at college asked his opinion of verses sent to him by his old
teacher at St. Paul's.
The austerity of Milton is a vulgar error. Such errors rise in
clouds from the dry dust of traditional opinion, are much blown
to and fro, and get into our eyes and partly blind us, till we wipe
them out. In Milton's case it was party feeling that obscured
the truth in the first instance, and with other men that is a frequent cause of great misunderstanding. It is not easy to know
the truth even about a living man whose life is involved in controversies that excite strong feeling. Milton was not austere. In
the height of the excitement caused by the chief controversy of
the Commonwealth, when Milton had addressed to Europe his
Latin Defence of the English People, and a Dutch scholar wanted
to know something about a man whose name was new to him,
the information gathered put in the forefront of Milton's character
that he was "mitis, comes "-gentle, companionable. Those were
the only qualities expressly named  the rest of his merits were
contained in an etcetera, " multisque aliis prseditus yirtutibus "endowed with many other virtues.   So wrote Isaac Voss tq




INTROD UCTION.


1 7


Nicholas Heinsius, upon information sought and obtained from
Francis Junius, then living in England and cultivating John
Milton's familiar acquaintance. When, many years after Milton's
death, it was desired to find the relative truthfulness of several
portraits by appeal to the memory of his surviving daughter, at
the sight of one portrait, we are told, she broke into tears and
said, " That is my father; that is my dear father. He was the
life of every company he was in." In his later years, Milton's
sense of the need of fellowship to man's true life was shown in
his custom of giving two hours of the evening of every day to
intercourse with friends, when he was visited or paid visits, and
shared easy talk over his pipe.
A boy apt for friendship is likely to find in a large school some
companion who has that likeness in essentials and diversity in
accidents on which a lifelong friendship can be based. Milton
at school found such a friend in Charles Diodati, son of Dr.
Theodore Diodati, an Italian Protestant, practising with much
success as a physician in London. Giovanni Diodati, who settled
as a divine at Geneva-where he was Professor of Hebrew and
translated the Bible into Italian-was Theodore's younger brother;
Charles Diodati's uncle. When Milton went to Cambridge, his
friend Diodati had already gone to Oxford. This friendship
remained close and unbroken.
Milton was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, on the
I2th of February i625, returned then to London, was at home
when James the First died on the 27th of March, and began
his actual work at the University by matriculating on the 9th of
April. He was in his seventeenth year when he became a
Cambridge student, in the first days of the reign of Charles the
First. The age of the new king was five-and-twenty. The last
family event in Milton's home before he passed from school to
college had been the marriage of his sister Anne to Mr. Edward
Phillips, who had a good place in the Crown Office. A daughter
was born to her in the winter of i625-26; the infant caught a
winter chill and died. The earliest original verse of Milton's
that comes down to us is a piece " On a fair infant dying of a
B3




Is8


INTRODUCTION.


cough," devoted to the consolation of his sister. It was so
entirely private that Milton did not include it among his poems
when he made the first collection of them in i645, but in the
second edition, published by him twenty-eight years later, in the
year before that of his death, calm recollections of the past
caused this piece to be for the first time included.
On the 26th of March i629 Milton took his B.A. degree. On
the Christmas day of that year, when his age was one-and-twenty,
he began his Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. His
epigrams, Latin verses, written as memorials of dead worthies
upon whose palls such offerings were laid, still represent the
young poet's verse inspired by love to God and love to man.
In I63I the unexpected death of the young Marchioness of
Winchester, lamented by Ben Jonson and other poets, drew also
from young Milton lines of sympathy. In July i632 he proceeded at Cambridge to his M.A. degree, and in that year his
first printed verses appeared. They were lines of reverence to
Shakespeare, printed before the second folio of his plays, then
published.
A year before, when the University life was drawing to a close,
and he was twenty-three years old, Milton had written on his
birthday a sonnet of self-dedication. He did not count himself
to have attained, and found in his late spring few signs of ripened
power; yet he said"Be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Towards which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,
As ever in my great Task Master's eye."
Afterwards, to his friend Charles Diodati, who asked what he was
doing, Milton answered, " Let me whisper in your ear, lest I blush
at the reply. I dream, so help me Heaven, of immortality, but my
Muse rises as yet on very slender pinions; let us be humbly vise."
When the time came for leaving college, Milton felt himself to




INTRODUCTION.


I9


be shut out from the service of the Church, which his father had
desired that he should enter, by conditions that appeared to tie
his conscience. He tells himself at the close of that earnest
review of his own past which forms the Introduction to the second
part of his "Reason of Church Government" (page I55 of this
volume), that to the service of the Church he was destined from
childhood by his parents and friends and by his own resolutions:
"Till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what
tyranny had invaded the Church, that he who would take orders
must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he
took with a conscience that could retch, he must either straight
perjure or split his faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of speaking, bought and
begun with servitude and forswearing." Having been thus, as
he says, " Church outed " by the prelates, he has the better right
to meddle with restraints of which he had himself been made to
feel the hurt.
Milton's University course was complete when he took his
M.A. degree in July i632. What had been, meanwhile, the
course of public events that so influenced his mind as to make
him feel that he could not take orders in a Church of which
Archbishop Laud had the direction?
William Laud was born at Reading in 1573, a clothier's son.
He was educated at the Reading Grammar School, and went on to
Oxford. There he became a Fellow of St. John's. From the first,
at Oxford, he was eager and zealous in controversy on religious
questions of the day, eager to check deviations from Church rule.
His bias was towards authority, and he used with an absolute
sincerity his great intellectual energy against the Puritans. Under
James the First he obtained Church livings at Stanford in
Northamptonshire, at North Kilworth in Leicestershire, at Cuckstone in Kent. In 1611 he was elected President of his College;
then he became Chaplain to the King; and in i616-year of
the death of Shakespeare-Dr. Laud, who was then forty-three
years old, and had taken the degree of D.D. eight years before,
was made Dean of Gloucester. In 1617 he went with King




20


INTRODUCTION.


James to Scotland, and advised the King to endeavour to bring
the Scotch clergy into conformity with the ritual of the English
Church.
William Laud, fifty-two years old, was Bishop of St. David's
when Charles the First came to the throne and Milton became
a student at Cambridge. Laud officiated as Dean of Westminster
at Charles's coronation. Soon afterwards he was translated to
the Bishopric of Bath and Wells. Two years later, in i628, he
became Bishop of London. In the August of that year the Duke
of Buckingham was stabbed by Felton. Laud then succeeded
to his influence over the counsels of the King. Milton had taken
his degree of Bachelor of Arts and had written his Hymn on the
Morning of the Nativity when Dr. Laud, Bishop of London,
became (in i630) Chancellor of the University of Oxford. To
that University, and to St. John's College especially, Laud was
a most liberal benefactor. He built the inner quadrangle of his
College; built the Convocation House and the Library above it;
and presented to the University thirteen hundred valuable MSS.
in Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and other languages.
In i632, when the battle for uniformity, with Dr. Laud as its
chief leader, brought such pressure on the consciences of preachers
that Milton could not take orders, Laud had not yet been made
Archbishop of Canterbury. That office did not become vacant
until the death of Dr. George Abbot on the 4th of August
i633, when Dr. William Laud was at once appointed to succeed
him.
Of his labours in the Church, Laud himself said frankly and
truly in his trial in i643, " Of all diseases, I have ever hated a palsy
in religion, well knowing that too often a dead palsy ends that
disease in the fearful forgetfulness of God and His judgments.
Ever since I came in place, I laboured nothing more than that
the external public worship of God, too much slighted in most
parts of the kingdom, might be preserved, and that with as much
decency and uniformity as might be; being still of opinion that
Unity cannot long continue in the Church when Uniformity is
shut out at the church door. And I evidently saw that the




INTRODUCTION.


21


public neglect of God's service in the outward face of it, and the
nasty lying of many places dedicated to that service, had almost
cast a damp upon the true and inward worship of God; which,
while we live in the body, needs external helps, and all little
enough to keep it in any vigour." This was the battle for
securing Unity of Worship by the maintenance of one uniform
Ceremonial, in which, Milton saw only "the ghost of a linen
decency."  In this battle Laud, eager-too eager-for attack, was
a most honest and unflinching leader.
Let me say here, what cannot be said too often, or felt too
strongly, when great controversies stir the minds and hearts of
men. Diversities of mind are like diversities of face; races and
families have their prevailing characters, but each man, whatever
the sway of heredity or of the accidents of life, has a distinct
character of his own. God made us to differ, and our currents
of opinions, with their storms and eddies, are as much a part of
the divine purpose in Nature as the currents of the air and sea.
A little slope of the axis upon which this earth turns daily in its
yearly course about the sun, gives us the alternation of the
seasons, seed-time and harvest, fills the year with its varieties of
charm. A little variation of the direction of slope, so to speak,
in the plane surface of the mind establishes the countless differences
in the bias,-inclination,-that determines the direction in which
thought will run. A round shot on the middle of a sheet of paper
held horizontally has as many ways of running to the edge, determined by slight variations of the slope, as we can imagine lines
drawn from it. While accidents of life indefinitely multiply distinctions of character among us, every man's character is, in a
way, governed by the action of that bias which Nature has
established.  He acts by it as part of the one divine thought
which all Nature expresses.  He lives and works by it in the
evolution of man as a part of Nature. He is, through it, man
taking the image of God by exercise of that one spiritual energy
which alone of all things human lifts us to a sense of the divine.
In the spiritual as in the physical world, there can be no health
in unexercised powers. Man grows by struggle from the lower




22


INTRODUCTION.


to the higher life; and for this evolution there is, I believe,
divine provision made in those balanced variations of the ways
of thought which give rise to our controversies in the search for
truth. There may be some man with a mind wholly unbiassed,
and, as the shot would stay wherever it is placed upon a level
sheet of paper, so on his mind a thought might move in no direction. If there be men subject to this accident of birth, it is to
be hoped that they are all well cared for in asylums for the
imbeciles and idiots.
A stagnant mind is as a stagnant pool. For the social and
spiritual growth of man, our conflicts of opinion provide means
as sure as any that help on to the material advancement of our
power. We might conceive the minds of men classified into
natural orders, genera, and species, and all that produce blossom
and fruit ranged under two great families like those of plants
which the botanists call exogens and endogens. The exogens grow,
like the oak, by additions on their outside; endogens, like the
palm, grow by additions within. They differ altogether in that
matter of the way of growth, yet they are both right trees. The
characteristic difference that would establish two such families
for all the thousand thousand forms of thought would lie, I believe,
in the degree of bias towards or from Authority.
We agree in thinking that we owe our whole present civilisation to the wisdom of all generations of the past, against which
we have now to set only the wisdom and the yet unwinnowed
follies of that one generation to which we belong.  We all
agree also that progress has been due to changes made in each
generation for adaptation to the growth of new conditions. We
differ only in the degree of stress laid by each one of us on either
half of this whole truth.
To some of us Nature has given the stronger bias towards
Authority. We hold by the old ways until those eager for change
can make their reason for it clear, and overcome our logicalsometimes, while civilisation is yet low, our forcible-resistance.
With this bias is associated strong fidelity not only to the
Authority of the Past, as an abstraction, but to individual




INTRODUCTION.


23


authority established in the Church and in the State, with loyal
maintenance of all existing institutions. In all relations of life
this bias shows itself-in the home, the place of business, the
Church, the State. Our name in the State is rightly chosen from
a word of Burke's, that represents our necessary healthy part in
the great argument of life-we are Conservative.
To some of us Nature has given the stronger bias towards
search for some direction in which to make that beneficial change
which is contributed by each generation to the advancement of
mankind. We are so many men with so many opinions, each of
us most believing in his own ideas, but not all of us urging ideas
that would benefit the world. We make our suggestions for the
re-shaping of old institutions that have become more or less unsuited to the new conditions of life, and it is well for us that we
have to bring all our opinions out into the open ground and meet
the serried ranks of men who require proof, and much proof. Only
that project of reform which conquers opposition is allowed to
pass from theory to practice. If our suggestion prove right in
the trial, it is added to the institutions of the country, which the
whole body of those who had been our opponents will now join
us in preserving. With this bias we associate a strong fidelity
to the spirit of individual freedom, and our tendency being
towards the questioning and testing of authority, we are apt to
consider, as well of the positions of single men as of established
institutions, whether, and if so where and how, they can be
advantageously reformed. In all relations of life this bias shows
itself. In our homes we are given to the readjustment of tables
and chairs which conservative wives, brothers) or sisters are
anxious to put back in their established places. We often thrive
by it in business, and often ruin ourselves by it. We are active
for the reformation of the Church and of the State, and in the
State we call ourselves, from the spirit of liberty that we cherish,
Liberals. But the word liberal has in its common use another
sense equally applicable to the right-minded men of all forms of
opinion. The correlative word to Conservative would be Reformer.




24


INTRODUCTION.


Lord Brougham, an ardent Reformer, thought it matter of
lament that it takes about thirty years to get a reform of any
kind accepted and established in this country.  I think that
matter of rejoicing. Thirty years are but one generation in the
story of collective man, and if all the good ideas started at the
beginning of one generation could be reasoned out, carefully
winnowed from the bad, established and accepted, by the time
that generation passed, we should come perhaps too soon into the
New Jerusalem.
If these things be so, then it is very clear that the rate of
advance in any nation will be in proportion to the freedom given
to the working of this great machinery of Nature in the minds of
men. If England has made more progress than her neighbours,
it may be chiefly because in this country we have taken, when it
has not been allowed to us; we have battled for throughout, as for
a cardinal principle; the free right of saying what we think. We
have given freer play than any other people to those forces of our
nature through which alone collective man can go on with slow
growth towards the ideal of what Tennyson has called "the
crowning race"
" Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Farthl and Earth's, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book.
No longer half akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped and suffered, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit."
It was the sense that this right of free speech, for the full
and thorough scrutiny of all forms of opinion, the complete
deliberation that should precede all action, is the cardinal principle in our whole social system, the very eye by which we see,
or say, the air we need to breathe, that caused Milton to put his
utmost energy into the writing of his " Areopagitica, or Defence of
the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing."




INTRODUCTION.


2 5


But if we are to see God's work in the diversity of minds and
thank God for our conflicts of opinions; if we are only to see
Nature working in the storms and eddies of our thought; shall
we fight our battles still as heretofore? Not quite as heretofore,
for infirmities of passion will be less liable to make our reasonings
infirm. But Nature will not work in us the less for our knowing
the fact. Hearts do not cease to beat in men who study their
anatomy. Each of us who is worth anything to his neighbour
would labour still for what he holds to be the highest right. The
difference would all be in the better temper. Men would not
then be drawn aside by passion from a clear view of the case they
had to meet; reason would try fair issues with reason. Each
side would work steadily at the shaking of the sieve that parts
wheat from the chaff, and we might get a controversy settled in
ten years instead of thirty. There is large scope for feeling,
within bounds of reason. Logic has double force when its quick
wit is warm with healthy generous emotion. But envy, hatred,
malice are diseases of the mind; they cannot help to set a man's
life or the world, or any part, however small, of the world's work
to rights.
We see Milton in his prose writings an absolute type of the
Reformer. He finds man enslaved to Custom and determines
to think for himself. He will test all other authority by Scripture
and Reason. In the Church he demands Liberty of Conscience,
and by direct reference to Scripture and Reason he strives for
the reform of the Reformation. In the Home he boldly faces
custom in his pleading for higher regard to the spiritual end of
marriage, and a consequent reform of marriage laws. For the
School he boldly sketches a plan of reform regardless of tradition.
In the State he argues for the development and the protection
of the individual; and this volume closes with his outline of a
plan of his own for the reconstitution of the Commonwealth.
Everywhere he respects individual opinion that does not seek to
force itself on others. He is intolerant only of intolerance.
Milton aimed at highest truth and highest purity through the
conditions in Church and State by which he thought there would




26


INTRODUCTION.


be nearest approach to these among the people. He set forth
his views with the enthusiasm of a poet and a zealous patriotism.
Laud was a type of the other bias of opinion as to the best way
of attaining highest truth and highest purity, the aim of both.
Instead of claiming for each man a right to form his own
opinions from the reading of the Bible, Laud limited the right
to points on which the Church had left opinion free. He saw
in a claim for complete individual freedom the danger of confusion in the Church, indefinite encouragement to heresy and
schism. He looked, as Churchmen had been looking through
centuries, for Christian unity in uniformity of doctrine and of
ceremonial, although he was ready to allow a wider range for
freedom of opinion than had been allowed by Rome or by Geneva.
Laud saw in the scrupulous regard for ceremonial, that Milton
disdained, a visible sign of respect for public worship which
would help the thoughtless into at least decent habits of religion,
that would make the people bow as with one act of worship,
breathe its prayers as from one soul before the throne of God.
To secure this end Authority must be maintained; men, for their
own good, must be compelled to worship with their fellow-men
in the great congregation, and this good could not be obtained
without strictness in enforcing general obedience. So came,
especially with Laud, that stricter rule over the Church which
interfered, as Milton thought, with liberty of conscience, and
made it impossible for him, after he had taken his M.A. degree,
to carry out his own former intention and that of his friends for
him by taking orders in the Church of England.
When Charles the First became King and Milton went to
college, negotiations for the marriage of Charles with the Spanish
Infanta had come to an end, and he was pledged to marry
Henrietta Maria, then a girl of fifteen, sister to the King of France.
There went with the arrangement a secret writing, signed by King
James and his son, promising relief to the Catholics in England,
although an opposite promise had been made to the English
Parliament. The reign began with the bringing home of the
bride, with great preparations for war with Spain, and with vague




INTRODUCTION.


27


appeal to the first Parliament of the reign for more money than
the King and Buckingham, his chief friend and adviser, chose to
name. Money also was asked without any distinct information
as to what was to be done with it. Parliament was sitting in
London during plague-time; it offered at most two subsidies, when
the King's unexpressed wish was for ten, and it was dismissed that
the members might escape danger of plague. Sir John Eliot
had spoken in that Parliament for continued action against the
Roman Catholics as disturbers of the essential unity within the
Church, yet Eliot agreed with Milton in his way of harmonising
unity with liberty of conscience. He sought, as Laud sought also
in his different way, what is now almost attained-" Unity of spirit
in the bond of peace;" but he agreed then with all Protestant
England, and with Milton, in withholding toleration from the
Roman Catholics. It was withheld because their principles then
seemed to bind them to contend by all means in their power
against opinions not sanctioned by their Church. Milton felt in
this with Eliot, Pym, and all other Reformers of his day, but I
think he was not unconscious of a touch of infidelity to his own
principles, for he is careful to guard himself against showing any
desire to interfere with Roman Catholic opinions, except as they
produced intolerance of the opinions of others. To Charles's
Parliament in June 1625 Sir Thomas Wentworth, who was then
twenty-nine years old and had an estate of six thousand a year,
was elected as Member for Yorkshire. This was the future Earl
of Strafford. On the first day of the reassembling of Parliamentat Oxford, to escape the danger of the plague raging in Londoncomplaint was made of pardon to a Jesuit. On the second day
Sir Edward Coke complained that permission was given to every
particular man to put out books of all sorts, and he wished that
"none concerning religion might be printed but such as were
allowed by Convocation."  Soon afterwards three Bishops, of
whom Laud was one, reasoned that the place of the Pope in the
English Church, as final appeal in matters of division among the
clergy, was with the King and the Bishops in a National Synod
or Convocation, the King first giving leave under his broad




28


INTRODUCTION.


seal to handle the points in difference. After a session of twelve
days, in which the Parliament showed its distrust of Buckingham,
though he sought favour by throwing over the cause of the
Catholics and risking the displeasure of the King of France, that
first Parliament of Charles the First was suddenly dismissed, and
the divisions, of which the seed had been planted by King James
the First, began to put out more vigorous shoots.
In the summer of i626 Charles made Buckingham, at a time
when he was under impeachment, Chancellor of Milton's University
of Cambridge. After Buckingham's assassination in i628, the
King sought to be himself the ruler, and in Laud he found a
supporter who believed sincerely that the only cure for the
dissensions in the land was to uphold as strongly as he could
the King's single authority. The theory of Monarchy was being
reasoned out from many points of view, and Laud was among
those who held the view that was expressed afterwards by Hobbes
in his " Leviathan." The King was the centre of Unity, the mind
of the body politic; and as the body natural could not safely obey
separate promptings of two or three separate brains, so to the
body of a state the king's should be a single, absolute authority.
That is what Milton meant by a "single ruler " when he
pleaded, at the breaking up of the Commonwealth, for any
readjustment except that, provided also liberty of conscience was
maintained.
Laud sought, as he himself said, to make truth and peace kiss
each other. He moved, he said to a correspondent, every stone
to avoid discussion of knotty and perplexed questions before the
people, " lest we should violate charity under the appearance of
truth. I have always counselled moderation, lest everything
should be thrown into confusion by fervid minds, to which the care
of religion is not the first object." The much-vexed questions of
predestination and election, Laud, as far as he was able, kept
from argument before the people. As Bishop of London, he
refused to license a book by the Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge, though assured that it would crush the Puritans.
His desire was to stay controversy upon those knotty questions




INTRODUCTION.


29


about which, he said, that there was something " unmasterable in
this life."  He did what he could to suppress alike controversial
books and controversial preaching upon such questions, that so he
might abate the causes of disunion. His prohibition of books
was under a Star Chamber decree of Elizabeth's reign, which
prohibited printing of books without the license of one of the
Archbishops or of the Bishop of London. His prohibiting of controversial preaching took in December i629 the form of instructions sent by the King to the Bishops, enforcing his Declaration
against the introduction of controversial topics in the morning
sermons and forbidding afternoon sermons. These were to be
replaced by the catechising of children. As there were in many
churches lecturers appointed by the laity, who were paid only to
preach, and preachers so appointed were usually devout expounders
of the Word, inclined to the Puritan view of Church duties, Laud
caused the King to require that nobody should preach, even in
the morning, until he had first read divine service according to
the Liturgy printed by authority, and read it in a surplice. The
Bishops were required also to observe the behaviour of the
preachers, and " take order for any abuse accordingly."
It was in April of the next year, i630, that Laud became
Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He had then recently
read Alexander Leighton's argument for the extirpation of Bishops
in "An Appeal to Parliament, or, Sion's Plea against Prelacy."
He had caused the arrest of the author and lodged him, Leighton
said, in "a nasty dog-hole full of rats and mice." Leighton was
brought before the Star Chamber, where Laud was among his
judges and spoke for two hours in defence of Episcopacy.
Leighton was sentenced to pay a fine of 1io,ooo, to be set in
the pillory of Westminster, to be there whipped, to have one of
his ears cut off and his nose slit, and to be branded in the face
with S.S. as a Sower of Sedition. At some later time he was to
be pilloried and whipped at Cheapside, and then to be imprisoned
for life, unless it should please his Majesty to enlarge him. The
sentence against Leighton was carried out at Westminster. The
second pillorying was remitted.




36 -

INTROD UCTION.


It was in April i630 that John Winthrop sailed for Massachusetts, and within no long time a thousand souls were added
to those who endeavoured to establish in New England such rule
of God upon earth as Calvin had endeavoured to establish in
Geneva. But the Presbyterian Church rule in New England
was as strict as the Episcopal rule of Laud in its enforcements
of conformity; and when, a few years afterwards, in England
the Presbyterians had power in their hands, Milton expressed
his sense of the continual forcing of conscience in the assertion
that
" New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large."
Laud was enforcing his view of a strict observance of all rules
and ordinances of the Church; he had given occasion for new
bitterness of controversy over bowings in direction of the altar,
while he sought to stay discussion upon what many regarded as
essentials of Christian faith; and we may partly learn what it was
to be ordained to the service of the Church of England in the
year i632, when Milton felt himself to be excluded from ordination
by the action of the prelates, from a letter sent to Laud in that
year by the Vicar of Braintree. "If," he said, " I had suddenly
and hastily fallen upon the strict practice of conformity, I had
undone myself and broken the town to pieces. For upon the
first notice of alteration many were resolving to go to New
England, others to remove elsewhere, by whose departure the
burden of the poor and charges of the town had grown insupportable to those who should have stayed behind. By my moderate
and slow proceeding I have made stay of some, and do hope to
settle their judgment and abode with us, when the rest that are
inexorable are shipped and gone."
Milton, then, in July i632, in his twenty-fourth year, completed his college studies, became Master of Arts, and was
prevented by the policy of those who ruled the Church from
carrying out his design of taking orders in it. The world was
before him, and a fresh choice must be made of his vocation.
There was open to him only one profession worth his following




INTRODUCTION.


3t


He could not enter upon a new course of training for the law
or medicine, and would have had no aptitude for either calling.
But the mind quickened by culture could diffuse its light, when
the day came for independent labour. If he was shut out of the
Church, the School was open; he could be a teacher, and so earn
his bread by a right service to the Commonwealth.
But there was one other consideration. The gift of the poet's
faculty assigned to him another service for which he was answerable to God. It was not a duty by which he could win daily
bread, but there was a duty not the less, a talent to be put to
highest use. Milton set an ideal before him towards which he
could only strive on by long labour. The work of preparation
for the full use of whatever gifts God had bestowed upon his
mind yet needed years of quiet thought and study. He might
have gone abroad when he left college, as others did for whom,
as for Milton, home supplies were prompt in aid of a full training.
To Milton as to others the time of foreign travel came; but later.
It came after his mother died. I think that his mother's weak
health caused him to delay it. He could not put mountains and
seas between himself and her when her life perhaps might be
ebbing away without the consolation of his presence and his
daily care. We may safely infer such a feeling from Milton's
expression of grief at having been in Italy when his school friend
Charles Diodati died.
Milton's father had retired from business, and was living in the
rural village of Horton, within easy walk of Datchet Mead, Eton,
and Windsor. The house he occupied was near the church. It
was pulled down at the end of the last century. Milton went
home to Horton after taking his degree. A Latin poem of loving
thanks to his father for the liberal education given to him closed this
period of training, and the poem includes reference to questions
that must have been between them when he wished to give some
further time to quiet cultivation of his faculty of verse-a wish to
which few fathers could assent without some hesitation. The
son's argument would have been based upon the Parable of the
Talents, but pleasant blandishment went with it; witness these




32


INTRODUCTION.


lines in the Latin poem of thanks, which I quote as they were
translated by Cowper;"Nor thou persist, I pray thee, still to slight
The sacred Nine, and to imagine vain
And useless powers, by whom inspired? Thyself
Art skilful to associate verse with airs
Harmonious, and to give the human voice
A thousand modulations; heir by right
Indisputable of Arion's fame:
Now say, what wonder is it if a son
Of thine delight in verse, if so conjoined
In close affinity, we sympathise
In social arts and kindred studies sweet?
Such distribution of himself to us
Was Phoebus' choice: thou hast thy gift, and I
Mine also, and between us we receive,
Father and son, the whole inspiring God."
There followed now in Milton's life another seven years of
preparation for its highest work. They were five years and about
nine months of life at Horton,-from July I632 to April I638,followed by about one year and three months of foreign travel,from April I638 to June or July I639. From Horton, Milton
paid visits to London, for purchase of books and for aid in his
studies, especially of music and mathematics. He occasionally
took a London lodging, and had thought at one time of obtaining,
for such uses, a chamber in one of the Inns of Court. If there
were plays worth seeing, Milton also when in London visited the
theatre.
It was during these years of his training time at Horton that
Milton wrote "L'Allegro" and "II Penseroso," "Arcades,"
" Comus," " Lycidas;" all in the pastoral form, to which, on the
precedent of Virgil, it was thought that poets should confine themselves until their powers were strengthened for a higher flight.
" L'Allegro " and " II Penseroso " paint the gay and the grave side
of the same innocent mind. The elder Milton's fellowship among




INTRODUCTION.


33


musicians had no doubt brought Henry Lawes into the round of
the young poet's friends, and the suggestion of Henry Lawes, who
was to write the music, probably caused Milton to be asked for
words to the little domestic entertainment given by younger
members of her family to the old lady at Harefield, the Dowager
Countess of Derby, who was then seventy-four years old, and died
two or three years later. The success of this little aid to the expression of home kindness, and the continued goodwill of Henry
Lawes, their musical adviser, caused some of these younger
members of the family to look again to Milton when another
masque on a far larger scale was wanted.
The Countess of Derby was mother-in-law to the Earl of
Bridgewater, as mother of his wife; and stepmother to him, as
she had been his father's wife. The Earl of Bridgewater was
made Lord President of the West; and when he had established
himself in office at Ludlow Castle, he had to represent the
sovereign with royal hospitality. He joined, therefore, to a state
entertainment a state masque, which was Milton's "Comus,"
acted at Ludlow Castle on Michaelmas night, the 29th of September I634.
We have not to discuss here Milton's poems, our concern in
this volume is only with his prose; but the year in which Milton's
"Comus " was written suggests a reflection that throws light on
his character.
In I633, according to the date upon the title-page, but really,
as its author tells us, "about Christide I632," there was published
a volume of strong Puritan denunciation of plays, masques,
dances. It had this very long title, which saves further description: " Histrio-Mastix. The Players Scourge or Actors Tragmedie,
Divided into Two Parts. Wherein it is largely evidenced, by
divers Arguments, by the concurring Authorities and Resolutions
of sundry texts of Scripture; of the whole Primitive Church,
both under the Law and Gospell; of 55 Synodes and Councels;
of 7I Fathers and Christian Writers, before the yeare of our
Lord 1200; of above 150 foraigne and domestique Protestant
and Popish Authors, since; of 40 Heathen Philosophers, HisC




34


INTRODUCTION.


torians, Poets; of many Heathen, many Christian Nations, Republiques, Emperors, Princes, Magistrates; of sundry Apostolicall,
Canonicall, Imperiall Constitutions; and of our owne English
Statutes, Magistrates, Vniversities, Writers, Preachers, That popular
Stage-playes (the very Pompes of the Divell which we renounce
in Baptisme, if we beleeve the Fathers) are sinfull, heathenish,
lewde, ungodly Spectacles, and most pernicious Corruptions;
condemned in all ages, as intolerable Mischiefes to Churches,
to Republickes, to the manners, mindes and soules of men.
And that the Professioh of Play-poets, of Stage-players; together
with the penning, acting, and frequenting of Stage-playes, are
unlawfull, infamous, and misbeseeming Christians. All pretences
to the contrary are here likewise fully answered; and the unlawfulness of acting, of beholding Academicall Enterludes, briefly
discussed; besides sundry other particulars concerning Dancing,
Dicing, Health-drinking, &c., of which the Table will inform you.
By William Prynne, an Vtter-Barrester of Lincolnes Inne." There
was room still on the title-page for display of Latin quotations
from Cyprian, Lactantius, Chrysostom, and Augustine; such long
procession of words on a title-page being now to us " very Pompes
of the Tbivell," which we renounce in the baptism of books.
Prynne dedicated this volume of more than a thousand pages
to the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, and there were applied in it
the worst words in the dictionary to women who took part in
masques. Dancing of women was said to be fatal to the soul,
and there was little chance of escape from damnation for those
who only sat by and looked on. Now masques were a form of
private theatricals; none took part in them but the family or
friends of the entertainers. At Court it happened that at Christmas, or as the Puritans said Christide, I632, when Prynne's
"Histriomastix" appeared, the Queen was active in production
of a pastoral masque at Somerset House in which she danced
herself. Enemies of the Puritans at once associated the Queen's
masque with Prynne's book, which they took to Court on the
next day after the acting of the pastoral, and showed to the King
and Queen the coarse name given by the author in his Index to




INTRODUCTION.


35


all women-actors. By that name, they said, he had called the
Queen. The book had been published six weeks before the
Queen's masque was presented, and it could be shown that its
license was obtained two years before, and that the printing of it
had been three months finished.
Laud, then Bishop of London, employed Dr. Heylin to examine
the book and report upon the scandals he could find in it against
the King, Queen, State, and Government of the Realm. Heylin
digested matters of offence under seven heads, and on the Ist
of February I633 (New Style) Prynne was sent prisoner to the
Tower by the Lords of the inner Star Chamber. So he remained
a prisoner without trial, in vain seeking release on bail, and without information laid against him till the 2ist of June. It was not
until the I7th of February 1634 (New Style) that Prynne was
condemned by the Star Chamber. He was sentenced to prison
during life; to payment of a fine of s5000 to the King; to be
disbarred and disabled ever to exercise the profession of a
Barrister; to be degraded by the University of Oxford of his
degree there taken; and that done, to be set in the Pillory at
Westminster with a paper on his head declaring the nature of his
offence, and have one of his ears there cut off, and at another
time be set in the Pillory in Cheapside, with a paper as aforesaid,
and there have his other ear cut off; and a fire was to be made
before the said Pillory, that the Hangman, being there ready for
the purpose, might publicly in disgraceful manner cast all the said
books which could be produced into the fire to be burnt, as unfit
to be seen by any hereafter.
Many of the Lords did not believe that such a sentence would
be actually carried out, and Prynne says that the Queen herself
earnestly interceded with the King for a remission of its execution.
But it was carried out in cold blood. Prynne was pilloried and
had his ears cut off on the seventh and ninth of May.
Feeling excited by this controversy had made it for a time a
point of loyalty to spend money on masques. The Four Inns of
Court wishing, as Whitelocke records, "to manifest the difference
of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new learning, and to confute




36


INTRODUCTION.


his ' Histriomastix' against Interludes," prepared a masque in which
they spent a thousand pounds upon the music only, and ten thousand pounds upon the clothes of the horsemen. It was "The
Triumph of Peace," written by James Shirley, with scenery and
machinery by Inigo Jones, and was produced on the 3rd of
February i634. But on Shrove Tuesday, the i8th of the same
month, there was a masque at Court in which the King danced,
which the Master of the Revels thought to be the noblest of
his time.
The new impulse given by Prynne's book must have influenced
the Lord President of the West when he resolved to spend liberally on the production of a masque at Ludlow; and there is signicance in the fact that the commission to write such a masque
must have been accepted by Milton in the midheat of Puritan
attack upon such entertainments. As the words when written
had yet to be set to music, scenery and machinery invented and
prepared, masks designed and made, parts learnt by children,
songs and dances practised, the writing could hardly have been
undertaken-Ludlow not being London-later than the spring
of the same year, possibly in the interval between the sentencing
of Prynne on the I7th of February and the unexpected enforcement of the sentence on the 7th of May. What Milton
thought of force in the suppression of opinion, this volume shows.
But his own way of reasoning against the error of those Puritans
who made war against arts adding to the charm of life, innocent
in themselves and more than innocent, directly helpful to its
higher interests, when rightly used, we find in " Comus." He produced a masque in which Temperance was the theme, which
genially fulfilled every requirement of delight, and yet applied
action, song, and dance throughout as an incitement to the higher
spiritual life.
In I635 Milton was incorporated as M.A. of Oxford, and in
that year his old teacher, Alexander Gill the younger, became by
his father's death Head Master of St. Paul's School.
Milton's mother died on the 3rd of April i637, and was buried
in the chancel of the church at Horton.




INTRODUCTION.


37


In I637 Henry Lawes published 'Comus" as a pamphlet of
thirty-five pages, with a dedication by himself to John Lord
Brackley, who had played the part of the elder brother. Milton's
name was not upon its title-page, and Henry Lawes said of it in
the dedication, "Although not openly acknowledged by the
Author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely and so much
desired that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my
several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view."  Milton revised the copy for the
press, but in the place upon the title-page where his name would
have stood had he given it, is a sigh in a few words from Virgil's
second Eclogue-"Ah me, what have I wished?    A dry wind
spoils my flowers." The dry south wind that Milton felt as withering his spring was in the griefs and contests of the time. The
veteran Ben Jonson died in that year, I637, fallen, as he felt, on
evil times. The very writing of the masque of " Comus " was connected with thoughts of oppression and cruelty, with resentment
of wrongs done to Prynne that must have made a part of his
unwillingness to sign his name at that time to a masque, and be
supposed in any way the adversary of a victim to Star Chamber
tyranny.  Eheu! quid volui misero mihzi?  I would have sung,
and discord clashes to the soul of my best music. I would have
consecrated all my powers to the pure service of God; the dry
wind blighted then what blossom I was ready to put forth: and
now what little rill of song within me can expand into the light of
heavenly love and beauty before it is dried up by the sirocco of
dissension and ill-will that parches all this land? It was no sigh
of despair; in time of greatest seeming reason for despair, the last
use to which Milton put his genius as a poet was for an outpouring of the music of a patient trust in God. But he has not
known life who has never sighed over the little that could be
attained, and has not thought of old hopes while they lay dead or
asleep, and has not felt as Milton felt in I637, Eheu, quid volu.
That was the year in which he whispered to his-friend Diodati
of his dream of immortality, of wings too tender for a lofty flight,
and said, Let us be humbly wise. In the same letter to his bosom




38


INTRODUCTION.


friend there was also this passage:-" As to other points, what
God may have determined for me I know not; but this I know,
that if he ever instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the
breast of any man, he has instilled it into mine: Ceres in the
fable pursued not her daughter with a greater keenness of enquiry
than I, day and night, the idea of perfection. Hence, wherever
I find a man despising the false estimates of the vulgar, and
daring to aspire in sentiment, language, and conduct, to what
the highest wisdom through every age has taught us as most
excellent, to him I unite myself by a sort of necessary attachment; and if I am so influenced by nature or destiny, that by
no exertion or labours of my own I may exalt myself to this
summit of worth and honour, yet no powers of heaven or earth
will hinder me from looking with reverence and affection upon
those who have thoroughly attained this glory, or appear engaged
in the successful pursuit of it."
This was written on the 23rd of September I637. About the
same time, or soon afterwards, it was agreed at home that Milton
should leave England for a year or two and visit Greece and
Italy; then, coming back, he would establish himself in what
would be his business of life, the better poet and the better
teacher for that closing time of rest in Italy and Greece. The
two years abroad would yield new pastures to his mind. He
would write no more verse until those fresh influences should
have breathed into him health and strength. The journey could
not be begun with winter at the door. It was resolved, therefore,
that he should set out for Italy in the next following spring, the
spring of 1638.
But in October 1637 there came to him a request from Cambridge that he would join in the forming of a little volume of
memorial verses by members of the University. They were to
be in memory of a young friend at Christ's College, Edward
King, who had been drowned by the wreck of the vessel in which
he was going home to Ireland for the long vacation. Edward
King's father was Sir John King, a Privy Councillor for Ireland,
whose character and credit at court had obtained for his son a




INTRODUCTION.


39


fellowship at Christ's which, perhaps, might otherwise have fallen
to Milton. Milton was friend and fellow-worker with him. King
took his M.A. degree in I633, only a year later than Milton.
He was about to enter the ministry of the Church when his
sudden death led to the request that Milton among others would,
according to a good and kindly custom, contribute to the memorial
volume of "Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr. Edward King."
He at once responded and sent "Lycidas," which is dated in
November I637. In the opening lines Milton referred to his
withdrawal from the use of verse while waiting for the day of
riper power, a silence broken by the touch of human sympathy,
and the piece closed with a glance towards the coming days of
travel,-" To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new." The
only part of " Lycidas" that here concerns us is the passage in
which Milton draws from his friend's fitness for the service of the
Church a comment upon the unfitness of many in it who neglected
faithful preaching, and cared only for the incomes they could
make. These were the pastors-blind mouths-whose hungry
sheep-whose congregations-looked up and were not fed,But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread:
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said:
Yet that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once and smite no more.
That two-handed engine is St. Paul's "Sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God:" "For the Word of God," said Paul,
"is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword."
We wield it by a double grip, on the Old Testament and on the
New. The Bible chained to its desk, for use of any who might
turn in out of the street to read a chapter and to breathe a prayer,
was a familiar object at the old church doors. M1ilton's complaint
is that the spirit of evil laid hold upon men in the congregations
of unfaithful preachers, by whom there was nothzigg said. The
Bible was at the church door, open to all, but they made no




40


INTRODUCTION.


use against evil of the only weapon that could be a sword of
victory.
In I637 Milton must have flinched the more from immediate
association of his name with Comus, because in that year William
Prynne was again made the victim of a cruel sentence. He had
issued in i636 a pamphlet setting forth judgments against sabbathbreakers who had been multiplied and encouraged by the King's
Declaration of Sports. In another pamphlet he charged the
Bishops with suppression of preaching, that they might prepare
the way for popery. The Rev. Henry Burton preached two
sermons in November i636, which he published as "For God and
the King," wherein he attacked the ceremonies on which Laud
insisted, the removal of communion tables from the centre of the
church where they had commonly stood, and hats had been
often placed on them, to the east end where they were railed in,
the bowing towards them, and the setting up of crosses, as wrongdoing of Bishops for which the remedy was abolition of Prelacy.
Dr. Bastwick, physician, already under sentence of the High
Commission Court, published "the Litany of John Bastwick,"
in which one clause was, " From plague, pestilence and famine,
from bishops, priests and deacons, good Lord deliver us." They
were all three, Prynne, Burton and Bastwick, brought before the
Star Chamber, sentenced to fine, pillory, and loss of ears; Prynne
was found to have had ear enough left for a second cropping.
Prynne was also again to be branded. The sentence was executed
against all three on the last day of June 1637, and the victims had
the people on their side. Their path to the pillory was strewn
with herbs and flowers.
There had been no parliament called for eight years. In i637
the King issued his third writ for ship-money. A widespread feeling against personal rule gathered new strength, and blended with
rebellion in the Church against Laud's honest and impartial endeavours to build up spiritual life by compelling strict conformity
in the observance of all legally appointed forms. In i635 three
thousand persons had crossed the Atlantic to join the New England
colony. Young Henry Vane, then twenty-three years old, landed




INTRODUCTION.                      41
at Boston in that year, and in i636 he was made Governor of the
colony. His opposition to a desire of the religious commonwealth
to refuse admission to men holding opinions that would conflict
with theirs-Vane arguing for full liberty of judgment, Winthrop
for the policy of protection against discord-caused John Winthrop to be elected Governor at the end of Vane's first year of
office, and in i637 Vane returned to England.
The new Service Book sent into Scotland at the beginning of
I637 was to be brought into use there at Easter, but the strength
of opposition caused the first day of reading it to be put off to
Sunday, the 23rd of July. In St. Giles's Kirk at Edinburgh the
people met the opening of the Service Book and the attempt to
read from it with uproar, and when the Bishop of Edinburgh came
forward to allay the tumult there was a joint stool thrown at his
head. Committees were established to maintain the people's
cause, and on the ist of March i638 there was fervent prayer in St.
Giles's Kirk, after which nobles, clergy, burgesses lifted their hands
and swore fidelity to the National Covenant, by which they undertook to maintain at all hazards their old form of worship and their
old Confession of Faith. This news was fresh in England, and
still the Covenant was being signed, when Milton, in the middle
of April i638, left England for Italy and Greece. He was then
three or four months older than nine-and-twenty.
- Milton left home with one servant, who would be the more
necessary because in those days much travel was on horseback.
He had letters of recommendation to Lord Scudamore, the English
ambassador in Paris, by whom he was introduced to Hugo
Grotius, exiled from his own country by the intolerance of an
ecclesiastical synod, and then in Paris as ambassador from the
Queen of Sweden. From Lord Scudamore he took letters of
introduction to English merchants whom he would find upon
his way, and travelled to Nice. He sailed from Nice to Genoa,
visited Leghorn, Pisa, and Florence, staying two months at
Florence, and making friends among the men of letters there.
Milton at Horton had become a good Italian scholar, and in Italy
he wrote Italian verse that pleased Italian poets. From Florence




42


4INTRODUCTI ON.


he went to Siena, thence to Rome. At Rome he stayed during
another two months, and made more friends. From Rome he
went southward to Naples, and obtained there the friendship of
Count Manso, friend and biographer of Tasso. Then the way on
would be to Sicily and Greece, but, Milton wrote, in his "Second
Defence of the People of England," "When I was preparing to
pass over into Sicily and Greece, the melancholy intelligence which
I received of the civil commotions in England made me alter
my purpose, for I thought it base to be travelling for amusement
abroad while my fellow-citizens were fighting for liberty at home."
That is to say, the place of a citizen in any state, be his powers
great or small, is in the ranks of his countrymen at any time
of danger to his country. It did not mean that Milton should
go home to handle sword, or pike, or gun, which to him were
arguments "of human weakness rather than of strength." While
an incomplete civilisation makes it still inevitable that brute
force shall oppose brute force in battles of opinion, the conditions
of the time must be accepted. But sword and gun achieve only
the triumph of a day, if reason be against the cause they battle for.
Milton's duty to his country in a time of danger from the clashing
of opinions, was to reason against opinions that imperilled liberty,
to be a spiritual soldier in the wars of truth. Captain, or colonel,
or man-at-arms, every Englishman is, in that way, soldier for his
country, and must be at his post when the alarm is sounded.
The English news that reached Milton in Italy told of the
King's temporising with the Scots while gathering force to subdue
them. The Covenanters were preparing for the danger. Already
in July i638, three months after Milton left England, they had a
magazine of pikes, halberts, and muskets. Early in December a
ship in which a merchant of Edinburgh was bringing six thousand
muskets out of Holland was stopped by the government of the
United Provinces, but set free by aid of the King of France, and
sent on to Leith. Laud lamented on the 7th of December that
"the jealousies of giving the Covenanters umbrage too soon had
made preparation so late." At the beginning of the year i639
the King was appointing officers, ordering the muster of trained




INTRODUCTION.


43


bands, and endeavouring to get six thousand foreign troops.
The Scots did not wait for attack.  Leslie, their General, in
March surprised and took Edinburgh Castle, other castles were
surrendered to the Covenanters. On the 3oth of May the armies
of the King and of the Covenanters were encamped within sight
of each other. Milton had given up his journey into Greece,
where letters would seldom reach him, and turned homeward,
again making long stays in Rome and Florence, always within
hearing of news from England. He stayed a month at Venice,
whence he shipped home books and music, then he came back
through Verona, Milan, and Geneva. Imminent risk of the
beginning of a civil war was averted by the pacification of
Berwick.
When Milton came home, in the summer of I639, he presently
took a lodging in St. Bride's Churchyard, at the house of a tailor
named Russel, while looking for a place fit for his purpose of
establishing a school. He took charge at once of the education
of his nephews, Edward and John Phillips, children born to his
sister Anne at the close of her seven years' marriage with Edward
Phillips of the Crown Office. She had been left a widow with
those boys, one of a year old, named after her husband Edward,
the other perhaps unborn when her husband died, named after
her brother, John. Her first husband having died in I631, she
had married again. Her second husband was a Mr. Agar, who
succeeded also to her former husband's work in the Crown Office.
Her boys, now about ten and nine years old, were put under their
uncle's care.  Milton found for his school what his nephew
called "a pretty garden house in Aldersgate Street at the end of
an entry." Aldersgate Street then having gardens about its houses,
a passage between garden walls of houses fronting to the road
led to the gate of a garden in the rear, with a house in it more
distant from the line of traffic.  Into his garden house, well
chosen for such a purpose, Milton gathered his books and his
boys. The boys he taught seem to have come from families of
merchants and others, prosperous and intellectual. Cyriac Skinner,
to whom he wrote afterwards two sonnets, was one of his old




44


IN TR ODUCTION.


boys; two others, of whom we chance to learn, were a son of
Robert Boyle's sister, Lady Ranelagh, and her nephew, the Earl
of Barrimore.
During Milton's travel in Italy, his friend Charles Diodati died,
and the lament for him in Latin verse, "Epitaphium Damonis,"
written by Milton after his return, expresses a tenderness of feeling
which may be illustrated by this passage from it, in Cowper's
translation:
Ah, blest indifference of the playful herd
None by his fellow chosen or preferred!
The sparrow meanest of the feathered race
His fit companion finds in every place,
With whom he picks the grain that suits him best,
Flirts here and there, and late returns to rest;
And whom if chance the falcon make his prey,
Or hedger with his well aimed arrow slay,
For no such loss the gay survivor grieves,
New love he seeks, and new delight receives.
We only, an obdurate kind, rejoice,
Scorning all others, in a single choice;
We scarce in thousands meet one kindred mind,
And if the long-sought good at last we find,
When least we fear it, Death our treasure steals,
And gives our heart a wound that nothing heals.
Go, go, my lambs, unpastured as ye are,
My thoughts are all now due to other care.
Ah, what delusion lured me from my flocks,
To traverse Alpine snows and rugged rocks!
What need so great had I to visit Rome,
Now sunk in ruins and herself a tomb?
Or, had she flourished still as when, of old,
For her sake Tityrus forsook his fold,
What need so great had I to incur a pause
Of thy sweet intercourse for such a cause,
For such a cause to place the roaring sea,
Rocks, mountains, woods, between my friend and me?




INTRODUCTION.


Else had. I grasped thy feeble hand, composed
Thy decent limbs, thy drooping eyelids closed,
And, at the last, had said-" Farewell-ascendNor even in the skies forget thy friend! "
That is the John Milton who in the year I640, in the thirtysecond year of his life, began to keep school at the garden house
in Aldersgate Street. Milton was proposing then to use his
leisure in the shaping of an Epic based like Virgil's upon the
mythical tale of the founder of his country. His mind was on
his two callings of teacher and poet, when the clouds gathered
again, and there broke forth in I64i a storm of public feeling
against prelacy.
In August I640 the Scots had crossed the border and routed
in the first conflict five thousand horse and foot at Newburn. While
the Scots held Newcastle the King was at last obliged, against
his will, to call a Parliament-known now as the Long Parliament
-which was to meet at Westminster on the 3rd of November
I640. At the end of January I64I Bishop Hall published in
defence of the Liturgy and Episcopal Government, his " Humble
Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament." Towards the
close of March there appeared an answer to this by five divines
-one of them Milton's old teacher, Thomas Young-who joined
their initials to make one author's name, Smectymnuus (Stephen
Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen,
and William Sparstow). Usher, Archbishop of Armagh, argued,
towards the end of May, out of Antiquity the confirmation of
Episcopacy. Laud had been impeached in February, and in
March committed to the Tower. On the 27th of May the House
of Commons passed the second reading of a bill "for the utter
abolishing and taking away of all Archbishops, Bishops, &c.,"
while there was also awaiting decision a bill for the exclusion of
Bishops from the House of Lords.
It was then that Milton joined his voice to the argument by
publishing his two books "Of Reformation touching Church
Discipline," which was followed quickly by a shorter pamphlet
on Prelatical Episcopacy replying to Usher, and a defence of




46


INTRODUCTION.


Smectymnuus against attack.  In January I642 there was the
King's arrest of the Five Members on the I4th of February, the
King gave his assent to the bill excluding Bishops from the House
of Lords, and the second piece of Milton's given in this volume
"The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty," was
published at that time. On the 22nd of the following August the
King set up his standard at Nottingham, and Civil War began.
Milton's arguments concerning Prelacy may be left to speak
for themselves.  His aspiration clearly is for a pure, spiritual
Church, and he appeals only to Scripture and reason.  It is
equally clear that the experience of his time, and of history before
his time, gave Milton little hope of such a change as we see now.
Whatsoever ailments may remain for time to heal, the Church of
England now welcomes the fellowship of all who join her in the
labour to establish peace on earth and goodwill among men.
In June I643, Milton went into Oxfordshire and married the
eldest daughter of a near neighbour to the Oxfordshire Miltons,
Richard Powell of Forest Hill. He must have known her since
her birth. She was in her eighteenth year, lie in' his thirty-fifth,
and it was eighteen years since Milton went to College, where, when
he was a student, Mary Powell's father had given evidence of
friendship by borrowing of him five hundred pounds. There
is no reason at all why we should think ill of Mary Powell.
When Milton brought her-about the end of June I643 -into his house of the worker, there were in the first days little
adjustments necessary to enable two lives that had hitherto run
different courses to take one course and keep step together.
Milton's young wife was not prepared. Milton's nephew, Edward
Phillips, says that she felt the change from a great house in which
there had been much company. Some of her family came with her
and feasted for about a week. Then she was left After another
fortnight she was invited to go home till Michaelmas. She had
only been married for about a month when she went home, towards the end of July, and had no wise home counsel in aid of
her troubled inexperience. She was kept from her husband; and
when Milton sent for her, his servant was sent back by her unwise




INTRODUCTION.


47


parents with insult. How unwise the father was his money dealings show. In June 1644 John Hampden had received his death
wound in Chalgrove Field, and at the end of the month Fairfax
had been defeated by the Earl of Newcastle at Atherton Moor.
The prospects of the Parliament were clouded, and Richard Powell
might have been ready to throw off a son-in-law upon the- losing
side. But next year, when the King's cause was lost at Naseby,
Milton's wife was bidden to seek reconciliation with him. They
who had withheld her now returned her. It is no discredit to a
girl of eighteen that her father and mother have great influence
over her mind. Milton received her back at once. She became
the mother of his children, and remained with him until her death.
When Milton married, it hardly needs to be said that his mind
was drawn to the subject of marriage. In July I643-within the
first month of his marriage-a National Synod first met at Westminster, known as the Westminster Assembly, for the purpose of
settling the government and form of worship of the Church.
There were in the Assembly 121 divines, with ten members of the
House of Lords, and twenty of the House of Commons, as lay
assessors. The time was then for the suggestion of reform, and
Milton was prompted by his own experience to write that treatise
of the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce which follows next in
this volume, and was, in fact, written to win acceptance of a more
spiritual view of marriage than the Church law recognised.
This treatise was published in I644, and other pieces followed
in reply to its opponents. Meanwhile Milton was busy in his
school; and in the same year he wrote, at the request of Samuel
Hartlib, the letter which next follows in this volume, sketching
his ideal of a reformed system of education. Samuel Hartlib was
of a good Polish family, and had come to England in 1640 with
money that he spent for the public good. His interest was
great in questions of religious liberty, of national education for
the rich and for the poor, of the improvement of agriculture; and
he soon had Milton among his friends. He had translated in
I642, from the Latin of a Moravian pastor, John Amos Komensky,
two treatises on "A Reformation of Schooles."  Milton thought




48


INTRODUCTION.


that there was much room for improvement in the higher education of an Englishman, and Hartlib asked him to sketch an ideal
of his own.
But the chief care of Milton as a writer in 1644 was bestowed
upon his "Areopagitica." On the IIth of July I637 a decree of
the Star Chamber had increased strictness of licensing. It had
contained formally the limitation of the whole numbers of Master
Printers to twenty and of type founders to four, with strict provisions for watching, searching, seizing, and suppressing.  The
Star Chamber was abolished, but on the 9th of March I643 an
Order of the House of Commons gave to a Committee for Examinations, or to any four of them, like power. Taking as his
model a Greek oration,-the Areopagitic discourse in which
Isocrates sought to press on the Athenian Areopagus reform in
its body-Milton, whose aim was to persuade the English Areopagus
to cancel one of its own Orders, gave the name of Areopagitica
to his defence of the liberty of unlicensed printing.  It was
published in November I644.
MVilton took no part in the contest with the King. When it
was over, there was question of a people's right to bring a king to
trial. He then published what is the next piece in this volume, "The
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" upon the main issue in the
constitutional question of a king's responsibility. A subject can
be tried for treason to a king; can also a king be tried for treason
to his people, and condemned if he be guilty. From 1649 to
1689 the problem of the limit of authority was at the heart of much
of our best literature, and this is Milton's way of answering it.
Here we might end, but the last section of this volume serves
to show that, ten years later, Milton's argument for Civil and
Religious Liberty stood firm among the ruins of the Commonwealth.                                          H. M.


CARISBROOKE, September, 1889.




GOD AND MAN.
D




Ienceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God; to walk
As in His Presence; ever to observe
His Providence, and on Him sole depend,
Alerciful over all His Works, with Good
Still overcoming Evil, and by small
Accomplishing great things, by things deemed weak
Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise
By simply meek; that Suffering for Truth's sake
Is Fortitude to highest Victory,
And to the faithful Death the gate of Life.
Only add
Deeds to thy Knowledge answerable: add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance; add Love,
By name to come called Charity, the Soul
Of all the rest.
— Paradise Lost. Book xii,




OF


REFORMATION TOUCHING CHURCH
DISCIPLINE IN ENGLAND,
AND THE
CAUSES THAT HITHERTO HAVE HINDERED IT.
IN TWO BOOKS.
WRITTEN     TO A FRIEND.
-HTHE FIRST BOOK.
S IR,-Amidst those deep and retired thoughts which with
every man Christianly instructed ought to be most frequent,
of God and of his miraculous ways and works amongst men, and
of ouir Religion and works to be performed to him; after the story
of our Saviour Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in
the flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in
the spirit, which drew up his body also, till we in both be united
to him in the revelation of his kingdom, I do not know of anything more worthy to take up the whole passion of pity on the
one side, and joy on the other, than to consider first the foul and
sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, the long
deferred but much more wonderful and happy Reformation of the
Church in these latter days. Sad it is to think how that doctrine
of the Gospel, planted by teachers divinely inspired, and by them
winnowed and sifted from the chaff of overdated ceremonies, and
refined to such a spiritual height and temper of purity and




52


GOD AND MAN.


knowledge of the Creator, that the body and all the circumstances of time and place were purified by the affections of the
regenerate soul, and nothing left impure but sin;-faith needing
not the weak and fallible office of the senses to be either the
ushers or interpreters of heavenly mysteries, save where our Lord
himself in his sacraments ordained;-that such a doctrine should,
through the grossness and blindness of her professors, and the
fraud of deceivable traditions, drag so downwards as to backslide one way into the Jewish beggary of old cast rudiments, and
stumble forward another way into the new-vomited paganism of
sensual idolatry, attributing purity or impurity to things indifferent,
that they might bring the inward acts of the spirit to the outward
and customary eye-service of the body, as if they could make
God earthly and fleshly, because they could not make themselves
heavenly and spiritual. They began to draw down all the divine
intercourse betwixt God and the soul, yea, the very shape of God
himself, into an exterior and bodily form. Urgently pretending a
necessity and obligement of joining the body in a formal reverence and worship circumscribed, they hallowed it, they fumed
it, they sprinkled it, they bedecked it, not in robes of pure
innocency, but of pure linen, with other deformed and fantastic
dresses, in palls and mitres, gold and gewgaws fetched from
Aaron's old wardrobe, or the flamen's vestry. Then was the priest
set to con his motions and his postures, his liturgies and his
lurries, till the soul by this means of overbodying herself, given up
justly to fleshly delights, bated her wing apace downward, and
finding the ease she had from her visible and sensuous colleague,
the body, in performance of religious duties, her pinions now
broken and flagging, shifted off from herself the labour of high
soaring any more, forgot her heavenly flight, and left the dull and
droiling carcass to plod on in the old road and drudging trade of
outward conformity. And here, out of question, from her perverse
conceiting of God and holy things, she had fallen to believe no
God at all, had not custom and the worm of conscience nipped
her incredulity.  Hence to all the duties of evangelical grace,
instead of the adoptive and cheerful boldness which our new




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


53


alliance with God requires, came servile and thrall-like fear. For
in very deed, the superstitious man by his good will is an atheist;
but being scared from thence by the pangs and gripes of a boiling conscience, all in a pudder shuffles up to himself such a God
and such a worship as is most agreeable to remedy his fear;
which fear of his, as also is his hope, fixed only upon the flesh,
renders likewise the whole faculty of his apprehension carnal;
and all the inward acts of worship, issuing from the native strength
of the soul, run out lavishly to the upper skin, and there harden
into a crust of formality. Hence men came to scan the Scriptures by the letter, and in the Covenant of our Redemption, magnified the external signs more than the quickening power of the
Spirit; and yet,-looking on them through their own guiltiness
with a servile fear, and finding as little comfort, or rather terror
from them again,-they knew not how to hide their slavish approach to God's behests, by them not understood nor worthily
received, but by cloaking their servile crouching to all religious
presentments, sometimes lawful sometimes idolatrous, under the
name of Humility, and terming the piebald frippery and ostentation of ceremonies, Decency.
Then was Baptism changed into a kind of exorcism, and water
sanctified by Christ's institute thought little enough to wash off
the original spot, without the scratch or cross impression of a
priest's forefinger. And that Feast of free grace and adoption to
which Christ invited his disciples to sit as brethren and coheirs
of the happy covenant which at that table was to be sealed to
them, even that Feast of love and heavenly-admitted fellowship,
the seal of filial grace, became the subject of horror, and glouting
adoration, pageanted about like a dreadful idol; which sometimes
deceives well-meaning men, and beguiles them of their reward
by their voluntary humility, which indeed is fleshly pride, preferring a foolish sacrifice, and the rudiments of the world, as St.
Paul to the Colossians explaineth, before a savoury obedience to
Christ's example.  Such was Peter's unseasonable humility, as
then his knowledge was small, when Christ came to wash his
feet; who at an impertinent time would needs strain courtesy with




54


GOD AND MIAN.


his master, and falling troublesomely upon the lowly, all-wise, and
unexaminable intention of Christ in what he went with resolution
to do, so provoked by his interruption the meek Lord, that he
threatened to exclude him from his heavenly portion unless he
could be content to be less arrogant and stiffnecked in his
humility.
But to dwell no longer in characterizing the depravities of the
Church, and how they sprung, and how they took increase; when
I recall to mind at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge
overshadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of
the firmament of the Church, how the bright and blissful Reformation, by divine power, struck through the black and settled
night of ignorance and antichristian tyranny, methinks a sovereign
and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that
reads or hears, and the sweet odour of the returning Gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of Heaven.  Then was the
sacred Bible sought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it; the schools were opened, divine
and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues;
the princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner
of salvation, the martyrs, with the unresistible might of weakness,
shaking the powers of darkness and scorning the fiery rage of the
old red dragon.
The pleasing pursuit of these thoughts hath ofttimes led me
into a serious question and debatement with myself, how it
should come to pass that England-having had this grace and
honour from God, to be the first that should set up a standard
for the recovery of lost truth, and blow the first evangelic trumpet
to the nations, holding up, as from a hill, the new lamp of saving
light to all Christendom-should now be last and most unsettled
in the enjoyment of that peace whereof she taught the way to
others. Although indeed our Wyclif's preaching, at which all
the succeeding Reformers more effectually lighted their tapers,
was to his countrymen but a short blaze, soon damped and
stifled by the pope and prelates, for six or seven kings' reigns;
yet methinks the precedency which God gave this island, to be




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


5S


first restorer of buried truth, should have been followed with
more happy success, and sooner attained perfection, in which
as yet we are amongst the last. For, albeit in purity of Doctrine
we agree with our brethren, yet in Discipline, which is the execution and applying of doctrine home, and laying the salve to
the very orifice of the wound, yea, tenting and searching to the
core, without which pulpit preaching is but shooting at rovers,
in this we are no better than a schism from all the Reformation,
and a sore scandal to them. For while we hold ordination to
belong only to bishops, as our prelates do, we must of necessity
hold also their ministers to be no ministers, and shortly after
their Church to be no Church: not to speak of those senseless
ceremonies which we only retain as a dangerous earnest of
sliding back to Rome, and serving merely, either as a mist to
cover nakedness where true grace is extinguished, or as an interlude to set out the pomp of prelatism. Certainly it would be
worth the while therefore and the pains, to inquire more particularly what and how many the chief Causes have been, that
have still hindered our uniform consent to the rest of the
Churches abroad, at this time especially when the kingdom is in
a good propensity thereto, and all men in prayers, in hopes, or
in disputes, either for or against it.
Yet I will not insist on that which may seem to be the cause
on God's part; as his judgment on our sins, the trial of his own,
the unmasking of hypocrites.  Nor shall I stay to speak of the
continual eagerness and extreme diligence of the pope and
papists to stop the furtherance of Reformation, which know they
have no hold or hope of England, their lost darling, longer than
the government of bishops bolsters them  out, and therefore
plot all they can to uphold them: as may be seen by the book of
Santa Clara, the popish priest, in defence of bishops, which came
out piping hot much about the time that one of our own prelates,
out of an ominous fear, had writ on the same argument; as if
they had joined their forces, like good confederates, to support
one falling Babel.
But I shall chiefly endeavour to declare those Causes that




GOD AND MAN.


hinder the forwarding of true Discipline which are among ourselves.  Orderly proceeding will divide our inquiry into our
forefathers' days, and into our times.
Henry VIII. was the first that rent this kingdom from the pope's
subjection totally; but his quarrel being more about Supremacy
than other faultiness in Religion that he regarded, it is no marvel
if he stuck where he did. The next default was in the bishops,
who though they had renounced the pope, they still hugged the
popedom and shared the authority among themselves, by their
six bloody articles, persecuting the Protestants no slacker than the
pope would have done. And doubtless, whenever the pope shall
fall, if his ruin be not like the sudden downcome of a tower, the
bishops, when they see him tottering, will leave him, and fall to
scrambling, catch who may, he a patriarchdom, and another what
comes next hand; as the French cardinal of late and the see of
Canterbury hath plainly affected.
In Edward the Sixth's days, why a complete Reformation was
not effected, to any considerate man may appear. First, he no
sooner entered into his kingdom, but into a war with Scotland;
from whence the Protector returning with victory had but newly
put his hand to repeal the six articles and throw the images out
of churches, but rebellions on all sides, stirred up by obdurate
papists, and other tumults, with a plain war in Norfolk, holding
tack against two of the king's generals, made them of force
content themselves with what they had already done. Hereupon
followed ambitious contentions among the peers, which ceased
not but with the Protector's death, who was the most zealous in
this point. And then Northumberland was he that could do most
in England, who little minding Religion, as his apostasy well
showed at his death, bent all his wit how to bring the right of
the crown into his own line. And for the bishops, they were so
far from any such worthy attempts, as that they suffered themselves to be the common stales to countenance with their prostituted gravities every politic fetch that was then on foot, as oft
as the potent statists pleased to employ them. Never do we
read that they made use of their authority and high place of




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


57


access to bring the jarring nobility to Christian peace, or to
withstand their disloyal projects: but if a toleration for mass
were to be begged of the king for his sister Mary, lest Charles
the Fifth should be angry, who but the grave prelates, Cranmer
and Ridley, must be sent to extort it from the young king? But
out of the mouth of that godly and royal child, Christ himself
returned such an awful repulse to those halting and time-serving
prelates, that after much bold importunity they went their way
not without shame and tears.
Nor was this the first time that they discovered to be followers
of this world; for when the protector's brother, Lord Sudley, the
admiral, through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his
life, no man could be found fitter than Bishop Latimer (like
another Dr. Shaw) to divulge in his sermon the forged accusations laid to his charge, thereby to defame him with the People
who else, it was thought, would take ill the innocent man's death,
unless the reverend bishop could warrant them there was no foul
play. What could be more impious than to debar the children
of the king from their right to the crown? to comply with the
ambitious usurpation of a traitor, and to make void the last will of
Henry VIII., to which the breakers had sworn observance? Yet
Bishop Cranmer, one of the executors, and the other bishops,
none refusing (lest they should resist the Duke of Northumberland), could find in their consciences to set their hands to the
disenabling and defeating not only the Princess Mary the papist,
but of Elizabeth the protestant, and (by the bishops' judgment)
the lawful issue of King Henry.
Who then can think, though these prelates had sought a further
Reformation, that the least wry face of a politician would not have
hushed them?   But it will be said, these men were Martyrs.
What then? Though every true Christian will be a martyr when he
is called to it, not presently does it follow that every one suffering
for religion is, without exception. St. Paul writes, that "a man
may give his body to be burnt (meaning for religion), and yet
not have charity:" he is not therefore above all possibility of
erring, because he burns for some points of truth.




GOD AND IAN.


Witness the Arians and Pelagians which were slain by the
heathen for Christ's sake, yet we take both these for no true
friends of Christ. If the Martyrs, saith Cyprian in his 3oth
epistle, decree one thing, and the Gospel another, either the
Martyrs must lose their crown by not observing the Gospel for
which they are martyrs, or the majesty of the Gospel must be
broken and lie flat, if it can be overtopped by the novelty of any
other decree.
And here withal I invoke the Immortal Deity, revealer and
judge of secrets, that wherever I have in this book plainly and
roundly, though worthily and truly, laid open the faults and
blemishes of Fathers, Martyrs, or Christian Emperors, or have
otherwise inveighed against error and superstition with vehement
expressions, I have done it neither out of malice, nor list to
speak evil, nor any vain glory: but of mere necessity to vindicate
the spotless truth from an ignominious bondage, whose native
worth is now become of such a low esteem, that she is like to
find small credit with us for what she can say unless she can
bring a ticket from Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley; or prove
herself a retainer to Constantine, and wear his badge. More
tolerable it were for the church of God that all these names were
utterly abolished, like the brazen serpent, than that men's fond
opinion should thus idolize them, and the heavenly truth be thus
captivated.
Now to proceed, whatsoever the bishops were, it seems they
themselves were unsatisfied in matters of Religion as they then
stood, by that Commission granted to eight bishops, eight other
divines, eight civilians, eight common lawyers, to frame ecclesiastical constitutions; which no wonder if it came to nothing, for
(as Hayward relates) both their professions and their ends were
different. Lastly, we all know by example, that exact Reformation
is not perfected at the first push, and those unwieldy times of
Edward VI. may hold some plea by this excuse. Now let any
reasonable man judge whether that king's reign be a fit time from
whence to pattern out the constitution of a church discipline,
much less that it should yield occasion from whence to foster and




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


establish the continuance of imperfection, with the commendatory
subscriptions of Confessors and Martyrs, to entitle and engage a
glorious name to a gross corruption. It was not episcopacy that
wrought in them the heavenly fortitude of martyrdom, as little is
it that martyrdom can make good episcopacy; but it was episcopacy that led the good and holy men, through the temptation of
the enemy and the snare of this present world, to many blameworthy and opprobrious actions. And it is still episcopacy that
before all our eyes worsens and slugs the most learned and
seeming religious of our ministers, who no sooner advanced to it
but, like a seething pot set to cool, sensibly exhale and reek out
the greatest part of that zeal and those gifts which were formerly
in them, settling in a skinny congealment of ease and sloth at the
top. And if they keep their learning by some potent sway of
nature, it is a rare chance; but their devotion most commonly
comes to that queasy temper of lukewarmness, that gives a vomit
to God himself.
But what do we suffer misshapen and enormous preiatism, as
we do, thus to blanch and varnish her deformities with the fair
colours, as before of martyrdom, so now of episcopacy?  They
are not bishops, God and all good men know they are not, that
have filled this land with late confusion and violence; but a
tyrannical crew and corporation of impostors that have blinded
and abused the world so long under that name. He that, enabled
with gifts from God and the lawful and primitive choice of the
Church assembled in convenient number, faithfully from that time
forward feeds his parochial flock, has his coequal and compresbyterial power to ordain ministers and deacons by public prayer
and vote of Christ's congregation, in like sort as he himself was
ordained, and is a true apostolic bishop. But when he steps up
into the chair of pontifical pride, and changes a moderate and
exemplary house for a misgoverned and haughty palace, spiritual
dignity for carnal precedence, and secular high office and employment for the high negotiations of his heavenly embassage, then
he degrades, then he unbishops himself. He that makes him
bishop, makes him no bishop. No marvel therefore if St. Martin




5o


GOD AND MAN.


complained to Sulpitius Severus, that since he was bishop he felt
inwardly a sensible decay of those virtues and graces that God
had given him in great measure before; although the same
Sulpitius wrote that he was nothing tainted or altered in his habit,
diet, or personal demeanour from that simple plainness to which
he first betook himself. It was not, therefore, that thing alone
which God took displeasure at in the bishops of those times,
but rather an universal rottenness and gangrene in the whole
function.
From hence then I pass to Queen Elizabeth, the next Protestant
prince, in whose days why Religion attained not a perfect reducement in the beginning of her reign, I suppose the hindering
causes will be found to be common with some formerly alleged
for King Edward VI.: the greenness of the times, the weak estate
which Queen Mary left the realm in, the great places and offices
executed by papists,-the judges, the lawyers, the justices of peace
for the most part popish, the bishops firm to Rome; from whence
was to be expected the furious flashing of excommunications, and
absolving the people from their obedience. Next, her private
counsellors, whoever they were, persuaded her (as Camden writes)
that the altering of Ecclesiastical Policy would move sedition.
Then was the Liturgy given to a number of moderate divines, and
Sir Thomas Smith, a statesman, to be purged and physicked.
And surely they were moderate divines indeed, neither hot nor
cold; and Grindal, the best of them, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, lost favour in the court, and I think was discharged
the government of his see, for favouring the ministers, though
Camden seem willing to find another cause. Therefore about her
second year, in a parliament of men and minds some scarce well
grounded others belching the sour crudities of yesterday's popery,
those constitutions of Edward VI.,-which, as you heard before,
no way satisfied the men that made them,-are now established
for best and not to be mended. From that time followed nothing
but imprisonments, troubles, disgraces, on all those that found
fault with the decrees of the Convocation, and straight were they
branded with the name of Puritans. As for the Queen herself,




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


she was made believe that by putting down bishops her prerogative
would be infringed, of which shall be spoken anon as the course
of method brings it in. And why the prelates laboured it should
be so thought, ask not them, but ask their bellies. They had
found a good tabernacle, they sat under a spreading vine, their
lot was fallen in a fair inheritance. And these perhaps were the
chief impeachments of a more sound rectifying the church in the
queen's time.
From this period I count to begin Our Times, which because
they concern us more nearly, and our own eyes and ears can give us
the ampler scope to judge, will require a more exact search. And
to effect this the speedier, I shall distinguish such as I esteem to.be the Hinderers of Reformation into three sorts:-Antiquitarians
(for so I had rather call them than antiquaries, whose labours are
useful and laudable).  2. Libertines.  3. Politicians.
To the votarists of Antiquity I shall think to have fully
answered, if I shall be able to prove out of antiquity, First, that
if they will conform our bishops to the purer times, they must
mew their feathers, and their pounces, and make but curtailed
bishops of them; and we know they hate to be docked and
clipped, as much as to be put down outright. Secondly, that
those purer times were corrupt, and their books corrupted soon
after. Thirdly, that the best of those that then wrote disclaim that
any man should repose on them, and send all to the Scriptures.
First therefore, if those that over-affect antiquity will follow the
square thereof, their bishops must be elected by the hands of
the whole Church. The ancientest of the extant fathers, Ignatius,
writing to the Philadelphians, saith "that it belongs to them as
to the Church of God to choose a bishop. " Let po man cavil, but
take the Church of God as meaning the whole consistence of
orders and members, as St. Paul's epistles express, and this likewise being read over: besides this, it is there to be marked, that
those Philadelphians are exhorted to choose a bishop of Antioch.
Whence it seems by the way that there was not that wary limitation of diocese in those times, which is confirmed even by a
fast friend of episcopacy, Camden, who cannot but love bishops




62


GOD AND MAN.


as well as old coins, and his much lamented monasteries, for
antiquity's sake. He writes in his description of Scotland, that
"over all the world bishops had no certain diocese till pope
Dionysius about the year 268 did cut them out; and that the
bishops of Scotland executed their function in what place soever
they came indifferently and without distinction, till King Malcolm
the Third, about the year 1070."  Whence may be guessed what
their function was. Was it to go about circled with a band of
rooking officials with cloakbags full of citations, and processes to
be served by a corporality of griffonlike promoters and apparitors?
Did he go about to pitch down his court, as an empiric does his
bank, to inveigle in all the money of the country? No, certainly,
it would not have been permitted him to exercise any such
function indifferently wherever he came. And verily some such
matter it was as want of a fat diocese that kept our Britain bishops
so poor in the primitive times, that being called to the Council
of Rimini in the year 359, they had not wherewithal to defray
the charges of their journey, but were fed and lodged upon the
emperor's cost; which must needs be no accidental but usual
poverty in them: for the author, Sulpitius Severus, in his 2nd
book of Church History, praises them, and avouches it praiseworthy in a bishop to be so poor as to have nothing of his own.
But to return to the ancient election of bishops: that it could not
lawfully be without the consent of the people is so express in
Cyprian, and so often to be met with, that to cite each place
at large were to translate a good part of the volume; therefore
touching the chief passages, I refer the rest to whom so list
peruse the author himself. In the 24th epistle, "If a bishop,"
saith he, "be once made and allowed by the testimony and
judgment of his colleagues and the people, no other can be
made." In the 55th, "When a bishop is made by the suffrage
of all the people in peace." In the 68th, mark but what he says:
"The people chiefly hath power either of choosing worthy ones,
or refusing unworthy." This he there proves by authorities out
of the Old and New Testament, and with solid reasons: these
were his antiquities.




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


63


This voice of the people, to be had ever in episcopal elections,
was so well known before Cyprian's time, even to those that
were without the church, that the emperor Alexander Severus
desired to have his governors of provinces chosen in the same
manner, as Lampridius can tell; so little thought he it offensive
to monarchy. And if single authorities persuade not, hearken
what the whole General Council of Nicaea, the first and famousest
of all the rest, determines, writing a synodical epistle to the
African churches, to warn them of Arianism. It exhorts them
to choose orthodox bishops in the place of the dead, so they
be worthy and the people choose them; whereby they seem to
make the people's assent so necessary, that merit without their
free choice were not sufficient to make a bishop. What would
ye say now, grave fathers, if you should wake and see unworthy
bishops, or rather no bishops but Egyptian taskmasters of ceremonies, thrust purposely upon the groaning Church, to the affliction
and vexation of God's people? It was not of old that a conspiracy
of bishops could frustrate and fob off the right of the people;
for we may read how St. Martin, soon after Constantine, was
made bishop of Tours in France, by the people's consent from
all places thereabout, maugre all the opposition that the bishops
could make. Thus went matters of the church almost 400 years
after Christ, and very probably far lower: for Nicephorus Phocas,
the Greek emperor, whose reign fell near the Ioooth year of
our Lord, having done many things tyrannically, is said by
Cedrenus to have done nothing more grievous and displeasing to
the people, than to have enacted that no bishop should be chosen
without his will; so long did this right remain to the people in
the midst of other palpable corruptions. Now for episcopal
dignity,-what it was, see out of Ignatius, who, in his epistle to
those of Trallis, confesseth, that "the presbyters are his fellowcounsellors and fellow-benchers." And Cyprian in many places,
as in the 6th, 41st, 52nd epistles, speaking of presbyters, calls
them his compresbyters, as if he deemed himself no other, whenas
by the same place it appears he was a bishop. He calls them
brethren, but that will be thought his meekness; yea, but the




64


GOD AND MAN.


presbyters and deacons writing to him think they do him honour
enough, when they phrase him no higher than brother Cyprian,
and dear Cyprian, in the 26th epistle. For their authority,-it is
evident not to have been single, but depending on the counsel
of the presbyters, as from Ignatius was erewhile alleged; and the
same Cyprian acknowledges as much in the 6th epistle, and adds
thereto, that he had determined, from his entrance into the
office of bishop, to do nothing without the consent of his people;
and so in the 3ISt epistle, for it were tedious to course through
all his writings, which are so full of the like assertions, insomuch
that even in the womb and centre of apostasy, Rome itself, there
yet remains a glimpse of this truth. For the pope himself, as a
learned English writer notes well, performeth all ecclesiastical
jurisdiction as in consistory among his cardinals, which were
originally but the parish priests of Rome. Thus then did the
spirit of unity and meekness inspire and animate every joint and
sinew of the mystical body. But now the gravest and worthiest
minister, a true bishop of his fold, shall be reviled and ruffled by
an insulting and only canon-wise prelate, as if he were some
slight paltry companion; and the people of God, redeemed and
washed with Christ's blood, and dignified with so many glorious
titles of saints and sons in the Gospel, are now no better reputed
than impure ethnics and lay dogs.  Stones, and pillars, and
crucifixes have now the honour and the alms due to Christ's
living members. The table of Communion, now become a table
of separation, stands like an exalted platform upon the brow of
the quire, fortified with bulwark and barricado to keep off the
profane touch of the laics, whilst the obscene and surfeited priest
scruples not to paw and mammock the sacramental bread as
familiarly as his tavern biscuit.  And thus the people, vilified
and rejected by them, give over the earnest study of virtue and
godliness, as a thing of greater purity than they need, and the
search of divine knowledge as a mystery too high for their
capacities, and only for churchmen to meddle with: which is
what the prelates desire, that when they have brought us back to
popish blindness, we might commit to their dispose the whole




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


managing of our salvation; for they think it was never fair world
with them since that time. But he that will mould a Modern
bishop into a Primitive, must yield him to be elected by the
popular voice, undiocesed, unrevenued, unlorded, and leave him
nothing but brotherly equality, matchless temperance, frequent
fasting, incessant prayer and preaching, continual watchings and
labours in his ministry; which what a rich booty it would be,
what a plump endowment to the many-benefice-gaping-mouth of
a prelate, what a relish it would give to his canary-sucking and
swan-eating palate, let old bishop Mountain judge for me.
How little therefore those ancient times make for modern
bishops hath been plainly discoursed; but let them make for
them as much as they will, yet why we ought not to stand to their
arbitrement, shall now appear by a threefold corruption which
will be found upon them. i. The best times were spreadingly infected: 2. The best men of those times, foully tainted: 3. The
best writings of those men, dangerously adulterated. These positions are to be made good out of those times witnessing of themselves. First Ignatius in his early days testifies to the churches
of Asia, that even then heresies were sprung up, and rife everywhere, as Eusebius relates in his 3rd book, 35 chap., after the
Greek number. And Hegesippus, a grave church writer of prime
antiquity, affirms in the same book of Eusebius, c. 32, "that
while the apostles were on earth, the depravers of doctrine did
but lurk; but they once gone, with open forehead they durst
preach down the truth with falsities." Yea, those that are reckoned,for orthodox began to make sad and shameful rents in the Church
about the trivial celebration of feasts, not agreeing when to keep
Easter-day; which controversy grew so hot, that Victor, the bishop
of Rome, excommunicated all the Churches of Asia for no other
cause, and was worthily thereof reproved by Irenaeus. For can
any sound theologer think, that these great fathers understood
what was Gospel, or what was excommunication? Doubtless that
which led the good men into fraud and error was, that they attended more to the near tradition of what they heard the apostles
sometimes did, than to what they had left written, not considering
E




66


GOD AND MAN.


that many things which they did were by the apostles themselves
professed to be done only for the present, and of mere indulgence
to some scrupulous converts of the circumcision, but what they
writ was of firm decree to all future ages. Look but a century
lower in the Ist cap. of Eusebius's 8th book. What a universal
tetter of impurity had envenomed every part, order, and degree of
the church! To omit the lay herd, which will be little regarded,
"Those that seem to be our pastors," saith he, "overturning the
law of God's worship, burnt in contentions one towards another,
and increasing in hatred and bitterness, outrageously sought to
uphold lordship and command as it were a tyranny." Stay but
a little, magnanimous bishops; suppress your aspiring thoughts,
for there is nothing wanting but Constantine to reign, and then
tyranny herself shall give up all her citadels into your hands, and
count ye thenceforward her trustiest agents.  Such were these
that must be called the ancientest and most virgin times between
Christ and Constantine. Nor was this general contagion in their
actions, and not in their writings.' Who is ignorant of the foul
errors, the ridiculous wresting of Scripture, the heresies, the
vanities thick sown through the volumes of Justin Martyr,
Clemens, Origen, Tertullian, and others of eldest time? Who
would think him fit to write an apology for Christian faith to the
Roman senate, that would tell them "how of the angels," which
he must needs mean those in Genesis, called the sons of God,
"mixing with women were begotten the devils," as good Justin
Martyr in his Apology told them? But more indignation would
it move to any Christian that shall read Tertullian terming St.
Paul a novice and raw in grace, for reproving St. Peter at Antioch,
worthy to be blamed, if we believe the epistle to the Galatians.
Perhaps from this hint the blasphemous Jesuits presumed in Italy
to give their judgment of St. Paul as of a hotheaded person, as
Sandys in his relations tells us.
Now besides all this, who knows not how many superstitious
works are ingraffed into the legitimate writings of the fathers?
And of those books that pass for authentic, who knows what hath
been tampered withal, what hath been razed out, what hath been




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


67


inserted? Besides the late legerdemain of the papists, that which
Sulpitius writes concerning Origen's books gives us cause vehemently to suspect there hath been packing of old. In the third
chapter of his ist Dialogue we may read what wrangling the
bishops and monks had about the reading or not reading of
Origen; some objecting that he was corrupted by heretics; others
answering that all such books had been so dealt with. How then
shall I trust these times to lead me, that testify so ill of leading
themselves? Certainly of their defects their own witness may be
best received; but of the rectitude and sincerity of their life and
doctrine, to judge rightly, we must judge by that which was to be
their rule.
But it will be objected, that this was an unsettled state of the
church, wanting the temporal magistrate to suppress the licence
of false brethren, and the extravagancy of still new opinions; a
time not imitable for Church government, where the temporal
and spiritual power did not close in one belief, as under Constantine. I am not of opinion to think the Church a vine in this
respect, because, as they take it, she cannot subsist without clasping about the elm of worldly strength and felicity, as if the heavenly
city could not support itself without the props and buttresses of
secular authority. They extol Constantine because he extolled
them; as our homebred monks in their histories blanch the kings
their benefactors, and brand those that went about to be their
correctors. If he had curbed the growing pride, avarice, and
luxury of the clergy, then every page of his story should have
swelled with his faults, and that which Zosimus the heathen writes
of him should have come in to boot. We should have heard then in
every declamation how he slew his nephew Commodus, a worthy
man, his noble and eldest son Crispus, his wife Fausta, besides
numbers of his friends: then his cruel exactions, his unsoundness
in religion, favouring the Arians that had been condemned in
a council, of which himself sat as it were president; his hard
measure and banishment of the faithful and invincible Athanasius;
his living unbaptized almost to his dying day: these blurs are too
apparent in his life. But since he must needs be the lode-star of




68


GOD AND MAN.


Reformation, as some men clatter, it will be good to see further
his knowledge of Religion what it was, and by that we may likewise guess at the sincerity of his times in those that were not
heretical, it being likely that he would converse with the famousest
prelates (for so he had made them) that were to be found for
learning.
Of his Arianism we heard, and for the rest a pretty scantling
of his knowledge may be taken by his deferring to be baptized so
many years, a thing not usual, and repugnant to the tenor of
scripture; Philip knowing nothing that should hinder the eunuch
to be baptized after profession of his belief. Next, by the excessive devotion, that I may not say superstition, both of him and
his mother Helena, to find out the cross on which Christ suffered,
that had long lain under the rubbish of old ruins-a thing which
the disciples and kindred of our Saviour might with more ease
have done, if they had thought it a pious duty;-some of the nails
whereof he put into his helmet, to bear off blows in battle; others
he fastened among the studs of his bridle, to fulfil, as he thought,
or his court bishops persuaded him, the prophecy of Zechariah:
"And it shall be that which is in the bridle shall be holy to the
Lord." Part of the cross, in which he thought such virtue to
reside as would prove a kind of palladium to save the city whereever it remained, he caused to be laid up in a pillar of porphyry
by his statue. How he or his teachers could trifle thus with half
an eye open upon St. Paul's principles, I know not how to
imagine.
How should then the dim taper of this emperor's age, that had
such need of snuffing, extend any beam to our times, wherewith
we might hope to be better lighted than by those luminaries that
God hath set up to shine to us far nearer hand? And what
Reformation he wrought for his own time, it will not be amiss to
consider. He appointed certain times for fasts and feasts, built
stately churches, gave large immunities to the clergy, great riches
and promotions to bishops; gave and ministered occasion to bring
in a deluge of ceremonies, thereby either to draw in the heathen
by a resemblance of their rites, or to set a gloss upon the sim



OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


69


plicity and plainness of Christianity, which to the gorgeous
solemnities of paganism, and the sense of the world's children,
seemed but a homely and yeomanly religion: for the beauty of
inward sanctity was not within their prospect.
So that in this manner the prelates, both then and ever since,
coming from a mean and plebeian life on a sudden to be lords of
stately palaces, rich furniture, delicious fare and princely attendance, thought the plain and homespun verity of Christ's gospel
unfit any longer to hold their lordships' acquaintance unless the
poor threadbare matron were put into better clothes: her chaste
and modest veil, surrounded with celestial beams, they overlaid
with wanton tresses, and in a flaring tire bespeckled her with all
the gaudy allurements of a whore.
Thus flourished the Church with Constantine's wealth, and
thereafter were the effects that followed. His son Constantius
proved a flat Arian, and his nephew Julian an apostate, and there
his race ended. The Church that before by insensible degrees
welked and impaired, now with large steps went down hill decaying. At this time Antichrist began first to put forth his horn, and
that saying was common, that former times had wooden chalices
and golden priests, but they, golden chalices and wooden priests.
"Formerly," saith Sulpitius, "martyrdom  by glorious death
was sought more greedily than now bishoprics by vile ambition
are hunted after," speaking of those times. And in another place,
"They gape after possessions, they tend lands and livings, they
cower over their gold, they buy and sell: and if there be any that
neither possess nor traffic, that which is worse they sit still and
expect gifts, and prostitute every endowment of grace, every holy
thing, to sale." And in the end of his history thus he concludes:
"All things went to wrack by the faction, wilfulness, and avarice
of the bishops; and by this means God's people, and every good
man, was had in scorn and derision.". Which St Martin found
truly to be said by his friend Sulpitius; for, being held in admiration of all men, he had only the bishops his enemies, found
God less favourable to him after he was bishop than before, and
for his last sixteen years would come at no bishop's meeting.




70


Ann ANI AIAN.


Thus you see, Sir, what Constantine's doings in the Church brought
forth, either in his own or in his son's reign.
Now, lest it should be thought that something else might ail
this author, thus to hamper the bishops of those days, I will bring
you the opinion of three the famousest men for wit and learning
that Italy at this day glories of, whereby it may be concluded for
a received opinion, even among men professing the Romish faith,
that Constantine marred all in the church. Dante, in his i9th
Canto of Inferno, hath thus, as I will render it you in English
blank verse:
"Ah Constantine! of how much ill was cause,
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy pope received of thee! "
So, in his 20th Canto of Paradise, he makes the like complaint;
and Petrarch seconds him in the same mind in his io8th sonnet,
which is wiped out by the inquisitor in some editions; speaking
of the Roman Antichrist as merely bred up by Constantine:" Founded in chaste and humble poverty,
'Gainst them that raised thee dost thou lift thy horn.
Impudent whore, where hleast thou placed thy hope?
In thy adulterers, or thy ill-got wvcalth?
Another Constantine comes not in haste."
Ariosto of Ferrara, after both these in time, but equal in fame,
following the scope of his poem in a difficult knot how to restore
Orlando, his chief hero, to his lost senses, brings Astolfo, the
English knight, up into the moon, where St. John, as he feigns,
met him.    Cant. 34:
"And, to be short, at last his guide him brings
Into a goodly valley, where he sees
A mighty mass of things strangely confused,
Things that on earth were lost, or were abused."
And amongst these so abused things, listen what he met withal,
under the conduct of the Evangelist:"Then pass'd he to a flowery mountain green,
Which once smelt sweet, now stinks as odiously:
This was that gift (if you the truth will have)
That Constantine to good Silvestro gave."




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


7I


And this was a truth well known in England before this poet was
born, as our Chaucer's Ploughman shall tell you by and by upon
another occasion. By all these circumstances laid together, I
do not see how it can be disputed what good this emperor
Constantine wrought to the Church; but rather whether ever any,
though perhaps not wittingly, set open a door to more mischief
in Christendom. There is just cause therefore, that when the
prelates cry out, Let the Church be reformed according to Constantine, it should sound to a judicious ear no otherwise than if
they should say, Make us rich, make us lofty, make us lawless;
for if any under him were not so, thanks to those ancient remains
of integrity which were not yet quite worn out, and not to his
government.
Thus finally it appears, that those purer times were not such
as they are cried up, and not to be followed without suspicion,
doubt, and danger. The last point wherein the Antiquary is to
be dealt with at his own weapon, is, to make it manifest that the
ancientest and best of the Fathers have disclaimed all sufficiency
in themselves that men should rely on, and sent all comers to the
Scriptures, as all-sufficient. That this is true, will not be unduly
gathered, by showing what esteem they had of Antiquity themselves, and what validity they thought in it to prove doctrine or
discipline. I must of necessity begin from the second rank of
Fathers, because till then Antiquity could have no plea. Cyprian
in his 63rd epistle: "If any," saith he, "of our ancestors, either
ignorantly or out of simplicity, hath not observed that which the
Lord taught us by his example," speaking of the Lord's Supper,
"his simplicity God may pardon of his mercy; but we cannot be
excused for following him, being instructed by the Lord." And
have not we the same instructions? and will not this holy man,
with all the whole consistory of saints and martyrs that lived of
old, rise up and stop our mouths in judgment, when we shall go
about to father our errors and opinions upon their authority?
In the 73d epistle he adds, "In vain do they oppose custom to
us, if they be overcome by reason; as if custom were greater than
truth, or that in spiritual things that were not to be followed which




72


GOD AND MAN.


is revealed for the better by the Holy Ghost." In the 74th:
"Neither ought custom to hinder that truth should not prevail;
for custom without truth is but agedness of error."
Next Lactantius, he that was preferred to have the bringing up
of Constantine's children, in his second book of Institutions, chap.
7 and 8, disputes against the vain trust in Antiquity, as being the
chiefest argument of the heathen against the Christians: "They
do not consider," saith he, "what Religion is, but they are confident it is true, because the ancients delivered it; they count it
a trespass to examine it." And in the eighth: "Not because
they went before us in time, therefore in wisdom; which being
given alike to all ages, cannot be prepossessed by the ancients:
wherefore, seeing that to seek the truth is inbred to all, they
bereave themselves of wisdom, the gift of God, who without
judgment follow the ancients, and are led by others like brute
beasts." St. Austin writes to Fortunatian, that "he counts it
lawful, in the books of whomsoever, to reject that which he finds
otherwise than true; and so he would have others deal by him."
He neither accounted, as it seems, those Fathers that went before,
nor himself, nor others of his rank, for men of more than ordinary
spirit, that might equally deceive and be deceived: and ofttimes
setting our servile humours aside, yea, God so ordering, we may
find truth with one man, as soon as in a Council, as Cyprian
agrees, 7 ist epistle: " Many things," saith he, " are better revealed
to single persons." At Nicaea, in the first and best-reputed
Council of all the world, there had gone out a canon to divorce
married priests, had not one old man, Paphnutius, stood up and
reasoned against it.
Now remains it to shew clearly that the Fathers refer all decision
of controversy to the Scriptures, as all-sufficient to direct, to
resolve, and to determine. Ignatius, taking his last leave of the
Asian Churches as he went to martyrdom, exhorted them to
adhere close to the written doctrine of the Apostles, necessarily
written for posterity, so far was he from unwritten traditions, as
may be read in the 36th chap. of Eusebius, 3rd book. In the l
74th epistle of Cyprian against Stefan, Bishop of Rome, imposing




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


73


upon him a tradition; " Whence," quoth he, " is this tradition?
Is it fetched from the authority of Christ in the Gospel, or of the
Apostles in their Epistles? for God testifies that those things are
to be done which are written." And then thus, "What obstinacy,
what presumption is this, to prefer human tradition before divine
ordinance?"  And in the same epistle: "If we shall return to
the head and beginning of divine tradition " (which we all know
he means the Bible), "human error ceases; and the reason of
heavenly mysteries unfolded, whatsoever was obscure becomes
clear." And in the I4th distinct. of the same epistle, directly
against our modern fantasies of a still visible church, he teaches,
"that successsion of truth may fail; to renew which, we must
have recourse to the fountains;" using this excellent similitude,
"If a channel, or conduit-pipe which brought in water plentifully
before, suddenly fail, do we not go to the fountain to know the
cause; whether the spring affords no more, or whether the vein be
stopped, or turned aside in the midcourse? Thus ought we to
do, keeping God's precepts, that if in aught the truth shall be
changed, we may repair to the Gospel and to the Apostles, that
thence may arise the reason of our doings, from whence our order
and beginning arose." In the 75th he inveighs bitterly against
Pope Stephanus, "for that he could boast his succession from
Peter, and yet foist in traditions that were not apostolical." And
in his book of the Unity of the Church, he compares those that,
neglecting God's word, follow the doctrines of men, to Corah,
Dathan, and Abiram. The very first page of Athanasius against
the Gentiles avers the Scriptures to be sufficient of themselves for
the declaration of truth; and that if his friend Macarius read
other religious writers, as it was but AXoxdxo-, "come un vertuoso "
(as the Italians say), as a lover of elegance: and in his second
tome, the 39th page, after he hath reckoned up the canonical
books, "In these only," saith he, "is the doctrine of godliness
taught; let no man add to these, or take from these." And
in his Synopsis, having again set down all the writers of the
Old and New Testament, "These," saith he, "be the anchors
and props of our faith."   Besides these, millions of other




071
1 _r


GOD AND MAN.


books have been written by great and wise men according to
rule, and agreement with these, of which I will not now
speak, as being of infinite number, and mere dependence on
the canonical books. Basil, in his 2nd tome, writing of true
faith, tells his auditors, he is bound to teach them that which he
hath learned out of the Bible. And in the same treatise he saith,
"that seeing the commandments of the Lord are faithful and
sure for ever, it is a plain falling from the faith, and a high pride,
either to make void anything therein, or to introduce anything
not there to be found: " and he gives the reason: "For Christ
saith, My sheep hear my voice: they will not follow another, but
fly from him because they know not his voice." But not to be
endless in quotations, it may chance to be objected, that there
be many opinions in the Fathers which have no ground in Scripture. So much the less, may I say, should we follow them, for
their own words shall condemn them, and acquit us that lean
not on them; otherwise these their words will acquit them, and
95 +   condemn us. But it will be replied, The Scriptures are difficult
A   j9   to be understood, and therefore require the explanation of the
Fathers. It is true, there be some books, and especially some
K        places in these books, that remain clouded. Yet ever that which
is most necessary to be known is most easy; and that which is
most difficult, so far expounds itself ever, as to tell us byow little
it imports our saving knowledge. Hence, to infer a general
obscurity over all the text is a mere suggestion of the devil to
dissuade men from reading it, and casts an aspersion of dishonour
both upon the mercy, truth, and wisdom of God. We count it
no gentleness or fair dealing in a man of power amongst us, to
require strict and punctual obedience and yet give out all his
commands ambiguous and obscure: we should think he had a
plot upon us; certainly such commands were no commands, but
snares. The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness;
the darkness and crookedness is our own. The wisdom of God
created understanding fit and proportionable to truth the object
and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding, have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


75


on other false glisterings, what is that to truth? If we will but
purge with sovereign eyesalve that intellectual ray which God
hath planted in us, then we would believe the Scriptures protesting their own plainness and perspicuity; calling to them to be
instructed, not only the wise and learned, but the simple, the
poor, the babes; foretelling an extraordinary effusion of God's
Spirit upon every age and sex; attributing to all men, and requiring from them the ability of searching, trying, examining all
things, and by the Spirit discerning that which is good. And as
the Scriptures themselves pronounce their own plainness, so do
the Fathers testify of them.
I will not run into a paroxysm of citations again An this point,
only instance Athanasius in his forementioned first page: "The
knowledge of truth," saith he, "wants no human lore, as being
evident in itself, and by the preaching of Christ now opens
brighter than the sun." If these doctors, who had scarce half the
light that we enjoy, who all, except two or three, were ignorant
of the Hebrew tongue, and many of the Greek, blundering upon
the dangerous and suspectful translations of the apostate Aquila,
the heretical Theodotion, the judaized Symmachus, the erroneous
Origen; if these could yet find the Bible so easy, why should we
doubt, that have all the helps of learning and faithful industry
that man in this life can look for, and the assistance of God as
near now to us as ever? But let the Scriptures be hard; are they
more hard, more crabbed, more abstruse than the Fathers? He
that cannot understand the sober, plain, and unaffected style of
the Scriptures, will be ten times more puzzled with the knotty
Africanisms, the pampered metaphors, the intricate and involved
sentences of the Fathers, besides the fantastic and declamatory
flashes, the cross-jingling periods which cannot but disturb and
come thwart a settled devotion, worse than the din of bells and
rattles.
Now, Sir, for the love of holy Reformation, what can be said
more against these importunate clients of Antiquity than she
herself their patroness had said? Whether, think ye, would she
approve still to dote upon immeasurable, innumerable, and there



76


GOD AND MAN.


fore unnecessary and unmerciful volumes, choosing rather to err
with the specious name of the Fathers, or to take a sound truth at
the hand of a plain upright man that all his days had been diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, and thereto imploring God's
grace, while the admirers of antiquity have been beating their
brains about their ambones, their dyptichs, and meniaias? Now,
he that cannot tell of stations and indictions, nor has wasted his
precious hours in the endless conferring of councils and conclaves
that demolish one another-although I know many of those that
pretend to be great rabbis in these studies, have scarce saluted
them from the strings, and the title-page; or, to give them more,
have been but the ferrets and mousehunts of an index-yet what
pastor or minister, how learned, religious, or discreet soever, does
not now bring both his cheeks full blown with cecumenical and
synodical, shall be counted a lank, shallow, insufficient man, yea, a
dunce, and not worthy to speak about Reformation of Church Discipline. But I trust they for whom God hath reserved the honour
of reforming this Church, will easily perceive their adversaries' drift
in thus calling for antiquity. They fear the plain field of the Scriptures. The chase is too hot; they seek the dark, the bushy, the
tangled forest; they would imbosk. They feel themselves struck,
in the transparent streams of divine truth: they would plunge, and
tumble, and think to lie hid in the foul weeds and muddy waters
where no plummet can reach the bottom.   But let them beat
themselves like whales, and spend their oil till they be dragged
ashore. Though wherefore should the ministers give them so
much line for shifts and delays? Wherefore should they not urge
only the Gospel, and hold it ever in their faces like a mirror of
diamond, till it dazzle and pierce their misty eyeballs, maintaining the honour of its absolute sufficiency and supremacy inviolable? For if the Scripture be for Reformation and Antiquity to
boot, it is but an advantage to the dozen, it is no winning cast.
And though Antiquity be against it, while the Scriptures be for it,
the cause is as good as ought to be wished, Antiquity itself sitting
judge.
But to draw to an end: the second sort of those that may be




OF REFORAA TION IN ENGLAND.


77


justly numbered among the hinderers of Reformation, are Libertines. These suggest that the Discipline sought would be intolerable: for one bishop now in a diocese, we should then have a pope
in every parish. It will not be requisite to answer these men, but
only to discover them; for reason they have none but lust and
licentiousness, and therefore answer can have none. It is not
any discipline that they could live under, it is the corruption and
remissness of discipline that they seek. Episcopacy duly executed,
yea, the Turkish and Jewish rigour against whoring and drinking,
the dear and tender discipline of a father, the sociable and loving
reproof of a brother, the bosom admonition of a friend, is a
presbytery and a consistory to them. It is only the merry friar
in Chaucer can disple them.
"Full sweetly heardd he confession,
And pleasant was his absolution,
He wvas an easy man to give pentAnce."
And so I leave them; and refer the Political Discourse of
Episcopacy to a second book.
THE SECOND BOOK.
SIR,-It is a work good and prudent to be able to guide one
man; of larger extended virtue to order well one house: but to
govern a nation piously and justly, which only is to say happily,
is for a spirit of the greatest size and divinest mettle. And
certainly of no less a mind, nor of less excellence in another
way, were they who by writing laid the solid and true foundations
of this science; which being of greatest importance to the life of
man, yet there is no art that hath been more cankered in her
principles, more soiled and slubbered with aphorisming pedantry,
than the Art of Policy; and that most, where a man would think
should least be, in Christian Commonwealths. They teach not,
that to govern well is to train up a nation in true wisdom and
virtue, and that which springs from thence, magnanimity (take




78


GOD AND MAN.


heed of that); and that which is our beginning, regeneration, and
happiest end, likeness to God, which in one word we call Godliness; and that this is the true flourishing of a land. Other things
follow as the shadow does the substance: to teach thus were
mere pulpitry to them. This is the masterpiece of a modern
politician:-how to qualify and mould the sufferance and subjection of the people to the length of that foot that is to tread on
their necks; how rapine may serve itself with the fair and honourable pretences of public good; how the puny law may be brought
under the wardship and control of lust and will: in which attempt
if they fall short, then must a superficial colour of reputation by
all means, direct or indirect, be gotten to wash over the unsightly
bruise of honour. To make men governable in this manner,
their precepts mainly tend to break a national spirit and courage
by countenancing open riot, luxury, and ignorance; till having
thus disfigured and made men beneath men, as Juno in the fable
of Io, they deliver up the poor transformed heifer of the commonwealth to be stung and vexed with the breese and goad of oppression, under the custody of some Argus with a hundred eyes of
jealousy. To be plainer, Sir, how to solder, how to stop a leak,
how to keep up the floating carcass of a crazy and diseased
Monarchy or State, betwixt wind and water, swimming still upon
her own dead lees, that now is the deep design of a politician.
Alas, Sir: a Commonwealth ought to be but as one huge Christian
personage, one mighty growth and stature of an honest man, as
big and compact in virtue as in body. For look what the grounds
and causes are of single happiness to one man, the same ye shall
find them to a whole state, as Aristotle, both in his Ethics and
Politics, from the principles of reason, lays down. By consequence, therefore, that which is good and agreeable to Monarchy,
will appear soonest to be so, by being good and agreeable to the
true welfare of every Christian; and that which can be justly
proved hurtful and offensive to every true Christian, will be
evinced to be alike hurtful to Monarchy: for God forbid that we
should separate and distinguish the end and good of a Monarch,
from the end and good of the Monarchy, or of that, from Christi



OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


79


anity. How then this third and last sort that hinder Reformation
will justify that it stands not with reason of state, I much muse;
for certain I am, the Bible is shut against them; as certain that
neither Plato nor Aristotle is for their turns.  What they can
bring us now from the schools of Loyola with his Jesuits, or their
Malvezzi that can cut Tacitus into slivers and steaks, we shall
presently hear. They allege, i. That the Church Government
must be conformable to the Civil Polity; next, That no form of
Church Government is agreeable to monarchy, but that of bishops.
MAust Church Government that is appointed in the Gospel, and has
chief respect to the soul, be conformable and pliant to civil, that
is arbitrary, and chiefly conversant about the visible and external
part of man? This is the very maxim that moulded the calves
of Bethel and of Dan. This was the quintessence of Jeroboam's
policy, he made religion conform to his politic interests; and this
was the sin that watched over the Israelites till their final captivity. If this state principle come from the prelates, as they affect
to be counted statists, let them look back to Eleutherius bishop
of Rome, and see what he thought of the policy of England.
Being required by Lucius, the first Christian king of this island,
to give his counsel for the founding of religious laws, little thought
he of this sage caution, but bids him betake himself to the Old
and New Testament, and receive direction from them how to
administer both Church and Commonwealth; that he was God's
vicar, and therefore to rule by God's laws; that the edicts of
Caesar we may at all times disallow, but the statutes of God for no
reason we may reject. Now certain, if Church Government be
taught in the Gospel, as the bishops dare not deny, we may well
conclude of what late standing this position is, newly calculated
for the altitude of bishop-elevation, and lettuce for their lips.
But by what example can they shew, that the form of Church
Discipline must be minted and modelled out to secular pretences?
The ancient republic of the Jews is evident to have run through
all the changes of civil estate, if we survey the story from the
giving of the Law to the Herods; yet did one manner of priestly
government serve without inconvenience to all these temporal




80


GOD AND MAN.


mutations. It served the mild aristocracy of elective dukes, and
heads of tribes joined with them; the dictatorship of the judges,
the easy or hard-handed monarchies, the domestic or foreign
tyrannies: lastly, the Roman senate from without, the Jewish
senate at home, with the Galilean tetrarch. Yet the Levites had
some right to deal in civil affairs: but seeing the evangelical
precept forbids churchmen to intermeddle with worldly employments, what interweavings or interworkings can knit the minister
and the magistrate in their several functions, to the regard of any
precise correspondency! Seeing that the churchman's office is
only to teach men the Christian faith, to exhort all, to encourage
the good, to admonish the bad, privately the less offender,
publicly the scandalous and stubborn; to censure and separate
from the communion of Christ's flock the contagious and incorrigible; to receive with joy and fatherly compassion the penitent:
all this must be done, and more than this is beyond any Church
authority. What is all this either here or there to the temporal
regiment of weal public, whether it be popular, princely, or
monarchical?   Where doth it entrench upon the temporal
governor? where does it come in his walk? where doth it make
inroad upon his jurisdiction? Indeed if the minister's part be
rightly discharged, it renders him the people more conscionable,
quiet, and easy to be governed; if otherwise, his life and doctrine
will declare him. If, therefore, the Constitution of the Church be
already set down by divine prescript, as all sides confess, then
can she not be a handmaid to wait on civil commodities and
respects; and if the nature and limits of Church Discipline be
such, as are either helpful to all political estates indifferently, or
have no particular relation to any, then is there no necessity, nor
indeed possibility, of linking the one with the other in a special
conformation.
Now for their second conclusion, "That no form of Church
Government is agreeable to Monarchy, but that of bishops,"although
it fall to pieces of itself by that which hath been said; yet to give
them play, front and rear, it shall be my task to prove that episcopacy, with that authority which it challenges in England, is not




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


only not agreeable, but tending to the destruction of Monarchy.
While the primitive pastors of the Church of God laboured faithfully
in their ministry, tending only their sheep, and not seeking but
avoiding all worldly matters as clogs and indeed derogations and
debasements to their high calling, little needed the princes and
potentates of the earth, which way soever the Gospel was spread,
to study ways how to make a coherence between the Church's
Polity and theirs. Therefore, when Pilate heard once our Saviour
Christ professing that "his kingdom was not of this world," he
thought the man could not stand much in Cmesar's light nor much
endamage the Roman empire; for if the life of Christ be hid to
this world, much more is his sceptre inoperative but in spiritual
things. And thus lived, for two or three ages, the successors of
the Apostles. But when, through Constantine's lavish superstition,
they forsook their first love, and set themselves up two gods instead, Mammon and their Belly; then taking advantage of the
spiritual power which they had on men's consciences, they began
to cast a longing eye to get the body also and bodily things into
their command. Upon which their carnal desires, the spirit daily
quenching and dying in them, knew no way to keep themselves
up from falling to nothing, but by bolstering and supporting their
inward rottenness by a carnal and outward strength. For a while
they rather privily sought opportunity than hastily disclosed their
project; but when Constantine was dead, and three or four emperors more, their drift became notorious and offensive to the
whole world: for while Theodosius the younger reigned, thus
writes Socrates the historian, in his 7th book, chap. ii.  "Now
began an ill name to stick upon the bishops of Rome and
Alexandria, who beyond their priestly bounds now long ago had
stepped into principality:" and this was scarce eighty years since
their raising from the meanest worldly condition. Of courtesy
now let any man tell me, if they draw to themselves a temporal
strength and power out of Caesar's dominion, is not Caesar's empire
thereby diminished? But this was a stolen bit. hitherto he was
but a caterpillar secretly gnawing at Monarchy; the next time you
shall see him a wolf, a lion, lifting his paw against his raiser, as
F




82


GOD AND MAN.


Petrarch expressed it, and finally an open enemy and subverter
of the Greek empire.
Philippicus and Leo, with divers other emperors after them,
not without the advice of their patriarchs, and at length of a
whole eastern Council of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops,
threw the images out of churches as being decreed idolatrous.
Upon this goodly occasion, the bishop of Rome not only seizes
the city, and all the territory about, into his own hands, and
makes himself lord thereof, which till then was governed by a
Greek magistrate, but absolves all Italy of their tribute and
obedience due to the emperor, because he obeyed God's commandment in abolishing idolatry.
Mark, Sir, here, how the pope came by St. Peter's patrimony,
as he feigns it; not the donation of Constantine, but idolatry and
rebellion got it him. Ye need but read Sigonius, one of his own
sect, to know the story at large. And now to shroud himself against a storm from the Greek continent, and provide a
champion to bear him out of these practices, he takes upon him
by papal sentence to unthrone Chilpericus, the rightful king of
France, and gives the kingdom to Pepin, for no other cause but
that he seemed to him the more active man. If he were a friend
herein to monarchy, I know not; but to the monarch I need not
ask what he was.
Having thus made Pepin his fast friend, he calls him into
Italy against Aistulphus the Lombard, that warred upon him for
his late usurpation of Rome, as belonging to Ravenna, which he
had newly won.   Pepin, not unobedient to the pope's call,
passing into Italy, frees him out of danger, and wins for him the
whole exarchate of Ravenna; which though it had been almost
immediately before the hereditary possession of that monarchy
which was his chief patron and benefactor, yet he takes and keeps
it to himself as lawful prize, and given to St. Peter. What a
dangerous fallacy is this, when a spiritual man may snatch to
himself any temporal dignity or dominion, under pretence of
receiving it for the Church's use? Thus he claims Naples, Sicily,
England, and what not? To be short, under show of his zeal




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


83


against the errors of the Greek Church, he never ceased baiting
and goring the successors of his best lord Constantine, what by
his barking curses and excommunications, what by his hindering
the western princes from aiding them against the Saracens and
Turks, unless when they humoured him; so that it may be truly
affirmed, he was the subversion and fall of that Monarchy which
was the hoisting of him. This, besides Petrarch, whom I have
cited, our Chaucer also hath observed, and gives from hence a
caution to England, to beware of her bishops in time, for that
their ends and aims are no more friendly to Monarchy than the
pope's.
This he begins in the Ploughman speaking, part ii. stanza 28:
"The emperor yafe the pope sometime
So high lordship him about,
That at last the silly kine,
The proud pope put him out;
So of this realm is no doubt,
But lords beware and them defend;
For now these folks be wonders stout,
The king and lords now this amend."
And in the next stanza, which begins the third part of the tale,
he argues that they ought not to be lords:
Moses law forbode it tho
That priests should no lordship welde,
Christ's gospel biddeth also
That they should no lordships held:
Ne Christ's apostles were never so bold
No such lordships to hem embrace,
But smeren her sheep and keep her fold."
And so forward.  Whether the bishops of England have deserved
thus to be feared by men so wise as our Chaucer is esteemed;
and how agreeable to our Monarchy and Monarchs their demeanour has been, he that is but meanly read in our chronicles
needs not be instructed. Have they not been as the Canaanites
and Philistines to this kingdom?  What treasons, what revolts
to the pope, what rebellions, and those the basest and most
pretenceless, have they not been chief in? What could Monarchy
think, when Becket durst challenge the custody of Rochester




84


GOD AND MAN.


Castle, and the Tower of London, as appertaining to his signory?
to omit his other insolencies and affronts to regal majesty, until
the lashes inflicted on the anointed body of the king washed off
the holy unction with his blood drawn by the polluted hands of
bishops, abbots, and monks.
What good upholders of royalty were the bishops, when, by
their rebellious opposition against king John, Normandy was
lost, he himself deposed, and this kingdom made over to the
pope? When the bishop of Winchester durst tell the nobles, the
pillars of the realm, that there were no peers in England, as in
France, but that the king might do what he pleased, what could
tyranny say more? It would be pretty now if I should insist
upon the rendering up of Tournay by Wolsey's treason, the excommunications, cursings, and interdicts upon the whole land;
for haply I shall be cut off short by a reply, that these were the
faults of men and their popish errors, not of Episcopacy, that hath
now renounced the Pope, and is a Protestant. Yes, sure; as wise
and famous men have suspected and feared the Protestant Episcopacy in England, as those that have feared the Papal.
You-know, sir, what was the judgment of Padre Paolo, the
great Venetian antagonist of the pope, for it is extant in the
hands of many men, whereby he declares his fear, that when the
hierarchy of England shall light into the hands of busy and
audacious men, or shall meet with princes tractable to the prelacy,
then much mischief is like to ensue. And can it be nearer hand
than when bishops shall openly affirm that, "No Bishop no
King"? A trim paradox, and that ye may know where they
have been a begging for it, I will fetch you the twin brother to it
out of the Jesuits' cell: they feeling the axe of God's Reformation,
hewing at the old and hollow trunk of papacy, and finding the
Spaniard their surest friend and safest refuge, to soothe him up
in his dream of a fifth monarchy, and withal to uphold the
decrepit papalty, have invented this superpolitic aphorism, as one
terms it, "One pope and one king."
Surely there is not any prince in Christendom, who, hearing
this rare sophistry, can choose but smile; and if we be not blind




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


85


at home, we may as well perceive that this worthy motto, " No
Bishop no King," is of the same batch, and infanted out of the
same fears, a mere ague-cake, coagulated of a certain fever they
have, presaging their time to be but short. And now, like those
that are sinking, they catch round of that which is likeliest to
hold them up; and would persuade regal power that if they dive,
he must after.  But what greater debasement can there be to
royal dignity, whose towering and steadfast height rests upon the
unmovable foundations of justice and heroic virtue, than to
chain it in a dependence of subsisting or ruining to the painted
battlements and gaudy rottenness of prelatry, which want but
one puff of the King's to blow them down like a pasteboard house
built of court-cards? Sir, the little ado which methinks I find in
untacking these pleasant sophisms, puts me into the mood to
tell you a tale ere I proceed further; and Menenius Agrippa
speed us.
Upon a time the Body summoned all the members to meet in
the guild, for the common good (as AEsop's chronicles aver
many stranger accidents): the head by right takes the first seat,
and next to it a huge and monstrous wen, little less than the
head itself, growing to it by a narrower excrescency. The
members, amazed, began to ask one another what he was that
took place next their chief? None could resolve. Whereat
the wen, though unwieldy, with much ado gets up, and bespeaks
the assembly to this purpose: "That as in place he was second
to the head, so by due of merit; that he was to it an ornament,
and strength, and of special near relation; and that if the head
should fail, none were fitter than himself to step into his place:
therefore he thought it for the honour of the body, that such
dignities and rich endowments should be decreed him, as did
adorn and set out the noblest members." To this was answered
that it should be consulted. Then was a wise and learned
philosopher sent for, that knew all the charters, laws, and tenures
of the Body. On him it is imposed by all, as chief committee,
to examine, and discuss the claim and petition of right put in by
the wen; who soon perceiving the matter, and wondering at the




86


GOD AND MAN.


boldness of such a swoln tumour, "Wilt thou," quoth he, "that
art but a bottle of vicious and hardened excrements, contend
with the lawful and freeborn members, whose certain number is
set by ancient and unrepealable statute? Head thou art none,
though thou receive this huge substance from it. What office
bearest thou? what good can'st thou shew by thee done to the
commonweal?" The wen, not easily dashed, replies that his
office was his glory; for so oft as the soul would retire out of
the head from over the steaming vapours of the lower parts to
divine contemplation, with him she found the purest and quietest retreat, as being most remote from soil and disturbance.
" Lourdan," quoth the philosopher, " thy folly is as great as thy
filth: know that all the faculties of the soul are confined of old
to their several vessels and ventricles, from which they cannot
part without dissolution of the whole body; and that thou containest no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard and loathsome
uncleanness, and art to the head a foul disfigurement and burden.
When I have cut thee off, and opened thee, as by the help of
these implements I will do, all men shall see."
But to return whence was digressed: seeing that the throne of
a King, as the wise King Solomon often remembers us, " is established in justice," which is the universal justice that Aristotle so
much praises, containing in it all other virtues, it may assure us
that the fall of prelacy, whose actions are so far distant from
justice, cannot shake the least fringe that borders the royal
canopy. But that their standing doth continually oppose and lay
battery to regal safety, shall by that which follows easily appear.
Amongst many secondary and accessory causes that support.
Monarchy, these are not of least reckoning, though common to all
other states; the love of the subjects, the multitude and valour
of the people, and store of treasure. In all these things hath the,
kingdom been of late sore weakened, and chiefly by the prelates.
First, let any man consider, that if any prince shall suffer under
him a commission of authority to be exercised, till all the land
groan and cry out as against a whip of scorpions, whether this
be not likely to lessen and keel the affections of the subject.




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


87


Next, what numbers of faithful and freeborn Englishmen, and
good Christians, have been constrained to forsake their dearest
home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide
ocean, and the savage deserts of America, could hide and shelter
from the fury of the bishops? Oh, Sir, if we could but see the
shape of our dear mother England, as poets are wont to give a
personal form to what they please, how would she appear, think
ye, but in a mourning weed, with ashes upon her head, and tears
abundantly flowing from her eyes, to behold so many of her
children exposed at once, and thrust from things of dearest
necessity, because their conscience could not assent to things
which the bishops thought indifferent? What more binding than/
conscience? What more free than indifferency? Cruel then
must that indifferency needs be, that shall violate the strict
necessity of conscience; merciless and inhuman that free choice
and liberty that shall break asunder the bonds of Religion! Let
the astrologer be dismayed at the portentous blaze of comets,
and impressions in the air, as foretelling troubles and changes to
states: I shall believe there cannot be a more ill-boding sign to a
nation (God turn the omen from us!) than when the inhabitants,
to avoid insufferable grievances at home, are enforced by heaps
to forsake their native country. Now, whereas the only remedy
and amends against the depopulation and thinness of a land
within, is the borrowed strength of firm alliance from without,
these priestly policies of theirs having thus exhausted our domestic
forces, have gone the way also to leave us as naked of our firmest
and faithfullest neighbours abroad, by disparaging and alienating
from us all protestant princes and commonwealths; who are not
ignorant that our prelates, and as many as they can infect, account
them no better than a sort of sacrilegious and puritanical rebels,
preferring the Spaniard, our deadly enemy, before them, and set
all orthodox writers at nought in comparison of the Jesuits, who
are indeed the only corrupters of youth and good learning: and
I have heard many wise and learned men in Italy say as much.
It cannot be that the strongest knot of confederacy should not
daily slacken, when Religion, which is the chief engagement of




GOD AND MAN.


our league, shall be turned to their reproach. Hence it is that
the prosperous and prudent states of the United Provinceswhom we ought to love, if not for themselves, yet for our own
good work in them, they having been in a manner planted and
erected by us, and having been since to us the faithful watchmen
and discoverers of many a popish and Austrian complotted
treason, and with us the partners of many a bloody and victorious
battle,-whom the similitude of manners and language, the commodity of traffic, which founded the old Burgundian league
betwixt us, but chiefly Religion, should bind to us immortally;
even such friends as these, out of some principles installed into
us by the prelates, have been often dismissed with distasteful
answers, and sometimes unfriendly actions. Nor is it to be considered to the breach of confederate nations whose mutual interest
is of such high consequence though their merchants bicker in
the East Indies; neither is it safe, or wary, or indeed Christianly,
that the French king, of a different faith, should afford our
nearest allies as good protection as we. Sir, I persuade myself,
if our zeal to true Religion, and the brotherly usage of our truest
friends, were as notorious to the world as our prelatical schism,
and captivity to rochet apophthegms, we had ere this seen our
old conquerors, and afterwards liegemen, the Normans, together
with the Britains, our proper colony, and all the Gascoins, that
are the rightful dowry of our ancient kings, come with cap and
knee, desiring the shadow of the English sceptre to defend them
from the hot persecutions and taxes of the French. But when
they come hither, and see a tympany of Spaniolized bishops
swaggering in the foretop of the state, and meddling to turn and
dandle the royal ball with unskilful and pedantic palms, no
marvel though they think it as unsafe to commit religion and
liberty to their arbitrating as to a synagogue of Jesuits.
But what do I stand reckoning upon advantages and gains lost
by the misrule and turbulency of the prelates? What do I pick
up so thriftily their scatterings and diminishings of the meaner
subject, whilst they by their seditious practices have endangered
to lose the king one third of his main stock? What have they




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


89


not done to banish him from his own native country? But to
speak of this as it ought, would ask a volume by itself.
Thus as they have unpeopled the kingdom by expulsion of so
many thousands, as they have endeavoured to lay the skirts of it
bare by disheartening and dishonouring our loyalest confederates
abroad, so have they hamstrung the valour of the subject by seeking to effeminate us all at home. Well knows every wise nation,
that their liberty consists in manly and honest labours, in sobriety
and rigorous honour to the marriage-bed, which in both sexes
should be bred up from chaste hopes to loyal enjoyments: and
when the people slacken, and fall to looseness and riot, then do
they as much as if they laid down their necks for some wild tyrant
to get up and ride. Thus learnt Cyrus to tame the Lydians,
whom by arms he could not whilst they kept themselves from
luxury; with one easy proclamation to set up stews, dancing, feasting, and dicing, he made them soon his slaves. I know not what
drift the prelates had, whose brokers they were, to prepare and
supple as either for a foreign invasion or domestic oppression: but
this I am sure, they took the ready way to despoil us both of manhood and grace at once, and that in the shamefullest and ungodliest manner. Upon that day which God's law, and even our own
reason hath consecrated, that we might have one day at least of
seven set apart wherein to examine and increase our knowledge of
God, to meditate and commune of our faith, our hope, our eternal
city in heaven, and to quicken withal the study and exercise of
charity; at such a time that men should be plucked from their
soberest and saddest thoughts, and by bishops, the pretended
fathers of the Church, instigated, by public edict and with earnest
endeavour pushed forward to gaming, jigging, wassailing, and
mixed dancing, is a horror to think! Thus did the reprobate
hireling priest Balaam seek to subdue the Israelites to Moab, if
not by force, then by this devilish policy, to draw them from the
sanctuary of God to the luxurious and ribald feasts of Baal-peor.
Thus have they trespassed not only against the Monarchy of England, but of Heaven also, as others, I doubt not, can prosecute
against them.




90


GOD AND AMAN.


I proceed within my own bounds to shew you next what good
agents they are about the revenues and riches of the kingdom,
which declare of what moment they are to Monarchy, or what
avail. Two leeches they have that still suck and suck the kingdom
— their Ceremonies and their Courts. If any man will contend
that Ceremonies be lawful under the Gospel, he may be answered
otherwhere. This, doubtless, that they ought to be many and
overcostly, no true Protestant will affirm. Now I appeal to all
wise men, what an excessive waste of treasure hath been within
these few years in this land, not in the expedient but in the idolatrous erection of temples beautified exquisitely to outvie the
papists, the costly and dear-bought scandals and snares of images,
pictures, rich copes, gorgeous altar-cloths: and by the courses
they took, and the opinions they held, it was not likely any stay
would be, or any end of their madness, where a pious pretext is
so ready at hand to cover their insatiate desires. What can we
suppose this will come to?  What other materials than these
have built up the spiritual Babel to the height of her abominations? Believe it, Sir, right truly it may be said, that Antichrist
is Mammon's son. The sour leaven of human traditions, mixed in
one putrefied mass with the poisonous dregs of hyprocrisy in the
hearts of prelates that lie basking in the sunny warmth of wealth
and promotion, is the serpent's egg that will hatch an Antichrist
wheresoever, and engender the same monster as big, or little, as
the lump is which breeds him. If the splendour of gold and
silver begin to lord it once again in the church of England, we
shall see Antichrist shortly wallow here, though his chief kennel
be at Rome. If they had one thought upon God's glory, and the
advancement of Christian faith, they would be a means that with
these expenses, thus profusely thrown away in trash, rather
churches and schools might be built where they cry out for want,
I and more added where too few are; a moderate maintenance distributed to every painful minister, that now scarce sustains his
family with bread while the prelates revel like Belshazzar with
their full carouses in goblets and vessels of gold snatched from
God's temple; which I hope the worthy men of our land will




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


g1


consider. Now then for their Courts. What a mass of money-is
drawn from the veins into the ulcers of the kingdom this way,
their extortions, their open corruptions, the multitude of hungry
and ravenous harpies that swarm about their offices, declare
sufficiently. And what though all this go not over sea? It were
better it did: better a penurious kingdom, than where excessive
wealth flows into the graceless and injurious hands of common
sponges, to the impoverishing of good and loyal men, and that by
such execrable, such irreligious courses.
If the sacred and dreadful works of holy discipline, censure,
penance, excommunication, and absolution,-where no profane
thing ought to have access, nothing to be assistant but sage and
Christianly admonition, brotherly love, flaming charity and zeal;
and then, according to the effects, paternal sorrow, or paternal joy,
mild severity, melting compassion,-if such divine ministries as
these, wherein the Angel of the Church represents the person of
Christ Jesus, must lie prostitute to sordid fees, and not pass to
and fro between our Saviour, that of free grace redeemed us,
and the submissive penitent, without the truckage of perishing
coin, and the butcherly execution of tormentors, rooks, and
rakeshames sold to lucre: then have the Babylonish merchants
of souls just excuse. Hitherto, Sir, you have heard how the
prelates have weakened and withdrawn the external accomplishments of kingly prosperity, the love of the people, their multitude,
their valour, their wealth; mining and sapping the outworks and
redoubts of Monarchy. Now hear how they strike at the very
heart and vitals.
We know that Monarchy is made up of two parts, the liberty of
the subject, and the supremacy of the king. I begin at the root.
See what gentle and benign fathers they have been to our liberty!
Their trade being, by the same alchemy that the pope uses, to
extract heaps of gold and silver out of the drossy bullion of
the people's sins; and justly fearing that the quick-sighted Protestant's eye, cleared in great part from the mist of superstition,
may at one time or another look with a good judgment into these
their deceitful pedleries; to gain as many associates of guiltiness




9-1


GOD AND IMAN.


as they can, and to infect the temporal magistrate with the like
lawless, though not sacrilegious extortion, see awhile what they
do! they engage themselves to preach and persuade an assertion
for truth the most false, and to this Monarchy the most pernicious
and destructive that could be chosen. What more baneful to
Monarchy than a popular commotion? For the dissolution of
monarchy slides aptest into a democracy; and what stirs the
Englishmen, as our wisest writers have observed, sooner to
rebellion, than violent and heavy hands upon their goods and
purses? Yet these devout prelates, spite of our Great Charter,
and the souls of our progenitors that wrested their liberties out of
the Norman gripe with their dearest blood and highest prowess,
for these many years have not ceased in their pulpits wrenching
and spraining the text, to set at nought and trample under foot all
the most sacred and lifeblood laws, statutes, and acts of parliament, that are the holy covenant of union and marriage between
the king and his realm, by proscribing and confiscating from us
all the right we have to our own bodies, goods, and liberties.
What is this but to blow a trumpet, and proclaim a firecross to
an hereditary and perpetual civil war? Thus much against the
subjects' liberty hath been assaulted by them. Now how they
have spared supremacy, or are likely hereafter to submit to it,
remains lastly to be considered.
The emulation that under the Old Law was in the king towards
the priest, is now so come about in the Gospel, that all the danger
is to be feared from the priest to the king. Whilst the priest's
office in the Law was set out with an exterior lustre of pomp and
bglory, kings were ambitious to be priests; now priests, not perceiving the heavenly brightness and inward splendour of their
more glorious evangelic ministry, with as great ambition affect
to be kings, as in all their courses is easy to be observed.
Their eyes ever eminent upon worldly matters, their desires
ever thirsting after worldly employments, instead of diligent and
fervent study in the Bible, they covet to be expert in canons
and decretals, which may enable them to judge and interpose in
temporal causes, however pretended ecclesiastical. Do they not




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


93


hoard up pelf, seek to be potent in secular strength, in state
affairs, in lands, lordships, and domains, to sway and carry all
before them in high courts and privy-councils, to bring into their
grasp the high and principal offices of the kingdom? Have they
not been bold of late to check the common law, to slight and
brave the indiminishable majesty of our highest court, the lawgiving and sacred parliament? Do they not plainly labour to
exempt churchmen from the magistrate? Yea, so presumptuously
as to question and menace officers that represent the king's
person for using their authority against drunken priests? The
cause of protecting murderous clergymen was the first heartburning that swelled up the audacious Becket to the pestilent and
odious vexation of Henry the Second. Nay, more: have not
some of their devoted scholars begun, I need not say to nibble,
but openly to argue against the king's supremacy? Is not the
chief of them accused out of his own book, and his late canons,
to affect a certain unquestionable patriarchate, independent, and
unsubordinate to the crown? From whence having first brought
us to a servile state of religion and manhood, and having predisposed his conditions with the pope, that lays claim to this land,
or some Pepin of his own creating, it were all as likely for him to
aspire to the monarchy among us, as that the pope could find
means so on the sudden both to bereave the emperor of the
Roman territory with the favour of Italy, and by an unexpected
friend out of France, while he was in danger to lose his newgot purchase, beyond hope to leap into the fair exarchate of
Ravenna.
A good while the pope subtly acted the lamb, writing to the
emperor, " my lord Tiberius," " my lord Mauritius;" but no sooner
did this his lord pluck at the images and idols, but he threw off
his sheep's clothing, and started up a wolf, laying his paws upon
the emperor's right, as forfeited to Peter. Why may not we as
well, having been forewarned at home by our renowned Chaucer,
and from abroad by the great and learned Padre Paolo, from
the like beginnings, as we see they are, fear the like events?
Certainly a wise and provident king ought to suspect a hierarchy




94


GOD AND MAN.


in his realm —being ever attended, as it is, with two such greedy
purveyors, ambition and usurpation,-I say, he ought to suspect a
hierarchy to be as dangerous and derogatory from his crown as a
tetrarchy or a heptarchy. Yet now that the prelates had almost
attained to what their insolent and unbridled minds had hurried
them; to thrust the laity under the despotical rule of the Monarch,
that they themselves might confine the Monarch to a kind of
pupilage under their hierarchy, observe but how their own principles combat one another, and supplant each one his fellow.
Having fitted us only for peace, and that a servile peace, by
lessening our numbers, draining our estates, enfeebling our bodies,
cowing our free spirits by those ways as you have heard, their
impotent actions cannot sustain themselves the least moment
unless they would rouse us up to a war fit for Cain to be the
leader of, an abhorred, a cursed, a fraternal war. England and
Scotland, dearest brothers both in nature and in Christ, must be
set to wade in one another's blood; and Ireland, our free denizen,
upon the back of us both, as occasion should serve: a piece of
service that the pope and all his factors have been compassing to
do ever since the Reformation.
But ever blessed be He, and ever glorified, that from his high
watchtower in the heavens, discerning the crooked ways of
perverse and cruel men, hath hitherto maimed and infatuated all
their damnab.le inventions, and deluded their great wizards with
a delusion fit for fools and children. Had God been so minded,
he could have sent a spirit of mutiny amongst us, as he did
between Abimelech and the Sechemites, to have made our
funerals, and slain heaps more in number than the miserable
surviving remnant; but he, when we least deserved, sent out a
gentle gale and message of peace from the wings of those his
cherubims that fan his mercy-seat. Nor shall the wisdom, the
moderation, the Christian piety, the constancy of our Nobility
and Commons of England, be ever forgotten, whose calm and
temperate connivance could sit still and smile out the stormy
bluster of men more audacious and precipitant than of solid and
deep reach, until their own fury had run itself out of breath,




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


9;


assailing by rash and heady approaches the impregnable situation
of our liberty and safety, that laughed such weak enginery to
scorn, such poor drifts to make a national war of a surplice
brabble, a tippet scuffle, and engage the untainted honour of
English knighthood to unfurl the streaming red cross, or to rear
the horrid standard of those fatal guly dragons, for so unworthy a
purpose as to force upon their fellow-subjects that which themselves are weary of, the skeleton of a mass-book. Nor must the
patience, the fortitude, the firm obedience of the Nobles and
People of Scotland, striving against manifold provocations; nor
must their sincere and moderate proceedings hitherto, be unremembered, to the shameful conviction of all their detractors.
Go on, both hand in hand, 0 nations never to be disunited!
DIe the praise and the heroic song of all posterity! Merit this, but
seek only virtue, not to extend your limits-for what needs
to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of wretched
men?-but to settle the pure worship of God in his Church, and
justice in the State: then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out
themselves before ye; envy shall sing to hell, craft and malice be
confounded, whether it be homebred mischief or outlandish cunning: yea, other nations will then covet to serve ye, for lordship
and victory are but the pages of justice and virtue. Commit
securely to true wisdom the vanquishing and uncasing of craft
and subtlety, which are but her two runagates: join your invincible might to do worthy and godlike deeds; and then he that
seeks to break your union. a cleaving curse be his inheritance to
all generations.
Sir, you have now at length this question for the time, and as
my memory would best serve me in such a copious and vast
theme, fully handled, and you yourself may judge whether Prelacy
be the only Church-government agreeable to Monarchy. Seeing
therefore the perilous and confused state into which we are fallen,
and that, to the certain knowledge of all men, through the irreligious pride and hateful tyranny of prelates, as the innumerable
and grievous complaints of every shire cry out, if we will now
resolve to settle affairs either according to pure religion or sound




96


GOD AND MAN.


policy, we must first of all begin roundly to cashier and cut away
from the public body the noisome and diseased tumour of prelacy,
and come from schism to Unity with our neighbour Reformed
Sister Churches, which with the blessing of peace and pure doctrine
have now long time flourished; and doubtless with all hearty joy
and gratulation will meet and welcome our Christian union with
them, as they have been all this while grieved at our strangeness,
and little better than separation from them. And for the Discipline propounded, seeing that it hath been inevitably proved, that
the natural and fundamental causes of political happiness in all
governments are the same, and that this Church Discipline is
taught in the Word of God, and, as we see, agrees according to
wish with all such states as have received it; we may infallibly
assure ourselves that it will as well agree with Monarchy, though
all the tribe of Aphorismers and Politicasters would persuade us
there be secret and mysterious reasons against it. For upon the
settling hereof mark what nourishing and cordial restorements to
the State will follow, the Ministers of the Gospel attending only to
the work of salvation, every one within his limited charge; besides
the diffusive blessings of God upon all our actions, the king shall
sit without an old disturber, a daily encroacher and intruder:
shall rid his kingdom of a strong sequestered and collateral power;
a confronting mitre, whose potent wealth and wakeful ambition
he had just cause to hold in jealousy: not to repeat the other
present evils which only their removal will remove. And because
things simply pure are inconsistent in the mass of nature, nor are
the elements or humours in a man's body exactly homogeneal,
hence the best-founded commonwealths and least barbarous
have aimed at a certain mixture and temperament, partaking the
several virtues of each other state, that each part drawing to itself
may keep up a steady and even uprightness in common.
There is no civil government that hath been known, no not the
Spartan, not the Roman, though both for this respect so much
praised by the wise Polybius, more divinely and harmoniously
tuned, more equally balanced as it were by the hand and scale of
justice, than is the Commonwealth of England; where, under a




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


9 7


free and untutored Monarch, the noblest, worthiest, and most
prudent men, with full approbation and suffrage of the People,
have in their power the supreme and final determination of highest
affairs. Now if conformity of Church Discipline to the civil be so
desired, there can be nothing more parallel, more uniform, than
when under the sovereign prince, Christ's vicegerent, using the
sceptre of David, according to God's law, the godliest, the wisest,
the learnedest ministers in their several charges have the instructing and disciplining of God's people, by whose full and free election they are consecrated to that holy and equal aristocracy. And
why should not the piety and conscience of Englishmen, as members of the Church, be trusted in the election of pastors to functions
that nothing concern a Monarch, as well as their worldly wisdoms
are privileged as members of the state in suifraging their knights
and burgesses to matters that concern him nearly? And if in
weighing these several offices, their difference in time and quality
be cast in, I know they will not turn the beam of equal judgment
the moiety of a scruple. We therefore having already a kind of
apostolical and ancient church election in our State, what a perverseness would it be in us of all others to retain forcibly a kind
of imperious and stately election in our Church! And what a
blindness to think that what is already evangelical, as it were by
a happy chance, in our polity, should be repugnant to that which
is the same by divine command in the ministry! Thus then we
see that our ecclesiastical and political choices may consent and
sort as well together without any rupture in the State, as Christians
and freeholders. But as for honour, that ought indeed to be
different and distinct, as either office looks a several way. The
Minister whose calling and end is spiritual, ought to be honoured
as a father and physician to the soul (if he be found to be so),
with a sonlike and disciplelike reverence, which is indeed the
dearest and most affectionate honour, most to be desired by a
wise man, and such as will easily command a free and plentiful
provision of outward necessaries, without his further care of this
world.
The Magistrate, whose charge is to see to our persons and
G




98


GOD AND MAN.


estates, is to be honoured with a more elaborate and personal
courtship, with large salaries and stipends, that he himself may
abound in those things whereof his legal justice and watchful
care give us the quiet enjoyment. And this distinction of honour
will bring forth a seemly and graceful uniformity over all the
kingdom.
Then shall the Nobles possess all the dignities and offices of
temporal honour to themselves, sole lords without the improper
mixture of scholastic and pusillanimous upstarts; the Parliament
shall void her Upper House of the same annoyances; the common
and civil laws shall be both set free, the former from the control,
the other from the mere vassalage and copyhold of the clergy.
And whereas temporal laws rather punish men when they have
transgressed, than form them to be such as should transgress
seldomest, we may conceive great hopes, through the showers of
divine benediction watering the unmolested and watchful pains
of the ministry, that the whole inheritance of God will grow up
so straight and blameless, that the civil magistrate may with far
less toil and difficulty, and far more ease and delight, steer the
tall and goodly vessel of the Commonwealth through all the gusts
and tides of the world's mutability.
Here I might have ended, but that some objections, which I
have heard commonly flying about, press me to the endeavour
of an answer. We must not run, they say, into sudden extremes.
This is a fallacious rule, unless understood only of the actions of
virtue about things indifferent. For if it be found that those two
extremes be vice and virtue, falsehood and truth, the greater
extremity of virtue and superlative truth we run into, the more
virtuous and the more wise we become; and he that, flying from
degenerate and traditional corruption, fears to shoot himself too
far into the meeting embraces of a divinely warranted Reformation,
had better not have run at all. And for the suddenness, it cannot be feared. Who should oppose it?  The papists? They
dare not. The protestants otherwise affected? They were mad.
There is nothing will be removed but what to them is professedly
indifferent. The long affection which the people have borne to




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


99


it, what for itself, what for the odiousness of prelates, is evident:
from the first year of queen Elizabeth it hath still been more
and more propounded, desired, and beseeched, yea, sometimes
favourably forwarded by the parliaments themselves. Yet if it
were sudden and swift, provided still it be from worse to better,
certainly we ought to hie us from evil like a torrent, and rid ourselves of corrupt discipline, as we would shake fire out of our
bosoms.
Speedy and vehement were the reformations of all the good
kings of Judah, though the people had been muzzled in idolatry
ever so long before; they feared not the bugbear danger, nor the
lion in the way that the sluggish and timorous politician thinks
he sees; no more did our brethren of the Reformed Churches
abroad, they ventured, God being their guide, out of rigid popery,
into that which we in mockery call precise puritanism, and yet
we see no inconvenience befell them.
Let us not dally with God when he offers us a full blessing, to
take as much of it as we think will serve our ends, and turn him
back the rest upon his hands; lest in his anger he snatch all from
us again. Next, they allege the antiquity of episcopacy through
all ages. What it was in the Apostles' time, that questionless it
must be still; and therein I trust the ministers will be able to
satisfy the parliament. But if episcopacy be taken for prelacy,
all the ages they can deduce it through, will make it no more
venerable than papacy.
Most certain it is, as all our stories bear witness, that ever
since their coming to the see of Canterbury, for near twelve
hundred years, to speak of them in general, they have been in
England to our souls a sad and doleful succession of illiterate
and blind guides; to our purses and goods a wasteful band of
robbers, a perpetual havock and rapine; to our State a continual
hydra of mischief and molestation, the forge of discord and rebellion: this is the trophy of their antiquity, and boasted succession through so many ages. And for those prelate-martyrs they
glory of, they are to be judged what they were by the Gospel, and
not the Gospel to be tried by them.




100


GOD AND MAN.


And it is to be noted, that if they were for bishoprics and
ceremonies, it was in their prosperity and fulness of bread; but
in their persecution, which purified them, and near their death,
which was their garland, they plainly disliked and condemned the
ceremonies, and threw away those episcopal ornaments where- in
they were installed, as foolish and detestable; for so the words
of Ridley at his degradement, and his letter to Hooper, expressly
shew. Neither doth the author of our Church History spare to
record sadly the fall, for so he terms it, and infirmities of these
martyrs, though we would deify them. And why should their
martyrdom more countenance corrupt doctrine or discipline, than
their subscriptions justify their treason to the royal blood of this
realm, by diverting and entailing the right of the crown from the
true heirs to the houses of Northumberland and Suffolk? which
had it took effect, this present king had, in all likelihood, never
sat on this throne, and the happy union of this island had been
frustrated.
Lastly, whereas they add that some the learnedest of the
reformed abroad admire our episcopacy; it had been more for
the strength of the argument to tell us that some of the wisest
statesmen admire it, for thereby we might guess them weary of
the present Discipline, as offensive to their State, which is the bug
we fear: but being they are churchmen, we may rather suspect
them for some prelatizing spirits that admire our bishoprics, not
episcopacy.
The next objection vanishes of itself, propounding a doubt
whether a greater inconvenience would not grow from the corruption of any other Discipline than from that of episcopacy.
This seems an unseasonable foresight, and out of order, to defer
and put off the most needful constitution of one right Discipline,
while we stand balancing the discommodities of two corrupt ones.
First constitute that which is right, and of itself it will discover
and rectify that which swerves, and easily remedy the pretended
fear of having a pope in every parish, unless we call the zealous
and- peek censure of the church a popedom, which whoso does,
I.et him advise how he can reject the pastorly rod and sheephook




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


ror


of Christ, and those cords of love, and not fear to fall under
the iron sceptre of his anwer that will dash him to pieces like
a potsherd.
At another doubt of theirs I wonder,-whether this Discipline
which we desire be such as can be put in practice within this
kingdom. They say it cannot stand with the common law nor
with the king's safety, the government of episcopacy is now so
weaved into the common law. In God's name let it weave out
again; let not human quillets keep back divine authority. It is
not the common law, nor the civil, but piety and justice that are
our foundresses. They stoop not, neither change colour for aristocracy, democracy, or monarchy, nor yet at all interrupt their
just courses; but far above the taking notice of these inferior
niceties, with perfect sympathy, wherever they meet, kiss each
other. Lastly, they are fearful that the Discipline which will
succeed cannot stand with the king's safety. Wherefore? It is
but episcopacy reduced to what it should be. Were it not that the
tyranny of prelates under the name of bishops had made our ears
tender and startling, we might call every good minister a bishop,
as every bishop, yea, the apostles themselves, are called ministers,
and the angels ministering spirits, and the ministers again angels.
But wherein is this propounded government so shrewd? Because the government of Assemblies will succeed. Did not the
Apostles govern the Church by Assemblies? How should it else
be catholic?  How should it have communion?  Wie count it
sacrilege to take from the rich prelates their lands and revenues,
which is sacrilege in them to keep, using them as they do; and
can we think it safe to defraud the living church of God of that
right which God has given her in Assemblies? Oh, but the consequence! Assemblies draw to them the supremacy of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. No, surely, they draw no supremacy, but that
authority which Christ, and St. Paul in his name, confers upon
them. The king may still retain the same supremacy in the
Assemblies, as in the Parliament; here he can do nothing alone
against the Common Law, and there neither alone, nor with
consent, against the Scriptures. But is this all?  No: this




I02


GOD AND MAN.


ecclesiastical supremacy draws to it the power to excommunicate
kings; and then follows the worst that can be imagined. Do
they hope to avoid this, by keeping prelates that have so often
done it?  Not to exemplify the malapert insolence of our own
bishops in this kind towards our kings, I shall turn back to the
primitive and pure times, which the objectors would have the
rule of Reformation to us.
Not an Assembly, but one bishop alone, St. Ambrose of Milan,
held Theodosius, the most Christian emperor, under excommunication above eight months together, drove him from the church in
the presence of his nobles; which the good emperor bore with
heroic humility, and never ceased by prayers and tears, till he was
absolved; for which coming to the bishop with supplication into
the salutory, some outporch of the church, he was charged by
him with tyrannical madness against God, for coming into holy
ground.  At last, upon conditions absolved, and after great
humiliation approaching to the altar toI offer as those thrice pure
times then thought meet, he had scarce withdrawn his hand, and
stood awhile, when a bold archdeacon comes in the bishop's
name, and chases him from within the rails, telling him peremptorily, that the place wherein he stood was for none but the
priests to enter, or to touch: and this is another piece of pure
primitive divinity! Think ye, then, our bishops will forego the
power of excommunication on whomsoever?    No, certainly,
unless to compass sinister ends, and then revoke when they see
their time. And yet this most mild, though withal dreadful and
inviolable prerogative of Christ's diadem, excommunication, serves
for nothing with them, but to prog and pander for fees, or to
display their pride and sharpen their revenge, debarring men
the protection of the law; and I remember not whether in some
cases it bereave not men all right to their worldly goods and
inheritances, besides the denial of Christian burial. But in the
evangelical and reformed use of this sacred censure, no such
prostitution, no such Iscariotical drifts are to be doubted, as that
spiritual doom and sentence should invade worldly possession,
which is the rightful lot and portion even of the wickedest men,




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


103


as frankly bestowed upon them by the all-dispensing bounty as
rain and sunshine. No, no, it seeks not to bereave or destroy
the' body: it seeks to save the soul by humbling the body, not
by imprisonment, or pecuniary mulct, much less by stripes, or
bonds, or disinheritance, but by fatherly admonishment and
Christian rebuke to cast it into godly sorrow, whose end is joy,
and ingenuous bashfulness to sin. If that cannot be wrought, then
as a tender mother takes her child and holds it over the pit with
scaring words, that it may learn to fear where danger is; so doth
excommunication as dearly and as freely, without money, use her
wholesome and saving terrors. She is instant, she beseeches, by
all the dear and sweet promises of salvation she entices and woos;
by all the threatenings and thunders of the law, and rejected
gospel, she charges and adjures: this is all her armoury, her
munition, her artillery; then she awaits with longsufferance, and
yet ardent zeal. In brief, there is no act in all the errand of
God's ministers to mankind wherein passes more loverlike contestation between Christ and the Soul of a regenerate man lapsing,
than before, and in, and after the sentence of excommunication.
As for the fogging proctorage of money, with such an eye as
struck Gehazi with leprosy and Simon Magus with a curse, so
does she look and so threaten her fiery whip against that banking
den of thieves that dare thus baffle and buy and sell the awful and
majestic wrinkles of her brow. He that is rightly and apostolically sped with her invisible arrow, if he can be at peace in his
soul, and not smell within him the brimstone of hell, may have
fair leave to tell all his bags over undiminished of the least
farthing, may eat his dainties, drink his wine, use his delights,
enjoy his lands and liberties, not the least skin rased, not the
least hair misplaced, for all that excommunication has done.
Much more may a king enjoy his rights and prerogatives undeflowered, untouched, and be as absolute- and complete a king, as
all his royalties and revenues can make him. And therefore
little did Theodosius fear a plot upon his empire, when he
stood excommunicate by Saint Ambrose, though it were done
either with much haughty pride, or ignorant zeal. But let us




104


GOD AND MAN.


rather look upon the Reformed Churches beyond the seas, the
Grisons, the Swisses, the Hollanders, the French, that have a
supremacy to live under, as well as we: where do the Churches in
all these places strive for supremacy? Where do they clash and
justle supremacies with the civil magistrate? In France, a more
severe Monarchy than ours, the Protestants under this church
government carry the name of the best subjects the king has: and
yet Presbytery, if it must be so called, does there all that it
desires to do. How easy were it, if there be such great suspicion,
to give no more scope to it in England! But let us not, for fear
of a scarecrow, or else through hatred to be reformed, stand
hankering and politizing, when God with spread hands testifies to
us and points us out the way to our peace.
Let us not be so over-credulous, unless God hath blinded us,
as to trust our dear souls into the hands of men that beg so
devoutly for the pride and gluttony of their own backs and
bellies, that sue and solicit so eagerly, not for the saving of souls,
the consideration of which can have here no place at all, but for
their bishoprics, deaneries, prebends, and canonries. How can
these men not be corrupt, whose very cause is the bribe of their
own pleading, whose mouths cannot open without the strong
breath and loud stench of avarice, simony, and sacrilege, embezzling the treasury of the Church on painted and gilded walls
of temples, wherein God hath testified to have no delight; warming their palace kitchens, and from thence their unctuous and
epicurean paunches, with the alms of the blind, the lame, the
impotent, the aged, the orphan, the widow? For with these the
treasury of Christ ought to be, here must be his jewels bestowed,
his rich cabinet must be emptied here; as the constant martyr
St. Lawrence taught the Roman prmetor. Sir, would you know
what the remonstrance of these men would have, what their
petition implies? They entreat us that we would not be weary
of those insupportable grievances that our shoulders have hitherto
cracked under; they beseech us that we would think them fit
to be our justices of peace, our lords, our highest officers of state,
though they come furnished with no more experience than they




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


105


learnt between the cook and the manciple, or more profoundly
at the college audit or the regent house, or to come to their
deepest insight, at their patron's table. They would request us to
endure still the rustling of their silken cassocks, and that we
would burst our midriffs rather than laugh to see them under
sail in all their lawn and sarcenet, their shrouds and tackle, with
a geometrical rhomboides upon their heads. They would bear us
in hand that we must of duty still appear before them once a
year in Jerusalem, like good circumcised males and females, to
be taxed by the poll, to be sconced our head-money, our twopences, in their chandlerly shopbook of Easter.  They pray us
that it would please us to let them still hale us and worry us
with their bandogs and pursuivants; and that it would please
the Parliament that they may yet have the whipping, fleecing,
and flaying of us in their diabolical courts, to tear the flesh from
our bones, and into our wide wounds instead of balm, to pour
in the oil of tartar, vitriol, and mercury: surely, a right reasonable, innocent, and soft-hearted petition. Oh, the relenting bowels
of the fathers! Can this be granted them, unless God have
smitten us with frenzy from above, and with a dazzling giddiness
at noonday? Should not those men rather be heard that come
to plead against their own preferments, their worldly advantages,
their own abundance, for honour and obedience to God's word,
the conversion of souls, the Christian peace of the land, and
union of the Reformed Catholic Church, the unappropriating and
unmonopolizing the rewards of learning and industry from the
greasy clutch of ignorance and high feeding? We have tried
already, and miserably felt what ambition, worldly glory, and
immoderate wealth, can do; what the boisterous and contradictional hand of a temporal, earthly, and corporeal spirituality
can avail to the edifying of Christ's holy Church. Were it such a
desperate hazard to put to the venture the universal votes of
Christ's congregation, and fellowly and friendly yoke of a teaching and laborious ministry, the pastorlike and apostolic imitation of meek and unlordly discipline, the gentle and benevolent
mediocrity of church-maintenance, without the ignoble hucksterage




Io6


GOD AND MAN.


of piddling tithes? Were it such an incurable mischief to make
a little trial, what all this would do to the flourishing and growing
up of Christ's mystical body, as rather to use every poor shift,
and if that serve not, to threaten uproar and combustion, and
shake the brand of civil discord?
Oh, Sir, I do now feel myself inwrapped on the sudden 'into
those mazes and labyrinths of dreadful and hideous thoughts,
that which way to get out, or which way to end, I know not,
unless I turn mine eyes, and with your help lift up my hands
to that eternal and propitious throne, where nothing is readier
than grace and refuge to the distresses of mortal suppliants: and
it were a shame to leave these serious thoughts less piously than
the heathen were wont to conclude their graver discourses.
Thou, therefore, that sittest in light and glory unapproachable,
Parent of angels and men; next, thee I implore, omnipotent
King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose nature thou didst
assume, ineffable and everlasting Love; and thou, the third
subsistence of divine infinitude, illumining Spirit, the joy and
solace of created things: one Tripersonal Godhead! look upon
this thy poor and almost spent and expiring church, leave her not
thus a prey to these importunate wolves, that wait and think long
till they devour thy tender flock; these wild boars that have broke
into thy vineyard, and left the print of their polluting hoofs on the
souls of thy servants. Oh, let them not bring about their damned
designs, that stand now at the entrance of the bottomless pit,
expecting the watchword to open and let out those dreadful
locusts and scorpions, to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of
infernal darkness where we shall never more see the sun of thy
truth again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear
the bird of morning sing. Be moved with pity at the afflicted
state of this our shaken monarchy, that now lies labouring under
her throes, and struggling against the grudges of more dreaded.
calamities I
O Thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five bloody inundations, and the succeeding sword of intestine war, soaking the land
il her own gore, didst pity the sad and ceaseless revolution of our




OF REFORMATION IN ENGLAND.


I07


swift and thick-coming sorrows; when we were quite breathless,
of thy free grace didst motion peace, and terms of covenant with
us; and having first well nigh freed us from antichristian thraldom,
didst build up this Britannic empire to a glorious and enviable
height, with all her daughter-islands about her; stay us in this
felicity, let not the obstinacy of our half-obedience and willworship bring forth that viper of sedition, that for these fourscore
years hath been breeding to eat through the entrails of our peace!
But let her cast her abortive spawn without the danger of this
travailing and throbbing kingdom: that we may still remember
in our solemn thanksgivings, how for us, the northern ocean even
to the frozen Thule was scattered with the proud shipwrecks of
the Spanish armada, and the very maw of hell ransacked, and
made to give up her concealed destruction, ere she could vent it
in that horrible and damned blast.
Oh, how much more glorious will those former deliverances
appear, when we shall know them not only to have saved us from
greatest miseries past, but to have reserved us for greatest happiness to come! Hitherto Thou hast but freed us, and that not
fully, from the unjust and tyrannous claim of thy foes; now unite
us entirely, and appropriate us to thyself, tie us everlastingly in
willing homage to the prerogative of thy eternal throne.
And now we know, 0 Thou our most certain hope and defence,
that thine enemies have been consulting all the sorceries of the
great whore, and have joined their plots with that sad intelligencing
tyrant that mischiefs the world with his mines of Ophir, and lies
thirsting to revenge his naval ruins that have larded our seas: but
let them all take counsel together, and let it come to nought; let
them decree, and do thou cancel it; let them gather themselves,
and be scattered; let them embattle themselves, and be broken;
let them embattle, and be broken, for Thou art with us.
Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one
may perhaps be hea.rd offering at high strains in new and lofty
measure to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvellous
judgments in this land throughout all ages; whereby this great
and warlike nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and




Io8


GOD AND MAN.


continual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting far from
her the rags of her whole vices, may press on hard to that high
and happy emulation to be found the soberest, wisest, and most
Christian people, at that day when Thou, the eternal and shortly
expected King, shalt open the clouds to judge the several kingdoms
of the world, and distributing national honours and rewards to
religious and just commonwealths, shalt put an end to all earthly
tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal and mild monarchy through
heaven and earth; where they undoubtedly that by their labours
counsels and prayers have been earnest for the common good of
religion and their country, shall receive above the inferior orders
of the blessed, the regal addition of principalities, legions, and
thrones into their glorious titles, and in supereminence of beatific
vision, progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity,
shall clasp inseparable hands with joy and bliss in overmeasure
for ever.
But they, contrary, that by the impairing and diminution of the
true faith, the distresses and servitude of their country, aspire to
high dignity, rule, and promotion here, after a shameful end in
this life (which God grant them), shall be thrown down eternally
into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell, where, under the despiteful control, the trample and spurn of all the other damned,
that in the anguish of their torture shall have no other ease than
to exercise a raving and bestial tyranny over them as their slaves
and negroes, they shall remain in that plight for ever, the basest,
the lowermost, the most dejected, most underfoot, and downtrodden vassals of perdition.




THE


REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT
URGED AGAINST PRELACY.
IN TWO BOOKS., 4
THE FIRST BOOK.
THE PREFACE.
IN the publishing of human laws, which for the most part aim
not beyond the good of civil society, to set them barely forth to
the people without reason or preface, like a physical prescript, or
only with threatenings, as it were a lordly command, in the judgment of Plato was thought to be done neither generously nor
wisely. His advice was, seeing that persuasion certainly is a more
winning and more manlike way to keep men in obedience than fear,
that to such laws as were of principal moment, there should be used
as an induction some well-tempered discourse, shewing how good,
how gainful, how happy it must needs be to live according to
honesty and justice; which being uttered with those native colours
and graces of speech, as true eloquence, the daughter of virtue,
can best bestow upon her mother's praises, would so incite, and
in a manner charm, the multitude into the love of that which is
really good, as to embrace it ever after, not of custom and awe,
which most men do, but of choice and purpose, with true and
constant delight. But this practice we may learn from a better
and more ancient authority than any heathen writer hath to give
us; and indeed being a point of so high wisdom and worth, how




IIO


GOD AND MAN.


could it be but we should find it in that book, within whose
sacred context all wisdom is unfolded? Moses, therefore, the I
only lawgiver that we can believe to have been visibly taught of I
God, knowing how vain it was to write laws to men whose hearts
were not first seasoned with the knowledge of God and of his
works, began from the book of Genesis, as a prologue to his laws;
which Josephus right well hath noted: that the nation of the
Jews, reading therein the universal goodness of God to all creatures in the creation, and his peculiar favour to them in his
election of Abraham, their ancestor, from whom they could
derive so many blessings upon themselves, might be moved to
obey sincerely, by knowing so good a reason of their obedience.\
If then, in the administration of civil justice, and under the
obscurity of ceremonial rites, such care was had by the wisest of
the heathen, and by Moses among the Jews, to instruct them at
least in a general reason of that Government to which their subjection was required; how much more ought the members of the
Church, under the Gospel, seek to inform their understanding in
the reason of that Government which the Church claims to have
over them. Especially for that Church hath in her immediate
cure those inner parts and affections of the mind where the seat of
reason is, having power to examine our spiritual knowledge and
to demand from us, in God's behalf, a service entirely reasonable. Ij
But because about the manner and order of this Government, whether it ought to be presbyterial or prelatical, such
endless question, or rather uproar, is arisen in this land as may
be justly termed what the fever is to the physicians, the eternal
reproach of our divines; whilst other profound clerks of late,
greatly, as they conceive, to the advancement of prelaty, are so
earnestly meting out the Lydian proconsular Asia, to make good
the prime metropolis of Ephesus, as if some of our prelates in all
haste meant to change their soil, and become neighbours to the
English bishop of Chalcedon; and whilst good Brerewood as
busily bestirs himself in our vulgar tongue, to divide precisely
the three patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and
whether to any of these England doth belong: I shall in the




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


III


meanwhile not cease to hope through the mercy and grace of
Christ, the head and husband of his Church, that England shortly
is to belong, neither to see patriarchal nor see prelatical, but to
the faithful feeding and disciplining of that ministerial order, which
the blessed Apostles constituted throughout the Churches; and
this, I shall essay to prove, can be no other than that of presbyters
and deacons. And if any man incline to think I undertake a
task too difficult for my years, I trust through the supreme enlightening assistance far otherwise; for my years, be they few or
many, what imports it? So they bring reason, let that be looked
on. And for the task, from hence, that the question in hand is so
needful to be known at this time, chiefly by every meaner capacity, and contains in it the explication of many admirable and
heavenly privileges reached out to us by the Gospel, I conclude
the task must be easy: God having to this end ordained his
Gospel to be the revelation of his power and wisdom in Christ
Jesus. And this is one depth of his wisdom, that he could so
plainly reveal so great a measure of it to the gross distorted apprehension of decayed mankind. Let others, therefore, dread
and shun the Scriptures for their darkness; I shall wish I may deserve to be reckoned among those who admire and dwell upon them
for their clearness. And this seems to be the cause why in those
places of Holy Writ wherein is treated of Church Government the
reasons thereof are not formally and professedly set down, because
to him that heeds attentively the drift and scope of Christian
profession they easily imply themselves; which thing further to
explain, having now prefaced enough, I shall no longer defer.
CHAPTER I.
Tihat Church Government is prescribed in the Goslel; and that to
say otherwise is unsound.
THE first and greatest Reason of Church Government we may
securely, with the assent of many on the adverse part, affirm to
be, because we find it so ordained and set out to us by the




II2


GOD AND MAN.


appointment of God in the Scriptures; but whether this be
presbyterial, or prelatical, it cannot be brought to the scanning
until I have said what is meet to some who do not think it for
the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant that Church
Discipline is platformed in the Bible, but that it is left to the discretion of men. To this conceit of theirs I answer, that it is both
unsound and untrue; for there is not that thing in the world of
more grave and urgent importance throughout the whole life of
man, than is Discipline. What need I instance?  He that hath
read with judgment, of nations and commonwealths, of cities and
camps, of peace and war, sea and land, will readily agree that the
flourishing and decaying of all civil societies, all the moments
and turnings of human occasions, are moved to and fro as upon
the axle of Discipline. So that whatsoever power or sway in
mortal things weaker men have attributed to Fortune, I durst
with more confidence (the honour of Divine Providence ever
saved) ascribe either to the vigour or the slackness of Discipline.
Nor is there any sociable perfection in this life, civil or sacred,
that can be above Discipline  but she is that which with her
musical cords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together7
Hence in those perfect armies of Cyrus in Xenophon, and Scipio
in the Roman stories, the excellence of military skill was esteemed,
not by the not needing, but by the readiest submitting to the
edicts of their commander. And certainly Discipline is not only
the removal of disorder but, if any visible shape can be given
to divine things, the very visible shape and image of Virtue,
whereby she is not only seen in the regular gestures and motions
of her heavenly paces as she walks, but also makes the harmony
of her voice audible to mortal ears. Yea, the angels themselves,
in whom no disorder is feared, as the Apostle that saw them in
his rapture describes, are distinguished and quaternioned into
their celestial princedoms and satrapies, according as God himself has writ his imperial decrees through the great provinces of
heaven. The state also of the blessed in Paradise, though never
so perfect, is not therefore left without Discipline, whose golden
surveying reed marks out and measures every quarter and circuit




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


1I3


of New Jerusalem.l Yet is it not to be conceived, that those
eternal effluences of sanctity and love in the glorified saints should
by this means be confined and cloyed with repetition of that
which is prescribed, but that our happiness may orb itself into a
thousand vagancies of glory and delight, and with a kind of
eccentrical equation be, as it were, an invariable planet of joy
and felicity; how much less can we believe that God would leave
his frail and feeble, though not less beloved Church here below,
to the perpetual stumble of conjecture and disturbance in this
our dark voyage, without the card and compass of Discipline?
1W-hich is so hard to be of man's making, that we may see even
in the guidance of a civil state to worldly happiness, it is not
for every learned or every wise man, though many of them con!sult in common, to invent or frame a Discipline. But if it be at ali
the work of man, it must be of such a one as is a true knower of
himself, and in whom contemplation and practice, wit, prudence,
fortitude, and eloquence, must be rarely met, both to comprehend
the hidden causes of things and span in his thoughts all the
various effects that passion or complexion can work in man's
nature. And hereto must his hand be at defiance with gain, and
his heart in all virtues heroic; so far is it from the ken of these
wretched projectors of ours that bescrawl their pamphlets every
day with new forms of government for our Church. And therefore all the ancient lawgivers were either truly inspired, as Moses,
or were such men as with authority enough might give it out
to be so, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, because they wisely forethought that men would never quietly submit to such a Discipline as had not more of God's hand in it than man's. To come
within the narrowness of household government, observation will
shew us many deep counsellors of state and judges to demean
themselves incorruptly in the settled course of affairs, and many
worthy preachers upright in their lives, powerful in their audience:
but look upon either of these men where they are left to their
own disciplining at home, and you shall soon perceive, for all
their single knowledge and uprightness, how deficient they are
in the regulating of their own family; not only in what may con.
H




II4


GOD AND MAN.


cern the virtuous and decent composure of their minds in their
several places, but, that which is of a lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the outward vessel, their body, in
health or sickness, rest or labour, diet or abstinence, whereby to
render it more pliant to the soul, and useful to the commonwealth: which if men were but as good to discipline themselves,
as some are to tutor their horses and hawks, it could not be so
gross in most households. If then it appear so hard, and so
little known, how to govern a house well, which is thought of so
easy discharge and for every man's undertaking, what skill of
man, what wisdom, what parts can be sufficient to give laws and
ordinances to the elect household of God? If we could imagine
that He had left it at random without his provident and gracious
ordering, who is he so arrogant, so presumptuous, that durst
*dispose and guide the living ark of the Holy Ghost, though he
should find it wandering in the field of Bethshemesh, without the
conscious warrant of some high calling? But no profane insolence can parallel that which our prelates dare avouch, to drive
outrageously, and shatter the holy ark of the Church, not borne
upon their shoulders with pains and labour in the Word, but
drawn with rude oxen, their officials, and their own brute inventions. Let them make shows of reforming while they will, so
long as the Church is mounted upon the prelatical cart, and not,
as it ought, between the hands of the ministers, it will but shake
and totter: and he that sets to his hand, though with a good
intent to hinder the shogging of it, in this unlawful waggonry
wherein it rides, let him beware it be not fatal to him, as it was
to Uzza. Certainly if God be the Father of his family the Church,
wherein could he express that name more, than in training it up
under his own all-wise and dear economy, not turning it loose to
the havoc of strangers and wolves that would ask no better plea
than this, to do in the church of Christ whatever humour, faction,
policy, or licentious will would prompt them to? Again, if Christ
be the church's Husband, expecting her to be presented before
him a pure unspotted virgin; in what could he shew his tender
love to her more than in prescribing his own ways, which he best




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


Ix5


knew would be to the improvement of her health and beauty,
with much greater care doubtless than the Persian king could
appoint for his queen Esther those maiden dietings and set prescriptions of baths and odours, which may render her at last more
amiable to his eye? For of any age or sex, most unfitly may a
virgin be left to an uncertain and arbitrary education.  Yea,
though she be well instructed, yet is she still under a more
strait tuition, especially if betrothed. In like manner the Church
bearing the same resemblance, it were not reason to think she
should be left destitute of that care which is as necessary and
proper to her as instruction. For public preaching indeed is the
gift of the Spirit, working as best seems to his secret will; but
Discipline is the practic work of preaching directed and applied, as
is most requisite, to particular duty; without which it were all
one to the benefit of souls, as it would be to the cure of bodies,
if all the physicians in London should get into the several pulpits
of the city, and assembling all the diseased in every parish, should
begin a learned lecture of pleurisies, palsies, lethargies, to which
perhaps none there present were inclined; and so, without so
much as feeling one pulse, or giving the least order to any skilful
apothecary, should dismiss them from time to time, some groaning, some languishing, some expiring, with this only charge, to
look well to themselves, and do as they hear. Of what excellence
and necessity then Church Discipline is, how beyond the faculty of
man to frame, and how dangerous to be left to man's invention,
who would be every foot turning it to sinister ends; how properly
also it is the work of God as Father and of Christ as Husband of
the Church, we have by thus much heard.
CHAPTER II.
That Church Government is set down in Holy Scripture; and
that to say otherwise is unhtue,
As therefore it is unsound to say, that God hath not appointed
any set Government in his Church, so it is untrue. Of the time




I I6


GOD AND MAN.


of the Law there can be no doubt; for to let pass the first institution of priests and Levites, which is too clear to be insisted upon,
when the temple came to be built, which in plain judgment could
breed no essential change, either in religion or in the priestly
government; yet God, to shew how little he could endure that
men should be tampering and contriving in his worship, though
in things of less regard, gave to David for Solomon not only a
pattern and model of the temple, but a direction for the courses
of the priests and Levites, and for all the work of their service.
At the return from the captivity, things were only restored after
the ordinance of Moses and David; or if the least alteration be
to be found, they had with them inspired men, prophets; and it
were not sober to say they did aught of moment without divine
intimation. In the prophecy o%( Ezekiel, from the fortieth chapter
onward, after the destruction of the temple, God, by his prophet,
seeking to wean the hearts of the Jews from their Old Law, to
expect a new and more perfect reformation under Christ, sets out
before their eyes the stately fabric and constitution of his Church,
with all the ecclesiastical functions appertaining: indeed the description is as sorted best to the apprehension of those times,
typical and shadowy, but in such manner as never yet came to
pass, nor ever must literally, unless we mean to annihilate the
Gospel. But so exquisite and lively the description is in portraying the new state of the Church, and especially in those points
where government seems to be most active, that both Jews and
Gentiles might have good cause to be assured, that God, whenever he meant to reform the Church, never intended to leave the
government thereof, delineated here in such curious architecture,
to be patched afterwards and varnished over with the devices
and embellishings of man's imagination.  Did God take such
delight in measuring out the pillars, arches, and doors of a
material temple? Was he so punctual and circumspect in lavers,
altars, and sacrifices soon after to be abrogated, lest any of these
should have been made contrary to his mind? Is not a far more
perfect work, more agreeable to his perfections, in the most perfect
state of the Church Militant, the new alliance of God to Man?




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


II7


Should not he rather now by his own prescribed I)iscipline have
cast his line and level upon the Soul of Man, which is his rational
temple, and, by the divine square and compass thereof, form and
regenerate in us the lovely shapes of virtues and graces, the
sooner to edify and accomplish that immortal stature of Christ's
Body, which is his Church, in all her glorious lineaments and proportions? And that this indeed God hath done for us in the
Gospel we shall see with open eyes not under a veil. We may
pass over the history of the Acts and other places, turning only to
those epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and T'itus, where the spiritual
eye may discern, more goodly and gracefully erected than all the
magnificence of temple or tabernacle, such a heavenly structure of
Evangelical Discipline, so diffusive of knowledge and charity to the
prosperous increase and growth of the Church, that it cannot be
wondered if that elegant and artful symmetry of the promised new
temple in Ezekiel, and all those sumptuous things under the law,
were made to signify the inward beauty and splendour of the
Christian Church thus governed.  And whether this be commanded, let it now be judged. St. Paul, after his preface to the
first of Timothy, which he concludes in the 17th verse with Amen,
enters upon the subject of this epistle, which is to establish the
Church Government, with a command: "This charge I commit
to thee, son Timothy; according to the prophecies which went
before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare."
Which is plain enough thus expounded: This charge I commit
to thee, wherein I now go about to instruct thee how thou shalt
set up Church Discipline, that thou mightest war a good warfare,
bearing thyself constantly and faithfully in the ministry, which, in
the first to the Corinthians, is also called a warfare. And so, after
a kind of parenthesis concerning Hymenreus, he returns to his
command, though under the mild word of exhorting, chap. ii.
ver. I, " I exhort therefore; " as if he had interrupted his former
command by the occasional mention of Hymenzeus. SIore
beneath in the I4th verse of the third chapter, when he had
delivered the duties of bishops or presbyters, and deacons, not
once naming any other order in the church, he thus adds'1




I I8


GOD AND MAAN.


"These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee
shortly;-such necessity it seems there was;-but if I tarry long,
that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the
House of God." From this place it may be justly asked, Whether
Timothy, by this here written, might know what was to be known
concerning the orders of Church Governors or no? If he might,
-then, in such a clear text as this, may we know too without
further jangle. If he might not,-then did St. Paul write insufficiently, and moreover said not true, for he saith here he might
know; and I persuade myself he did know ere this was written,
but that the apostle had more regard to the instruction of us
than to the informing of him. In the fifth chapter, after some
other Church-precepts concerning Discipline, mark what a dreadful command follows, ver. 2I: "I charge thee before God and
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe
these things." And as if all were not yet sure enough, he closes up
the epistle with an adjuring charge thus: " I give thee charge in
the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ
Jesus, that thou keep this commandment:" that is, the old commandment concerning Discipline, being the main purpose of the
epistle: although Hooker would fain have this denouncement
referred to the particular precept going before, because the word
commandment is in the singular number, not remembering that
even in the first chapter of this epistle the word commandment
is used in a plural sense, ver. 5: "Now the end of the commandment is charity;" and what more frequent than in like
manner to say the law of Moses? So that either to restrain the
significance too much, or too much to enlarge it, would make
the adjuration either not so weighty or not so pertinent. And
thus we find here that the rules of Church Discipline are not only
commanded, but hedged about with such a terrible impalement of
commands, as he that will break through wilfully to violate the
least of them must hazard the wounding of his conscience even
unto death. Yet all this notwithstanding, we shall find them
broken well-nigh all by the fair pretenders of the next ages; no
less to the contempt of him whom they feign to be the archfounder




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNIMENT.


I I9


of prelaty, St. Peter, who, by what he writes in the fifth chapter
of his first epistle, should seem to be far another man than tradition reports him. There he commits to the presbyters only full
authority both of feeding the flock and episcopating, and commands that obedience be given to them as to the mighty hand of
God, which is his mighty ordinance. Yet all this was as nothing
to repel the venturous boldness of innovation that ensued, changing the decrees of God that are immutable, as if they had been
breathed by man. Nevertheless, when Christ, by these visions of
St. John, foreshews the Reformation of his Church, he bids him
take his reed and mete it out again after the first pattern, for he
prescribes no other. "Arise," said the angel, "and measure the
temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein."
What is there in the world can measure men but Discipline?
Our word ruling imports no less. Doctrine indeed is the measure,
or at least the reason of the measure, it is true; but unless the
measure be applied to that which it is to measure, how can it
actually do its proper work? Whether therefore Discipline be all
one with Doctrine, or the particular application thereof to this or
that person, we all agree that Doctrine must be such only as is
commanded; or whether it be something really differing from
Doctrine, yet was it only of God's appointment, as being the most
adequate measure of the Church and her children, which is here
the office of a great evangelist, and the reed given him from
heaven. But that part of the temple which is not thus measured,
so far is it from being in God's tuition or delight, that in the
following verse he rejects it; however in show and visibility it may
seem a part of His Church, yet inasmuch as it lies thus unmeasured,
he leaves it to be trampled by the Gentiles, that is, to be polluted
with idolatrous and gentilish rites and ceremonies. And that
the principal Reformation here foretold is already come to pass,
as well in Discipline as in Doctrine, the state of our neighbour
Churches affords us to behold. Thus, through all the periods and
changes of the Church, it hath been proved, that God hath still
reserved to himself the right of enacting Church Government.




120


GOD AND MAN.


CHAPTER III.
That it is dangerous and unworthy the Gospel, to hold that Church
Government is to be patterned by the Law, as Bishop Andrewes
and the Primate of Armagh maintain.
WE may return now from this interposing difficulty thus removed
to affirm, that since Church Government is so strictly commanded
in God's word, the first and greatest Reason why we should submit
thereto is, because God hath so commanded.7 But whether of
these two, prelaty or presbytery, can prove itself to be supported
by this first and greatest Reason, must be the next dispute; wherein
this position is to be first laid down as granted, that I may not
follow a chase rather than an argument, that one of these two,
and none other, is of God's ordaining; and if it be, that ordinance
must be evident in the Gospel. For the imperfect and obscure
institution of the Law, which the Apostles themselves doubt not
ofttimes to vilify, cannot give rules to the complete and glorious
ministration of the Gospel, which looks on the Law as on a child,
not as on a tutor. And that the prelates have no sure foundation
in the Gospel, their own guiltiness doth manifest; they would not
else run questing up as high as Adam to fetch their original, as it
is said one of them lately did in public. To which assertion, had
I heard it, because I see they are so insatiable of antiquity, I
should have gladly assented, and confessed them yet more ancient:
for Lucifer, before Adam, was the first prelate angel; and both
he, as is commonly thought, and our forefather Adam, as we all
know, for aspiring above their orders, were miserably degraded.
But others, better advised, are content to receive their beginning
from Aaron and his sons, among whom bishop Andrewes of late
years, and in these times the primate of Armagh, for their learning
are reputed the best able to say what may be said in this opinion.
The primate, in his discourse about the original of episcopacy
newly revised, begins thus: " The ground of episcopacy is fetched
partly from the pattern prescribed by God in the Old Testament,




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


121


and partly from the imitation thereof brought in by the Apostles."
Herein I must entreat to be excused of the desire I have to be
satisfied, how, for example, the ground of episcopacy is fetched
partly from the example of the Old Testament, by whom next,
and by whose authority. Secondly, how the Church Government
under the Gospel can be rightly called an imitation of that in the
Old Testament; for that the Gospel is the end and fulfilling of
the Law, our liberty also from the bondage of the Law, I plainly
read. How then the ripe age of the Gospel should be put to
school again, and learn to govern herself from the infancy of the
Law,-the stronger to imitate the weaker, the freeman to follow the
captive, the learned to be lessoned by the rude,-will be a hard
undertaking to evince from any of those principles which either
art or inspiration hath written. If anything done by the Apostles
may be drawn howsoever to a likeness of something Mosaical, if
it cannot be proved that it was done of purpose in imitation, as
having the right thereof grounded in nature and not in ceremony
or type, it will little avail the matter. The whole Judaic Law is
either political-and to take pattern by that, no Christian nation
ever thought itself obliged in conscience-or moral, which contains
in it the observation of whatsoever is substantially and perpetually
true and good, either in religion or course of life. That which is
thus moral, besides what we fetch from those unwritten laws and
ideas which nature hath engraven in us, the Gospel, as stands
with her dignity most, lectures to her from her own authentic
handwriting and command, not copies out from the borrowed
manuscript of a subservient scroll, by way of imitating: as well
might she be said, in her sacrament of water, to imitate the
baptism of John. What though she retain excommunication
used in the synagogue, retain the morality of the sabbath. She
does not therefore imitate the Law, her underling, but perfect her.
All that was morally delivered from the Law to the Gospel, in the
office of the priests and Levites, was, that there should be a
ministry set apart to teach and discipline the Churcht) both which
duties the Apostles thought good to commit to the presbyters.
And if any distinction of honour were to be made among them,




I22


GOD AND MAN.


they directed it should be to those not that only rule well, but
especially to those that labour in the word and doctrine. By
which we are told that laborious teaching is the most honourable
prelaty that one minister can have above another in the gospel.
If, therefore, the superiority of bishopship be grounded on the
priesthood as a part of the moral law, it cannot be said to be
an imitation; for it were ridiculous that morality should imitate
morality, which ever was the same thing. This very word of
patterning or imitating excludes episcopacy from the solid and
grave ethical law, and betrays it to be a mere child of ceremony,
or likelier some misbegotten thing that, having plucked the gay
feathers of her obsolete bravery to hide her own deformed barrenness, now vaunts and glories in her stolen plumes. In the meanwhile, what danger there is against the very life of the Gospel, to
make in anything the typical Law her pattern, and how impossible
in that which touches the priestly government, I shall use such
light as I have received to lay open. It cannot be unknown by
what expressions the holy Apostle St. Paul spares not to explain
to us the nature and condition of the Law, calling those ordinances
which were the chief and essential offices of the priests, the
elements and rudiments of the world, both weak and beggarly.
Now to breed and bring up the Children of the Promise, the
heirs of liberty and grace, under such a kind of government as
is professed to be but an imitation of that ministry which engendered to bondage the sons of Agar, how can this be but a
foul injury and derogation, if not a cancelling of that birthright
and immunity which Christ hath purchased for us with his blood?
For the ministration of the Law, consisting of carnal things, drew
to it such a Ministry as consisted of carnal respects, dignity, precedence, and the like. And such a Ministry established in the
Gospel, as is founded upon the points and terms of superiority,
and nests itself in worldly honours, will draw to it, and we see it
doth, such a religion as runs back again to the old pomp and
glory of the flesh: for doubtless there is a certain attraction and
magnetic force betwixt the religion and the ministerial form
thereof. [f the Religion be pure, spiritual, simple, and lowly, as




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


123


the Gospel most truly is, such must the face of the Ministry be.)
And in like manner, if the form of the Ministry be grounded in
the worldly degrees of authority, honour, temporal jurisdiction,
we see with our eyes it will turn the inward power and purity of
the Gospel into the outward carnality of the Law; evaporating and
exhaling the internal worship into empty conformities and gay
shews. And what remains then, but that we should run into as
dangerous and deadly apostasy as our lamentable neighbours the
papists, who, by this very snare and pitfall of imitating the ceremonial Law, fell into that irrecoverable superstition, as must needs
make void the covenant of salvation to them that persist in this
blindness?
CHAPTER IV.
That it is inpfossible to make the Priesthood of Aaron a Pattern
wzhereon to ground Episcopacy.
THAT which was promised next is, to declare the impossibility of
grounding evangelic government in the imitation of the Jewish
priesthood; which will be done by considering both the quality
of the persons and the office itself. Aaron and his sons were
the princes of their tribe, before they were sanctified to the
priesthood: that personal eminence, which they held above the
other Levites, they received not only from their office, but partly
brought it into their office; and so from that time forward the
priests were not chosen out of the whole number of the Levites,
as our bishops, but were born inheritors of the dignity. Therefore, unless we shall choose our prelates only out of the nobility,
and let them run in a blood, there can be no possible imitation
of lording over their brethren, in regard of their persons altogether
unlike. As for the office, which was a representation of Christ's
own person more immediately in the high-priest, and of his
whole priestly office in all the other, to the performance of which
the Levites were but as servitors and deacons, it was necessary
there should be a distinction of dignity between two functions




T24                 GOD AND MAN.
of so great odds. But there being no such difference among our
ministers, unless it be in reference to the deacons, it is impossible
to found a prelaty upon the imitation of this priesthood: for
wherein, or in what work, is the office of a prelate excellent above
that of a pastor? In ordination, you will say; but flatly against
Scripture: for there we know Timothy received ordination by the
hands of the presbytery, notwithstanding all the vain delusions
that are used to evade that testimony and maintain an unwarrantable usurpation. But wherefore should ordination be a cause of
setting up a superior degree in the church? Is not that whereby
Christ became our Saviour a higher and greater work, than that
whereby he did ordain messengers to preach and publish him
our Saviour? Every Minister sustains the person of Christ in his
highest work of communicating to us the mysteries of our salvation, and hath the power of binding and absolving. How should
he need a higher dignity, to represent or execute that which is
an inferior work in Christ? Why should the performance of
ordination, which is a lower office, exalt a prelate, and not the
seldom discharge of a higher and more noble office, which is
preaching and administering, much rather depress him? Verily,
neither the nature nor the example of ordination doth any way
require an imparity between the ordainer and the ordained; for
what more natural than every like to produce his like, man to
beget man, fire to propagate fire? And in examples of highest
opinion the ordainer is inferior to the ordained; for the pope is
not made by the precedent pope, but by cardinals, who ordain
and consecrate to a higher and greater office than their own.
CHAPTER V.
To /he Argumen/s of Bislhof Andreies and the Primate.
IT follows here to attend to certain objections in a little treatise
lately printed among others of like sort at Oxford, and in the
title said to be out of the rude draughts of bishop Andrewes. And




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


125


surely they be rude draughts indeed, insomuch that it is marvel
to think what his friends meant, to let come abroad such shallow
reasonings with the name of a man so much bruited for learning.
In the twelfth and twenty-third pages he seems most notoriously
inconstant to himself. For in the former place he tells us he forbears to take any argument of prelaty from Aaron, as being the
type of Christ: in the latter he can forbear no longer, but repents him of his rash gratuity, affirming, that to say, Christ being
come in the flesh his figure in the high-priest ceaseth, is the
shift of an anabaptist; and stiffly argues that Christ being as well
king as priest, was as well foreresembled by the kings then as by
the high-priest: so that if his coming take away the one type,
it must also the other. Marvellous piece of divinity, and well
worth that the land should pay six thousand pounds a year for in
a bishopric! Although I read of no sophister among the Greeks
that was so dear, neither Hippias nor Protagoras, nor any whom
the Socratic school famously refuted without hire. Here we
have the type of the king sewed to the tippet of the bishop,
subtlety to cast a jealousy upon the crown, as if the right of
kings, like Meleager in the Metamorphosis, were no longer-lived
than the firebrand of prelaty. But more likely the prelates, fearing-for their own guilty carriage protests they do fear-that their
fair days cannot long hold, practise by possessing the king with
this most false doctrine, to engage his power for them as in his
own quarrel, that when they fall they may fall in a general ruin;
just as cruel Tiberius would wish:
"When I die let the earth be rolled in flames."
But where, 0 bishop, doth the purpose of the Law set forth
Christ to us as a king? That which never was intended in the
Law can never be abolished as part thereof. When the Law was
made, there was no king: if before the Law, or under the Law,
God by a special type in any king would foresignify the future
kingdom of Christ, which is not yet visibly come, what was that
to the Law? The whole ceremonial Law (and types can be in
no law else) comprehends nothing but the propitiatory office of




126


GOD AND MAN.


Christ's priesthood, which being in substance accomplished, both
Law and priesthood fades away of itself, and passes into air like
a transitory vision, and the right of kings neither stands by any
type nor falls. We acknowledge that the civil magistrate wears
an authority of God's giving, and ought to be obeyed as his
vicegerent. But to make a king a type, we say, is an abusive
and unskilful speech, and of a moral solidity makes it seem a
ceremonial shadow: therefore your typical chain of king and
priest must unlink. But is not the type of priest taken away by
Christ's coming? No, saith this famous Protestant bishop of
Winchester, it is not; and he that saith it is, is an Anabaptist.
What think ye, readers?  Do ye not understand him?    What
can be gathered hence, but that the prelate would still sacrifice?
Conceive him, readers: he would missificate.  Their altars, indeed, were in a fair forwardness: and by such arguments as
these they were setting up the molten calf of their mass again,
and of their great hierarch the pope. For if the type of priest
be, and that one can be no less than a pope. And this doubtless was the bent of his career, though never so covertly. Yea,
but there was something else in the high-priest besides the figure,
as is plain by St. Paul's acknowledging him. It is true that in the
seventeenth of Deuteronomy, whence this authority arises to the
priest in matters too hard for the secular judges, as must needs
be many in the occasions of those times, involved so with ceremonial niceties, no wonder though it be commanded to inquire
at the mouth of the priests who, besides the magistrates their
colleagues, had the oracle of Urim to consult with. And whether
the high-priest Ananias had not encroached beyond the limits of
his priestly authority, or whether he used it rightly, was no time
then for St. Paul to contest about. But if this instance be able
to assert any right of jurisdiction to the clergy, it must impart it
in common to all ministers, since it were a great folly to seek for
counsel in a hard intricate scruple from a dunce prelate, when
there might be found a speedier solution from a grave and




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


127


learned minister, whom God hath gifted with the judgment of
Urim, more amply ofttimes than all the prelates together; and
now in the Gospel hath granted the privilege of this oraculous
ephod alike to all his ministers. The reason, therefore, of iraparity in the priests, being now, as is aforesaid, really annulled
both in their person and in their representative office, what right
of jurisdiction soever can be from this place Levitically bequeathed must descend upon the ministers of the Gospel equally,
as it finds them in all other points equal. Well, then, he is
finally content to let Aaron go; Eleazar will serve his turn, as
being a superior of superiors, and yet no type of Christ in Aaron's
lifetime. 0 thou that wouldest wind into any figment or phantasm, to save thy mite! yet all this will not fadge, though it be
cunningly interpolished by some second hand with crooks and
emendations. Hear, then, the type of Christ in some one particular, as of entering yearly into the holy of holies, and such-like,
rested upon the high-priest only as more immediately personating
our Saviour: but to resemble his whole satisfactory office, all the
lineage of Aaron was no more than sufficient. And all or any of
the priests, considered separately without relation to the highest,
are but as a lifeless trunk, and signify nothing. And this shews
the excellence of Christ's sacrifice, who at once and in one
person fulfilled that which many hundreds of priests many times
repeating had enough to foreshew. What other imparity there
was among themselves, we may safely suppose it depended on
the dignity of their birth and family, together with the circumstances of a carnal service, which might afford many priorities.
And this I take to be the sum of what the bishop hath laid
together to make plea for prelaty by imitation of the Law: though,
indeed, if it may stand, it will infer popedom all as well. Many
other courses he tries, enforcing himself with much ostentation
of endless genealogies, as if he were the man that St. Paul forewarns us of in Timothy; but so unvigorously, that I do not fear
his winning of many to his cause but such as, doting upon great
names, are either over-weak or over-sudden of faith. I shall not
refuse, therefore, to learn so much prudence as I find in the




128


GOD AND MAN.


Roman soldier that attended the cross, not to stand breaking of
legs when the breath is quite out of the body, but pass to that
which follows. The primate of Armagh, at the beginning of his
tractate, seeks to avail himself of that place in the sixty-sixth of
Isaiah, "I will take of them for priests and Levites, saith the
Lord," to uphold hereby such a form of superiority among the
Ministers of the Gospel, succeeding those in the Law, as the Lord'sday did the sabbath. But certain if this method may be admitted
of interpreting those prophetical passages concerning Christian
times and punctual correspondence, it may with equal probability
be urged upon us, that we are bound to observe some monthly
solemnity answerable to the new moons, as well as the Lord'sday which we keep in lieu of the sabbath: for in the 23rd verse
the prophet joins them in the same manner together, as before
he did the priests and Levites, thus: "And it shall come to pass
that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord." Undoubtedly, with as good consequence may it be
alleged from hence that we are to solemnize some religious
monthly meeting different from the sabbath, as from the other
any distinct formality of ecclesiastical orders may be inferred.
This rather will appear to be the lawful and unconstrained sense
of the text, that God, in taking of them for priests and Levites,
will not esteem them unworthy, though Gentiles, to undergo any
function in the Church, but will make of them a full and perfect
ministry, as was that of the priests and Levites in their kind.
And bishop Andrewes himself, to end the controversy, sends us a
candid exposition of this quoted verse from the twenty-fourth page
of his said book, plainly deciding that God, by those legal names
there of priests and Levites, means our presbyters and deacons;
for which either ingenuous confession, or slip of his pen, we give
him thanks, and withal to him that brought these treatises into
one volume, who, setting the contradictions of two learned men
so near together, did not foresee. What other deducements or
analogies are cited out of St. Paul, to prove a likeness between
the ministers of the Old and New Testament, having tried their




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


129


sinews, I judge they may pass without harm-doing to our
cause.
WVe may remember, then, that prelaty neither hath nor can have
foundation in the Law, nor yet in the Gospel; which assertion, as
being for the plainness thereof a matter of eyesight rather than
of disquisition, I voluntarily omit; not forgetting to specify this
note again, that the earnest desire which the prelates have to
build their hierarchy upon the sandy bottom of the Law, gives us
to see abundantly the little assurance which they find to rear up
their high roofs by the authority of the Gospel, repulsed as it were
from the writings of the Apostles, and driven to take sanctuary
among the Jews. Hence that open confession of the primate
before mentioned: " Episcopacy is fetched partly from the pattern
of the Old Testament, and partly from the New, as an imitation
of the Old;" though nothing can be more rotten in divinity than
such a position as this, and is all one as to say, Episcopacy is
partly of divine institution, and partly of man's own carving.
For who gave the authority to fetch more from the pattern of
the Law, than what the apostles had already fetched, if they
fetched anything at all, as hath been proved they did not? So
was Jeroboam's episcopacy partly from the pattern of the Law,
and partly from the pattern of his own carnality; a party-coloured
and a party-membered episcopacy: and what can this be less
than a monstrous? Others therefore among the prelates, perhaps
not so well able to brook, or rather to justify, this foul relapsing
to the Old Law, have condescended at last to a plain confessing,
that both the names and offices of bishops and presbyters at
first were the same, and in the Scriptures nowhere distinguished.
This grants the Remonstrant in the fifth section of his Defence,
and in the preface to his last short Answer. But what need
respect be had whether he grant it or grant it not, whenas through
all antiquity, and even in the loftiest times of prelaty, we find it
granted? Jerome, the learnedest of the fathers, hides not his
opinion, that custom only, which the proverb calls a tyrant, was
the maker of prelaty. Before his audacious workmanship the
churches were ruled in common by the presbyters; and such a
I




130                  GOD AND MAN.
certain truth this was esteemed, that it became a decree among
the papal canons compiled by Gratian. Anselm also, of Canterbury, who, to uphold the points of his prelatism, made himself a
traitor to his country, yet, commenting the epistles to Titus and
the Philippians, acknowledges, from the clearness of the text,
what Jerome and the Church rubric hath before acknowledged.
He little dreamed then that the weeding-hook of Reformation
would after two ages pluck up his glorious poppy from insulting
over the good corn. Though since, some of our British prelates,
seeing themselves pressed to produce-Scripture, try all their
cunning, if the New Testament will not help them, to frame of
their own heads, as it were with wax, a kind of mimic bishop
limned out to the life of a dead priesthood: or else they would
strain us out a certain figurative prelate, by wringing the collective
allegory of those seven angels into seven single rochets. Howsoever, since it thus appears that custom was the creator of prelaty,
being less ancient than the government of presbyters, it is an
extreme folly to give them the hearing that tell us of bishops
through so many ages. And if against their tedious muster of
citations, sees, and successions, it be replied that wagers and
church antiquities, such as are repugnant to the plain dictate of
Scripture, are both alike the arguments of fools, they have their
answer. We rather are to cite all those ages to an arraignment
before the Word of God, wherefore, and what pretending, how
presuming, they durst alter that divine institution of presbyters,
which the Apostles, who were no various and inconstant men,
surely had set up in the Churches; and why they choose to live
by custom and catalogue, or, as St. Paul saith, by sight and
visibility, rather than by faith? But, first, I conclude, from their
own mouths, that God's command in Scripture, which doubtless
ought to be the first and greatest Reason of Church Government,is wanting to prelaty. And certainly we have plenteous warrant
in the doctrine of Christ, to determine that the want of this Reason
is of itself sufficient to confute all other pretences that may be
brought in favour of it.




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


131


CHAPTER VI.
That Prelaty ewas not set u for Preventionl of Schism, as is pretenlded,; or if it were, that it petforms not what it was first
set ltp for, but quite the contrary.
YET because it hath the outside of a specious reason, and
specious things we know are aptest to work with human lightness
and frailty even against the solidest truth that sounds not plausibly, let us think it worth the examining, for the love of infirmer
Christians, of what importance this their second Reason may be.
QTradition they say hath taught them, that, for the Prevention of I
growing Schism, the bishop was heaved above the presbyter.)
And must tradition then ever thus to the world's end be the
perpetual cankerworm to eat out God's commandments? Are his
decrees so inconsiderate and so fickle, that when the statutes of
Solon or Lycurgus shall prove durably good to many ages, his, in
forty years, shall be found defective, ill-contrived, and for needful
causes to be altered? Our Saviour and his Apostles did not only
foresee, but foretell and forewarn us to look for Schism. Is it
a thing to be imagined of God's wisdom, or at least of apostolic
prudence, to set up such a government in the tenderness of the
Church, as should incline, or not be more able than any others to
oppose itself to Schism? It was well known what a bold lurker
Schism was, even in the household of Christ, between his own
disciples and those of John the Baptist, about fasting; and early
in the Acts of the Apostles the noise of Schism had almost drowned
the proclaiming of the Gospel; yet we read not in Scripture that
any thought was had of making prelates, no, not in those places
where dissension was most rife.   If prelaty had been then
esteemed a remedy against Schism, where was it more needful
than in that great variance among the Corinthians, which St.
Paul so laboured to reconcile? and whose eye could have found
the fittest remedy sooner than his? And what could have made
the remedy more available, than to have it speedily? And, lastly,




132


GOD AND MAN.


what could have been more necessary, than to have written it for
our instruction? Yet we see he neither commended it to us, nor
used it himself. For the same division remaining there, or else
bursting forth again more than twenty years after St. Paul's
death, we find in Clement's epistle, of venerable authority, written
to the yet factious Corinthians, that they were still governed by
presbyters. And the same of other churches out of Hermas, and
divers other the scholars of the Apostles, by the late industry
of the learned Salmasius appears. Neither yet did this worthy
Clement, St. Paul's disciple, though writing to them to lay aside
Schism, in the least word advise them to change the presbyterian
government into prelaty. And therefore, if God afterward gave
or permitted this insurrection of episcopacy, it is to be feared he
did it in his wrath, as lie gave the Israelites a king. With so good
a will doth he use to alter his own chosen government once established? For mark wihether this rare device of man's brain, thus
preferred before the ordinance of God, had better success than
fleshly wisdom, not counselling with God, is wont to have. So
far was it from removing Schism, that if Schism parted the congregations before, now it rent and mangled, now it raged. Heresy
begat heresy with a certain monstrous haste of pregnancy in
her birth, at once born and bringing forth. Contentions, before
brotherly, were now hostile. Men went to choose their bishop
as they went to a pitched field, and the day of his election was
like the sacking of a city, sometimes ended with the blood of
thousands. Nor this among heretics only, but men of the same
belief, yea, confessors; and that with such odious ambition, that
Eusebius, in his eighth book, testifies he abhorred to write. And
the reason is not obscure, for the poor dignity, or rather burden,
of a parochial presbyter could not engage any great party, nor
that to any deadly feud: but prelaty was a power of that extent
and sway, that if her election were popular, it was seldom not the
cause of some faction or broil in the Church. But if her dignity
came by favour of some prince, she was from that time his
creature, and obnoxious to comply with his ends in state, were
they right or wrong. So that, instead of finding prelaty an




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMNIENT.


r33


impeacher of Schism or faction, the more I search, the more I
grow into all persuasion to think rather that faction and she, as
with a spousal ring, are wedded together, never to be divorced.
But here let every one behold the just and dreadful judgment of
God meeting with the audacious pride of man, that durst offer to
mend the ordinances of heaven. God, out of the strife of men,
brought forth by his Apostles to the Church that beneficent and
ever-distributing office of deacons, the stewards and ministers of
holy alms. Man, out of the pretended care of peace and unity,
being caught in the snare of his impious boldness to correct
the will of Christ, brought forth to himself upon the Church
that irreconcilable Schism of perdition and apostasy, the Roman
Antichrist; for that the exaltation of the pope arose out of the
reason of prelaty, it cannot be denied. And as I noted before,
that the pattern of the high-priest pleaded for in the gospel,-for
take away the head priest, the rest are but a carcass-sets up with
better reason a pope than an archbishop; for if prelaty must still
rise and rise till it come to a primate, why should it stay there?
Whenas the catholic government is not to follow the division of
kingdoms, the Temple best representing the universal Church, and
the high-priest the universal head: so I observe here, that if to
quiet Schism there must be one head of prelaty in a land, or
monarchy, rising from a provincial to a national primacy, there
may, upon better grounds of repressing Schism, be set up one
catholic head over the catholic church. For the peace and
zgood of the Church is not terminated in the schismless estate
of one or two kingdoms, but should be provided for by the
joint consultation of all Reformed Christendom: that all controversy may end in the final pronounce or canon of one archprimate or Protestant Pope: although by this means, for aught
I see, all the diameters of Schism may as well meet and be knit
up in the centre of one grand falsehood. Now let all impartial
men arbitrate what goodly inference these two main Reasons of
the prelates have, that by a natural league of consequence make
more for the pope than for themselves; yea, to say more home,
are the very womb for a new Subantichrist to breed in, if it be




134


GOD AND MAN.


not rather the old force and power of the same Man of Sin counterfeiting Protestant. It was not the Prevention of Schism, but it
was Schism itself, and the hateful thirst of lording in the Church,
that first bestowed a being upon prelaty; this was the true cause,
but the pretence is still the same. The prelates, as they would
have it thought, are the only mauls of Schism. Forsooth, if they
be put down, a deluge of innumerable sects will follow; we shall
be all Brownists, Familists, Anabaptists. For the word Puritan
seems to be quashed, and all that heretofore were counted such
are now Brownists. And thus do they raise an evil report upon
the expected reforming grace that God hath bid us hope for; like
those faithless spies, whose carcasses shall perish in the wilderness
of their own confused ignorance, and never taste the good of
Reformation. Do they keep away Schism? If to bring a numb
and chill stupidity of soul, an unactive blindness of mind, upon
the people by their leaden doctrine or no doctrine at all; if to
persecute all knowing and zealous Christians by the violence of
their courts, be to keep away Schism, they keep Schism away
indeed: and by this kind of Discipline all Italy and Spain is as
purely and politicly kept from Schism as England hath been by
them. With as good a plea might the dead-palsy boast to a man,
It is I that free you from stitches and pains, and the troublesome
feeling of cold and heat, of wounds and strokes: if I were gone,
all these would molest you. The winter might as well vaunt itself
against the spring, I destroy all noisome and rank weeds, I keep
down all pestilent vapours. Yes, and all wholesome herbs, and all
fresh dews, by your violent and hide-bound frost: but when the
gentle west winds shall open the fruitful bosom of the earth, thus
overgirded by your imprisonment, then the flowers put forth and
spring, and then the sun shall scatter the mists, and the manuring
hand of the tiller shall root up all that burdens the soil without
thank to your bondage. But far worse than any frozen captivity
is the bondage of prelates: for that other, if it keep down anything which is good within the earth, so doth it likewise that
which is ill; but these let out freely the ill, and keep down the
good, or else keep down the lesser ill, and let out the greatest.




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


Be ashamed at last to tell the parliament ye curb Schismatics,
whenas they know ye cherish and side with papists, and are now
as it were one party with them, and it is said they help to petition
for ye. Can we believe that your government strains in good
earnest at the petty gnats of Schism, whenas we see it makes
nothing to swallow the camel heresy of Rome, but that indeed
your throats are of the right pharisaical strain? Where are those
schismatics, with whom the prelates hold such hot skirmish?
Shew us your acts, those glorious annals which your courts of
loathed memory lately deceased have left us? Those Schismatics
I doubt me will be found the most of them such as whose only
Schism was to have spoken the truth against your high abominations and cruelties in the Church; this is the Schism  ye
hate most, the removal of your criminous hierarchy. A politic
government of yours, and of a pleasant conceit, set up to remove
those as a pretended Schism, that would remove you as a palpable
heresy in government. If the Schism would pardon ye that, she
might go jagged in as many cuts and slashes as she pleased for
you. As for the rending of the Church, we have many reasons
to think it is not that which ye labour to prevent, so much as
the rending of your pontifical sleeves. That Schism would be the
sorest Schism to you; that would be Brownism and Anabaptism
indeed. If we go down, say you,-as if Hadrian's wall were
broken,-a flood of sects will rush in. What sects? What are
their opinions? Give us the inventory. It will appear both by
your former prosecutions and your present instances, that they
are only such, to speak of, as are offended with your lawless
government, your ceremonies, your liturgy, an extract of the
mass-book translated. But that they should be contemners of
public prayer, and churches used without superstition, I trust
God will manifest it ere long to be as false a slander as your
former slanders against the Scots. Noise it till ye be hoarse,
that a rabble of Sects will come in; it will be answered ye, No
rabble, Sir Priest; but an unanimous multitude of good Protestants will then join to the Church, which now, because of you,
stand separated. This will be the dreadful consequence of your




136


GOD AND MAN.


removal. As for those terrible names of sectaries and schismatics,
which ye have got together, we know your manner of fight. When
the quiver of your arguments, which is ever thin and weakly
stored, after the first brunt is quite empty, your course is to
betake ye to your other quiver of slander, wherein lies your best
archery. And whom you could not move by sophistical arguing,
them you think to confute by scandalous nisnaming; thereby
inciting the blinder sort of people to mislike and deride sound
doctrine and good Christianity, under two or three vile and
hateful terms. But if we could easily endure and dissolve your
doughtiest reasons in argument, we shall more easily bear the
worst of your unreasonableness in calumny and false report:
especially being foretold by Christ, that if he, our master, were by
your predecessors called Samaritan and Beelzebub, we must not
think it strange if his best disciples in the Reformation, as at first
by those of your tribe they were called Lollards and Hussites, so
now by you be termed Puritans and Brownists. But my hope is,
that the people of England will not suffer themselves to be juggled
thus out of their faith and religion by a mist of names cast before
their eyes, but will search wisely by the Scriptures, and look quite
through this fraudulent aspersion of a disgraceful name into the
things themselves: knowing that the primitive Christians in their
times were accounted such as are now called Familists and
Adamites, or worse. LAnd many on the prelatic side, like the
church of Sardis, have a name to live, and yet are dead; to be
Protestants, and are indeed papists in most of their principles.)
Thus persuaded, this your old fallacy we shall soon unmask, and
quickly apprehend how you prevent Schism, and who are your
Schismatics. But what if we prevent and hinder all good means of
preventing Schism? That way which the Apostles used, was to call
a Council: from which, by anything that can be learned from the
fifteenth of the Acts, no faithful Christian was debarred to whom
knowledge and piety might give entrance. Of such a Council as this
every parochial consistory is a right homogeneous and constituting
part, being in itself, as it were, a little synod, and towards a General
Assembly moving upon her own basis in an even and firm pro



THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I37


gression, as those smaller squares in battle unite in one great
cube, the main phalanx, an emblem of truth and steadfastness.
Whereas, on the other side, prelaty ascending by a gradual
monarchy from bishop to archbishop, from thence to primate,
and from thence-for there can be no reason yielded neither in
nature nor in religion, wherefore, if it have lawfully mounted thus
high, it should not be a lordly ascendant in the horoscope of the
Church —from primate to patriarch, and so to pope: I say, prelaty
thus ascending in a continual pyramid upon pretence to perfect
the Church's unity, if notwithstanding it be found most needful,
yea, the utmost help to darn up the rents of Schism by calling a
Council, what does it but teach us that prelaty is of no force to
effect this work, which she boasts to be her masterpiece; and
that her pyramid aspires and sharpens to ambition, not to perfection or unity? This we know, that as often as any great Schism
disparts the Church, and synods be proclaimed, the presbyters
have as great right there, and as free vote of old, as the bishops,
which the canon law conceals not. So that prelaty, if she will
seek to close up divisions in the Church, must be forced to
dissolve and unmake her own pyramidal figure, which she affirms
to be of such uniting power, whenas indeed it is the most dividing
and schismatical form that geometricians know of, and must he
fain to inglobe or incube herself among the presbyters. Which
she hating to do, sends her haughty prelates from all parts with
their forked mitres,-the badge of Schism, or the stamp of his
cloven foot whom they serve, I think,-who, according to their
hierarchies acuminating still higher and higher in a cone of
prelaty, instead of healing up the gashes of the Church, as it
happens in such pointed bodies meeting, fall to gore one another
with their sharp spires for upper place and precedence, till the
Council itself proves the greatest Schism of all. And thus they
are so far from hindering dissension, that they have made unprofitable, and even noisome, the chiefest remedy we have to keep
Christendom at one, which is by Councils: and these, if we
rightly consider apostolic example, are nothing else but general
presbyteries. This seemed so far from the Apostles to think much




138


GOD AND MAN.


of, as if hereby their dignity were impaired, that, as we may
gather by those epistles of Peter and John which are likely to
be latest written when the Church grew to a settling, like those
heroic patricians of Rome (if we may use such comparison)
hastening to lay down their dictatorship, they rejoiced to call
themselves and to be as fellow-elders among their brethren;
knowing that their high office was but as the scaffolding of the
Church yet unbuilt, and would be but a troublesome disfigurement,
so soon as the building was finished. But the lofty minds of an
age or two after, such was their small discerning, thought it a poor
indignity, that the high-reared government of the Church should
so on a sudden, as it seemed to them, squat into a presbytery.
Next, or rather, before Councils, the timeliest Prevention of
Schism is to preach the Gospel abundantly and powerfully throughout all the land, to instruct the youth religiously, to endeavour
how the Scriptures may be easiest understood by all men; to all
which the proceedings of these men have been on set purpose
contrary. But how, 0 prelates, should you remove Schism, and
how should you not remove and oppose all the means of removing Schism, when prelaty is a Schism itself from the most reformed and most flourishing of our neighbour Churches abroad,
and a sad subject of discord and offence to the whole nation at
home. The remedy which you allege is the very disease we
groan under, and never can be to us a remedy but by removing
itself. Your predecessors were believed to assume this preeminence above their brethren, only that they might appease
dissension. Now God and the Church call upon you, for the
same reason, to lay it down, as being to thousands of good
men offensive, burdensome, intolerable. Surrender that pledge,
which, unless you foully usurped it, the Church gave you, and
now claims it again, for the reason she first lent it. Discharge
the trust committed to you, prevent Schism; and that yve can
never do, but by discharging yourselves, That government
which ye hold, we confess, prevents much, hinders much,
removes much.   But what? The schisms and grievances of
the Church? No, but all the peace and unity, all the welfare




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I39


not of the Church alone, but of the whole kingdom, and
if it be still permitted ye to hold, will cause the most sad,
I know not whether separation be enough to say, but such
a wide gulf of distraction in this land, as will never close her
dismal gap until ye be forced,-for of yourselves you will never do
as that Roman, Curtius, nobly did,-for the Church's peace and
your country's, to leap into the midst, and be no more seen. By
this we shall know whether yours be that ancient prelaty, which
you say was first constituted for the reducement of quiet and unanimity into the Church, for then you will not delay to prefer that
above your own preferment. If otherwise, we must be confident
that your prelaty is nothing else but your ambition, an insolent
preferring of yourselves above your brethren; and all your learned
scraping in antiquity, even to disturb the bones of old Aaron and
his sons in their graves, is but to maintain and set upon our necks
a stately and severe dignity, which you call sacred, and is nothing
in very deed but a grave and reverend gluttony, a sanctimonious
avarice; in comparison of which, all the duties and dearnesses
which ye owe to God or to His Church, to law, custom, or nature,
ye have resolved to set at nought. I could put you in mind what
counsel Clement, a fellowlabourer with the Apostles, gave to the
presbyters of Corinth, whom the people, though unjustly, sought
to remove. "Who among you," saith he, " is noble-minded, who
is pitiful, who is charitable? let him say thus, If for me this
sedition, this enmity, these differences be, I willingly depart, I go
my ways; only let the flock of Christ be at peace with the presbyters that are set over it. He that shall do this," saith he, " shall
get him great honour in the Lord, and all places will receive him."
This was Clement's counsel to good and holy men, that they
should depart rather from their just office, than by their stay to
ravel out the seamless garment of concord in the Church.
But I have better counsel to give the prelates, and far more acceptable to their ears; this advice in my opinion is fitter for them:
Cling fast to your pontifical sees, bate not, quit yourselves like
barons, stand to the utmost for your haughty courts and votes in
parliament. Still tell us. that you prevent Schism, though Schism




140


GOD AND MAN.


and combustion be the very issue of your bodies, your first-born;
and set your country a-bleeding in a prelatical mutiny, to fight for
your pomp, and that ill-favoured weed of temporal honour that
sits dishonourably upon your laic shoulders; that ye may be fat
and fleshy, swoln with high thoughts and big with mischievous
designs, when God comes to visit upon you all this fourscore
years' vexation of His Church under your Egyptian tyranny. For
certainly of all those blessed souls which you have persecuted,
and those miserable ones which you have lost, the just vengeance
does not sleep.
CHAPTER VII.
That those many Sects and Schisms by some supposed to be among
us, and that Rebellion in Ireland, ought not to be a Hindrance,
but a Hastening of Reformation.
As for those many sects and divisions rumoured abroad to be
amongst us, it is not hard to perceive, that they are partly the
mere fictions and false alarms of the prelates, thereby to cast
amaczements and panic terrors into the hearts of weaker Christians,
that they should not venture to change the present deformity of
the Church, for fear of I know not what worse inconveniencies.
With the same objected fears and suspicions, we know that
subtle prelate Gardiner sought to divert the Reformation. It may
suffice us to be taught by St. Paul, that there must be sects for
the manifesting of those that are sound-hearted. These are but
winds and flaws to try the floating vessel of our faith, whether it
be staunch and sail well, whether our ballast be just, our anchorage
and cable strong. By this is seen who lives by faith and certain
knowledge, and who by credulity and the prevailing opinion of
the age; whose virtue is of an unchangeable grain, and whose of
a slight wash. If God come to try our constancy, we ought
not to shrink or stand the less firmly for that, but pass on with
more steadfast resolution to establish the truth, though it were
through a lane of sects and heresies on each side. Other things




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


141


men do to the glory of God: but sects and errors, it seems, God
suffers to be for the glory of good men, that the world may know and
reverence their true fortitude and undaunted constancy in the truth.
Let us not therefore make these things an incumbrance, or an excuse of our delay in reforming, which God sends us as an incitement
to proceed with more honour and alacrity. For if there were no A
opposition, where were the trial of an unfeigned goodness and
magnanimity? Virtue that wavers is not virtue, but vice revolted
from itself, and after a while returning. The actions of just and
pious men do not darken in their middle course; but Solomon tells
us, they are as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto
the perfect day.  But if we shall suffer the trifling doubts and
jealousies of future sects to overcloud the fair beginnings of' purposed Reformation, let us rather fear that another proverb of the
same wise man be not upbraided to us, that "the way of the
wicked is as darkness; they stumble at they know not what."' If
sects and schisms be turbulent in the unsettled estate of a Cht rch,
while it lies under the amending hand, it best beseems our
Christian courage to think they are but as the throes and pangs
that go before the birth of Reformation, and that the work itself
is now in doing. For if we look but on the nature of elemental
and mixed things, we know they cannot suffer any change of one
kind or quality into another, without the struggle of contrarieties.
And in things artificial, seldom any elegance is wrought without
a superfluous waste and refuse in the transaction. No marble
statue can be politely carved, no fair edifice built, without almost
as much rubbish and sweeping.   Insomuch that even in the
spiritual conflict of St. Paul's conversion, there fell scales from
his eyes, that were not perceived before. No wonder then, in
the Reforming of a Church, which is never brought to effect without the fierce encounter of truth and falsehood together, if, as it
were the splinters and shards of so violent a jousting, there fall
from between the shock many fond errors and fanatic opinions,
which, when truth has the upper hand and the Reformation shall
be perfected, will easily be rid out of the way or kept so low as
that they shall be only the exercise of our knowledge, not the




142


GOD AND MAN.


disturbance or interruption of our faith. As for that which
Barclay, in his " Image of Minds,"' writes concerning the horrible
and barbarous conceits of Englishmen in their Religion, I deem
it spoken like what lie was, a fugitive papist traducing the island
whence he sprung. It may be more judiciously gathered from
hence, that the Englishman, of many other nations, is least
atheistical, and bears a natural disposition of much reverence
and awe towards the Deity. But in his weakness and want of
better instruction, which among us too frequently is neglected,
especially by the meaner sort, turning the bent of his own wits
with a scrupulous and ceaseless care what he might do to inform
himself aright of God and His Worship, he may fall not unlikely
sometimes, as any other landman, into an uncouth opinion. And
verily if we look at his native towardliness in the roughcast without breeding, some nation or other may haply be better composed
to a natural civility and right judgment than he; but if he get
the benefit once of a wise and well-rectified nurture, which must
first come in general from the godly vigilance of the Church, I
suppose that wherever mention is made of countries, manners, or
men, the English People, among the first that shall be praised,
may deserve to be accounted a right pious, right honest, and right
hardy nation.  But thus while some stand dallying and deferring
to reform for fear of that which should mainly hasten them
forward, lest Schism and error should increase, we may now
thanr: ourselves and our delays if instead of Schism a bloody
and inhuman Rebellion be struck in between our slow movings.
Indeed against violent and powerful opposition there can be no
just blame of a lingering dispatch. But this I urge against those
that discourse it for a maxim, as if the swift opportunities of
establishing or reforming religion were to attend upon the phlegm
of state-business. In state many things at first are crude and
hard to digest, which only time and deliberation can supple and
concoct. But in religion, wherein is no immaturity, nothing out
of season, it goes far otherwise. The door of grace turns upon
smooth hinges, wide opening to send out but soon shutting to recall
the precious offers of mercy to a nation: which, unless watchful



THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


143


ness and zeal, two quick-sighted and ready-handed virgins, be
there in our behalf to receive, we lose: and still the oftener we
lose, the straiter the door opens, and the less is offered. This
is all we get by demurring in God's service. It is not Rebellion
that ought to be the hindrance of Reformation, but it is the
want of this which is the cause of that. The prelates which boast
themselves the only bridlers of Schism, God knows, have been
so cold and backward both there and with us to repress heresy
and idolatry, that, either through their carelessness or their
craft, all this mischief is befallen. What can the Irish subjects do less in God's just displeasure against us, than revenge
upon English bodies the little care that our prelates have had of
their souls? Nor hath their negligence been new in that island,
but ever notorious in Queen Elizabeth's days, as Camden, their
known friend, forbears not to complain. Yet so little are they
touched with remorse of these their cruelties-for these cruelties
are theirs, the bloody revenge of those souls which they have
famished,-that whenas against our brethren the Scots, who, by
their upright and loyal deeds, have now brought themselves an
honourable name to posterity, whatsoever malice slander could
invent, rage in hostility attempt, they greedily attempted, toward
these murderous Irish, the enemies of God and mankind, a cursed
offspring of their own connivance, no man takes notice but that
they seem to be very calmly and indifferently affected. Where
then should we begin to extinguish a Rebellion that hath its
cause from the misgovernment of the Church? where, but at the
Church's Reformation, and the removal of that government which
pursues and wars with all good Christians under the name of
schismatics, but maintains and fosters all papists and idolaters
as tolerable Christians? And if the sacred Bible may be our
light, we are neither without example. nor the witness of God
himself, that the corrupted estate of the Church is both the cause
of tumult and civil wars, and that to stint them, the peace of the
Church must first be settled. "Now, for a long season," saith
Azariah to King Asa, "Israel hath been without the true God,
and without a teaching priest, and without law: and in those




T44


GOD AND MAN.


times there was no peace to him that went out, nor to him that
came in, but great vexations were upon all the inhabitants of the
countries. And nation was destroyed of nation, and city of city,
for God did vex them with all adversity. Be ye strong therefore,"
saith he to the Reformers of that age, " and let not your hands be
weak, for your work shall be rewarded." And in those prophets
that lived in the times of Reformation after the Captivity, often
doth God stir up the people to consider, that while establishment
of Church matters was neglected and put off, there "viwas no
peace to him that went out or came in; for I," saith God, "had
set all men every one against his neighbour." But from the very
day forward that they went seriously and effectually about the
welfare of the Church, he tells them, that they themselves might
perceive the sudden change of things into a prosperous and
peaceful condition. But it will here be said, that the Reformation is a long work, and the miseries of Ireland are urgent of a
speedy redress. They be indeed; and how speedy we are, the
poor afflicted remnant of our martyred countrymen that sit there
on the sea-shore, counting the hours of our delay with their sighs
and the minutes with their falling tears, perhaps with the distilling
of their bloody wounds, if they have not quite by this time cast
off and almost cursed the vain hope of our foundered ships and
aids, can best judge how speedy we are to their relief But let
their succours be hasted, as all need and reason is; and let not
therefore the Reformation, which is the chiefest cause of success
and victory, be still procrastinated. They of the Captivity in
their greatest extremities could find both counsel and hands
enough at once to build, and to expect the enemy's assault. And
we, for our parts, a populous and mighty nation, must needs be
fallen into a strange plight either of effeminacy or confusion, if
Ireland, that was once the conquest of one single earl with his
private forces and the small assistance of a petty Kernish prince,
should now take up all the wisdom and prowess of this potent
monarchy to quell a barbarous crew of rebels, whom if we take
but the right course to subdue, that is, beginning at the Reformation of our Church, their own horrid murders and rapes will so




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I45


fight against them, that the very sutlers and horse-boys of the
camp will be able to rout and chase them, without the staining
of any noble sword. To proceed by other method in this enterprise, be our captains and commanders never so expert, will be
as great an error in the art of war, as any novice in soldiership
ever committed. And thus I leave it as a declared truth, that
neither the fear of sects, no, nor rebellion, can be a fit plea to
stay Reformation, but rather to push it forward with all possible
diligence and speed.
THE SECOND BOOK.
How happy were it for this frail, and as it may be called mortal
life of man, since all earthly things which have the name of
good and convenient in our daily use, are withal so cumbersome and full of trouble, if knowledge, yet which is the best
and lightsomest possession of the mind, were, as the common
saying is, no burden; and that what it wanted of being a load to
any part of the body, it did not with a heavy advantage overlay
upon the spirit. For not to speak of that knowledge that rests
in the contemplation of natural causes and dimensions, which
must needs be a lower wisdom, as the object is low, certain it is,
that he who hath obtained in more than the scantiest measure to
know anything distinctly of God, and of his true worship, and
what is infallibly good and happy in the state of man's life, what
in itself evil and miserable, though vulgarly not so esteemed, he
that hath obtained to know this, the only high valuable wisdom
indeed, remembering also that God, even to a strictness, requires
the improvement of these his entrusted gifts, cannot but sustain
a sorer burden of mind, and more pressing, than any supportable
toil or weight which the body can labour under, how and in what
manner he shall dispose and employ those sums of knowledge
and illumination which God hath sent him into this world to
trade with. And that which aggravates the burden more is, that,
K




I46


GOD AND MAN.


-having received amongst his allotted parcels certain precious
truths, of such an orient lustre as no diamond can equal, which
nevertheless he has in charge to put off at any cheap rate, yea,
for nothing to them that will; the great merchants of this world,
fearing that this course would soon discover and disgrace the false
glitter of their deceitful wares, wherewith they abuse the people,
like poor Indians with beads and glasses, practise by all means
how they may suppress the vending of such rarities and at such
a cheapness as would undo them, and turn their trash upon their
hands. Therefore by gratifying the corrupt desires of men in
fleshly doctrines, they stir them up to persecute with hatred and
contempt all those that seek to bear themselves uprightly in this
their spiritual factory. Which they foreseeing, though they cannot
but testify of truth, and the excellency of that heavenly traffic
which they bring against what opposition or danger soever, yet
needs must it sit heavily upon their spirits, that being, in God's
prime intention and their own, selected heralds of peace and
dispensers of treasure inestimable, without price, to them that
have no peace, they find in the discharge of their commission,
that they are made the greatest variance and offence, a very sword
and fire both in house and city over the whole earth. This is
that which the sad prophet Jeremiah laments: " Wo is me, my
mother, that thou hast borne me, a man of strife and contention!"
And although divine inspiration must certainly have been sweet
to those ancient prophets, yet the irksomeness of that truth which
they brought was so unpleasant unto them, that everywhere they
call it a burden. Yea, that mysterious book of Revelation, which
the great evangelist was bid to eat, as it had been some eyebrightening electuary of knowledge and foresight, though it were
sweet in his mouth and in the learning, it was bitter in his belly,
bitter in the denouncing. Nor was this hid from the wise poet
Sophocles, who in that place of his tragedy where Tiresias is
called to resolve king CEdipus in a matter which he knew would
be grievous, brings him in bemoaning his lot, that he knew more
than other men. For surely to every good and peaceable man,
it must in nature needs be a hateful thing to be the displeaser




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENTT.


147


and molester of thousands; much better would it like him doubtless to be the messenger of gladness and contentment, which is
his chief intended business to all mankind, but that they resist
and oppose their own true happiness. But when God commands
to take the trumpet, and blow a dolorous or a jarring blast, it lies
not in man's will what he shall say, or what he shall conceal. If
he shall think to be silent, as Jeremiah did, because of the re)roach and derision he met with daily, "And all his familiar
friends watched for his halting," to be revenged on him for speaking the truth, he would be forced to confess as he confessed:
"His word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my
bones; I was weary with forbearing, and could not stay." Which
might teach these times not suddenly to condemn all things
that are sharply spoken or vehemently written as proceeding out
of stomach, virulence, and ill-nature; but to consider rather,
that if the prelates have leave to say the worst that can be
said, or do the worst that can be done, while they strive to
keep to themselves, to their great pleasure and commodity,
those things which they ought to render up, no man can be
justly offended with him that shall endeavour to impart and bestow, without any gain to himself, those sharp but saving words
which would be a terror and a torment in him to keep back.
For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and
solace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest
liberty of free speech from my youth, where I shall think it available in so dear a concernment as the Church's good. For if I be,
either by disposition or what other cause, too inquisitive or
suspicious of myself and mine own doings, who can help it? But
this I foresee, that should the Church be brought under heavy
oppression, and God have given me ability the while to reason
against that man that should be the author of so foul a deed; or
should she, by blessing from above on the industry and courage
of faithful men, change this her distracted estate into better days,
without the least furtherance or contribution of those few talents,
which God at that present had lent me: I foresee what stories I
should hear within myself, all my life after, of discourage and




148


GOD AND MAN.


reproach. Timorous and ungrateful, the Church of God is now
again at the foot of her insulting enemies, and thou bewailest.
What matters it for thee, or thy bewailing? When time was, thou
couldst not find a syllable of all that thou hast read, or studied,
to utter in her behalf. Yet ease and leisure was given thee for
thy retired thoughts, out of the sweat of other men. Thou hast
the diligence, the parts, the language of a man, if a vain subject
were to be adorned or beautified; but when the cause of God
and His Church was to be pleaded, for which purpose that tongue
was given thee which thou hast, God listened if he could hear thy
voice among his zealous servants, but thou wert dumb as a beast:
from henceforward be that which thine own brutish silence hath
made thee. Or else I should have heard on the other ear:
Slothful, and ever to be set light by, the Church hath now overcome her late distresses after the unwearied labours of many her
true servants that stood up in her defence; thou also wouldst
take upon thee to share amongst them of their joy: but wherefore
thou? Where canst thou shew any word or deed of thine which
might have hastened her peace? Whatever thou dost now talk,
or write, or look, is the alms of other men's active prudence and
zeal. Dare not now to say or do anything better than thy former
sloth and infancy; or if thou darest, thou dost impudently to
make a thrifty purchase of boldness to thyself, out of the painful
merits of other men; what before was thy sin is now thy duty, to
be abject and worthless. These, and suchlike lessons as these, I
know would have been my matins duly, and my even-song. But
now by this little diligence, mark what a privilege I have gained
with good men and saints, to claim my right of lamenting the
tribulations of the Church, if she should suffer, when others, that
have ventured nothing for her sake, have not the honour to be
admitted mourners. But if she lift up her drooping head and
prosper, among those that have something more than wished her
welfare, I have my charter and freehold of rejoicing to me and
my heirs. Concerning therefore this wayward subject against
prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful and disquietous to
a number of men, as by what hath been said I may deserve of




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I49


charitable readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall hath
entered me upon this controversy, but the enforcement of conscience only, and a preventive fear lest the omitting of this duty
should be against me, when I would store up to myself the good
provision of peaceful hours. So, lest it should be still imputed to
me, as I have found it hath been, that some self-pleasing humour
of vain-glory hath incited me to contest with men of high estimation, now while green years are upon my head, from this needless surmisal I shall hope to dissuade the intelligent and equal
auditor, if I can but say successfully that which in this exigent
behoves me; although I would be heard only, if it might be, by
the elegant and learned reader, to whom principally for a while I
shall beg leave I may address myself. To him it will be no new
thing, though I tell him that if I hunted after praise, by the
ostentation of wit and learning, I should not write thus out of
mine own season when I have neither yet completed to my mind
the full circle of my private studies, although I complain not
of any insufficiency to the matter in hand, or were I ready to
my wishes, it were a folly to commit anything elaborately composed
to the careless and interrupted listening of these tumultuous
times. Next, if I were wise only to my own ends, I would certainly take such a subject as of itself might catch applause, whereas
this hath all th, disadvantages on the contrary; and such a subject /
as the publishing whereof might be delayed at pleasure, and time I
enough to pencil it over with all the curious touches of art, even
to the perfection of a faultless picture: whenas in this argument /
the not deferring is of great moment to the good speeding, that i
if solidity have leisure to do her office, art cannot have much.
Lastly, I should not choose this manner of writing, wherein
knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of
nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of
my left hand. And though I shall be foolish in saying more to
this purpose, yet, since it will be such a folly as wisest men go
about to commit, having only confessed and so committed, I may
trust with more reason, because with more folly, to have courteous
pardon.  For although a poet, soaring in the high reason of his




ISO


GOD AND MAN.


fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him, might,
without apology, speak more of himself than I mean to do; yet
-      for me sitting here below in the cool element of prose, a mortal
thing among many readers of no empyreal conceit, to venture
and divulge unusual things of myself, I shall petition to the
gentler sort, it may not be envy to me. I must say, therefore,
that after I had for my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and
care of my father-whom God recompense!-been exercised to
the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by-sundry
masters and teachers both at home and at the schools, it was
found that whether aught was imposed me by them that had the
overlooking, or betaken to of mine own choice in English or
other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by this latter, the
style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much
latelier in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favoured
to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory,
composed at under twenty or thereabout-for the manner is, that
every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there,
met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things,
which I had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniences to
patch up amongst them, were received with written encomiums
which the Italian is not forward to bestow on mien of this side
the Alps; I began thus far to assent both to thU m and divers of
my friends here at home, and not less to an inward prompting
which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intense study,
which I take to be my portion in this life, joined with the strong
propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written
to aftertimes, as they should not willingly let it die. These
thoughts at once possessed me, and these other; that if I were
certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and downward,
there ought no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the
honour and instruction of my country. For which cause, and
not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second
rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution, which
Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the
industry and art I could unite to the adorning of lmy native




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I I


tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end-that were a
toilsome vanit, —but to be an interpreter and relater of the best
and sagest things among mine own citizens throughout this island
in the mother dialect.. That what the greatest and choicest wits
of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old
did for their country, J, in my proportion, with this over and
above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be
once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but
content with these British islands as my world; whose fortune
hath hitherto been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their
small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England
hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful
handling of monks and mechanics.
Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse,
to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the
spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself,
though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that
epic form whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two
of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief
model: or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be
kept, or nature to be followed, which in them that know art and
use judgment is no transgression but an enriching of art: and
lastly, what king or knight before the Conquest might be chosen,
in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso gave
to a prince of Italy his choice whether he would command him
to write of Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels, or Belisarius
against the Goths, or Charlemain against the Lombards; if to
the instinct of nature and the emboldening of art aught may be
trusted, and that there be nothing adverse in our climate or
the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal
dilligence and inclination, to present the like offer in our own
ancient stories; or whether those dramatic constitutions wherein
Sophocles and Euripides reign shall be found more doctrinal and
exemplary to a nation. The Scripture also affords us a divine
pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of two persons
and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges. And the Apoca



152


GOD AND MAN.


lypse of St. John is the majestic image of a high and stately
tragedy, shutting up and intermingling her solemn scenes and
acts with a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies: and this my opinion the grave authority of Pareus,
commenting that book, is sufficient to confirm. Or if occasion
shall lead, to imitate those magnific odes and hymns, wherein
Pindarus and Callimachus are in most things worthy, some others
in their frame judicious, in their matter most an end faulty. But
those frequent songs throughout the Law and Prophets beyond
all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very
critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all
the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. These abilities,
wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely
bestowed, but yet to some-though most abuse-in every nation;
and are of power, beside the office of a pulpit, to imbreed and
cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility,
to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in
right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne
and equipage of God's Almightiness, and what He works, and
what He suffers to be wrought with high providence in His Church:
to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and
triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith
against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of
kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship. Lastly,
whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or
grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes
of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties
and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things with
a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe.
Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through
all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially
of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon
Truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed; that whereas
the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult, though they be ihdeed easy and pleasant, they will appear
to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


T 53


difficult indeed. And what a benefit this would be to our
youth and gentry, may be soon guessed by what we know of
the corruption and bane which they suck in daily from the
writings and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who
having scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of
a true poem, the choice of such persons as they ought fo introduce,
and what is moral and decent to each one, do for the most part
lay up vicious principles in sweet pills to be swallowed down, and
make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour. But because the spirit of man cannot demean itself lively in this body
without some recreating intermission of labour and serious things,
it were happy for the commonwealth, if our magistrates, as in
those famous governments of old, would take into their care, not
only the deciding of our contentious law-cases and brawls, but
the managing of our public sports and festival pastimes; that
they might be, not such as were authorized a while since, the provocations of drunkenness and lust, but such as may inure and
harden our bodies by martial exercises to all warlike skill and
performance; and may civilize, adorn, and make discreet our
minds by the learned and affable meeting of frequent academies,
and the procurement of wise and artful recitations, sweetened
with eloquent and graceful enticements to the love and practice
of justice, temperance, and fortitude, instructing and bettering
the nation, at all opportunities, that the call of wisdom and virtue
may be heard everywhere, as Solomon saith: "She crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, in the top of high
places, in the chief concourse, and in the openings of the
gates." Whether this may not be, not only in pulpits, but after
another persuasive method, at set and solemn paneguries, in
theatres, porches, or what other place or way may win most
upon the people to receive at once both recreation and instruction, let them in authority consult. The thing which I had
to say, and those intentions which have lived within me ever
since I could conceive myself anything worth to my country, I
return to crave excuse that urgent reason hath plucked from me,
by an abortive and foredated discovery. And the accomplish



154


GOD AND MAN.


ment of them lies not but in a power above man's to promise.
But that none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with
more unwearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of
myself, as far as life and free leisure will extend; and that the
land had once enfranchised herself from this impertinent yoke of
prelaty, under whose inquisitorious and tyrannical duncery, no
free and splendid wit can flourish. Neither do I think it shame
to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet
I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am
now indebted, as being a work not to be raised fromn the heat
of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste
from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a
rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame
Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that
eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge,
and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to
touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be
added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight
into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some
measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not
to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard
so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them.
Although it nothing content me to have disclosed thus much
beforehand, but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with what
small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes
than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness fed with
cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of
noises and hoarse disputes; put from beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies, to
come into the dim reflection of hollow antiquities sold by the
seeming bulk, and there be fain to club quotations with men
whose learning and belief lies in marginal stuffings, who, when
they have, like good sumpters, laid ye down their horse-loads of
citations and fathers at your door, with a rhapsody of who and
who were bishops here or there, ye may take off their packsaddles,
their day's work is done, and episcopacy, as they think, stoutly




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I55


vindicated. Let any gentle apprehension, that can distinguish
learned pains from unlearned drudgery, imagine what pleasure or
profoundness can be in this, or what honour to deal against such
adversaries. But were it the meanest under-service, if God by
His secretary Conscience enjoin it, it were sad for me if I should
draw back; for me especially, now when all men offer their aid
to help, ease, and lighten the difficult labours of the Church, to
whose service, by the intentions of my parents and friends, I was
destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions: till coming to
some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had invaded
the Church, that he who would take orders must subscribe slave,
and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience
that would retch, he must either straight perjure, or split his
faith; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the
sacred office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and
forswearing.  Howsoever, thus church-outed by the prelates,
hence may appear the right I have to meddle in these matters,
as before the necessity and constraint appeared.
CHAPTER I.
That Prelaiy o}5jposelh the Reason and End of the Gospel three
Ways; andfirst, in her outward Form.
AFTER this digression, it would remain that I should single out
some other reason, which might undertake for prelaty to be a fit
and lawful Church Government; but finding none of like validity
with these that have already sped according to their fortune, I
shall add one reason why it is not to be thought a Church Government at all, but a church tyranny, and is at hostile terms with the -
end and reason of Christ's evangelic ministry. Albeit I must confess to be half in doubt whether I should bring it forth or no, it
being so contrary to the eye of the world, and the world so potent
in most men's hearts, that I shall endanger either not to be regarded or not to be understood. For who is there almost that




I 56


GOD AND MAN.


measures wisdom by simplicity, strength by suffering, dignity by
lowliness? Who is there that counts it first to be last, something
to be nothing, and reckons himself of great command in that he
is a servant? Yet God, when he meant to subdue the world and
hell at once, part of that to salvation, and this wholly to perdition, made choice of no other weapons or auxiliaries than these,
whether to save or to destroy. It had been a small mastery for
him to have drawn out his legions into array, and flanked them
with his thunder; therefore he sent foolishness' to confute wisdom,
weakness to bind strength, despisedness to vanquish pride. And
this is the great mystery of the Gospel made good in Christ himself, who, as he testifies, came not to be ministered to, but to
minister; and must be fulfilled in all his ministers till his second
coming.  To go against these principles St. Paul so feared, that
if he should but affect the wisdom of words in his preaching he
thought it would be laid to his charge that he had made the cross
of Christ to be of none effect. Whether, then, prelaty do not
make of none effect the cross of Christ by the principles it hath
so contrary to these, nullifying the power and end of the Gospel,
it shall not want due proof, if it want not due belief. Neither
shall I stand to trifle with one that would tell me of quiddities
and formalities, whether prelaty or prelateity, in abstract notion,
be this or that; it suffices me that I find it in his skin, so I find
it inseparable, or not oftener otherwise than a phcenix hath been
seen; although I persuade me, that whatever faultiness was but
superficial to prelaty at the beginning, is now, by the just judgment of God, long since branded and inworn into the very essence
thereof. First, therefore, if to do the work of the Gospel, Christ
our Lord took upon him the form of a servant, how can his servant in this ministry take upon him the form of a lord? I know
Bilson hath deciphered us all the gallantries of signore and monsignore, and monsieur, as circumstantially as any punctualist of
Castile, Naples, or Fontainebleau could have done: but this
must not so compliment us out of our right minds, as to be to
learn that the form of a servant was a mean, laborious, and vulgar
life, aptest to teach; which form Christ thought fittest, that he




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I57


might bring about his will according to his own principles, choosing the meaner things of this world that he might put under the
high. Now, whether the pompous garb, the lordly life, the wealth,
the haughty distance of prelaty, be those meaner things of the
world whereby God in them would manage the mystery of his
Gospel, be it the verdict of common sense. For Christ saith, in
St. John, " The servant is not greater than his lord, nor he that
is sent greater than he that sent him;" and adds, " If ye know
these things, happy are ye if ye do them." Then let the prelates
well advise, if they neither know nor do these things, or if they
know and yet do them not, wherein their happiness consists.
And thus is the Gospel frustrated by the Lordly Frm of prelaty.
CHAPTER II.
That the ceremonious Doctrine of Prelaty opposeth the Reason
and End of tle Gosped.
THAT which next declares the heavenly power and reveals the
deep mystery of the Gospel, is the pure simplicity of doctrine,
accounted the foolishness of this world, yet crossing and confounding the pride and wisdom of the flesh. And wherein consists this fleshly wisdom and pride? In being altogether ignorant
of God and His worship? No, surely; for men are naturally
ashamed of that. Where then? It consists in a bold presumption of ordering the worship and service of God after man's own
will in traditions and ceremonies.  Now if the pride and wisdom
Df the flesh were to be defeated and confounded, no doubt but in
that very point wherein it was proudest and thought itself wisest,
that so the victory of the Gospel might be the more illustrious.
But our prelates, instead of expressing the spiritual power of their
ministry by warring against this chief bulwark and stronghold
of the flesh, have entered into fast league with the principal enemy
against whom they were sent, and turned the strength of fleshly
pride and wisdom against the pure simplicity of saving truth.




158


GOD AND MAN.~r


First, mistrusting to find the authority of their order in the
immediate institution of Christ, or his Apostles by the clear
evidence of Scripture, they fly to the carnal supportment of tradi-.tion. When we appeal to the Bible, they to the unwieldy volumes
of tradition: and do not shame to reject the ordinance of Him
that is Eternal, for the perverse iniquity of sixteen hundred years;
choosing rather to think truth itself a liar, than that sixteen ages
should be taxed with an error; not considering the general
apostacy that was foretold, and the Church's flight into the wilderness. Nor is this enough; instead of showing the reason of
their lowly condition from divine example and command, they
' seek to prove their high pre-eminence from human consent and
authority. But let them chant while they will of prerogatives,
we shall tell them of Scripture; of custom, we of Scripture; of
acts and statutes, still of Scripture; till the quick and piercing
Word enter to the dividing of their souls, and the mighty weakness of the Gospel throw down the weak mightiness of man's
reasoning. Now for their demeanour within the church, how
have they disfigured and defaced that more than angelic brightness, the unclouded serenity of Christian religion, with the dark
overcasting of superstitious copes and flaminical vestures, wearing on their backs, and, I abhor to think, perhaps in some worse
place, the inexpressible image of God the Father? Tell me, ye
priests, wherefore this gold, wherefore these robes and surplices
over the Gospel? Is our religion guilty of the first trespass, and
hath need of clothing to cover her nakedness? What does this
else but cast an ignominy upon the perfection of Christ's ministry,
by seeking to adorn it with that which was the poor remedy of
our shame? Believe it, wondrous doctors, all corporeal resemblances of inward holiness and beauty are now past; he that will
clothe the Gospel now, intimates plainly that the Gospel is naked,
uncomely, that I may not say reproachful. Do not, ye church
maskers, while Christ is clothing upon our barrenness with his
righteous garment to make us acceptable in his Father's sight,
do not, as ye do, cover and hide his righteous verity with the
polluted clothing of your ceremonies, to make it seem more




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I59


decent in your own eyes. "How beautiful," saith Isaiah, "are
the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth salvation!"  Are the feet so beautiful, and is the very bringing of
these tidings so decent of itself?  What new decency can then
be added to this by your spinstry? Ye think by these gaudy
glisterings to stir up the devotion of the rude multitude; ye
think so, because ye forsake the heavenly teaching of St. Paul
for the hellish sophistry of papism. If the multitude be rude,
the lips of the preacher must give knowledge, and not ceremonies.
And although some Christians be new-born babes comparatively
to some that are stronger, yet in respect of ceremony, which is
but a rudiment of the law, the weakest Christian hath thrown off
the robes of his minority, and is a perfect man, as to legal rites.
What children's food there is in the Gospel we know to be no
other than the "sincerity of the Word, that they may grow thereby." But is here the utmost of your outbraving the service of
God? No. Ye have been bold, not to set your threshold by
his threshold, or your posts by his posts; but your sacrament,
your sign, call it what you will, by his sacrament, baptizing the
Christian infant with a solemn sprinkle, and unbaptizing for your
own part with a profane and impious forefinger; as if when ye
had laid the purifying element upon his forehead, ye meant to
cancel and cross it out again with a character not of God's
bidding. Oh but the innocence of these ceremonies! Oh rather
the sottish absurdity of this excuse. What could be more
innocent than the washing of a cup, a glass, or hands, before
meat, and that under the Law, when so many washings were commanded, and by long tradition? Yet our Saviour detested their
customs, though never so seeming harmless, and charges them
severely, that they had transgressed the commandments of God
by their traditions, and worshipped him in vain. IHow much
more then must these, and much grosser ceremonies now in
force, delude the end of Christ's coming in the flesh against the
flesh, and stifle the sincerity of our new covenant which hath
bound us to forsake all carnal pride and wisdom, especially in
matters of religion?: Thus we see again how prelaty, failing in




1 60


GOD AND MAN.


opposition to the main end and power of the Gospel, doth not
join in that mysterious work of Christ, by lowliness to confound
height; by simplicity of doctrine, the wisdom of the world; but
contrariwise bath made itself high in the world and the flesh, to
vanquish things by the world accounted low, and make itself
wise in Tradition and fleshly Ceremony, to confound the purity of
doctrine which is the wisdom of God.
CHAPTER III.
Thatcprelaticazljugrisdiction oypposekh the Reason and end of the
Gospel andi of State.
THE third and last consideration remains, whether the prelates in
their function do work according to the Gospel, practising to
subdue the mighty things of this world by things weak, which St.
Paul hath set forth to be the power and excellence of the Gospel;
or whether in more likelihood they band themselves with the
prevalent things of this world, to overrun the weak things which
Christ hath made choice to work by: and this will soonest be
discerned by the course of their Jurisdiction. But here again I
find my thoughts almost in suspense betwixt yea and no, and am
nigh turning mine eye which way I may best retire, and not
proceed in this subject, blaming the ardency of my mind that
fixed me too attentively to come thus far. For Truth, I know not
how, hath this unhappiness fatal to her, ere she can come to the
trial and inspection of the Understanding; being to pass through
many little wards and limits of the several Affections and Desires,
she cannot shift it, but must put on such colours and attire as
those pathetic handmaids of the Soul please to lead her in to
their queen: and if she find so much favour with them, they let
her pass in her own likeness; if not, they bring her into the
presence habited and coloured like a notorious Falsehood. And
contrary, when anx' Falsehood comes that way, if they like the
errand she brings, they are so artful to counterfeit the very shape




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


i6i


and visage of Truth, that the Understanding not being able to
discern the fucus which these enchantresses with such cunning
have laid upon the feature sometimes of Truth, sometimes of
Falsehood interchangeably, sentences for the most part one for the
other at the first blush, according to the subtle imposture of these
sensual mistresses, that keep the ports and passages between her
and the object. So that were it not for leaving imperfect that
which is already said, I should go near to relinquish that which
is to follow. And because I see that most men, as it happens
in this world, either weakly or falsely principled, what through
ignorance, and what through custom of licence, both in discourse
and writing, by what hath been of late written in vulgar, have not
seemed to attain the decision of this point: I shall likewise assay
those wily arbitresses who in most men have, as was heard, the
sole ushering of Truth and Falsehood between the Sense and the
Soul, with what loyalty they will use me in convoying this Truth
to my Understanding; the rather for that, by as much acquaintance as I can obtain with them, I do not find them engaged
either one way or other.  Concerning therefore Ecclesiastical
Jurisdiction, I find still more controversy, who should administer
it than diligent inquiry made to learn what it is. I For had the
pains been taken to search out that, it had been long ago enrolled
to be nothing else but a pure tyrannical forgery of the prelates;
and that jurisdictive power in the Church there ought to be none
at all. It cannot be conceived that what men now call jurisdiction in the Church, should be other thing than a Christian
censorship; and therefore it is most commonly and truly named
ecclesiastical censure. Now if the Roman censor, a civil function,
to that severe assize of surveying and controlling the privatest
and slyest manners of all men and all degrees, had no jurisdiction, no courts of plea or indictment, no punitive force annexed;
whether it wvere that to this manner of correction the eiitanglement of suits was improper, or that the notice of those upright
inquisitors extended to such the most covert and spirituous vices
as would slip easily between the wider and more material grasp of
the law, or that it stood more with the majesty of that office, to
L




I62


GOD AND MAN.


have no other sergeants or maces about them but those invisible
ones of terror and shame; or, lastly, were it their fear, lest the
greatness of this authority and honour, armed with jurisdiction,
might step with ease into a tyranny: in all these respects, with
much more reason undoubtedly ought the censure of the Church
be quite divested and disentailed of all jurisdiction whatsoever.
For if the course of judicature to a political censorship seem
either too tedious, or too contentious, much more may it to the discipline of the Church, whose definitive decrees are to be speedy,
but the execution of rigour slow, contrary to what in legal proceedings is most usual; and by how much the less contentious it is,
by so much will it be the more Christian. And if the Censor, in
his moral episcopy being to judge most in matters not answerable by writ or action, could not use an instrument so gross and
bodily as jurisdiction is, how can the Minister of the Gospel manage the corpulent and secular trial of bill and process in things
merely spiritual? Or could that Roman office, without this
juridical sword or saw, strike such a reverence of itself into the
most undaunted hearts, as with one single dash of ignominy to
put all the Senate and Knighthood of Rome into a tremble,
surely much rather might the heavenly ministry of the evangel
bind herself about with far more piercing beams of majesty and
awe, by wanting the beggarly help of halings and amercements
in the use of her powerful keys. For when the Church without
temp'oral support is able to do her great works upon the unforced
obedience of men, it argues a divinity about her. But when she
thinks to credit and better her spiritual efficacy, and to win herself respect and dread by strutting in the false vizard of worldly
authority, it is evident that God is not there, but that her apostolic
virtue is departed from her, and hath left her key cold. Which
she perceiving, as in a decayed nature seeks to the outward
fomentations and chafings of worldly help, and external flourishes,
to fetch, if it be possible, some motion into her extreme parts, or
to hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and artificial heat of
jurisdiction. But it is observable, that so long as the Church, in
true imitation of Christ, can be content to ride upon an ass




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


163


carrying herself and her government along in a mean and simple
guise, she may be, as he is, a lion of the tribe of Judah; and in
her humility all men with loud hosannas will confess her greatness. But when, despising the mighty operation of the Spirit by
the weak things of this world, she thinks to make herself bigger
and more considerable, by using the way of civil force and jurisdiction, as she sits upon this lion she changes into an ass, and
instead of hosannas every man pelts her with stones and dirt.
Lastly, if the wisdom of the Romans feared to commit jurisdiction
to an office of so high esteem and dread as was the Censor's, we
may see what a solecism in the art of policy it hath been all this
while through Christendom to give jurisdiction to ecclesiastical
censure.  For that strength, joined with religion abused and
pretended to ambitious ends, must of necessity breed the heaviest
and most quelling tyranny not only upon the necks but even to
the souls of men: which if Christian Rome had been so cautelous
to prevent in her Church, as pagan Rome was in her State, we
had not such a lamentable experience thereof as now we have
from thence upon all Christendom. For although I said before,
that the Church coveting to ride upon the lionly form of jurisdiction, makes a transformation of herself into an ass and becomes
despicable, that is to those whom God hath enlightened with
true knowledge; but where they remain yet in the reliques of
superstition, this is the extremity of their bondage and blindness
that while they think they do obeisance to the lordly vision of a
lion, they do it to an ass, that through the just judgment of God
is permitted to play the dragon among them because of their
wilful stupidity. And let England here well rub her eyes, lest by
leaving Jurisdiction and Church Censure to the same persons, now
that God hath been so long medicining her eyesight, she do not
with her over-politic fetches mar all and bring herself back again
to worship this ass bestriding a lion. Having hitherto explained,
that to ecclesiastical censure no jurisdictive power can be added
without a childish and dangerous oversight in policy and a
pernicious contradiction in evangelical discipline, as anon more
fully, it will be next to declare wherein the true reason and force




J64


GOD AND MAN.


of Church Censure consists, which by then it shall be laid open
to the root, so little is it that I fear lest any crookedness, any
wrinkle or spot should be found in Presbyterian government, that
if Bodin, the famous French writer, though a Papist, yet affirms
that the commonwealth which maintains this discipline will
certainly flourish in virtue and piety, I dare assure myself, that
every true Protestant will admire the integrity, the uprightness,
the divine and gracious purposes thereof, and even for the reason
of it so coherent with the doctrine of the Gospel, beside the
evidence of command in Scripture, will confess it to be the only
true Church Government; and that, contrary to the whole end
and mystery of Christ's coming in the flesh, a false appearance
of the same is exercised by prelaty. But because some count
it rigorous, and that hereby men shall be liable to a double
punishment, I will begin somewhat higher, and speak of punishment; which, as it is an evil, I esteem to be of two sorts, or
rather two degrees only, a reprobate conscience in this life, and
hell in the other world. Whatever else men call punishment or
censure, is not properly an evil, so it be not an illegal violence,
but a saving medicine ordained of God both for the public and
private good of man; who consisting of two parts, the inward
and the outward, was by the eternal Providence left under two
sorts of cure, the Church and the Magistrate. The magistrate
hath only to deal with the outward part, I mean not of the body
alone, but of the mind in all her outward acts, which in Scripture
is called the outward man. So that it would be helpful to us if
we might borrow such authority as the rhetoricians by patent may
give us, with a kind of Promethean skill to shape and fashion
this outward man into the similitude of a body, and set him
visible before us; imagining the inner man only as the soul.
Thus then the civil magistrate looking only upon the outward
man-I say as a magistrate, for what he doth further, he doth it
as a member of the Church-if he find in his complexion, skin, or
outward temperature the signs and marks, or in his doings the
effects of injustice, rapine, lust, cruelty, or the like, sometimes
he shuts up as in frenetick or infectious diseases; or confines




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


i65


within doors, as in every sickly estate. Sometimes he shaves by
penalty or mulct, or else to cool and take down those luxuriant
humours which wealth and excess have caused to abound. Otherwhiles he sears, he cauterizes, he scarifies, lets blood; and finally,
for utmost remedy, cuts off. The patients, which most an end
are brought into his hospital, are such as are far gone, and beside
themselves, unless they be falsely accused; so that force is
necessary to tame and quiet them in their unruly fits before they
can be made capable of a more human cure. His general end
is the outward peace and welfare of the commonwealth, and civil
happiness in this life. His particular end in every man is, by
the infliction of pain, damage, and disgrace, that the senses and
common perceivance might carry this message to the soul within,
that it is neither easeful, profitable, nor praiseworthy in this life
to do evil. Which must needs tend to the good of man, whether
he be to live or die; and be undoubtedly the first means to a
natural man, especially an offender, which might open his eyes to a
higher consideration of good and evil, as it is taught in religion.
This is seen in the often penitence of those that suffer, who, had
they escaped, had gone on sinning to an immeasurable heap,
which is one of the extremest punishments. And this is all that
the civil magistrate, as so being, confers to the healing of man's
mind, working only by terrifying plasters upon the rind and
orifice of the sore; and by all outward appliances, as the logicians
say, a posteriori, at the effect, and not from the cause; not once
touching the inward bed of corruption, and that hectic disposition to evil, the source of all vice and obliquity against the rule
of law. Which how insufficient it is to cure the soul of man, we
cannot better guess than by the art of bodily physic.
Therefore God, to the intent of further healing man's depraved
mind, to this power of the magistrate, which contents itself with
the restraint of evil-doing in the external man, added that which
wve call Censure, to purge it and remove it clean out of the inmost
soul. In the beginning this authority seems to have been placed,
as all both civil and religious rites once were, only in each father
of a family; afterwards, among the heathen, in the wise men and




I66


GOD AND MAN.


philosophers of the age; but so as it was a thing voluntary, and
no set government. More distinctly among the Jews, as being
God's peculiar people, where the Priests, Levites, Prophets, and
at last the Scribes and Pharisees, took charge of instructing and
overseeing the lives of the people. But in the Gospel, which is
the straightest and the dearest covenant can be made between
God and Man, we being now his adopted sons, and nothing
fitter for us to think on than to be like him, united to him, and,
as he pleases to express it, to have fellowship with him; it is all
necessity that we should expect this blessed efficacy of healing
our inward man to be ministered to us in a more familiar and
effectual method than ever before. God being now no more a
judge after the sentence of the law, nor, as it were, a schoolmaster of perishable rites, but a most indulgent father, governing
His Church as a family of sons in their discreet age, and therefore, in the sweetest and mildest manner of paternal discipline,
he hath committed this other office of preserving in healthful
constitution the inner man, which may be termed the spirit of
the soul, to his spiritual deputy the minister of each congregation;
who being best acquainted with his own flock, hath best reason to
know all the secretest diseases likely to be there. And look by
how much the internal man is more excellent and noble than the
external, by so much is his cure more exactly, more thoroughly,
and more particularly to be performed. For which cause the
Holy Ghost by the Apostles, joined to the minister, as assistant in
this great office, sometimes a certain number of grave and faithful
brethren-for neither doth the physician do all in restoring his
patient; he prescribes, another prepares the medicine; some tend,
some watch, some visit-much more may a minister partly not see
all, partly err as a man. Besides, that nothing can be more for the
mutual honour and love of the people to their pastor, and his to
them, than when in select numbers and coirses they are seen
partaking and doing reverence to the holy duties of discipline by
their serviceable and solemn presence, and receiving honour again
from their employment, not now any more to be separated in the
church by veils and partitions, as laics and unclean, but admitted




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


i67


to wait upon the tabernacle as the rightful clergy of Christ, a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice
in that meet place to which God and the congregation shall call
and assign them. And this all Christians ought to know, that
the title of clergy St. Peter gave to all God's people, till pope
Higinus and the succeeding prelates took it fiom them, appropriating that name to themselves and their priests only. And condemning the rest of God's inheritance to an injurious and alienate
condition of laity, they separated from them by local partitions
in churches, through their gross ignorance and pride imitating
the old temple, and excluding the members of Christ from the
property of being members, the bearing of orderly and fit offices
in the ecclesiastical body; as if they had meant to sew up that
Jewish veil, which Christ by his death on the cross rent in
sunder. Although these usurpers could not so presently overmaster the liberties and lawful titles of God's freeborn Church
but that Origen, being yet a layman, expounded the Scriptures
publicly, and was therein defended by Alexander of Jerusalem,
and Theoctistus of Caesarea, producing in his behalf divers
examples, that the privilege of teaching was anciently permitted
to many worthy laymen. And Cyprian in his epistles professes
he will do nothing without the advice and assent of his assistant
laics. Neither did the first Nicene Council, as great and learned
as it was, think it any robbery to receive in, and require the help
and presence of many learned lay-brethren, as they were then
called. Many other authorities to confirm this assertion, both
out of Scripture and the writings of next antiquity, Golartius hath
collected in his notes upon Cyprian; whereby it will be evident
that the laity, not only by apostolic permission, but by consent of
many of the ancientest prelates, did participate in church offices
as much as is desired any lay elder should now do.
Sometimes also not the elders alone, but the whole body of the
Church is interested in the work of discipline, as oft as public satisfaction is given by those that have given public scandal. Not to
speak now of her right in elections. But another reason there is
in it which though religion did not commend to us yet moral and




I68


GOD AND MAN.


civil prudence could not but extol. It was thought of old in
philosophy, that shame, or to call it better, the reverence of our
elders, our brethren, and friends, was the greatest incitement to
virtuous deeds and the greater dissuasion from unworthy attempts
that might be. Hence we may read in the Iliad, where Hector
being wished to retire from the battle, many of his forces being
routed, makes answer, that he durst not for shame, lest the
Trojan knights and dames should think he did ignobly. And
certain it is, that whereas terror is thought such a great stickler
in a commonwealth, honourable shame is a far greater, and has
more reason: for where shame is, there is fear; but where fear
is, there is not presently shame. And if anything may be done
to imbreed in us this generous and Christianly reverence one of
another, the very nurse and guardian of piety and virtue, it
cannot sooner be than by such a discipline in the Church as may
use us to have in awe the assemblies of the faithful, and to count
it a thing most grievous, next to the grieving of God's Spirit, to
offend those whom he hath put in authority as a healing superintendence over our lives and behaviours, both to our own happiness,
and that we may not give offence to good men, who, without
amends by us made, dare not, against God's command, hold
communion with us in holy things. And this will be accompanied
with a religious dread of being outcast from the company of
saints, and from the fatherly protection of God in his Church,
to consort with the devil and his angels. But there is yet a
more ingenuous and noble degree of honest shame, or, call it, if
you will, an esteem, whereby men bear an inward reverence toward their own persons. And if the love of God, as a fire sent
from heaven to be ever kept alive upon the altars of our hearts,
be the first principle of all godly and virtuous actions in men,
this pious and just honouring of ourselves is the second, and
may be thought as the radical moisture and fountain-head whence
every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth.  And although I have given it the name of a liquid thing, yet it is not
incontinent to bound itself, as humid things are, but hath in it
a most restraining and powerful abstinence to start back, and




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I69


globe itself upward from the mixture of any ungenerous and unbeseeming motion or any soil wherewith it may peril to stain itself.
Something I confess it is, to be ashamed of evildoing in
the presence of any; and to reverence the opinion and the countenance of a good man rather than a bad, fearing most in his
sight to offend, goes so far as almost to be virtuous. Yet this is
but still the fear of infamy, and many such, when they find themselves alone saving their reputation, will compound with other
scruples and come to a close treaty with their dearer vices in
secret  But he that holds himself in reverence and due esteem,
both for the dignity of God's image upon him and for the price
of his redemption which he thinks is visibly marked upon his
forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest
and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and
defile with such a debasement and such a pollution as sin is
himself so highly ransomed and ennobled to a new friendship
and filial relation with God. Nor can he fear so much the offence
and reproach of others, as he dreads and would blush at the
reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himself, if it
should see him doing or imagining that which is sinful, though
in the deepest secrecy. How shall a man know to do himself
this right, how to perform his honourable duty of estimation and
respect towards his own soul and body? Which way will lead him
best to this hill-top of sanctity and goodness, above which there
is no higher ascent but to the love of God, which from this selfpious regard cannot be asunder? No better way doubtless, than
to let him duly understand, that as he is called by the high calling
of God to be holy and pure, so is he by the same appointment
ordained, and by the Church's call admitted,-to such offices of
discipline in the Church to which his own spiritual gifts, by the
example of apostolic institution, have authorised him. For we
have learned that the scornful term of laic, the consecrating of
temples, carpets, and tablecloths, the railing in of a repugnant
and contradictive mount Sinai in the Gospel, as if the touch of
a lay-christian, who is nevertheless God's living temple, could
profane dead Judaisms, the exclusion of Christ's people from the




170


GOD AND MAN.


offices of holy discipline through the pride of a usurping clergy,
causes the rest to have an unworthy and abject opinion of themselves, to approach to holy duties with a slavish fear, and to
unholy doings with a familiar boldness. For seeing such a wide
and terrible distance between religious things and themselves,
and that in respect of a wooden table, and the perimeter of holy
ground about it, a flagon pot, and a linen corporal, the priest
esteems their layships unhallowed and unclean, they fear Religion
with such a fear as loves not, and think the purity of the Gospel
too pure for them, and that any uncleanness is more suitable to
their unconsecrated estate. But when every good Christian,
thoroughly acquainted with all those glorious privileges of sanctification and adoption which render him more sacred than any
dedicated altar or element, shall be restored to his right in the
Church, and not excluded from such place of spiritual government
as his Christian abilities, and his approved good life in the eye
and testimony of the Church shall prefer him to, this and nothing
sooner will open his eyes to a wise and true valuation of himself
-which is so requisite and high a point of Christianity-and will
stir him up to walk worthy the honourable and grave employment wherewith God and the Church hath dignified him; not
fearing lest he should meet with some outward holy thing in
religion, which his lay-touch or presence might profane; but lest
something unholy from within his own heart should dishonour
and profane in himself that priestly unction and clergy-right
whereto Christ hath entitled him. Then would the Congregation
of the Lord soon recover the true likeness and visage of what
she is indeed, a holy generation, a royal priesthood, a saintly
communion, the household and city of God. And this I hold
to be another considerable reason why the functions of Church
Government ought to be free and open to any Christian man,
though never so laic, if his capacity, his faith, and prudent demeanour, commend him. And this the Apostles warrant us to do.
But the prelates object, that this will bring profaneness into the
church: to whom may be replied, that none have brought that
in more than their own irreligious courses, nor more driven




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I7I


holiness out of living into lifeless things. For whereas God, who
hath cleansed every beast and creeping worm, would not suffer
St. Peter to call them common or unclean, the prelate bishops,
in their printed orders hung up in churches, have proclaimed
the best of creatures, mankind, so unpurified and contagious,
that for him to lay his hat or his garment upon the chancel table,
they have defined it no less than heinous, in express words, than
to profane the table of the Lord. And thus have they by their
Canaanitish doctrine-for that which was to the Jew but Jewish,
is to the Christian no better than Canaanitish,-thus have they
made common and unclean, thus have they made profane that
nature which God hath not only cleansed, but Christ also hath
assumed. And now that the equity and just reason is so perspicuous, why in ecclesiastic censure the assistance should be
added of such as whom not the vile odour of gain and fees
(forbid it, God, and blow it with a whirlwind out of our land!),
but charity, neighbourhood, and duty to church government hath
called together, where could a wise man wish a more equal,
gratuitous, and meek examination of any offence that he might
happen to commit against Christianity, than here?  Would he
prefer those proud simoniacal courts?  Thus therefore the
minister assisted, attends his heavenly and spiritual cure: where
we shall see him both in the course of his proceedings, and first
in the excellency of his end, from the magistrate far different, and
not more different than excelling. His end is to recover all that
is of man, both soul and body, to an everlasting health; and
yet as for worldly happiness, which is the proper sphere wherein
the magistrate cannot but confine his motion without a hideous
exorbitancy from law, so little aims the minister as his intended
scope to procure the much prosperity of this life, that ofttimes
he may have cause to wish much of it away, as a diet puffing up
the soul with a slimy fleshiness and weakening her principal
organic parts. Two heads of evil he has to cope with, ignorance
and malice. Against the former he provides the daily manna of
incorruptible doctrine, not at those set meals only in public, but
as oft as he shall know that each infirmity or constitution requires.




172


GOD AND MAN.


Against the latter with all the branches thereof, not meddling
with that restraining and styptic surgery which the law uses, not
indeed against the malady but against the eruptions and outermost effects thereof; he on the contrary, beginning at the prime
causes and roots of the disease, sends in those two divine
ingredients of most cleansing power to the soul, admonition and
reproof; besides which two there is no drug or antidote that can
reach to purge the mind, and without which all other experiments
are but vain, unless by accident. And he that will not let these
pass into him, though he be the greatest king, as Plato affirms,
must be thought to remain impure within and unknowing of
those things wherein his pureness and his knowledge should most
appear. As soon therefore as it may be discerned that the
Christian patient, by feeding otherwhere on meats not allowable
but of evil juice, hath disordered his diet and spread an illhumour through his veins immediately disposing to a sickness,
the minister, as being much nearer both in eye -and duty than the
magistrate, speeds him betimes to overtake that diffused malignance with some gentle potion of admonishment; or if aught be
obstructed, puts in his opening and discussive confections. This
not succeeding after once or twice or oftener, in the presence of
two or three his faithful brethren appointed thereto he advises
him to be more careful of his dearest health, and what it is that
he so rashly hath let down into the divine vessel of his soul,
God's temple. If this obtain not, he then, with the counsel of
more assistants, who are informed of what diligence hath been
already used, with more speedy remedies lays nearer siege to the
entrenched causes of his distemper, not sparing such fervent and
well-aimed reproofs as may best give him to see the dangerous
estate wherein he is. To this also his brethren and friends
entreat, exhort, adjure; and all these endeavours, as there is
hope left, are more or less repeated. But if neither the regard
of himself nor the reverence of his elders and friends prevail
with him to leave his vicious appetite, then as the time urges,
such engines of terror God hath given into the hand of his
minister as to search the tenderest angles of the heart. One




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


173


while he shakes his stubbornness with racking convulsions nigh
despair; otherwhiles with deadly corrosives he gripes the very
roots of his faulty liver to bring him to life through the entry of
death. Hereto the whole Church beseech him. beg of him,
deplore him, pray for him. After all this performed with what
patience and attendance is possible, and no relenting on his
part, having done the utmost of their cure, in the name of God
and of the Church they dissolve their fellowship with him,
and holding forth the dreadful sponge of excommunion, pronounce him wiped out of the list of God's inheritance, and in
the custody of Satan till he repent.  Which horrid sentence,
though it touch neither life nor limb nor any worldly possession,
yet has it such a penetrating force, that swifter than any chemical
sulphur, or that lightning which harms not the skin and rifles
the entrails, it scorches the inmost soul. Yet even this terrible
denouncement is left to the Church for no other cause but to be
as a rough and vehement cleansing medicine where the malady
is obdurate, a mortifying to life, a kind of saving by undoing.
And it may be truly said, that as the mercies of wicked men
are cruelties, so the cruelties of the Church are mercies. For if
repentance sent from Heaven meet this lost wanderer, and draw
him out of that steep journey wherein he was hasting towards
destruction to come and reconcile to the Church, if he bring with
him his bill of health and that he is now clear of infection and
of no danger to the other sheep; then with incredible expressions
of joy all his brethren receive him, and set before him those
perfumed banquets of Christian consolation; with precious ointments bathing and fomenting the old and now to be forgotten
stripes which terror and shame had inflicted; and thus with
heavenly solaces they cheer up his humble remorse, till he regain
his first health and felicity.  This is the approved way, which
the Gospel prescribes, these are the "spiritual weapons of holy
censure, and ministerial warfare, not carnal, but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the




I74


GOD AND MAN.


obedience of Christ."  What could be done more for the healing
and reclaiming that divine particle of God's breathing, the soul?
And what could be done less? He that would hide his faults front
such a wholesome curing as this, and count it a twofold punishment, as some do, is like a man that having foul diseases about
him, perishes for shame, and the fear he has of a rigorous incision
to come upon his flesh. We shall be able by this time to discern
whether prelatical jurisdiction be contrary to the Gospel or no.
First, therefore, the government of the Gospel being economical
and paternal, that is, of such a family where there be no servants
but all sons, in obedience not in servility, as cannot be denied
by him that lives but within the sound of Scripture; how can the
prelates justify to have turned the fatherly orders of Christ's
household, the blessed meekness of his lowly roof, those everopen and inviting doors of his dwellinghouse, which delight to
be frequented with only filial accesses; how can they justify to
have turned these domestic privileges into the bar of a proud
judicial court, where fees and clamours keep shop and drive a
trade, where bribery and corruption solicits, paltering the free
and moneyless power of discipline with a carnal satisfaction by
the purse? Contrition, humiliation, confession, the very sighs of
a repentant spirit, are there sold by the penny. That undeflowered
and unblemishable Simplicity of the Gospel, not she herself, for
that could never be, but a false-whited, a lawny resemblance of
her, like that airborn Helena in the fables, made by the sorcery
of prelates, instead of calling her disciples from the receipt of
custom, is now turned publican herself, and gives up her body
to a mercenary whoredom under those fornicated Arches, which
she calls God's house; and in the sight of those her altars which
she hath set up to be adored, makes merchandise of the bodies
and souls of men, rejecting purgatory for no other reason, as it
seems, than because her greediness cannot defer, but had rather
use the utmost extortion of redeemed penances in this life.
But because these matters could not be thus carried without a
begged and borrowed Force from worldly authority, ltherefore
prelaty, slighting the deliberate and chosen council of Christ in




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


173


his spiritual government, 'hose glory is in the weakness of fleshly
things to tread upon the crest of the world's pride and violence
by the power of spiritual ordinances, hath on the contrary made
these her friends and champions which are Christ's enemies in
this his high design, smothering and extinguishing the spiritual
force of his bodily weakness in the discipline of his Church with
the boisterous and carnal tyranny of an undue, unlawful, and
ungospel-like Jurisdiction. And thus prelaty, both in her fleshly
supportments, in her carnal doctrine of ceremony and tradition,
in her violent and secular power, going quite counter to the prime
end of Christ's coming in the flesh, that is, to reveal his truth, his
glory, and his might in a clean contrary manner than prelaty
seeks to do, thwarting and defeating the great mystery of God,
I do not conclude that prelaty is antichristian: for what need I?
the things themselves conclude it.  Yet if such like practices,
and not many worse than these of our prelates in that great
darkness of the Roman church, have not exempted both her and
her present members from being judged to be antichristian in all
orthodoxal esteem; I cannot think but that it is the absolute voice
of truth and all her children to pronounce this prelaty, and these
her dark deeds in the midst of this great light wherein we live, to
be more antichristian than Antichrist himself.
THE CONCLUSION.
The Mischief that Prelaty does inl the State.
I ADD one thing more to those great ones that are so fond of
prelaty. This is certain, that the Gospel being the hidden might
of Christ, as hath been heard, that ever a victorious power
joined with it, like him in the Revelation that went forth on the
white horse with his bow and his crown, conquering and to conquer. If we let the Angel of the Gospel ride on his own way, he does
his proper business, conquering the high thoughts and the proud
reasonings of the flesh, and brings them under to give obedience
to Christ with the salvation of many souls. But if ye turn him




176


GOD AND MAN.


out of his road, and in a manner force him to express his irresistible power by a doctrine of carnal might, as prelaty is,Q(e will use
that fleshly strength which ye put into his hands to subdue your
spirits by a servile and blind Superstition 7;nd that again shall
hold such dominion over your captive minds, as returning with
an insatiate greediness and force upon your worldly wealth and
power, wherewith to deck and magnify herself and her false
worships, he shall spoil and havoc your estates, disturb your ease,
diminish your honour, enthral your liberty under the swelling
mood of a proud clergy who will not serve or feed your souls
with spiritual food; look not for it, they have not wherewithal,
or if they had it is not in their purpose. But when they have
glutted their ungrateful bodies, at least if it be possible that
those open sepulchres should ever be glutted, and when they
have stuffed their idolish temples with the wasteful pillage of your
estates, will they yet have any compassion upon you and that
poor pittance which they have left you? Will they be but so good
to you as that ravisher was to his sister, when he had used her at
his pleasure: will they but only hate ye, and so turn ye loose?
No, they will not, Lords and Commons, they will not favour ye so
much. What will they do then, in the name of God and saints,
what will these manhaters yet with more despite and mischief do?
I will tell ye, or at least remember ye, for most of ye know it
already: that they may want nothing to make them true merchants of Babylon, as they have done to your souls, they will sell
your bodies, your wives, your children, your liberties, your parliaments, all these things and if there be ought else dearer than
these, they will sell at an outcry in their pulpits to the arbitrary
and illegal dispose of any one that may hereafter be called a
king, whose mind shall serve him to listen to their bargain. And
by their corrupt and servile doctrines boring our ears to an everlasting slavery, as they have done hitherto, so will they yet do
their best to repeal and erase every line and clause of both our
great charters. Nor is this only what they will do, but what they
hold as the main reason and mystery of their advancement that
they must do; be the prince never so just and equal to his sub




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I77


jects, yet such are their malicious and depraved eyes, that they so
look on him and so understand him as if he required no other
gratitude or piece of service from them than this. And indeed
they stand so opportunely for the disturbing or the destroying
of a state, being a knot of creatures whose dignities, means,
and preferments have no foundation in the Gospel, as they themselves acknowledge, but only in the prince's favour, and to continue so long to them as by pleasing him they shall deserve.
Whence it must needs be they should bend all their intentions
and services to no other ends but to his, that if it should
happen that a tyrant-God turn such a scourge from us to
our enemies!-should come to grasp the sceptre, here were his
spearmen and his lances, here were his firelocks ready, he
should need no other pretorian band nor pensionary than these,
if they could once with their perfidious preachments awe the
people.  For although the prelates in time of popery were
sometimes friendly enough to Magna Charta, it was because they
stood upon their own bottom, without their main dependence on
the royal nod. But now being well acquainted that the Protestant
religion, if she will reform herself rightly by the Scriptures, must
undress them of all their gilded vanities and reduce them as they
were at first to the lowly and equal order of presbyters, they know
it concerns them nearly to study the times more than the text,
and to lift up their eyes to the hills of the Court from whence
only comes their help. But if their pride grow weary of this
crouching and observance, as ere long it would, and that yet their
minds climb still to a higher ascent of worldly honour, this only
refuge can remain to them, that they must of necessity contrive
to bring themselves and us back again to the pope's supremacy;
and this we see they had by fair degrees of late been doing.
These be the two fair supporters between which the strength of
prelaty is borne up, either of inducing tyranny or of reducing
popery. Hence also we may judge that prelaty is mere falsehood.
For the property of truth is, where she is publicly taught, to
unyoke and set free the minds and spirits of a nation first from
the thraldom of sin and superstition, after which all honest and
M




I78


GOD AND MAN.


legal freedom of civil life cannot be long absent.  But prelaty,
whom the tyrant custom begot, a natural tyrant in religion and
in state the agent and minister of tyranny, seems to have had this
fatal gift in her nativity, like another Midas, that whatsoever she
should touch or come near either in ecclesial or political government, it should turn, not to gold,-though she for her part could
wish it,-but to the dross and scum of slavery, breeding and
settling both in the bodies and the souls of all such as do not
in time, with the sovereign treacle of sound doctrine, provide to
fortify their hearts against her hierarchy. The service of God,
who is Truth, her liturgy confesses to be perfect freedom: but her
works and her opinions declare, that the service of prelaty is
perfect slavery, and by consequence perfect falsehood. Which
makes me wonder much that many of the gentry, studious men
as I hear, should engage themselves to write and speak publicly
in her defence; but that I believe their honest and ingenuous
natures coming to the universities to store themselves with good
and solid learning, and there unfortunately fed with nothing else
but the scragged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable
sophistry, were sent home again with such a scholastic bur in
their throats as hath stopped and hindered all true and generous
philosophy from entering, cracked their voices for ever with
metaphysical gargarisms, and hath made them admire a sort of
formal outside men, prelatically addicted, whose unchastened and
unwrought minds were never yet initiated or subdued under the
true lore of religion or moral virtue, which two are the best and
greatest points of learning, but either slightly trained up in a
kind of hypocritical and hackney course of literature, to get their
living by and dazzle the ignorant, or else fondly over-studied in
useless controversies, except those which they use, with all the
specious and delusive subtlety they are able, to defend their
prelatical Sparta.  Having a Gospel and Church Government set
before their eyes, as a fair field wherein they might exercise the
greatest virtues and the greatest deeds of Christian authority in
mean fortunes and little furniture of this world-which even the
sage heathen writers, and those old Fabritii and Curii, well knew




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I79


to be a manner of working than which nothing could liken a
mortal man more to God, who delights most to work from within
Himself and not by the heavy luggage of corporeal instruments
-they understand it not, and think no such matter but admire
and dote upon worldly riches and honours with an easy and intemperate life, to the bane of Christianity. Yea, they and their
seminaries shame not to profess, to petition, and never leave
pealing our ears, that unless we fat them like boars and cram
them as they list with wealth, with deaneries and pluralities, with
baronies and stately preferments, all learning and religion will go
underfoot. Which is such a shameless, such a bestial plea, and
of that odious impudence in churchmen who should be to us
a pattern of temperance and frugal mediocrity, who should teach
us to contemn this world and the gaudy things thereof according to the promise which they themselves require from us in
baptism, that should the Scripture stand by and be mute, there
is not that sect of philosophers among the heathen so dissolute,
no not Epicurus nor Aristippus with all his Cyrenaic rout,
but would shut his school-doors against such greasy sophisters;
not any college of mountebanks but would think scorn to discover in themselves with such a brazen forehead the outrageous
desire of filthy lucre. Which the prelates make so little conscience of, that they are ready to fight, and if it lay in their
power, to massacre all good Christians under the names of
horrible schismatics, for only finding fault with their temporal
dignities, their unconscionable wealth and revenues, their cruel
authority over their brethren that labour in the Word while they
snore in their luxurious excess; openly proclaiming themselves
now in the sight of all men to be those which for a while they
sought to cover under sheep's clothing, ravenous and savage
wolves, threatening inroads and bloody incursions upon the flock
of Christ, which they took upon them to feed but now claim to
devour as their prey. More like that huge dragon of Egypt,
breathing out waste and desolation to the land unless he were
daily fattened with virgin's blood. Him our old patron St. George
by his matchless valour slew, as the Prelate of the Garter that reads




180


GOD AND MAN.


his collect can tell. And if our princes and knights will imitate
the fame of that old champion, as by their order of knighthood
solemnly taken they vow, far be it that they should uphold and
side with this English dragon; but rather to do as indeed their oaths
bind them they should make it their knightly adventure to pursue and vanquish this mighty sail-winged monster that menaces
to swallow up the land unless her bottomless gorge may be satisfied with the blood of the king's daughter, the Church; and may,
as she was wont, fill her dark and infamous den with the bones
of the saints. Nor will any one have reason to think this as too
incredible or too tragical to be spoken of prelaty, if he consider
well from what a mass of slime and mud, the slothful, the covetous
and ambitious hopes of Church-promotions and fat bishoprics she is
bred up and muzzled in, like a great Python, from her youth, to
prove the general poison both of Doctrine and good Discipline in
the land. For certainly such hopes and such principles of earth
as these wherein she welters fromn a young one, are the immediate
generation both of a slavish and tyrannous life to follow, and a
pestiferous contagion to the whole kingdom, till like that fen-born
serpent she be shot to death with the darts of the Sun, the pure and
powerful beams of God's Word. And this may serve to describe
to us in part what prelaty hath been, and what, if she stand, she
is like to be towards the whole body of People in England.
Now that it may appear how she is not such a kind of evil
as hath any good or use in it, which many evils have, but a
distilled quintessence, a pure elixir of mischief, pestilent alike
to all, I shall show briefly, ere I conclude, that the prelates, as
they are to the Subjects a calamity, so are they the greatest
underminers and betrayers of the Monarch, to whom they seem
to be most favourable. I cannot better liken the state and person of a king than to that mighty Nazarite Samson, who being
disciplined from his birth in the precepts and the practice of
temperance and sobriety, without the strong drink of injurious
and excessive desires, grows up to a noble strength and perfection with those his illustrious and sunny locks, the laws, waving
and curling about his godlike shoulders. And while he keeps




THE REASON OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT.


I8i


them about him undiminished and unshorn, he may with the jawbone of an ass, that is, with the word of his meanest officer, suppress and put to confusion thousands of those that rise against
his just power. But laying down his head among the strumpet
flatteries of prelates, while he sleeps and thinks no harm, they
wickedly shaving off all those bright and weighty tresses of his
law, and just prerogatives, which were his ornament and strength,
deliver him over to indirect and violent counsels, which, as those
Philistines, put out the fair and far-sighted eyes of his natural
discerning, and make him grind in the prisonhouse of their
sinister ends and practices upon him: till he, knowing this prelatical razor to have bereft him of his wonted might, nourish
again his puissant hair, the golden beams of law and right; and
they sternly shook thunder with ruin upon the heads of those
his evil counsellors, but not without great affliction to himself.
This is the sum of their royal service to kings; yet these are the
men that still cry, The king, the king, the Lord's anointed! We
grant it; and wonder how they came to light upon anything so true;
and wonder more, if kings be the Lord's anointed, how they dare
thus oil over and besmear so holy an unction with the corrupt and
putrid ointment of their base flatteries, which while they smooth
the skin, strike inward and envenom the lifeblood. What fidelity
kings can expect from prelates, both examples past and our present experience of their doings at this day, whereon is grounded
all that hath been said, may suffice to inform us. And if they be
such clippers of regal power and shavers of the laws, how they
stand affected to the lawgiving Parliament, yourselves, worthy
Peers and Commons, can best testify; the current of whose glorious
and immortal actions hath been only opposed by the obscure and
pernicious designs of the prelates, until their insolence broke out
to such a bold affront as hath justly immured their haughty looks
within strong walls. Nor have they done anything of late with
more diligence than to hinder or break the happy assembling of
parliaments, however needful to repair the shattered and disjointed
frame of the commonwealth; or if they cannot do this, to cross,
to disenable, and traduce all parliamentary proceedings. And




I82


GOD AND MAN.


this, if nothing else, plainly accuses them to be no lawful members
of the House, if they thus perpetually mutiny against their own
body. And though they pretend, like Solomon's harlot, that they
have right thereto, by the same judgment that Solomon gave, it
cannot belong to them, whenas it is not only their assent but
their endeavour continually to divide Parliaments in twain; and
not only by dividing, but by all other means to abolish and destroy
the free use of them to all posterity. For the which, and for all
their former misdeeds, whereof this book and many volumes more
cannot contain the moiety, I shall move ye, Lords, in the behalf I
dare say of many thousand good Christians, to let your justice and
speedy sentence pass against this great malefactor, prelaty. And
yet in the midst of rigour I would beseech ye to think of mercy;
and such a mercy (I fear I shall overshoot with a desire to save
this falling prelaty), such a mercy (if I may venture to say it) as
may exceed that which for only ten righteous persons would have
saved Sodom. Not that I dare advise ye to contend with God,
whether he or you shall be more merciful, but in your wise esteems
to balance the offences of those peccant cities with these enormous riots of ungodly misrule that prelaty hath wrought both in
the Church of Christ, and in the State of this Kingdom. And if
ye think ye may with a pious presumption strive to go beyond
God in mercy, I shall not be one now that would dissuade ye.
Though God for less than ten just persons would not spare
Sodom, yet if you can find, after due search, but only one good
thing in prelaty, either to religion or civil government, to king or
parliament, to prince or people, to law, liberty, wealth, or learning, spare her, let her live, let her spread among ye, till with her
shadow all your dignities and honours and all the glory of the
land be darkened and obscured. But on the contrary, if she be
found to be malignant, hostile, destructive to all these, as nothing
can be surer, then let your severe and impartial doom imitate the
divine vengeance. Rain down your punishing force upon this godless and oppressing government, and bring such a Dead Sea of
subversion upon her, that she may never in this land rise more to
afflict the holy Reformed Church, and the elect people of God.




MAN AND WIFE.




"Hail Wedded Love, mysterious Law, true Source
Of human Offspring, sole propriety
In Paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous Lust was driven from Men
Among the bestial herds to range; by thee,
Founded in Reason, loyal, just, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the Charities
Of Father, Son, and Brother first were known.
Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings."
-Paradise Lost. Book iv.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE
OF DIVORCE;
Restored to the good of both Sexes, from the Bondage of Canon
Law, and other Mistakes, to the True Meaning of Scripture
in the Law and Gospel compared.
Wherein also are set down the bad consequences of Abolishing, or
Condemning as Sin, that which the Law of God allows,
and Christ abolished not.
NOW THE SECOND TIME REVISED AND MUCH AUGMENTED.
IN TWO BOOKS.
TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, WITH THE ASSEMBLY.
MATT. xiii. 52: ' Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the
master of a house, which bringeth out of his treasury things new and old."
PROV. xviii. 13: " He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly
and shame unto him."
To the Parliament of England, with the Assembly.
IF it were seriously asked, and it would be no untimely question,
renowned Parliament, select Assembly, who of all teachers and
masters that have ever taught, hath drawn the most disciples
after him, both in religion and in manners, it might be not
untruly answered, Custom.   Though virtue be commended for
the most persuasive in her theory, and conscience in the plain
demonstration of the spirit finds most evincing; yet whether it be
the secret of divine will or the original blindness we are born in,
so it happens for the most part that Custom still is silently received for the best instructor.  Except it be because her method




I86


MAN AND WIFE.


is so glib and easy; in some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel
rolling up her sudden book of implicit knowledge for him that
will to take and swallow down at pleasure, which proving but of
bad nourishment in the concoction as it was heedless in the
devouring, puffs up unhealthily a certain big face of pretended
learning, mistaken among credulous men for the wholesome habit
of soundness and good constitution but is indeed no other than
that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and literature which
not only in private mars our education but also in public is the
common climber into every chair where either religion is
preached or law reported, filling each estate of life and profession with abject and servile principles, depressing the high and
heaven-born spirit of man far beneath the condition wherein
either God created him or sin hath sunk him. To pursue the
allegory, Custom being but a mere face, as echo is a mere voice,
rests not in her unaccomplishment until by secret inclination she
accorporate herself with Error, who being a blind and serpentine
body without a head, willingly accepts what he wants, and
supplies what her incompleteness went seeking. Hence it is,
that Error supports Custom, Custom countenances Error; and
these two between them would persecute and chase away all
Truth and solid Wisdom out of human life, were it not that God,
rather than man, once in many ages calls together the prudent
and religious counsels of men, deputed to repress the incroachments and to work off the inveterate blots and obscurities
wrought upon our minds by the subtle insinuating of Error and
Custom, who, with the numerous and vulgar train of their followers, make it their chief design to envy and cry down the
industry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour and
innovation; as if the womb of teeming Truth were to be closed
up if she presume to bring forth aught that sorts not with their
unchewed notions and suppositions. Against which notorious
injury and abuse of man's free soul, to testify and oppose the
utmost that study and true labour can attain, heretofore the
incitement of men reputed grave hath led me among others; and
now the duty and the right of an instructed Christian calls me,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 187
through the chance of good or evil report, to be the sole advocate
of a discountenanced truth: a high enterprise, lords and commons, a high enterprise and a hard, and such as every seventh
son of a seventh son does not venture on. Nor have I amidst
the clamour of so much envy and impertinence whither to appeal,
but to the concourse of so much piety and wisdom here assembled, bringing in my hands an ancient and most necessary,
most charitable, and yet most injured statute of Moses: not
repealed ever by him who only had the authority, but thrown
aside with much inconsiderate neglect under the rubbish of
canonical ignorance; as once the whole Law was by some such
like conveyance in Josiah's time. And he who shall endeavour
the amendment of any old neglected grievance in Church or State
or in the daily course of life, if he be gifted with abilities of mind
that may raise him to so high an undertaking, I grant he hath
already much whereof not to repent him; yet let me aread him
not to be the foreman of any misjudged opinion, unless his resolutions be firmly seated in a square and constant mind, not
conscious to itself of any deserved blame and regardless of ungrounded suspicions. For this let him be sure, he shall be
boarded presently by the ruder sort, but not by discreet and wellnurtured men, with a thousand idle descants and surmises.
Who when they cannot confute the least joint or sinew of any
passage in the book, yet God forbid that Truth should be Truth,
because they have a boisterous conceit of some pretences in the
writer. But were they not more busy and inquisitive than the
apostle commends, they would hear him at least "rejoicing so
the Truth be preached, whether of envy or other pretence whatsoever:" for Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward
touch, as the sunbeam; though this ill hap wait on her nativity,
that she never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the
ignominy of him that brought her forth, till Time, the midwife
rather than the mother of Truth, have washed and salted the
infant, declared her legitimate, and churched the father of his
young Minerva from   the needless causes of his purgation.
Yourselves can best witness this, worthy patriots, and better will,




i88


MAN AND WIFE.


no doubt, hereafter: for who among ye of the foremost that have
travailed in her behalf to the good of Church or State, hath not
been often traduced to be the agent of his own by-ends, under
pretext of Reformation? So much the more I shall not be unjust to hope, that however infamy or envy may work in other
men to do her fretful will against this discourse, yet that the
experience of your own uprightness misinterpreted will put ye in
mind to give it free audience and generous construction. What
though the brood of Belial, the draff of men, to whom no liberty
is pleasing but unbridled and vagabond lust without pale or
partition, will laugh broad perhaps to see so great a strength of
Scripture mustering up in favour, as they suppose, of their debaucheries; they will know better when they shall hence learn,
that honest liberty is the greatest foe to dishonest licence. And
what though others, out of a waterish and queasy conscience,
because ever crazy and never yet sound, will rail and fancy to
themselves that injury and licence is the best of this book? Did
not the distemper of their own stomachs affect them with a dizzy
megrim, they would soon tie up their tongues and discern themselves, like that Assyrian blasphemer, all this while reproaching
not man, but the Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, whom they
do not deny to have belawgiven his own sacred people with this
very allowance which they now call injury and licence, and dare
cry shame on, and will do yet a while, till they get a little cordial
sobriety to settle their qualming zeal. But this question concerns
not us perhaps.  Indeed man's disposition, though prone to
search after vain curiosities, yet when points of difficulty are to be
discussed appertaining to the removal of unreasonable wrong
and burden from the perplexed life of our brother, it is incredible
how cold, how dull, and far from all fellow-feeling we are, without the spur of self-concernment. Yet if the wisdom, the justice,
the purity of God be to be cleared from foulest imputations,
which are not yet avoided; if charity be not to be degraded
and trodden down under a civil ordinance; if matrimony be
not to be advanced like that exalted perdition written of to
the Thessalonians, "above all that is called God," or goodness,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. I89
nay, against them  both; then I dare affirm, there will be
found in the contents of this book that which may concern
us all.  You it concerns chiefly, Worthies in Parliament, on
whom, as on our deliverers, all our grievances and cares, by
the merit of your eminence and fortitude, are devolved. Me
it concerns next, having with much labour and faithful diligence first found out, or at least with a fearless and communicative candour first published, to the manifest good of
Christendom, that which, calling to witness everything mortal
and immortal, I believe unfeignedly to be true. Let not other
men think their conscience bound to search continually after
truth, to pray for enlightening from above, to publish what
they think they have so obtained, and debar me from conceiving myself tied by the same duties. Ye have now, doubtless, by the favour and appointment of God, ye have now in
your hands a great and populous nation to reform. From what
corruption, what blindness in religion, ye know well; in what a
degenerate and fallen spirit from the apprehension of native
liberty, and true manliness, I am sure ye find; with what unbounded licence rushing to whoredoms and adulteries, needs riot
long inquiry: insomuch that the fears, which men have of too
strict a Discipline, perhaps exceed the hopes that can be in others
of ever introducing it with any great success. What if I should
tell ye now of dispensations and indulgences; to give a little the
reins, to let them play and nibble with the bait awhile, a people
as hard of heart as that Egyptian colony that went to Canaan.
This is the common doctrine that adulterous and injurious
divorces were not connived only, but with eye open allowed of
old for hardness of heart. But that opinion, I trust, by then this
following argument hath been well read, will be left for one of
the mysteries of an indulgent Antichrist to farm out incest by
and those his other tributary pollutions. What middle way can
be taken then, may some interrupt, if we must neither turn to
the right, nor to the left, and that the people hate to be reformed?
Mark then, judges and lawgivers, and ye whose office it is to
be our teachers, for I will utter now a doctrine, if ever any other,




I90


MAN AND WIFE.


though neglected or not understood, yet of great and powerful
importance to the governing of mankind. He who wisely would
restrain the reasonable soul of man within due bounds, must first
himself know perfectly how far the territory and dominion extends
of just and honest liberty. As little must he offer to bind that
which God hath loosened, as to loosen that which He hath bound.
The ignorance and mistake of this high point hath heaped up
one huge half of all the misery that hath been since Adam.
In the Gospel we shall read a supercilious crew of masters,
whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye, grieving that God should
be so facile to man, was to set straiter limits to obedience than God
hath set; to enslave the dignity of man, to put a garrison upon
his neck of empty and over-dignified precepts: and we shall
read our Saviour never more grieved and troubled than to meet
with such a peevish madness among men against their own
freedom. How can we expect him to be less offended with us,
when much of the same folly shall be found yet remaining where
it least ought, to the perishing of thousands?  The greatest
burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in
the Church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. What
greater weakening, what more subtle stratagem against our
Christian warfare, when besides the gross body of real transgressions to encounter, we shall be terrified by a vain and shadowy
menacing of faults that are not? When things indifferent shall
be set to overfront us under the banners of sin, what wonder if
we be routed, and by this art of our adversary, fall into the subjection of worst and deadliest offences? The superstition of the
papist is, "Touch not, taste not," when God bids both; and ours
is, "Part not, separate not," when God and Charity both permits
and commands. "Let all your things be done with Charity,"
saith St. Paul; and his Master saith, "She is the fulfilling of the
law." Yet now a civil, an indifferent, a sometime dissuaded law
of marriage, must be forced upon us to fulfil, not only without
Charity but against her. No place in heaven or earth, except
hell, where Charity may not enter: yet Marriage, the ordinance
of our solace and contentment, the remedy of our loneliness,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 19x
will not admit now either of Charity or Mercy, to come in and
mediate, or pacify the fierceness of this gentle ordinance, the
unremedied loneliness of this remedy. Advise ye well, supreme
Senate, if Charity be thus excluded and expulsed, how ye will
defend the untainted honour of your own actions and proceedings.
He who marries, intends as little to conspire his own ruin, as he
that swears allegiance: and as a whole people is in proportion to
an ill government, so is one man to an ill marriage. If they,
against any authority, covenant, or statute, may, by the sovereign
edict of Charity, save not only their lives but honest liberties from
unworthy bondage, as well may he against any private covenant
which he never entered to his mischief, redeem himself from
unsupportable disturbances to honest peace and just contentment.
And much the rather, for that to resist the highest magistrate
though tyrannizing, God never gave us express allowance; only
he gave us reason, charity, nature, and good example to bear us
out: but in this economical misfortune thus to demean ourselves,
besides the warrant of those four great directors, which doth as
justly belong hither, we have an express law of God, and such
a law as whereof our Saviour with a solemn threat forbade the
abrogating. For no effect of tyranny can sit more heavy on the
Commonwealth, than this household unhappiness on the Family.
And farewell all hope of true reformation in the State, while such
an evil as this lies undiscerned or unregarded in the House: on
the redress whereof depends not only the spiritful and orderly
life of our grown men, but the willing and careful education of
our children. Let this therefore be new examined, this tenure
and freehold of mankind, this native and domestic charter given
us by a greater lord than that Saxon king the Confessor. Let
the statutes of God be turned over, be scanned anew and considered not altogether by the narrow intellectuals of quotationists
and common places, but, as was the ancient right of Councils,
by men of what liberal profession soever, of eminent spirit and
breeding joined with a diffuse and various knowledge of divine and
human things; able to balance and define good and evil, right and
wrong, throughout every state of life; able to shew us the ways




I92


MAN AND WIFE.


of the Lord straight and faithful as they are, not full of cranks
and contradictions, and pitfalling dispenses, but with divine insight and benignity measured out to the proportion of each mind
and spirit, each temper and disposition, created so different each
from other and yet by the skill of wise conducting all to become
uniform in virtue. To expedite these knots, were worthy a learned
and memorable synod; while our enemies expect to see the expectation of the Church tired out with dependencies and independencies, how they will compound and in what calends.
Doubt not, worthy Senators, to vindicate the sacred honour and
judgment of Moses your predecessor from the shallow commenting of scholastics and canonists. Doubt not, after him to reach
out your steady hands to the misinformed and wearied life of
man; to restore this his lost heritage into the household state:
wherewith be sure that peace and love, the best subsistance of
a Christian family, will return home from whence they are now
banished; places of prostitution will be less haunted, the neighbour's bed less attempted, the yoke of prudent and manly discipline will be generally submitted to; sober and well-ordered living
will soon spring up in the commonwealth. Ye have an author
great beyond exception, Moses; and one yet greater, he who
hedged in from abolishing every smallest jot and tittle of precious
equity contained in that law, with a more accurate and lasting
Masoreth, than either the synagogue of Ezra or the Galilean
school at Tiberias hath left us. Whatever else you can enact
will scarce concern a third part of the British name: but the
benefit and good of this your magnanimous example will easily
spread far beyond the banks of Tweed and the Norman isles.
It would not be the first or second time, since our ancient druids,
by whom this island was the cathedral of philosophy to France,
left off their pagan rites, that England hath had this honour
vouchsafed from heaven, to give out Reformation to the World.
Who was it but our English Constantine that baptized the
Roman empire?   Who but the Northumbrian Willibrord, and
Winfrith of Devon, with their followers, were the first apostles
of Germany? Who but Alcuin and Wyclif our countrymen,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 193
opened the eyes of Europe, the one in arts, the other in religion?
Let not England forget her precedence of teaching nations how
to live.
Know, worthies, and exercise the privilege of your honoured
country. A greater title I here bring ye than is either in the
power or in the policy of Rome to give her monarchs; this
glorious act will style ye the defenders of Charity. Nor is this
yet the highest inscription that will adorn so religious and so holy
a defence as this; behold here the pure and sacred Law of God,
and His yet purer and more sacred name, offering themselves to
you, first of all, Christian Reformers, to be acquitted from the
long-suffered ungodly attribute of patronizing adultery. Defer
not to wipe off instantly these imputative blurs and stains cast by
rude fancies upon the throne and beauty itself of inviolable
holiness: lest some other people more devout and wise than we
bereave us this offered immortal glory, our wonted prerogative, of
being the first asserters in every great vindication. For me, as
far as my part leads me, I have already my greatest gain, assurance and inward satisfaction to have done in this nothing unworthy of an honest life and studies well employed. With what
event, among the wise and right understanding handful of men,
I am secure. But how among the drove of custom and prejudice
this will be relished, by such whose capacity since their youth,
run ahead into the easy creek of a system or a medulla, sails
there at will under the blown physiognomy of their unlaboured
rudiments; for them, what their taste will be I have also surety
sufficient, from the entire league that hath ever been between
formal ignorance and grave obstinacy. Yet when I remember
the little that our Saviour could prevail about this doctrine of
Charity against the crabbed textuists of his time, I make no
wonder, but rest confident, that whoso prefers either matrimony
or other ordinance before the good of man and the plain exigence
of Charity, let him profess papist, or protestant, or what he will,
he is no better than a pharisee, and understands not the Gospel.
Whom as a misinterpreter of Christ I openly protest against, and
provoke him to the trial of this Truth before all the world. And
N




I94


MAN AND WIFE.


let him bethink him withal how he will sodder up the shifting
flaws of his ungirt Permissions, his venial and unvenial Dispenses,
wherewith the Law of God, pardoning and unpardoning, hath been
shamefully branded, for want of heed in glossing, to have eluded
and baffled out all faith and chastity from the marriage-bed of
that holy seed with politic and judicial adulteries. I seek not
to seduce the simple and illiterate. My errand is to find out the
choicest and the learnedest, who have this high gift of wisdom,to answer solidly or to be convinced. I crave it from the piety,
the learning, and the prudence which is housed in this place.
It might perhaps more fitly have been written in another tongue:
and I had done so, but that the esteem I have of my country's
judgment, and the love I bear to my native language to serve it
first with what I endeavour, make me speak it thus ere I assay
the verdict of outlandish readers. And perhaps also here I might
have ended nameless, but that the address of these lines chiefly
to the Parliament of England might have seemed ingrateful not
to acknowledge by whose religious care, unwearied watchfulness,
courageous and heroic resolutions, I enjoy the peace and studious
leisure to remain, the Honourer and Attendant of their noble
Worth and Virtues,                       JOHN MILTON.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE
OF DIVORCE.
----
BOOK I.
THE PREFACE.
That Mian is the Occasion of his own Miseries in most of those
Evils which he irputes to God's infjicting. The Absurdity
of our Canonists in their Decrees about Divorce. The Christian Imperial Laws framed zoith more fEuity. The opinion
of Hugo Grotizs and Paulus Fagius: And the Purpose in
General of this Discourse.
MANY men, whether it be their fate or fond opinion, easily persuade themselves, if God would but be pleased a while to withdraw his just punishments from us, and to restrain what power
either the devil or any earthly enemy hath to work us wo, that
then man's nature would find immediate rest and releasement
from all evils. But verily they who think so, if they be such as
have a mind large enough to take into their thoughts a general
survey of human things, would soon prove themselves in that
opinion far deceived. For though it were granted us by divine
indulgence to be exempt from all that can be harmful to us from
without, yet the perverseness of our folly is so bent, that we
should never cease hammering out of our own hearts, as it were
out of a flint, the seeds and sparkles of new misery to ourselves,
till all were in a blaze again. And no marvel if out of our own
hearts, for they are evil; but even out of those things which God
meant us, either for a principal good, or a pure contentment, we




i96


MAN AND WIFE.


are still hatching and contriving upon ourselves matter of continual sorrow and perplexity. What greater good to man than
that revealed rule, whereby God vouchsafes to shew us how he
would be worshipped?  And yet that not rightly understood
became the cause that once a famous man in Israel could not
but oblige his conscience to be the sacrificer, or if not, the
gaoler of his innocent and only daughter; and was the cause
ofttimes that armies of valiant men have given up their throats
to a heathenish enemy on the sabbath day, fondly thinking their
defensive resistance to be as then a work unlawful. What thing
more instituted to the solace and delight of man than marriage?
And yet the misinterpreting of some scripture, directed mainly
against the abusers of the law for divorce given by Moses, hath
changed the blessing of matrimony not seldom into a familiar and
coinhabiting mischief; at least into a drooping and disconsolate
household captivity, without refuge or redemption.  So ungoverned and so wild a race doth superstition run us, from one
extreme of abused liberty into the other of unmerciful restraint.
For although God in the first ordaining of marriage taught us to
what end he did it, in words expressly implying the apt and
cheerful conversation of man with woman, to comfort and refresh
him against the evil of solitary life, not mentioning the purpose
of generation till afterwards, as being but a secondary end in
dignity, though not in necessity: yet now, if any two be but once
handed in the church, and have tasted in any sort the nuptial
bed, let them find themselves never so mistaken in their dispositions through any error, concealment, or misadventure, that
through their different tempers, thoughts, and constitutions, they
can neither be to one another a remedy against loneliness, nor
live in any union or contentment all their days; yet they shall,
so they be but found suitably weaponed to the least possibility
of sensual enjoyment, be made, spite of antipathy, to fadge
together, and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomeness and despair of all sociable delight in the ordinance
which God established to that very end. What a calamity is
this? and, as the wise man, if he were alive, would sigh out in




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 197
his own phrase, what a "sore evil is this under the sun!"  All
which we can refer justly to no other author than the Canon Law
and her adherents, not consulting with Charity, the interpreter
and guide of our Faith, but resting in the mere element of the
text; doubtless by the policy of the devil to make that gracious
ordinance become unsupportable, that what with men not daring
to venture upon wedlock, and what with men wearied out of it,
all inordinate licence might abound. It was for many ages that
marriage lay in disgrace with most of the ancient doctors, as a
work of the flesh, almost a defilement, wholly denied to priests,
and the second time dissuaded to all, as he that reads Tertuliian
or Jerome may see at large. Afterwards it was thought so sacramental, that no adultery or desertion could dissolve it. And this
is the sense of our Canon Courts in England to this day, but in no
other reformed church else. Yet there remains in them also a
burden on it as heavy as the other two were disgraceful or superstitious, and of as much iniquity, crossing a law not only written
by Moses, but charactered in us by nature, of more antiquity and
deeper around than marriage itself; which law is to force nothing
against the faultless proprieties of nature. Yet that this may be
colourably done, our Saviour's words touching divorce are as it
were congealed into a stony rigour, inconsistent both with his
doctrine and his office; and that which he preached only to the
conscience as by canonical tyranny snatched into the compulsive
censure of a judicial court, where laws are imposed even against
the venerable and secret power of nature's impression, to love,
whatever cause be found to loathe: which is a heinous barbarism
both against the honour of marriage, the dignity of man and his
soul, the goodness of Christianity, and all the human respects of
civility. Notwithstanding that some the wisest and gravest among
the Christian Emperors, who had about them, to consult with,
those of the Fathers then living who for their learning and holiness of life are still with us in great renown, have made their
statutes and edicts concerning this debate far more easy and
relenting, in many necessary cases wherein the canon is inflexible.
And Hugo Grotius, a man of these times one of the best learned,




198


MAN AND WIFE.


seems not obscurely to adhere in his persuasion to the equity
of those imperial decrees, in his notes upon the Evangelists;
much allaying the outward roughness of the text, which hath for
the most part been too immoderately expounded, and excites
the diligence of others to inquire further into this question, as
containing many points that have not yet been explained. Which
ever likely to remain intricate and hopeless upon the suppositions commonly stuck to, the authority of Paulus Fagius, one
so learned and so eminent in England once, if it might persuade, would straight acquaint us with a solution of these
differences no less prudent than compendious.  He, in his
comment on the Pentateuch, doubted not to maintain that
divorces might be as lawfully permitted by the magistrate to
Christians, as they were to the Jews. But because he is but brief,
and these things of great consequence not to be kept obscure, I
shall conceive it nothing above my duty, either for the difficulty
or the censure that may pass thereon, to communicate such
thoughts as I also have had, and do offer them now in this
general labour of Reformation to the candid view both of Church
and Magistrate: especially because I see it the hope of good men,
that those irregular and unspiritual courts have spun their utmost
date in this land, and some better course must now be constituted.
This therefore shall be the task and period of this discourse:
to prove, first, that other reasons of divorce besides adultery
were by the law of Moses, and are yet, to be allowed by the
Christian magistrate as a piece of justice, and that the words
of Christ are not hereby contraried. Next, that to prohibit
absolutely any divorce whatsoever, except those which Moses
excepted, is against the reason of law, as in due place I shall
shew out of Fagius, with many additions. He therefore who by
adventuring, shall be so happy as with success to light the way
of such an expedient liberty and truth as this, shall restore the
much-wronged and over-sorrowed state of matrimony, not only to
those merciful and life-giving remedies of Moses, but, as much
as may be, to that serene and blissful condition it was in at the
beginning, and shall deserve of all apprehensive men (consider



THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. I99
ing the troubles and distempers, which, for want of this in sight,
have been so oft in kingdoms, in states, and families), shall
deserve to be reckoned among the public benefactors of civil
and human life, above the inventors of wine and oil; for this is
a far dearer, far nobler, and more desirable cherishing to man's
life, unworthily exposed to sadness and mistake, which he shall
vindicate. Not that licence, and levity, and unconsented breach:
of faith, should herein be countenanced; but that some conscionable and tender pity might be had of those who have unwarily,
in a thing they never practised before, made themselves the
bondmen of a luckless and helpless matrimony.   In which
argument, he whose courage can serve him to give the first
onset, must look for two several oppositions. The one from those
who, having sworn themselves to long custom and the letter of
the text, will not out of the road. The other from those whose
gross and vulgar apprehensions conceit but low of matrimonial
purposes, and in the work of male and female think they have
all. Nevertheless, it shall be here sought by due ways to be
made appear, that those words of God in the institution, promising a meet help against loneliness, and those words of Christ,
that "his yoke is easy, and his burden light," were not spoken in
vain: for if the knot of marriage may in no case be dissolved but
for adultery, all the burdens and services of the law are not so
intolerable. This only is desired of them who are minded to
judge hardly of thus maintaining, that they would be still and
hear all out, nor think it equal to answer deliberate reason with
sudden heat and noise; remembering this, that many truths now
of reverend esteem and credit had their birth and beginning
once from singular and private thoughts, while the most of men
were otherwise possessed, and had the fate at first to be generally exploded and exclaimed on by many violent opposers. Yet
I may err perhaps in soothing myself that this present truth
revived will deserve on all hands to be not sinisterly received,
in that it undertakes the cure of an inveterate disease crept into
the best part of human society, and to do this with no smarting
corrosive, but a smooth and pleasing lesson, which received both




200


MAN AND WIFE.


the virtue to soften and dispel rooted and knotty sorrows, and
without enchantment, if that be feared, or spell used, hath regard
at once both to serious pity and upright honesty; that tends to
the redeeming and restoring of none but such as are the object
of compassion, having in an ill hour hampered themselves, to
the utter dispatch of all their most beloved comforts and repose
for this life's term. But if we shall obstinately dislike this new
overture of unexpected ease and recovery, what remains but to
deplore the frowardness of our hopeless condition, which neither
can endure the estate we are in, nor admit of remedy either
sharp or sweet? Sharp we ourselves distaste; and sweet, under
whose hands we are, is scrupled and suspected as too luscious.
In such a posture Christ found the Jews, who were neither won
with the austerity of John the Baptist, and thought it too much
licence to follow freely the charming pipe of him who sounded
and proclaimed liberty and relief to all distresses. Yet Truth in
some age or other will find her witness, and shall be justified at
last by her own children.
CHAPTER I.
The Position proved by the Law of Moses.  That Law expounded
and asserted to a moral and charitable Use, first by Paulus
Fagius, next with other Additions.
To remove therefore, if it be possible, this great and sad oppression which, through the strictness of a literal interpreting, hath
invaded and disturbed the dearest and most peaceable estate of
household society, to the overburdening if not the overwhelming
of many Christians better worth than to be so deserted of the
Church's considerate care, this position shall be laid down, first
proving, then answering what may be objected either from
Scripture or light of Reason.
"That indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising
from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindering, and ever likely
to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 201
and peace; is a greater reason of divorce than natural frigidity,
especially if there be no children and that there be mutual
consent."
This I gather from the law in Deut. xxiv. I: "When a man
hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she
find no favour in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness in her, let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in
her hand, and send her out of his house," &c. This law, if the
words of Christ may be admitted into our belief, shall never, while
the world stands, for him be abrogated. First, therefore, I here
set down what learned Fagius hath observed on this law: "The
law of God," saith he, "permitted divorce for the help of human
weakness. For every one that of necessity separates, cannot live
single. That Christ denied divorce to his own, hinders not; for
what is that to the unregenerate, who hath not attained such
perfection? Let not the remedy be despised which was given
to weakness. And when Christ saith, who marries the divorced
commits adultery, it is to be understood, if he had any plot in
the divorce." The rest I reserve until it be disputed how the
magistrate is to do herein. From hence we may plainly discern
a twofold consideration in this law: first, the end of the lawgiver
and the proper act of the law, to command or to allow something
just and honest or indifferent. Secondly, his sufferance from
some accidental result of evil by this allowance, which the law
cannot remedy. For if this law have no other end or act but
only the allowance of sin, though never to so good intention, that
law is no law, but sin muffled in the robe of law or law disguised
in the loose garment of sin. Both which are too foul hypotheses,
to save the phenomenon of our Saviour's answer to the Pharisees
about this matter. And I trust anon, by the help of an infallible
guide, to perfect such Prytinic tables as shall mend the astronomy
of our wide expositors.
The cause of divorce mentioned in the law is translated "some
uncleanness," but in the Hebrew it Uonnds "nakedness of aught,
or any real nakedness:" which by all the learned interpreters is
referred to the mind as well as to the body. And what greater




202


MAN AND WIFE.


nakedness or unfitness of mind than that which hinders ever the
solace and peaceful society of the married couple? And what
hinders that more than the unfitness and defectiveness of an
unconjugal mind? The cause, therefore, of divorce expressed in
the position cannot but agree with that described in the best and
equallest sense of Moses's law. Which, being a matter of pure
Charity, is plainly moral, and more now in force than ever; therefore surely lawful. For if under the law such was God's gracious
indulgence, as not to suffer the ordinance of his goodness and
favour through any error to be seared and stigmatized upon his
servants to their misery and thraldom; much less will he suffer
it now under the covenant of grace, by abrogating his former
grant of remedy and relief. But the first institution will be
objected to have ordained marriage inseparable. To that a little
patience, until this first part have amply discoursed the grave and
pious reasons of this divorcive law; and then I doubt not but
with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten thousands tears out of
the life of man. Yet thus much I shall now insist on, that whatever the institution were, it could not be so enormous, nor so
rebellious against both nature and reason, as to exalt itself above
the end and person for whom it was instituted.
CHAPTER II.
The first Reason of the Law grounded on the prime Reason of
Afatrimony.  That no Covenant whatsoever obliges against
the main End both of itself, and of the parties covenanting.
FOR all sense and equity reclaims that any Law or Covenant, how
solemn or strait soever, either between God and Man, or Man
and Man, though of God's joining, should bind against a prime
and principal scope of its own institution, and of both or either
party covenanting. Neither can it be of force to engage a blameless creature, to his own perpetual sorrow mistaken for his
expected solace, without suffering charity to step in and do a




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 203
confessed good work of parting those whom nothing holds together
but this God's joining falsely supposed, against the express end
of his own ordinance. And what his chief end was of creating
woman to be joined with man, his own instituting words declare,
and are infallible to inform us what is marriage and what is no
marriage; unless we can think them set there to no purpose:
"It is not good," saith he, " that man should be alone. I will
make him a help meet for him." From which words, so plain,
less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than
that in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the
chiefest and the noblest end of marriage. For we find here no
expression so necessarily implying carnal knowledge as this prevention of loneliness to the mind and spirit of man. To this,
Fagius, Calvin, Pareus, Rivetus, as willingly and largely assent as
can be wished. And indeed it is a greater blessing from God,
more worthy so excellent a creature as man is, and a higher end
to honour and sanctify the league of marriage, whenas the solace
and satisfaction of the mind is regarded and provided for before
the sensitive pleasing of the body. And with all generous persons
married, thus it is, that where the mind and person pleases aptly
there some unaccomplishment of the body's delight may be
better borne with than when the mind hangs off in an unclosing
disproportion, though the body be as it ought; for there all corporal delight will soon become unsavoury and contemptible.
And the solitariness of man, which God had mainly and principally ordered to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, but lies
under a worse condition than the loneliest single life. For in single
life the absence and remoteness of a helper might inure him to
expect his own comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope;
but here the continual sight of his deluded thoughts, without cure,
must needs be to him, if especially his complexion incline him to
melancholy, a daily trouble and pain of loss in some degree like
that which reprobates feel. Lest, therefore, so noble a creature
as man should be shut up incurably under a worse evil, by an
easy mistake in that ordinance which God gave him to remedy a
less evil, reaping to himself sorrow while he went to rid away




204


MAN AND WIFE.


solitariness, it cannot avoid to be concluded, that if the woman
be naturally so of disposition as will not help to remove but
help to increase that same Godforbidden loneliness, which in
time draws on with it a general discomfort and dejection of mind
not beseeming either Christian profession or moral conversation,
unprofitable and dangerous to the commonwealth when the
household estate, out of which must flourish forth the vigour and
spirit of all public enterprises, is so ill-contented and procured at
home and cannot be supported; such a marriage can be no
marriage, whereto the most honest end is wanting. And the
aggrieved person shall do more manly to be extraordinary and
singular in claiming the due right whereof he is frustrated, than
to piece up his lost contentment by visiting the stews, or stepping
to his neighbour's bed, which is the common shift in this misfortune; or else by suffering his useful life to waste away and be
lost under a secret affliction of an unconscionable size to human
strength. Against all which evils the mercy of this Mosaic law
was graciously exhibited.
CHAPTER III.
The Ignorance and Iniquity of Canon-law, providing for the Right
of the Body in Marriage, but nothingfor the Wrongs and
Grievances of the Mind. An Objection, that the Miind should
be better looked to before contract, answered.
How vain, therefore, is it, and how preposterous in the Canon
Law, to have made such careful provision against the impediment
of carnal performance, and to have had no care about the unconversing inability of mind so defective to the purest and most
sacred end of matrimony; and that the vessel of voluptuous
enjoyment must be made good to him that has taken it upon
trust, without any caution, whenas the mind, from whence must
flow the acts of peace and love, a far more precious mixture than
the quintessence of an excrement, though it be found never so
deficient and unable to perform the best duty of marriage in a




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 205
cheerful and agreeable conversation, shall be thought good
enough, however flat and melancholious it be, and must serve,
though to the eternal disturbance and languishing of him that
complains! Yet Wisdom and Charity, weighing God's own institution, would think that the pining of a sad spirit wedded to
loneliness should deserve to be freed, as well as the impatience
of a sensual desire so providently relieved. It is read to us in
the Liturgy, that " we must not marry to satisfy the fleshly appetite,
like brute beasts, that have no understanding;" but the Canon so
runs as if it dreamed of no other matter than such an appetite to
be satisfied; for if it happen that nature hath stopped or extinguished the veins of sensuality, that marriage is annulled. But
though all the faculties of the understanding and conversing part,
after trial, appear to be so ill and so aversely met through nature's
unalterable working as that neither peace nor any sociable contentment can follow, it is as nothing; the contract shall stand
as firm as ever, betide what will. What is this but secretly to
instruct us, that however many grave reasons are pretended to
the married life, yet that nothing indeed is thought worth regard
therein but the prescribed satisfaction of an irrational heat?
Which cannot be but ignominious to the state of marriage, dishonourable to the undervalued soul of man, and even to Christian doctrine itself: while it seems more moved at the disappointing of an impetuous nerve, than at the ingenuous grievance of
a mind unreasonably yoked; and to place more of marriage
in the channel of concupiscence, than in the pure influence of
peace and love, whereof the soul's lawful contentment is the
only fountain.
But some are ready to object, that the disposition ought
seriously to be considered before. But let them know again, that
for all the wariness can be used, it may yet befall a discreet man
to be mistaken in his choice: and we have plenty of examples.
The soberest and best governed men are least practised in these
affairs; and who knows not that the bashful muteness of a virgin
may ofttimes hide all the unliveliness and natural sloth which is
really unfit for conversation? Nor is there that freedom of access




206


MAN AND WIFE.


granted or presumed as may suffice to a perfect discerning, till too
late. And where any indisposition is suspected, what more usual
than the persuasion of friends, that acquaintance, as it increases,
will amend all? And lastly, it is not strange though many who
have spent their youth chastely are in some things not so quicksighted, while they haste too eagerly to light the nuptial torch;
nor is it, therefore, that for a modest error a man should forfeit
so great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him,
since they who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold
accustoming, prove most successful in their matches, because their
wild affections unsettling at will have been as so many divorces
to teach them experience. Whenas the sober man honouring
the appearance of modesty, and hoping well of every social virtue
under that veil, may easily chance to meet, if not with a body
impenetrable yet often with a mind to all other due conversation
inaccessible, and to all the more estimable and superior purposes
of matrimony useless and almost lifeless. And what a solace,
What a fit help such a consort would be through the whole life of
a man, is less pain to conjecture than to have experience.
CHAPTER IV.
The second Reason of this Law, because without it Marriage, as it
happens oft, is not a Remedy of that which it promises, as any
rational Creature would expect. That filrriage, if we pattern
from the Beginning, as our Saviour bids, was not properly the
Remedy of Lust, but the fufilling of co~njugal Love and Helpfulness.
AND that we may further see what a violent cruel thing it is to
force the continuing of those together whom God and nature
in the gentlest end of marriage never joined; divers evils and
extremities; that follow upon such a compulsion, shall here be
set in view. Of evils, the first and greatest is, that hereby a most
absurd and rash imputation is fixed upon God and His holy Laws;
of conniving and dispensing with open and common adultery




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 207
among his chosen people; a thing which the rankest politician
would think it shame and disworship that his laws should countenance: how and in what manner that comes to pass I shall reserve
till the course of method brings on the unfolding of many scriptures.
Next, the Law and Gospel are hereby made liable to more than
one contradiction, which I refer also thither. Lastly, the supreme
dictate of Charity is hereby many ways neglected and violated;
which I shall forthwith address to prove. First, we know St.
Paul saith, " It is better to marry than to burn." Marriage, therefore, was given as a remedy of that trouble: but what might this
burning mean? Certainly not the mere motion of carnal, not the
mere goad of a sensitive desire: God does not principally take
care for such cattle. What is it then but that desire which God
put into Adam in Paradise, before he knew the sin of incontinence; that desire which God saw it was not good that man should
be left alone to burn in; the desire and longing to put off an
unkindly solitariness by uniting another body, but not without a
fit soul to his, in the cheerful society of wedlock? Which if it
were so needful before the fall, when man was much more perfect in himself, how much more is it needful now against all
the sorrows and casualties of this life, to have an intimate and
speaking help, a ready and reviving associate in marriage?
Whereof who misses, by chancing on a mute and spiritless mate,
remains more alone than before, and in a burning less to be contained than that which is fleshly, and more to be considered; as
being more deeply rooted even in the faultless innocence of nature.
As for that other burning, which is but as it were the venom of a
lusty and over-abounding concoction, strict life and labour, with
the abatement of a full diet, may keep that low and obedient
enough; but this pure and more inbred desire of joining to itself'
in conjugal fellowship a fit conversing soul (which desire is properly
called love) "is stronger than death," as the spouse of Christ
thought; "many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods
drown it." This is that rational burning that marriage is to remedy,
not to be allayed with fasting, nor with any penance to be subdued:
which how can he assuage who by mishap hath met the most




208


MAN AND WIFE.


unmeet and unsuitable mind?' Who hath the power to struggle
with an intelligible flame, not in Paradise to be resisted, become
now more ardent by being failed of what in reason it looked for;
and even then most unquenched, when the importunity of a
provender burning is well enough appeased and yet the soul
hath obtained nothing of what it justly desires. Certainly such a
one forbidden to divorce, is in effect forbidden to marry, and
compelled to greater difficulties than in a single life; for if there
be not a more humane burning, which marriage must satisfy or
else may be dissolved, than that of copulation, marriage cannot
be honourable for the meet reducing and terminating lust between
two; seeing many beasts in voluntary and chosen couples live
together as unadulterously, and are as truly married in that respect. But all ingenuous men will see that the dignity and blessing of marriage is placed rather in the mutual enjoyment of that
which the wanting Soul needfully seeks, than of that which the
plenteous Body would joyfully give away. Hence it is that Plato,
in his festival discourse, brings in Socrates relating what he feigned
to have learned from the prophetess Diotima, how Love was the
son of Penury, begot of Plenty in the garden of Jupiter. Which
divinely sorts with that which in effect Moses tell us, that Love
was the son of Loneliness, begot in Paradise by that sociable and
helpful aptitude which God implanted between man and woman
toward each other. The same, also, is that burning mentioned
by St. Paul, whereof marriage ought to be the remedy: the flesh
hath other mutual and easy curbs which are in the power of any'
temperate man. When, therefore, this original and sinless penury,
or loneliness of the soul, cannot lay itself down by the side of
such a meet and acceptable union as God ordained in marriage,
at least in some proportion, it cannot conceive and bring forth
Love, but remains utterly unmarried under a former wedlock, and
still burns in the proper meaning of St. Paul. Then enters Hate;
not that hate that sins, but that which only is natural dissatisfaction, and the turning aside from a mistaken object. If that mistake have done injury, it fails not to dismiss with recompense;
for to retain still, and not be able to love, is to heap up more




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 209
injury. Hence this wise and pious law of dismission now defended took beginning: he, therefore, who lacking of his due in
the most native and humane end of marriage, thinks it better
to part than to live sadly and injuriously to that cheerful covenant (for not to be beloved, and yet retained, is the greatest
injury to a gentle spirit), he, I say, who therefore seeks to part, is
one who highly honours the married life and would not stain it.
And the reasons which now move him to divorce are equal to the
best of those that could first warrant him to marry; for, as was
plainly shewn, both the hate which now diverts him, and the loneliness which leads him still powerfully to seek a fit help, hath
not the least grain of a sin in it, if he be worthy to understand
himself.
CHAPTER V.
The third Reason of this Law, because without it, he who has
happened where he finds nothing bnt remediless Ofences and
Discontents, is in more and greater Tenptations than ever
before.
THIRDLY, Yet it is next to be feared, if he must be still bound
without reason by a deaf rigour, that when he perceives the just
expectance of his mind defeated, he will begin even against law
to cast about where he may find his satisfaction more complete,
unless he be a thing heroically virtuous; and that are not the
common lump of men, for whom chiefly the laws ought to be
made, though not to their sins, yet to their unsinning weaknesses,
it being above their strength to endure the lonely estate which
while they shunned they are fallen into. And yet there follows
upon this a worse temptation. For if he be such as hath spent his
youth unblamedly, and laid up his chiefest earthly comforts in the
enjoyments of a contented marriage, nor did neglect that furtherance which was to be obtained therein by constant prayers; when
he shall find himself bound fast to an uncomplying discord of
nature, or, as it oft happens, to an image of earth and phlegm,
with whom he looked to be the copartner of a sweet and glad0




210


MAN AND WIFE.


some society, and sees withal that his bondage is now inevitable;
though he be almost the strongest Christian, he will be ready to
despair in virtue, and mutiny against Divine Providence. And this
doubtless is the reason of those lapses, and that melancholy despair, which we see in many wedded persons-though they understand it not, or pretend other causes, because they know no
remedy-and is of extreme danger. Therefore when human frailty
surcharged is at such a loss, Charity ought to venture much and
use bold physic, lest an overtossed faith endanger to shipwreck.
CHAPTER VI.
The fourth Reason of this Law, that God regards Love and Peace
in the Family more than a conpulsive Performance of Mzrriage, which is more broke by grievous Continuance than by a
needful Divorce.
FOURTHLY, Marriage is a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced co-habitation, and counterfeit performance
of duties, but in unfeigned love and peace. And of matrimonial
love, no doubt but that was chiefly meant which by the ancient
sages was thus parabled; that Love, if he be not twin born, yet
hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros; whom while
he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and
feigning desires that wander singly up and down in his likeness: by them in their borrowed garb, Love, though not wholly
blind, as poets wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being born
an archer aiming, and that eye not the quickest in this dark
region here below which is not Love's proper sphere, partly out
of the simplicity and credulity which is native to him, often
deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and
suborned striplings, as if they were his mother's own sons; for
so he thinks them, while they subtilly keep themselves most on
his blind side. But after a while, as his manner is, when soaring
up into the high tower of his Apogmeum, above the shadow of the
earth, he darts out the direct rays of his then most piercing eye



THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 21I
sight upon tie impostures and trim disguises that were used with
him, and discerns that this is not his genuine brother, as he
imagined; he has no longer tie power to hold fellowship with
such a personated mate: for straight his arrows lose their golden
heads, and shed their purple feathers, his silken braids untwine,
and slip their knots, and that original and fiery virtue given him
by Fate all on a sudden goes out, and leaves him undeified and
despoiled of all his force: till finding Anteros at last, he kindles
and repairs the almost-faded ammunition of his deity by the
reflection of a coequal and homogeneal fire. Thus mine author
sung it to me: and by the leave of those who would be counted
the only grave ones, this is no mere amatorious novel (though
to be wise and skilful in these matters, men heretofore of greatest
name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest arcs that
human contemplation circling upwards can make from the globy
sea whereon she stands); but this is a deep and serious verity,
shewing us that love in marriage cannot live nor subsist unless
it be mutual; and where love cannot be, there can be left of
wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony,
as undelightful and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy. So far is his command from tying men to the observance
of duties which there is no help for but they must be dissembled.
If Solomon's advice be not over-frolic, "Live joyfully," saith he,
"with the wife whom thou lovest, all thy days, for that is thy
po:tion:" how then, where we find it impossible to rejoice or to
love, can we obey this precept?  How miserably do we defraud
ourselves of that comfortable portion which God gives us, by
striving vainly to glue an error together which God and nature
will not join, adding but more vexation and violence to that blissful society by our importunate superstition, that will not hearken
to St. Paul, i Cor. vii., who, speaking of marriage and divorce,
determines plain enough in general, that God therein "hath
called us to peace, and not to bondage!" Yea, God himself
commands in His Law more than once, and by his prophet
Malachi, as Calvin and the best translations read, that "he who
hates, let him divorce," that is, he who cannot love. Hence it is




212


MAN AND WIFE.


that the rabbins, and Maimonides, famous among the rest, in a
book of his set forth by Buxtorfius, tells us, that "divorce was
permitted by Moses to preserve peace in marriage, and quiet in the
family." Surely the Jews had their saving peace about them as
well as we; yet care was taken that this wholesome provision for
household peace should also be allowed them. And must this be
denied to Christians? 0 perverseness! that the Law should be
made more provident of peace-making than the Gospel! that the
Gospel should be put to beg a most necessary help of mercy
from the Law, but must not have it! and that to grind in the
mill of an undelighted and servile copulation must be the only
forced work of a Christian marriage, ofttimes with such a yokefellow from whom both love and peace, both nature and religion
mourns to be separated.  I cannot therefore be so diffident
as not securely to conclude that he who can receive nothing of
the most important helps in marriage, being thereby disenabled
to return that duty which is his with a clear and hearty countenance, and thus continues to grieve whom he would not and is
no less grieved, that man ought even for love's sake and peace
to move divorce, upon good and liberal conditions to the divorced. And it is a less breach of wedlock to part, with wise and
quiet consent, betimes, than still to soil and profane that mystery
of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper. For it is not the outward continuing of marriage that
keeps whole that covenant, but whatsoever does most according
to peace and love, whether in marriage or in divorce, he it is
that breaks marriage least; it being so often written, that "Love
only is the fulfilling of every commandment."




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 213
CHAPTER VII.
The ft/h Reason, that nothing more hinders and disturbs the whole
Life of a Christian, than a Matrimony found to be incurably
unfit, and doth the same in effect that an idolatrous Match.
FIFTHLY, As those priests of old were not to be long in sorrow,
or if they were, they could not rightly execute their function; so
every true Christian in a higher order of priesthood, is a person
dedicate to joy and peace, offering himself a lively sacrifice of
praise and thanksgiving, and there is no Christian duty that is
not to be seasoned and set off with cheerishness. Which in a
thousand outward and intermitting crosses may yet be done well,
as in this vale of tears: but in such a bosom affliction as this,
crushing the very foundation of his inmost nature, when he shall
be forced to love against a possibility, and to use a dissimulation
against his soul in the perpetual and ceaseless duties of a husband;
doubtless his whole duty of serving God must needs be blurred
and tainted with a sad unpreparedness and dejection of spirit,
wherein God has no delight. Who sees not therefore how much
more Christianity it would be to break by divorce that which is
more broken by undue and forcible keeping, rather than " to cover
the altar of the Lord with continual tears, so that he regardeth
not the offering any more," rather than that the whole worship
of a Christian man's life should languish and fade away beneath
the weight of an immeasurable grief and discouragement? And
because some think the children of a second matrimony succeeding a divorce would not be a holy seed, it hindered not the Jews
from being so; and why should we not think them more holy
than the offspring of a former ill-twisted wedlock, begotten only
out of a bestial necessity, without any true love or contentment
or joy to their parents? So that in some sense we may call them
the " children of wrath " and anguish, which will as little conduce
to their sanctifying as if they had been bastards. For nothing
more than disturbance of mind suspends us from approaching to
God; such a disturbance especially, as both assaults our faith




214


MAN AND WIFE.


and trust in God's providence, and ends, if there be not a miracle
of virtue on either side, not only in bitterness and wrath, the
canker of devotion, but in a desperate and vicious carelessness,
when he sees himself, without fault of his, trained by a deceitful
bait into a snare of misery, betrayed by an alluring ordinance,
and then made the thrall of heaviness and discomfort by an
undivorcing law of God, as he erroneously thinks, but of man's
iniquity, as the truth is. For that God prefers the free and cheerful
worship of a Christian, before the grievance and exacted observance of an unhappy marriage, besides that the general maxims
of religion assure us, will be more manifest by drawing a parallel
argument from the ground of divorcing an idolatress, which was,
lest he should alienate his heart from the true worship of God.
And, what difference is there, whether she pervert him to superstition by her enticing sorcery, or disenable him in the whole
service of God through the disturbance of her unhelpful and
unfit society, and so drive him at last, through murmuring and
despair, to thoughts of atheism? Neither doth it lessen the cause
of separating, in that the one willingly allures him from the faith,
the other perhaps unwillingly drives him; for in the account of
God it comes all to one, that the wife loses him a servant. And
therefore by all the united force of the Decalogue she ought
to be disbanded, unless we must set marriage above God and
Charity, which is the doctrine of devils, no less than forbidding
to marry.
CHAPTER VIII.
That an idolatrous Heretic ought to be divorced, after a convenient
Space given to hope of Conversion.  That Place of i Cor. vii.
restored from a twofold erroneous Exposition; and that the
common Expositors flatly contradict the moral Law.
AND here by the way, to illustrate the whole question of divorce
ere this treatise end, I shall not be loath to spend a few lines in
hope to give a full resolve of that which is yet so much controverted: whether an idolatrous heretic ought to be divorced. To




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 215
the resolving whereof we must first know, that the Jews were
commanded to divorce an unbelieving Gentile for two causes:
First, because all other nations, especially the Canaanites, were
to them unclean. Secondly, to avoid seducement. That other
nations were to the Jews impure, even to the separating of marriage, will appear out of Exod. xxxiv. i6, Deut. vii. 3, 6, compared with Ezra ix. 2, also chap. x. o, II, Neh. xiii. 30. This
was the ground of that doubt raised among the Corinthians by
some of the circumcision, whether an unbeliever were not still to
be counted an unclean thing, so as that they ought to divorce
from such a person. This doubt of theirs St. Paul removes by
an evangelical reason, having respect to that vision of St. Peter
wherein, the distinction of clean and unclean being abolished, all
living creatures were sanctified to a pure and Christian use, and
mankind especially now invited by a general call to the covenant
of grace. Therefore, saith St. Paul, "The unbelieving wife is
sanctified 6y the husband;" that is, made pure and lawful to his
use, so that he need not put her away for fear lest her unbelief
should defile him; but that if he found her love still towards
him he might rather hope to win her. The second reason of
that divorce was to avoid seducement, as is proved by comparing
those two places of the law to that which Ezra and Nehemiah
did by divine warrant in compelling the Jews to forego their
wives. And this reason is moral and perpetual in the rule of
Christian faith, without evasion; therefore, saith the apostle,
2 Cor. vi., "Misyoke not together with infidels," which is interpreted of marriage in the first place. And although the former
legal pollution be now done off, yet there is a spiritual contagion
in idolatry as much to be shunned; and though seducement were
not to be feared, yet where there is no hope of converting there
always ought to be a certain religious aversion and abhorring which
can no way sort with marriage: therefore saith St. Paul, "What
fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion hath light with darkness? What concord hath Christ
with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?"
And in the next verse but one he moralizes, and makes us liable




216


MAN AND WIFE.


to that command of Isaiah, "Wherefore come out from among
them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord; touch not the unclean
thing, and I will receive ye." And this command thus gospelized
to us, hath the same force with that whereon Ezra grounded the
pious necessity of divorcing. Neither had he other commission
for what he did than such a general command in Deuteronomy
as this; nay, not so direct, for he is bid there not to marry, but
not bid to divorce; and yet we see with what a zeal and confidence he was the author of a general divorce between the faithful
and the unfaithful seed. The Gospel is more plainly on his side,
according to three of the evangelists, than the words of the Law.
For where the case of divorce is handled with such severity, as
was fittest to aggravate the fault of unbounded licence, yet still in
the same chapter, when it comes into question afterwards whether
any civil respect or natural relation, which is dearest, may be our
plea to divide or hinder or but delay our duty to religion, we hear
it determined that father, and mother, and wife also, is not only to
be hated but forsaken, if we mean to inherit the great reward there
promised. Nor will it suffice to be put off by saying we must
forsake them only by not consenting or not complying with them,
for that were to be done and roundly too though, being of the
same faith, they should but seek out of a fleshly tenderness to
weaken our Christian fortitude with worldly persuasions, or but to
unsettle our constancy with timorous and softening suggestions; as
we may read with what a vehemence Job, the patientest of men, rejected the desperate counsels of his wife; and Moses, the meekest,
being thoroughly offended with the profane speeches of Zippora,
sent her back to her father. But if they shall perpetually, at our
elbow, seduce us from the true worship of God, or defile and daily
scandalize our conscience by their hopeless continuance in misbelief; then even in the due progress of reason, and that ever equal
proportion which justice proceeds by, it cannot be imagined that
his cited place commands less than a total and final separation
from such an adherent; at least that no force should be used
to keep them  together, while we remember that God commanded Abraham to send away his irreligious wife and her son




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 217
for the offences which they gave in a pious family. And it may
be guessed that David for the like cause disposed of Michal in
such a sort as little differed from a dismission.  Therefore,
against reiterated scandals and seducements, which never cease,
much more can no other remedy or retirement be found but
absolute departure. For what kind of matrimony can that remain to be, what one duty between such can be performed as it
should be from the heart, when their thoughts and spirits fly
asunder as far as heaven from hell; especially if the time that
hope should send forth her expected blossoms, be past in vain?
It will easily be true, that a father or a brother may be hated
zealously, and loved civilly or naturally; for those duties may be
performed at distance, and do admit of any long absence. But
how the peace and perpetual cohabitation of marriage can be
kept, how that benevolent and intimate communion of body can
be held, with one that must be hated with a most operative
hatred, must be forsaken and yet continually dwelt with and
accompanied, he who can distinguish, hath the gift of an affection very oddly divided and contrived; while others both just and
wise, and Solomon among the rest, if they may not hate and
forsake as Moses enjoins, and the Gospel imports, will find it impossible not to love otherwise than will sort with the love of God,
whose jealousy brooks no corrival. And whether is more likely
that Christ bidding to forsake wife for religion, meant it by
divorce as Moses meant it, whose Law grounded on moral reason
was both his office and his essence to maintain; or that he should
bring a new morality into religion, not only new, but contrary to
an unchangeable command, and dangerously derogating from our
love and worship of God? As if when Moses had bid divorce
absolutely, and Christ had said, hate and forsake, and his apostle
had said, no communication with Christ and Belial; yet that
Christ after all this could be understood to say, Divorce not; no,
not for religion, seduce or seduce not. What mighty and invisible remora is this in matrimony, able to demur and to contemn all the divorcive engines in heaven or earth, both which
may now pass away, if this be true; for more than many jots or




2I8


MAN AND WIFE.


tittles, a whole moral law is abolished. But if we dare believe it
is not, then in the method of religion, and to save the honour
and dignity of our faith, we are to retreat and gather up ourselves
from the observance of an inferior and civil ordinance, to the
strict maintaining of a general and religious command, which is
written, "Thou shalt make no covenant with them," Deut. vii. 2,
3: and that covenant which cannot be lawfully made, we have
directions and examples lawfully to dissolve. Also 2 Chron. ii.
I9, "Shouldest thou love them that hate the Lord? " No, doubtless; for there is a certain scale of duties, there is a certain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which for want of studying
in right order, all the world is in confusion.
Upon these principles I answer, that a right believer ought to
divorce an idolatrous heretic, unless upon better hopes: however,
that it is in the believer's choice to divorce or not.
The former part will be manifest thus first, than an apostate
idolater, whether husband or wife seducing, was to die by the
decree of God, Deut. xiii. 6, 9; that marriage, therefore, God
himself disjoins: for others born idolaters, the moral reason of
their dangerous keeping, and the incommunicable antagony that
is between Christ and Belial, will be sufficient to enforce the commandment of those two inspired reformers, Ezra and Nehemiah,
to put an idolater away as well under the Gospel.
The latter part, that although there be no seducement feared,
yet if there be no hope given, the divorce is lawful, will appear
by this; that idolatrous marriage is still hateful to God, therefore
still it may be divorced by the pattern of that warrant that Ezra
had, and by the same everlasting reason: neither can any man
give an account wherefore, if those whom God joins no man can
separate, it should not follow, that whom he joins not, but hates
to join, those men ought to separate.  But saith the lawyer,
"That which ought not to have been done, once done, avails."
I answer, "This is but a crotchet of the law, but that brought
against it is plain scripture." As for what Christ spake concerning
divorce, it is confessed by all knowing men, he meant only between
them of the same faith. But what shall we say then to St. Paul, who




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 219
seems to bid us not divorce an infidel willing to stay? We may
safely say thus, that wrong collections have been hitherto made
out of those words by modern divines. His drift, as was heard
before, is plain; not to command our stay in marriage with an
infidel, that had been a flat renouncing of the religious and moral
law; but to inform the Corinthians that the body of an unbeliever
was not defiling, if his desire to live in Christian wedlock shewed
any likelihood that his heart was opening to the faith; and therefore advises to forbear departure so long till nothing have been
neglected to set forward a conversion: this, I say, he advises,
and that with certain cautions, not commands, if we can take up
so much credit for him, as to get him believed upon his own
word: for what is this else but his counsel in a thing indifferent,
"To the rest speak I, not the Lord"? for though it be true
that the Lord never spake it, yet from St. Paul's mouth we should
have took it as a command, had not himself forewarned us, and
disclaimed; which notwithstanding if we shall still avouch to be
a command, he palpably denying it, this is not to expound St.
Paul, but to outface him. Neither doth it follow that the apostle
may interpose his judgment in a case of Christian liberty, without
the guilt of adding to God's word. How do we know marriage
or single life to be of choice, by such like words as these, " I speak
this by permission, not of commandment; I have no command
of the Lord, yet I give my judgment"? Why shall not the like
words have leave to signify a freedom in this our present question,
though Beza deny? Neither is the Scripture hereby less inspired,
because St. Paul confesses to have written therein what he had
not of command; for we grant that the Spirit of God led
him thus to express himself to Christian prudence, in a matter
which God thought best to leave uncommanded. Beza, therefore, must be warily read, when he taxes St. Austin of blasphemy,
for holding that St. Paul spake here as of a thing indifferent.
But if it must be a command, I shall yet the more evince it to be
a command that we should herein be left free; and that out of
the Greek word used in the I2th verse, which instructs us plainly
there must be a joint assent and good liking on both sides. He




220                MAN AND WIFE.
that will not deprave the text must thus render it: "If a brother
have an unbelieving wife, and she join in consent to dwell with
him " (which cannot utter less to us than a mutual agreement),
let him not put her away from the mere surmise of Judaical
uncleanness: and the reason follows, for the body of an infidel
is not polluted, neither to benevolence, nor to procreation. Moreover, this note of mutual complacency forbids all offer of seducement, which to a person of zeal cannot be attempted without
great offence: if, therefore, seducement be feared, this place
hinders not divorce. Another caution was put in this supposed
command, of not bringing the believer into " bondage " hereby,
which doubtless might prove extreme, if Christian liberty, and
to play with and to vex and wound with a thousand scandals conscience, were left to the humour of a pagan straying at pleasure,
and burden above strength to bear. If, therefore, the conceived
hope of gaining a soul come to nothing, then charity commands
that the believer be not wearied out with endless waiting under
many grievances sore to his spirit; but that respect be had rather
to the present suffering of a true Christian, than the uncertain
winning of an obdured heretic. The counsel we have from St.
Paul to hope, cannot countermand the moral and evangelic
charge we have from God to fear seducement, to separate from
the misbeliever, the unclean, the obdurate. The Apostle wisheth
us to hope; but does not send us a wool-gathering after vain
hope; he saith, " How knowest thou, 0 man, whether thou shalt
save thy wife? " that is, till he try all due means, and set some
reasonable time to himself, after which he may give over washing
an Ethiop, if he will hear the advice of the Gospel. " Cast not
pearls before swine," saith Christ himself. " Let him be to thee
as a heathen." "Shake the dust off thy feet." If this be not
enough, " hate and forsake " what relation soever. And this also
that follows must appertain to the precept, ' Let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God," v. 24, that is, so walking
in his inferior calling of marriage, as not, by dangerous subjection
to that ordinance, to hinder and disturb the higher calling of his
Christianity. Last, and never too oft remembered, whether this




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 22I
be a command or an advice, we must look that it be so understood as not to contradict the least point of moral religion that
God hath formerly commanded; otherwise what do we but set
the Moral Law and the Gospel at civil war together? and who
then shall be able to serve these two masters?
CHAPTER IX.
That Adultery is not the greatest Breach of Matrimony: that there
may be other Violations as great.
Now, whether idolatry or adultery be the greatest violation of
marriage, if any demand let him thus consider; that among
Christian writers touching matrimony, there be three chief ends
thereof agreed on: godly society; next, civil; and thirdly, that
of the marriage bed. Of these the first in name to be the highest
and most excellent, no baptized man can deny, nor that idolatry
smites directly against this prime end; nor that such as the
violated end is, such is the violation. But he who affirms adultery
to be the highest breach, affirms the bed to be the highest of
marriage, which is in truth a gross and boorish opinion, how
common soever; as far from the countenance of Scripture, as
from the light of all clean philosophy or civil nature. And out
of question the cheerful help that may be in marriage toward
sanctity of life, is the purest, and so the noblest end of that contract. But if the particular of each person be considered, then
of those three ends which God appointed, that to him is greatest
which is most necessary; and marriage is then most broken to
him when he utterly wants the fruition of that which he most
sought therein, whether it were religious, civil, or corporal society.
Of which wants, to do him right by divorce only for the last and
meanest is a perverse injury, and the pretended reason of it
as frigid as frigidity itself, which the code and canon are only
sensible of. Thus much of this controversy. I now return to
the former argument.  And having shewn that disproportion,
contrariety, or numbness of mind may justly be divorced, by




222


MAN AND WIFE.


proving already the prohibition thereof opposes the express end
of God's institution, suffers not marriage to satisfy that intellectual
and innocent desire which God himself kindled in man to be the
bond of wedlock, but only to remedy a sublunary and bestial
burning, which frugal diet, without marriage, would easily chasten.
Next, that it drives many to transgress the conjugal bed, while
the soul wanders after that satisfaction which it had hope to find
at home, but hath missed; or else it sits repining, even to atheism,
finding itself hardly dealt with, but misdeeming the cause to be
in God's law, which is in man's unrighteous ignorance. I have
shewn also how it unties the inward knot of marriage, which is
peace and love (if that can be untied which was never knit),
while it aims to keep fast the outward formality: how it lets
perish the Christian man, to compel impossibly the married
man.
CHAPTER X.
The sixth Reason of this Law; that to prohibit Divorce sought for
natural Causes, is against Nature.
THE sixth place declares this prohibition to be as respectless of
human nature as it is of religion, and therefore is not of God.
He teaches, that an unlawful marriage may be lawfully divorced;
and that those who having thoroughly discerned each other's disposition, which oft-times cannot be till after matrimony, shall then
find a powerful reluctance and recoil of nature on either side,
blasting all the content of their mutual society, that such persons
are not lawfully married. To use the Apostle's words, " Say I
these things as a man; or saith not the law also the same? For
it is written, Deut. xxii., 'Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with
different seeds, lest thou defile both. Thou shalt not plough
with an ox and an ass together;"' and the like. I follow the
pattern of St. Paul's reasoning: Doth God care for asses and
oxen, how ill they yoke together? or isit not said altogether
for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written. Yea,
the Apostle himself, in the forecited 2 Cor. vi. 14, alludes from




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 223
that place of Deuteronomy to forbid misyoking marriage, as by the
Greek word is evident. Though he instance but in one example
of mismatching with an infidel, yet next to that, what can be a
fouler incongruity, a greater violence to the reverend secret of
nature, than to force a mixture of minds that cannot unite, and
to sow the sorrow of man's nativity with seed of too incoherent
and incombining dispositions? Which act being kindly and voluntary, as it ought, the apostle in the language he wrote called
"eunoia," and the Latins "benevolence," intimating the original
thereof to be in the understanding and the will. If not, surely
there is nothing which might more properly be called a malevolence rather; and is the most injurious and unnatural tribute that
can be extorted from a person endued with reason, to be made
pay out the best substance of his body, and of his soul too, as
some think, when either for just and powerful causes he cannot
like, or from unequal causes finds not recompense. And that
there is a hidden efficacy of love and hatred in man as well as in
other kinds, not moral but natural, which though not always in
the choice yet in the success of marriage will ever be most
predominant. Besides daily experience, the author of Ecclesiasticus, whose wisdom hath set him next the Bible, acknowledges, xiii. I6, "A man," saith he, "will cleave to his like."
But what might be the cause, whether each one's allotted genius
or proper star, or whether the supernal influence of schemes and
angular aspects, or this elemental crasis here below; whether all
these jointly or singly meeting, friendly or unfriendly in either
party, I dare not, with the men I am like to clash, appear so
much a philosopher as to conjecture. The ancient proverb in
Homer, less abstruse, entitles this work of leading each like person
to his like, peculiarly to God himself. Which is plain enough
also by His naming of a meet or like help in the first espousal
instituted; and that every woman is meet for every man, none so
absurd as to affirm. Seeing then there is a twofold seminary, or
stock in nature, from whence are derived the issues of love and
hatred, distinctly flowing through the whole mass of created
things, and that God's doing ever is to bring the due likenesses




224


MAN AND WIFE.


and harmonies of his works together, except when out of two
contraries met to their own destruction, he moulds a third existence; and that it is error, or some evil angel which either blindly
or maliciously hath drawn together, in two persons ill embarked
in wedlock, the sleeping discords and enmities of nature, lulled
on purpose with some false bait, that they may wake to agony
and strife later than prevention could have wished. If from the
bent of just and honest intentions beginning what was begun and
so continuing, all that is equal all that is fair and possible hath
been tried, and no accommodation likely to succeed, what folly
is it still to stand combating and battering against invincible
causes and effects, with evil upon evil, till either the best of our
days be lingered out or ended with some speeding sorrow! The
wise Ecclesiasticus advises rather, xxxvii. 27, "My son, prove thy
soul in thy life; see what is evil for it, and give not that unto it."
Reason he had to say so; for if the noisomeness or disfigurement of body can soon destroy the sympathy of mind to wedlock
duties, much more will the annoyance and trouble of mind infuse
itself into all the faculties and acts of the body, to render them
invalid, unkindly, and even unholy against the fundamental lawbook of nature, which Moses never thwarts but reverences.
Therefore he commands us to force nothing against sympathy or
natural order, no, not upon the most abject creatures; to shew that
such an indignity cannot be offered to man without an impious
crime. And certainly those divine meditating words of finding out
a meet and like help to man, have in them a consideration of more
than the indefinite likeness of womanhood; nor are they to be made
waste paper on, for the dulness of canon divinity: no, nor those
other allegoric precepts of beneficence fetched out of the closet of
nature, to teach us goodness and compassion in not compelling
together unmatchable societies, or if they meet through mischance
by all consequence to disjoin them, as God and nature signifies
and lectures to us not only by those recited decrees, but even by
the first and last of all His visible works; when by His divorcing
command the world first rose out of chaos, nor can be renewed
again out of confusion but by the separating of unmeet consorts.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 225
CHAPTER XI.
The seventh Reason, that sometimes Continuance in Marriage may
be evidently the Shortening or Endangering of Life to either
Party: both Laz and Divinity concluding, that Life is to be
preferred before Marriage, the intended Solace of Life.
SEVENTHLY, The Canon Law and divines consent, that if either
party be found contriving against another's life, they may
be severed by divorce: for a sin against the life of marriage
is greater than a sin against the bed; the one destroys, the
other but defiles. The same may be said touching those persons
who, being of a pensive nature and course of life, have summed
up all their solace in that free and lightsome conversation which
God and man intends in marriage; whereof when they see themselves deprived by meeting an unsociable consort, they ofttimes
resent one another's mistake so deeply that long it is not ere
grief end one of them.  When therefore this danger is foreseen,
that the life is in peril by living together, what matter is it
whether helpless grief or wilful practice be the cause? This
is certain, that the preservation of life is more worth than the
compulsory keeping of marriage; and it is no less than cruelty
to force a man to remain in that state as the solace of his life
which he and his friends know will be either the undoing or the
disheartening of his life. And what is life without the vigour
and spiritual exercise of life? How can it be useful either to
private or public employment? Shall it therefore be quite dejected, though never so valuable, and left to moulder away in
heaviness, for the superstitious and impossible performance of
an ill-driven bargain? Nothing more inviolable than vows made
to God; yet we read in Numbers, that if a wife had made such a
vow, the mere will and authority of her husband might break it.
How much more then may he break the error of his own bonds
with an unfit and mistaken wife, to the saving of his welfare, his
life, yea, his faith and virtue, from the hazard of overstrong
P




226


MAN AND WIFE.


temptations! For if man be lord of the sabbath, to the curing
of a fever, can he be less than lord of marriage in such important
causes as these?
CHAPTER XII.
The eighth Reason, It is probable, or rather certain, that every one
zwho happens to marry hath/ not the Calling: and therefore upon
UnJfltness found and considered, Force ought not to be used.
EIGHTHLY, It is most sure that some even of those who are not
plainly defective in body, yet are destitute of all other marriageable gifts, and consequently have not the calling to marry unless
nothing be requisite thereto but a mere instrumental body-which
to affirm, is to that unanimous covenant a reproach: yet it is as
sure that many such, not of their own desire, but by the persuasion of friends, or not knowing themselves, do often enter into
wedlock. Where finding the difference at length between the
duties of a married life and the gifts of a single life, what unfitness of mind, what wearisomeness, scruples and doubts, to an
incredible offence and displeasure, are like to follow between,
may be soon imagined; whom thus to shut up, and immure, and
shut up together, the one with a mischosen mate, the other in
a mistaken calling, is not a course that Christian wisdom and
tenderness ought to use. As for the custom that some parents
and guardians have of forcing marriages, it will be better to say
nothing of such a savage inhumanity, but only thus:-that the law
which gives not all freedom of divorce to any creature endued
with reason so assassinated, is next in cruelty.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 227
CHAPTER XIII.
The ninth Reason; because Marriage is not a mere carnal Coition,
but a human Society: where that cannot reasonably be had,
there can be no true Matrimony. Mlarriage compared with all
other Covenants and Vows warrantably broken for the good
of Mian. Marriage the Papist's Sacrament, and unfit Marriage the Protestant's Idol.
NINTHLY, I suppose it will be allowed us that marriage is a
human society, and that all human society must proceed from
the Mind rather than the Body, else it would be but a kind of
animal or beastish meeting. If the Mind therefore cannot have
that due company by marriage that it may reasonably and
humanly desire, that marriage can be no human society, but a
certain formality or gilding over of little better than a brutish
congress, and so in very wisdom and pureness to be dissolved.
But marriage is more than human, "the covenant of God,"
Prov. ii. 17; therefore man cannot dissolve it. I answer, if
it be more than human, so much the more it argues the chief
society thereof to be in the Soul rather than in the Body, and
the greatest breach thereof to be unfitness of Mind rather than
defect of Body: for the Body can have least affinity in a
covenant more than human, so that the reason of dissolving
holds good the rather. Again, I answer, that the sabbath is a
higher institution, a command of the first table, for the breach
whereof God hath far more and oftener testified his anger than
for divorces, which from Moses to Malachi he never took displeasure at, nor then neither if we mark the text; and yet as oft as
the good of man is concerned, he not only permits but commands to break the sabbath. What covenant more contracted
with God and less in man's power than the vow which hath once
passed his lips? Yet if it be found rash, if offensive, if unfruitful
either to God's glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not
error and unwillingness irksomely to keep it, but counsels wisdom




228


MA N AND WIFE.


and better thoughts boldly to break it. Therefore to enjoy the
indissoluble keeping of a marriage found unfit against the good
of man both Soul and Body, as hath been evidenced, is to make
an idol of marriage, to advance it above the worship of God and
the good of man, to make it a transcendant command, above
both the second and first table; which is a most prodigious
doctrine.
Next, whereas they cite out of the Proverbs, that it is the covenant of God, and therefore more than human, that consequence
is manifestly false. For so the covenant which Zedekiah made
with the infidel king of Babel is called the covenant of God, Ezek.
xvii. I9, which would be strange to hear counted more than a
human covenant. So every covenant between man and man,
bound by oath, may be called the covenant of God, because God
therein is attested. So of marriage he is the author and the
witness; yet hence will not follow any divine astriction more
than what is subordinate to the glory of God, and the main good
of either party. For as the glory of God and their esteemed fitness
one for the other was the motive which led them both at first to
think without other revelation that God had joined them together;
so when it shall be found by their apparent unfitness that their
continuing to be man and wife is against the glory of God and
their mutual happiness, it may assure them that God never joined
them, who hath revealed his gracious will not to set the ordinance
above the man for whom it was ordained; not to canonize
marriage either as a tyranness or a goddess over the enfranchised
life and soul of man. For wherein can God delight, wherein be
worshipped, wherein be glorified by the forcible continuing of an
improper and ill-yoking couple? He that loved not to see the
disparity of several cattle at the plough, cannot be pleased with
vast unmeetness in marriage. Where can be the peace and love
which must invite God to such a house? May it not be feared
that the not divorcing of such a helpless disagreement will be
the divorcing of God finally from such a place? But it is a trial
of our patience, say they. I grant it. But which of Job's afflictions were sent him with that law that he might not use means




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 229
to remove any of them if he could? And what if it subvert our
patience and our faith too? Who shall answer for the perishing
of all those souls, perishing by stubborn expositions of particular
and inferior precepts against the general and supreme rule of
Charity? They dare not affirm that marriage is either a sacrament or a mystery, though all those sacred things give place to
man; and yet they invest it with such an awful sanctity, and give
it such adamantine chains to bind with, as if it were to be worshipped like some Indian deity, when it can confer no blessing
upon us, but works more and more to our misery. To such
teachers the saying of St. Peter at the council of Jerusalem will
do well to be applied: "Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon
the necks of" Christian men, which neither the Jews, God's
ancient people, " nor we are able to bear;" and nothing but
unwary expounding hath brought upon us?
CHAPTER XIV.
Considerations concerning Familism, Antinomianism; and why it
may be thought that such Opinions may proceed from the undue
Restraint of some just Liberty, than which no greater Cause to
contemn Discipline.
To these considerations this also may be added as no improbable
conjecture. Seeing that sort of men who follow Anabaptism,
Familism, Antinomianism, and other fanatic dreams (if we understand them not amiss), be such most commonly as are by nature
addicted to religion, of life also not debauched, and that their
opinions having full swing, do end in satisfaction of the flesh; it
may be come with reason into the thoughts of a wise man, whether
all this proceed not partly, if not chiefly, from the restraint of
some lawful liberty, which ought to be given men, and is denied
them, as by physic we learn in menstruous bodies, where
nature's current hath been stopped, that the suffocation and
upward forcing of some lower part affects the head and inward
sense with dotage and idle fancies. And on the other hand,




2310


MAN AND WIFE.


whether the rest of vulgar men not so religiously professing, do
not give themselves much the more to whoredom and adulteries,
loving the corrupt and venial discipline of clergy-courts, but hating
to hear of perfect Reformation whenas they forsee that then
fornication shall be austerely censured, adultery punished, and
marriage, the appointed refuge of nature, though it hap to be
never so incongruous and displeasing, must yet of force be worn
out when it can be to no other purpose but of strife and hatred,
a thing odious to God? This may be worth the study of skilful
men in theology and the reason of things. And lastly, to examine
whether some undue and ill-grounded strictness upon the blameless
nature of man, be not the cause in those places where already
Reformation is, that the discipline of the church, so often, and
so unavoidably broken, is brought into contempt and derision?
And if it be thus, let those who are still bent to hold this obstinate
literality, so prepare themselves as to share in the account for all
these transgressions, when it shall be demanded at the last day
by one who will scan and sift things with more than a literal
wisdom of equity. For if these reasons be duly pondered, and
that the Gospel is more jealous of laying on excessive burdens
than ever the Law was, lest the soul of a Christian, which is
inestimable, should be overtempted and cast away; considering
also that many properties of nature which the power of regeneration itself never alters may cause dislike of conversing, even
between the most sanctified; which continually grating in harsh
tone together, may breed some jar and discord, and that end in
rancour and strife, a thing so opposite both to marriage and to
Christianity, it would perhaps be less scandal to divorce a natural
disparity, than to link violently together an unchristian dissension,
committing two insnared souls inevitably to kindle one another
not with the fire of love but with a hatred irreconcileable; who,
were they dissevered, would be straight friends in any other
relation. But if an alphabetical servility must be still urged, it
may so fall out that the true Church may unwittingly use as much
cruelty in forbidding to divorce, as the Church of Antichrist doth
wilfully in forbidding to marry.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 231;  BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
The Ordinance of Sabbath and Marriage compared. Hyiperbole no
unfrequent Figure in the Gospel. Excess cured by contrary
Excess.  Christ neither did nor could abrogate the Law of
Divorce, but only reprieve the Abuse thereof.
HITHERTO the position undertaken has been declared, and proved
by a law of God, that law proved to be moral, and unabolishable,
for many reasons equal, honest, charitable, just, annexed thereto.
It follows now, that those places of Scripture, which have a seeming to revoke the prudence of Moses, or rather that merciful
decree of God, be forthwith explained and reconciled. For what
are all these reasonings worth, will some reply, whenas the words
of Christ are plainly against all divorce, "except in case of
fornication"? To whom he whose mind were to answer no more
but this, "except also in case of charity," might safely appeal
to the more plain words of Christ in defence of so excepting.
"Thou shalt do no manner of work," saith the commandment of
the Sabbath. Yes, saith Christ, works of Charity. And shall we
be more severe in paraphrasing the considerate and tender Gospel,
than he was in expounding the rigid and peremptory law? What
was ever in all appearance less made for man, and more for God
alone, than the Sabbath? Yet when the good of man comes into
the scales, we hear that voice of infinite goodness and benignity,
that "Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath." What
thing ever was more made for man alone, and less for God, than
Marriage? And shall we load it with a cruel and senseless
bondage utterly against both the good of man, and the glory of
God? Let whoso will now listen. I want neither pall nor mitre,
I stay neither for ordination nor induction; but in the firm faith
of a knowing Christian, which is the best and truest endowment
of the keys, I pronounce the man who shall bind so cruelly a




2.32


MAN AND WIFE.


good and gracious ordinance of God, hath not in that the spirit
of Christ. Yet that every text of Scripture seeming opposite may
be attended with a due exposition, this other part ensues, and
makes account to find no slender arguments for this assertion out
of those very Scriptures which are commonly urged against it.
First therefore let us remember, as a thing not to be denied,
that all places of Scripture wherein just reason of doubt arises
from the letter are to be expounded by considering upon what
occasion everything is set down, and by comparing other texts.
The occasion which induced our Saviour to speak of divorce,
was either to convince the extravagance of the Pharisees in that
point, or to give a sharp and vehement answer to a tempting
question. And in such cases, that we are not to repose all upon
the literal terms of so many words, many instances will teach us
wherein we may plainly discover how Christ meant not to be
taken word for word, but like a wise physician, administering one
excess against another to reduce us to a permiss. Where they
were too remiss, he saw it needful to seem most severe. In one
place he censures an unchaste look to be adultery already committed; another time he passes over actual adultery with less
reproof than for an unchaste look, not so heavily condemning
secret weakness, as open malice. So here he may be justly
thought to have given this rigid sentence against divorce, not to
cut off all remedy from a good man who finds himself consuming away in a disconsolate and unenjoined matrimony; bht tA
lay a bridle upon the bold abuses of those overweening rabbis;
which he could not more effectually do, than by a counter-sway
of restraint curbing their wild exorbitance almost in the other
extreme, as when we bow things the contrary way, to make them
come to their natural straightness. And that this was the only
intention of Christ is most evident if we attend out to his own
words and protestation made in the same sermon, not many
verses before ha4treats of divorcing, that he came not to abrogate
from the law "one jot or tittle," and denounces against them
that shall so teach.
But St. Luke, the verse immediately foregoing that of divorce,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 233
inserts the same caveat, as if the latter could not be understood
without the former, and as a witness to produce against this our
wilful mistake of abrogating, which must needs confirm us that
whatever else in the political law of more special relation to the
Jews might cease to us, yet that of those precepts concerning
divorce not one of them was repealed by the doctrine of Christ,
unless we have vowed not to believe his own cautious and
immediate profession. For if these our Saviour's words inveigh
against all divorce, and condemn it as adultery except it be for
adultery, and be not rather understood against the abuse of those
divorces permitted in the Law, then is that law of Moses, Deut.
xxiv. I, not only repealed and wholly annulled, against the promise
of Christ and his known profession not to meddle in matters
judicial; but that which is more strange, the very substance and
purpose of that law is contradicted, and convinced both of
injustice and impurity, as having authorized and maintained legal
adultery by statute. Moses also cannot scape to be guilty of
unequal and unwise decrees, punishing one act of secret adultery
by death, and permitting a whole life of open adultery by law.
And albeit lawyers write that some political edicts, though not
approved, are yet allowed to the scum of the people and the
necessity of the times; these excuses have but a weak pulse. For
first, we read, not that the scoundrel people, but the choicest,
the wisest, the holiest of that nation, have frequently used these
laws, or such as these, in the best and holiest times. Secondly,
be it yielded that in matters not very bad or impure a human
lawgiver may slacken something of that which is exactly good,
to the disposition of the people and the times: but if the perfect,
the pure, the righteous Law of God (for so are all his statutes
and his judgments), be found to have allowed smoothly, without
any certain reprehension, that which Christ afterward declares to
be adultery, how can we free this Law from the horrible indictment of being both impure, unjust, and fallacious?




234


MAN AND WIFE.


CHAPTER II.
How Divorce was permitted for Hardness of Heart, cannot be
understood by the common Exposition. That the Law cannot
permit, much less enact a Permission of Sin.
NEITHER will it serve to say this was permitted for the hardness
of their hearts, in that sense as it is usually explained; for the
law were then but a corrupt and eroneous schoolmaster, teaching
us to dash against a vital maxim of religion by doing foul evil in
hope of some certain good.
This only text is not to be matched again throughout the
whole Scripture, whereby God in his perfect Law should seem to
have granted to the hard hearts of his holy people, under his own
hand, a civil immunity and free charter to live and die in a long
successive adultery, under a Covenant of Works, till the Messiah,
and then that indulgent permission to be strictly denied by a
Covenant of Grace. Besides, the incoherence of such a doctrine
cannot, must not be thus interpreted, to the raising of a paradox
never known till then, only hanging by the twined thread of one
doubtful scripture, against so many other rules and leading
principles of religion, of justice, and purity of life. For what
could be granted more either to the fear, or to the lust of any
I 1 '. 1    r   -R 1r. —
tyrant or politician, than thi is authority of Mioses thus expouinded;
which opens him a way at will to dam up justice, and not only to
admit of any Romish or Austrian dispenses but to enact a statute
of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate
vice, to make sin itself, the ever alien and vassal sin, a- free
citizen of the commonwealth, pretending only these or these
plausible reasons? And well he might, all the while that Moses
shall be alleged to have done as much without shewing any reason
at all. Yet this could not enter into the heart of David, Psalm
xciv. 20, how any such authority as endeavours to "fashion
wickedness by a law," should derive itself from God. And Isaiah
says, "Woe upon them that decree unrighteous decrees," chap.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 235
x. i. Now which of these two is the better lawgiver, and which
deserves most a woe, he that gives out an edict singly unjust, or
he that confirms to generations a fixed and unmolested impunity
of that which is not only held to be unjust, but also unclean, and
both in a high degree; not only, as they themselves affirm, an injurious expulsion of one wife, but also an unclean freedom by more
than a patent to wed another adulterously? How can we therefore with safety thus dangerously confine the free simplicity of
our Saviour's meaning to that which merely amounts from so
many letters, whenas it can consist neither with its former and
cautionary words, nor with other more pure and holy principles,
nor finally with a scope of Charity, commanding by his express
commission in a higher strain? But all rather of necessity
must be understood as only against the abuse of that wise and
ingenuous liberty which Moses gave, and to terrify a roving
conscience from sinning under that pretext.
CHAPTER III.
That to allow Sin by Law is against the \ature of Law, hle End
of the Lawgiver, and the Good of the People. lmpossible
therefore in the Law of God.  hat it tmakes God the Author
of Sin more than anything objected by the Jesuits or A rminaians
against Predestination.
BUT let us yet further examine upon what consideration a law of
licence could be thus given to a holy people for their hardness of
heart. I suppose all will answer that, for some good end or other.
But here the contrary shall be proved. First, that many ill effects
but no good end of such a sufferance can be shewn; next, that a
thing unlawful can, for no good end whatever, be either done or
allowed by a positive law. If there were any good end aimed at,
that end was then good either to the law or to the lawgiver licensing
or as to the person licensed. That it could not be the end of
the law, whether moral or judicial, to license a sin, I prove easily




236


MAN AND WIFE.


out of Rom. v. 20: "The Law entered, that the offence might
abound;" that is, that sin might be made abundantly manifest
to be heinous and displeasing to God, that so his offered grace
might be the more esteemed. Now if the Law, instead of aggravating and terrifying sin, shall give out licence, it foils itself and
turns recreant from its own end: it forestalls the pure grace
of Christ, which is through righteousness, with impure indulgences, which are through sin. And instead of discovering sin,
for "by the Law is the knowledge thereof," saith St. Paul, and
that by certain and true light for men to walk in safety, it
holds out false and dazzling fires to stumble men; or, like
those miserable flies, to run into with delight and be burnt. For
how many souls might easily think that to be lawful which the
law and magistrate allowed them? Again, we read, i Tim. i. 5,
"The end of the commandment is Charity out of a pure heart,
and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." But never
could that be Charity, to allow a people what they could not use
with a pure heart, but with conscience and faith both deceived
or else despised. The more particular end of the judicial law is
set forth to us clearly, Rom. xiii. That God hath given to that
Law "a sword not in vain, but to be a terror to evil works, a revenge to execute wrath upon him that doth evil." If this terrible
commission should but forbear to punish wickedness, were it
other to be accounted than partial and unjust? But if it begin
to nwrite;ndulgenre tn vilgar inclennness; can it do more to
corrupt and shame the end of its own being? Lastly, if the Law
allow sin, it enters into a kind of covenant with sin; and if it
do, there is not a greater sinner in the world than the Law itself.
The Law, to use an allegory something different from that in PhiloJudseus concerning Amalek, though haply more significant, the
Law is the Israelite, and hath this absolute charge given it, Deut.
xxv., To blot out the memory of sin, the Amalekite, from under
heaven, not to forget it. Again, the law is the Israelite, and
hath this express repeated command, to make no covenant with
sin, the Canaanite, but to expel him, lest he prove a snare.
And to say truth, it were too rigid and reasonless to proclaim




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 237
such an enmity between man and man, were it not the type of a
greater enmity between Law and Sin. I speak even now, as if sin
were condemned in a perpetual villanage never to be free by law,
never to be manumitted: but sure sin can have no tenure by law
at all, but is rather an eternal outlaw, and in hostility with law past
all atonement: both diagonal contraries, as much allowing one
another as day and night together in one hemisphere. Or if it be
possible that Sin with his darkness may come to composition, it
cannot be without a foul eclipse and twilight to the Law whose
brightness ought to surpass the noon. Thus we see how this unclean permittance defeats the sacred and glorious end both of the
moral and judicial law.
As little good can the lawgiver propose to equity by such a
lavish remissness as this. If to remedy hardness of heart, Parxeus
and other divines confess it more increases by this liberty than
is lessened. And how is it probable that their hearts were more
hard in this, that it should be yielded to, than in any other crime?
Their hearts were set upon usury, and are to this day, no nation
more; yet that which was the endamaging only of their estates
was narrowly forbid: this, which is thought the extreme injury
and dishonour of their wives and daughters, with the defilement
also of themselves, is bounteously allowed. Their hearts were as
hard under their best kings to offer in high places, though to the
true God: yet that, but a small thing, it strictly forewarned; this,
accounted a high offence against one of the greatest moral duties,
is calmly permitted and established. How can it be evaded, but
that the heavy censure of Christ should fall worse upon this Lawgiver of theirs, than upon all the Scribes and Pharisees?  For
they did but omit judgment and mercy to trifle in mint and
cummin, yet all according to Law; but this their lawgiver, altogether as punctual in such niceties, goes marching on to adulteries,
through the violence of divorce by law against law. If it were
such a cursed act of Pilate, a subordinate judge to Caesar, overswayed by those hard hearts, with much ado to suffer one
transgressiotn of law but once; what is it then, with less ado, to
publish a law of transgression for many ages? Did God for




238


28MAN AND WIFE.


this come down and cover the mount of Sinai with His glory,
uttering in thunder those His sacred ordinances out of the
bottomless treasures of His Wisdomn and infinite Pureness, to
patch up an ulcerous and rotten commonwealth with strict and
stern injunctions, to wash the skin and garments for every unclean touch; and such easy permission given to pollute the
soul with adulteries by public authority, without disgrace or
question? No; it had been better that man had never known
law or matrimony, than that such foul iniquity should be fastened
upon the Holy One of Israel, the Judge of all the earth. And
such a piece of folly as Beelzebub would not commit, to divide
against himself, and prevent his own ends: or if he, to compass
more certain mischief, might yield perhaps to feign some good
deed, yet that God should enact a licence of certain evil for
uncertain good against His own Glory and Pureness, is abominable
to conceive. And as it is destructive to the end of Law, and
blasphemous to the honour of the Lawgiver licensing, so is it as
pernicious to the person licensed. If a private friend admonish
not, the Scripture saith, "He hates his brother, and lets him
perish;" but if he soothe him and allow him in his faults, the
Proverbs teach us, "He spreads a net for his neighbour's feet,
and worketh ruin." If the magistrate or prince forget to administer due justice, and restrain not sin, Eli himself could say, "It
made the Lord's people to transgress." But if he countenance
them against law by his own example, what havoc it makes both
in religion and virtue among the people may be guessed by the
anger it brought upon Hophni and Phineas, not to be appeased
"with sacrifice nor offering for ever." If the law be silent to
declare sin, the people must needs generally go astray, for the
Apostle himself saith, he had not known lust but by the law.
And surely such a nation seems not to be under the illuminating
guidance of God's Law, but under the horrible doom rather of
such as despise the Gospel, "He that is filthy, let him be filthy
still." But where the Law itself gives a warrant for sin, I know
not what condition of misery to imagine miserable enough for
such a people, unless that portion of the wicked, or rather of the




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 239
damned, on whom God threatens, in Psalm xi., to rain snares.
But that questionless cannot be by any law, which the Apostle saith
is "a ministry ordained of God for our good," and not so many
ways and in so high a degree to our destruction, as we have now
been graduating. And this is all the good can come to the person licensed in his hardness of heart.
I am next to mention that, which because it is a ground in
divinity (Rom. iii.), will save the labour of demonstrating, unless
her given axioms be more doubted than in other hearts (although
it be no less firm in the precepts of philosophy), that a thing unlawful can for no good whatsoever be done, much less allowed by
a positive law. And this is the matter why interpreters upon
that passage in Hosea will not consent it to be a true story, that
the prophet took a harlot to wife: because God, being a pure
spirit, could not command a thing repugnant to his own nature,
no, not for so good an end as to exhibit more to the life a wholesome and perhaps a converting parable to many an Israelite.
Yet that he commanded the allowance of adulterous and injurious
divorces for hardness of heart, a reason obscure and in a wrong
sense, they can very favourably persuade themselves; so tenacious
is the leaven of an old conceit. But they shift it: He permitted
only. Yet silence in the Law is consent, and consent is accessory:
why then is not the Law, being silent, or not active against a crime,
accessory to its own conviction, itself judging? For though we
should grant that it approves not, yet it will: and the lawyers'
maxim is, that " the will compelled is yet the will." And though
Aristotle in his Ethics calls this " a mixed action," yet he concludes
it to be voluntary and inexcusable, if it be evil. How justly, then,
might human law and philosophy rise up against the righteousness
of Moses, if this be true which our vulgar divinity fathers upon
him, yea, upon God himself; not silently, and only negatively to
permit, but in his Law to divulge a written and general privilege
to commit and persist in unlawful divorces, with a high hand
with security and no ill fame? For this is more than permitting
and contriving, this is maintaining: this is warranting, this is protecting, yea, this is doing evil, and such an evil as that reprobate




240


MAN AND WIFE.


lawgiver did, whose lasting infamy is engraven upon him like a
surname, "he who made Israel to sin." This is the lowest pitch
contrary to God that public fraud and injustice can descend.
If it be affirmed, that God, as being Lord, may do what He
will, yet we must know, that God hath not two wills, but one
will, much less two contrary. If he once willed adultery should
be sinful, and to be punished with death, all his omnipotence
will not allow him to will the allowance that his holiest people
might, as it were, by his own antinomy or counterstatute, live
unreproved in the same fact as he himself esteemed it, according to our common explainers. The hidden ways of His Providence we adore and search not, but the Law is his revealed will, his
complete, his evident and certain will. Herein he appears to us, as
it were, in human shape, enters into covenant with us, swears to
keep it, binds himself like a just lawgiver to his own prescriptions,
gives himself to be understood by men, judges and is judged,
measures and is commensurate to right reason; cannot require
less of us in one cantle of his law than in another, his legal justice
cannot be so fickle and so variable, sometimes like a devouring
fire, and by and by connivant in the embers, or, if I may so say,
oscitant and supine. The vigour of His Law could no more remit,
than the hallowed fire upon His Altar could be let go out. The
lamps that burned before him might need snuffing, but the light
of His Law never. Of this also more beneath, in discussing a
solution of Rivetus.
The Jesuits, and that sect among us which is named of Arminius,
are wont to charge us of making God the author of sin, in two
degrees especially, not to speak of his permission: i. Because
we hold, that he hath decreed some to damnation, and consequently to sin, say they; next, Because those means which are
of saving knowledge to others, he makes to them an occasion of
greater sin.  Yet considering the perfection wherein man was
created, and might have stood, no degree necessitating his freewill,
but subsequent, though not in time yet in order, to causes which
were in his own power; they might methinks be persuaded to
absolve both God and us. Whenas the doctrine of Plato and




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 241
Chrysippus, with their followers, the Academics and the Stoics,
who knew not what a consummate and most adorned Pandora
was bestowed upon Adam, to be the nurse and guide of his
arbitrary happiness and perseverance, I mean, his native innocence and perfection, which might have kept him from being
our true Epimetheus; and though they taught of virtue and vice
to be both the gift of divine destiny, they could yet give reasons
not invalid to justify the counsels of God and fate from the insulsity of mortal tongues, that man's own freewill self-corrupted
is the adequate and sufficient cause of his disobedience besides
fate; as Homer also wanted not to express, both in his Iliad and
Odyssee. And Manilius the poet, although in his fourth book
he tells of some " created both to sin and punishment;" yet
without murmuring, and with an industrious cheerfulness, he
acquits the Deity. They were not ignorant in their heathen lore,
that it is most godlike to punish those who of his creatures became
his enemies with the greatest punishment; and they could attain
also to think that the greatest, when God himself throws a man
furthest from him; which then they held he did, when he blinded,
hardened and stirred up his offenders, to finish and pile up their
desperate work, since they had undertaken it. To banish for
ever into a local hell, whether in the air or in the centre or in
that uttermost and bottomless gulf of chaos, deeper from holy
bliss than the world's diameter multiplied, they thought not a
punishing so proper and proportionate for God to inflict, as to
punish sin with sin. Thus were the common sort of Gentiles
wont to think, without any wry thoughts cast upon divine governance. And therefore Cicero, not in his Tusculan or Campanian
retirements among the learned wits of that age, but even in the
Senate to a mixed auditory (though he were sparing otherwise to
broach his philosophy among statists and lawyers), yet as to this
point, both in his Oration against Piso, and in that which is
about the answers of the soothsayers against Clodius, he declares
it publicly as no paradox to common ears, that God cannot
punish man more, nor make him more miserable, than still by
making him more sinful. Thus we see how in this controversy
Q




242


MAN AND TWIFE.


the justice of God stood upright even among heathen disputers.
But if any one be truly, and not pretendedly, zealous for God's
honour, here I call him forth, before men and angels, to use his
best and most advised skill, lest God more unavoidably than
ever yet, and in the guiltiest manner, be made the author of sin,if He shall not only deliver over and incite his enemies by rebuke
to sin as a punishment, but shall by patent under his own broad
seal allow his friends, whom he would sanctify and save, whom
lhe would unite to himself and not disjoin, whom he would correct by wholesome chastening and not punish as he doth the
damned by lewd sinning, if he shall allow these in his Law, the
perfect rule of his own purest will, and our most edified conscience, the perpetrating of an odious and manifold sin without
the least contesting. It is wondered how there can be in God
a secret and a revealed will; and yet what wonder, if there be in
man two answerable causes. But here there must be two revealed wills grappling in a fraternal war with one another without
any reasonable cause apprehended. This cannot be less than
to enaraft sin into the substance of the Law, which Law is to
provoke sin by crossing and forbidding, not by complying with
it. Nay, this is, which I tremble in uttering, to incarnate sin
into the unpunishing and well-pleased will of God. To avoid
these dreadful consequences that tread upon the heels of those
allowances to sin, will be a task of far more difficulty than to
appease those minds which, perhaps out of a vigilant and wary
conscience, except against predestination. Thus finally we may
conclude, that a Law wholly giving license cannot upon any good
consideration be given to a holy people for hardness of heart in
the vulgar sense.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 243
CHAPTER IV.
7/hat if Dizorce be no command, no nore is Jfarriage. 2That
Divorce could be no Dispensation, if it zwere sinful. The
Solution of Rivetus, that God dispensed by some unknown
ITWay, ought not to satisfy a Christian Miind.
OTHERS think to evade the matter by not granting any Law, of
divorce, but only a Dispensation; which is contrary to the words
of Christ, who himself calls it a "law," Mark x. 5, or if we speak
of a command in the strictest definition, then marriage itself is
no more a command than divorce, but only a free permission to
him who cannot contain. But as to Dispensation I affirm the
same as before of the Law, that it can never be given to the allowance of sin. God cannot give it, neither in respect of himself, nor
in respect of man. Not in respect of himself, being a most pure
essence, the just avenger of sin; neither can he make that cease
'to be a sin, which is in itself unjust and impure, as all divorces,
they say, were, which were not for adultery. Not in respect of
man, for then it must be either to his good, or to his evil. Not
to his good; for how can that be imagined any good to a sinner,
whom nothing but rebuke and due correction can save, to hear
the determinate oracle of divine law louder than any reproof dispensing and providing for the impunity and convenience of sin;
to make that doubtful, or rather lawful, which the end of the law
was to make most evidently hateful?  Nor to the evil of man
can a dispense be given; for if "the law were ordained unto
life," Rom. vii. io, how can the same God publish dispenses
against that law, which must needs be unto death? Absurd
and monstrous would that dispense be, if any judge or law should
give it a man to cut his own throat, or to damn himself. Dispense, therefore, presupposes full pardon, or else it is not a dispense, but a most baneful and bloody snare. And why should
God enter covenant with a people to be holy, as "the command
is holy and just, and good," Rom. vii. 12, and yet suffer an




244


MAN AND WIFE.


impure and treacherous dispense, to mislead and betray them
under the vizard of law to a legitimate practice of uncleanness?
God is no covenant-breaker; He cannot do this.
Rivetus, a diligent and learned writer, having well weighed
what hath been written by those founders of dispense, and finding the small agreement among them, would fain work himself aloof these rocks and quicksands, and thinks it best to
conclude that God certainly did dispense, but by some way
to us unknown, and so to leave it. But to this I oppose that
a Christian by no means ought to rest himself in such an ignorance; whereby so many absurdities will straight reflect both
against the purity, justice, and wisdom of God, the end also
both of Law and Gospel, and the comparison of them both
together. God indeed in some ways of his Providence is high
and secret, past finding out: but in the delivery and execution of
his Law, especially in the managing of a duty so daily and so
familiar as this is whereof we reason, hath plain enough revealed
himself, and requires the observance thereof not otherwise than
to the law of nature and equity imprinted in us seems correspondent. And he hath taught us to love and extol his laws,
not only as they are his, but as they are just and good to every
wise and sober understanding. Therefore Abraham, even to the
face of God himself, seemed to doubt of divine justice, if it
should swerve from the irradiation wherewith it had enlightened
the mind of man and bound itself to observe its own rule; "Wilt
Thou destroy the righteous with the wicked? that be far from
thee; shall not the Judge of the Earth do right?"  Thereby
declaring that God hath created a righteousness in right itself,
against which he cannot do. So David, Psalm  cxix., "The
testimonies which thou hast commanded are righteous and very
faithful; thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it."
Not only then for the author's sake, but for its own purity. " He
is faithful," saith St. Paul, "He cannot deny himself;" that is,
cannot deny his own promises, cannot but be true to his own
rules. He often pleads with men the uprightness of his ways
by their own principles. How should we imitate him else, to




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 245
"be perfect as He is perfect," if at pleasure He can dispense
with golden poetic ages of such pleasing licence, as in the fabled
reign of old Saturn? And this perhaps before the Law might have
some covert; but under such an undispensing covenant as Moses
made with them, and not to tell us why and wherefore, indulgence
cannot give quiet to the breast of an intelligent man? We must
be resolved how the Law can be pure and perspicuous, and yet
throw a polluted skirt over these Eleusinian mysteries, that no
man can utter what they mean: worse in this than the worst
obscenities of heathen superstition; for their filthiness was hid
but the mystic reason thereof known to their sages. But this
Jewish imputed filthiness was daily and open, but the reason of
it is not known to our divines. We know of no design the Gospel
can have to impose new righteousness upon works, but to remit
the old by faith without works, if we mean justifying works. We
know no mystery our Saviour could have to lay new bonds upon
marriage in the covenant of grace, which himself had loosened to
the severity of law. So that Rivetus may pardon us if we cannot
be contented with his nonsolution, to remain in such a peck of
uncertainties and doubts so dangerous and ghastly to the fundamentals of our faith.
CHAPTER V.
What a Dispenlsation is.
THEREFORE to get some better satisfaction, we must proceed to
inquire as diligently as we can what a Dispensation is, which I
find to be either properly so called, or improperly. Improperly
so called, is rather a particular and exceptive law, absolving and
disobliging from a more general command for some just and
reasonable cause. As Numb. ix. they who were unclean, or in
a journey, had leave to keep the passover in the second month,
but otherwise ever in the first. As for that in Leviticus of marrying
the brother's wife, it was a penal statute rather than a dispense;
and commands nothing injurious or in itself unclean, only prefers




246


MAN AND WIFE.


a special reason of charity before an institutive decency, and
perhaps is meant for lifetime only, as is expressed beneath in the
prohibition of taking two sisters. What other edict of Moses,
carrying but the semblance of a law in any other kind, may bear
the name of a dispense, I have not readily to instance. But a
dispensation most properly is some particular accident rarely
happening, and therefore not specified in the law, but left to the
decision of Charity even under the bondage of Jewish rites, much
more under the liberty of the Gospel. Thus did " David enter
into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, he and his
followers, which was" ceremonially "unlawful." Of such dispenses
as these it was that Verdune the French divine so gravely disputed
in the council of Trent against friar Adrian, who held that the
pope might dispense with anything. "It is a fond persuasion,"
saith Verdune, "that dispensing is a favour; nay, it is as good
distributive justice as what is most, and the priest sins if he gives
it not, for it is nothing else but a right interpretation of law."
Thus far that I can learn touching this matter wholesomely decreed. But that God, who is the giver of every good and perfect
gift, James i., should give out a rule and directory to sin by,
should enact a dispensation as longlived as a law, whereby to live
in privileged adultery for hardness of heart (and this obdurate
disease cannot be conceived how it was the more amended by
this unclean remedy), is the most deadly and scorpionlike gift
that the enemy of mankind could have given to any miserable
sinner, and is rather such a dispense as that was which the serpent gave to our first parents. God gave quails in his wrath, and
kings in his wrath, yet neither of these things evil in themselves.
But that he whose eyes cannot behold impurity, should in the
book of his holy covenant, his most unpassionate law, give licence
and statute for uncontrolled adultery, although it go for the
received opinion, I shall ever dissuade my soul from such a
creed, such an indulgence as the shop of Antichrist never forged
a baser.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 247
CHAPTER VI.
ThaIt Ite Jeaw had no more Rlrht to this sulposed Dispense than
the Christian hath; and rather not so much.
BUT if we must needs dispense, let us for a while so far dispense
with truth, as to grant that sin may be dispensed; yet there will
be copious reason found to prove, that the Jew had no more
right to such a supposed indulgence than the Christian, whether
we look at the clear knowledge wherein he lived, or the strict
performance of works whereto he was bound. Besides visions
and prophecies, they had the law of God, which in the Psalms
and Proverbs is chiefly praised for sureness and certainty, both
easy and perfect to the enlightening of the simple. How could
it be so obscure then, or they so sottishly blind in this plain,
moral, and household duty? They had the same precepts about
marriage; Christ added nothing to their clearness, for that had
argued them imperfect; he opens not the law, but removes the
Pharisaic mists raised between the law and the people's eyes. The
only sentence which he adds, "What God hath joined let no man
put asunder," is as obscure as any clause fetched out of Genesis,
and hath increased a yet undecided controversy of clandestine
marriages. If we examine over all his sayings, we shall find him
not so much interpreting the law with his words, as referring his
own words to be interpreted by the law, and oftener obscures his
mind in short, and vehement, and compact sentences, to blind
and puzzle them the more who would not understand the law.
The Jews therefore were as little to be dispensed with for lack of
moral knowledge as we.
Next, none I think will deny but that they were as much
bound to perform the law as any Christian. That severe and
rigorous knife not sparing the tender foreskin of any male infant
to carve upon his flesh the mark of that strict and pure covenant
whereinto he entered, might give us to understand enough against
the fancy of dispensing. St. Paul testifies, that every "circum



248


MAN AND WIFE.


cised man is a debtor to the whole law," Gal. v., or else "circumcision is in vain," Rom. ii. 25. How vain then, and how
preposterous must it needs be to exact a circumcision of the flesh
from an infant into an outward sign of purity, and to dispense an
uncircumcision in the soul of a grown man to an inward and real
impurity!  How vain again was that law, to impose tedious
expiations for every slight sin of ignorance and error, and to privilege without penance or disturbance an odious crime whether of
ignorance or obstinacy! How unjust also inflicting death and
extirpation for the mark of circumstantial pureness omitted, and
proclaiming all honest and liberal indemnity to the act of a substantial impureness committed, making void the covenant that
was made against it! Thus if we consider the tenour of the Law,
to be circumcised and to perform all, not pardoning so much as
the scapes of error and ignorance, and compare this with the
condition of the Gospel, " believe and be baptized," I suppose it
cannot be long ere we grant, that the Jew was bound as strictly
to the performance of every duty as was possible; and therefore
could not be dispensed with more than the Christian, perhaps
not so much.
CHAPTER VII.
That the Gospel is after to dispense than the Law. Parceus
answered.
IF then the Law will afford no reason why the Jew should be more
gently dealt with than the Christian, then surely the Gospel can
afford as little why the Christian should be less gently dealt with
than the Jew. The Gospel indeed exhorts to highest perfection,
but bears with weakest infirmity more than the Law. Hence those
indulgences, "All cannot receive this saying," "Every man hath
his proper gift," with express charges not to "lay on yokes, which
our fathers could not bear." The nature of man still is as weak,
and yet as hard; and that weakness and hardness as unfit and as
unteachable to be harshly used as ever. Ay, but, saith Paraeus,
there is a greater portion of Spirit poured upon the Gospel, which




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 249
requires from us perfecter obedience. I answer, this does not
prove that the Law might give allowance to sin more than the
Gospel; and if it were no sin, we know it were the work of the
spirit to "mortify our corrupt desires and evil concupiscence,"
but not to root up our natural affections and disaffections; moving to and fro even in wisest men upon just and necessary reasons,
which were the true ground of that Mosaic dispense, and is the
utmost extent of our pleading. What is more or less perfect we
dispute not, but what is sin or no sin. And in that I still affirm
the Law required as perfect obedience as the Gospel: besides that
the prime end of the Gospel is not so much to exact our obedience,
as to reveal grace, and the satisfaction of our disobedience. What
is now exacted from us, it is the accusing Law that does it, even
yet under the Gospel; but cannot be more extreme to us now
than to the Jews of old; for the Law ever was of works, and the
Gospel ever was of grace.
Either then the Law by harmless and needful dispenses, which
the Gospel is now made to deny, must have anticipated and exceeded the grace of the Gospel, or else must be found to have
given politic and superficial graces without real pardon, saying
in general, " Do this and live," and yet deceiving and damning
underhand with unsound and hollow permissions; which is utterly
abhorring from the end of all law, as hath been showed. But if
those indulgences were safe and sinless, out of tenderness and
compassion, as indeed they were, and yet shall be abrogated by
the Gospel; then the Law, whose end is by rigour to magnify
grace, shall itself give grace, and pluck a fair plume from the
Gospel; instead of hastening us thither, alluring us from it. And
whereas the terror of the Law was a servant to amplify and illustrate the mildness of grace; now the unmildness of evangelic
grace shall turn servant to declare the grace and mildness of the
rigorous Law. The Law was harsh to extol the grace of the Gospel,
and now the Gospel by a new affected strictness of her own shall
extenuate the grace which herself offers. For by exacting a duty
which the Law dispensed if we perform it then is grace diminished,
by how much performance advances, unless the Apostle argue




250


AMAN AND TIIFE.


wrong: if we perform it not, and perish for not performing, then
are the conditions of grace harder than those of rigour. If
through faith and repentance we perish not, yet grace still remains the less, by requiring that which rigour did not require or
at least not so strictly. Thus much therefore to Parseus; that if
the Gospel require perfecter obedience than the Law as a duty, it
exalts the Law and debases itself, which is dishonourable to the
work of our redemption. Seeing therefore that all the causes of
any allowance that the Jews might have remain as well to the
Christians, this is a certain rule, that so long as the causes remain,
the allowance ought. And having thus at length inquired the
truth concerning Law and Dispense, their ends, their uses, their
limits, and in what manner both Jew and Christian stand liable
to the one or capable of the other; we may safely conclude, that
to affirm the giving of any law or lawlike dispense to sin for hardness of heart, is a doctrine of that extravagance from the sage
principles of piety, that whoso considers thoroughly cannot but
admire how this hath been digested all this while.
CHAPTER VIII.
The iruee Sese how MJoses suffered Divorce for Hardiness of
Hear.
WHAT may we do then to salve this seeming inconsistence?  I
must not dissemble that I am confident it can be done no other
way than this:
Moses, Deut. xxiv. i, established a grave and prudent law,
full of moral equity, full of due consideration towards nature,
that cannot be resisted, a law consenting with the laws of wisest
men and civilest nations; that when a man hath married a wife,
if it come to pass that he cannot love her by reason of some
displeasing natural quality or unfitness in her, let him write
her a bill of divorce. The intent of which law undoubtedly
was this, that if any good and peaceable man should discover
some helpless disagreement or dislike either of mind or body,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 251
whereby he could not cheerfully perform the duty of a husband
without the perpetual dissembling of offence and disturbance to
his spirit; rather than to live uncomfortably and unhappily both
to himself and to his wife, rather than to continue undertaking
duty which he could not possibly discharge, he might dismiss
her whom he could not tolerably and so not conscionably retain.
And this law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov.
xxx. 2 1, 23, testifies to be a good and a necessary law, by granting
it that "a hated woman" (for so the Hebrew word signifies,
rather than "odious," though it come all to one), that "a hated
woman, when she is married, is a thing that the earth cannot
bear."  What follows then, but that the charitable law must
remedy what nature cannot undergo? Now that many licentious
and hard-hearted men took hold of this law to cloke their bad
purposes, is nothing strange to believe. And these were they,
not for whom Moses made the law (God forbid!), but whose
hardness of heart taking ill-advantage by this law he held it better
to suffer as by accident, where it could not be detected, rather
than good men should lose their just and lawful privilege of
remedy. Christ therefore having to answer these tempting Pharisees, according as his custom was, not meaning to inform their
proud ignorance what Moses did in the true intent of the law
which they had ill cited, suppressing the true cause for which
Moses gave it and extending it to every slight matter, tells them
their own, what Moses was forced to suffer by their abuse of his
law. Which is yet more plain, if we mark that our Saviour, in
Matt. v., cites not the law of Moses but the Pharisaical tradition
falsely grounded upon that law. And in those other places, chap.
xix. and Mark x., the Pharisees cite the law, but conceal the wise
and humane reason there expressed; which our Saviour corrects
not in them, whose pride deserved not his instruction, only
returns them what is proper to them: " Moses for the hardness
of your heart suffered you," that is, such as you, "to put away
your wives; and to you he wrote this precept for that cause,"
which (" to you") must be read with an impression, and understood limitedly of such as covered ill purposes under that law.




252


MAN AND WIFE.


For it was seasonable, that they should hear their own unbounded
licence rebuked, but not seasonable for them to hear a good man's
requisite liberty explained. But as he hath taught better, if we have
ears to hear, he himself acknowledged it to be a law, Mark x.,
and being a law of God, it must have an undoubted " end of
charity, which may be used with a pure heart, a good conscience,
and faith unfeigned," as was heard: it cannot allow sin, but is
purposely to resist sin, as by the same chapter to Timothy
appears. There we learn also, " that the law is good, if a man
use it lawfully." Out of doubt then there must be a certain
good in this law, which Moses willingly allowed, and there might
be an unlawful use made thereof by hypocrites; and that was it
which was unwillingly suffered, foreseeing it in general, but not
able to discern it in particulars. Christ therefore mentions not
here what Moses and the law intended; for good men might
know that by many other rules; and the scornful Pharisees were
not fit to be told, until they could employ that knowledge they
had less abusively. Only he acquaints them with what Moses
by them was put to suffer.
CHAPTER IX.
The Words of the Institution how to be understood; and of our
Saviour's Answer to his Disciples.
AND to entertain a little their overweening arrogance as best
befitted, and to amaze them yet further, because they thought it
no hard matter to fulfil the Law, he draws them up to that unseparable institution which God ordained in the beginning before
the Fall, when man and woman were both perfect, and could have
no cause to separate. Just as in the same chapter he stands not
to contend with the arrogant young man, who boasted his observance of the whole law, whether he had indeet kept it or not, but
screws him up higher to a task of that perfection which no man
is bound to imitate. And in like manner, that pattern of the first
institution he set before the opinionative Pharisees to dazzle them,




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 2;3
and not to bind us. For this is a solid rule, that every command
given with a reason, binds our obedience no otherwise than that
reason holds. Of this sort was that command in Eden, " Therefore shall a man cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh; "
which we see is no absolute command, but with an inference
"therefore: " the reason then must be first considered, that our
obedience be not misobedience. The first is, for it is not single,
because the wife is to the husband " flesh of his flesh," as in the
verse going before. But this reason cannot be sufficient of itself:
for why then should he for his wife leave his father and mother,
with whom he is far more "flesh of flesh, and bone of bone,"
as being made of their substance? And besides, it can be but
a sorry and ignoble society of life whose inseparable injunction
depends merely upon flesh and bones. Therefore we must look
higher, since Christ himself recalls us to the beginning, and we
shall find, that the primitive reason of never divorcing was that
sacred and not vain promise of God to remedy man's loneliness
by "m making him a meet help for him," though not now in perfection, as at first, yet still in proportion as things now are. And
this is repeated, verse 20, when all other creatures were fitly
associated and brought to Adam, as if the Divine Power had
been in some care and deep thought, because " there was not yet
found any help meet for man." And can we so slightly depress the
allwise purpose of a deliberating God, as if his consultation had
produced no other good for man but to join him with an accidental companion of propagation, which his sudden word had
already made for every beast? Nay, a far less good to man it
will be found, if she must at all adventures be fastened upon him
individually. And therefore even plain sense and equity, and,
which is above them both, the all-interpreting voice of Charity
herself cries aloud, that this primitive reason, this consulted
promise of God, "to make a meet help," is the only cause that
gives authority to this command of not divorcing, to be a
command. And it might be further added, that if the true definition of a wife were asked at good earnest, this clause of being
"a meet help " would show itself so necessary and so essential




25g


2IMIAN AND WIFE.


in that demonstrative argument, that it might be logically concluded: Therefore she who naturally and perpetually is no "meet
help," can be no wife; which clearly takes away the difficulty of
dismissing such a one. If this be not thought enough, I answer
yet further, that marriage, unless it mean a fit and tolerable
marriage, is not inseparable neither by nature nor institution.
Not by nature, for then Mosaic divorces had been against nature,
if separable and inseparable be contraries, as who doubts they
be? And what is against nature is against law, if soundest
philosophy abuse us not; by this reckoning Moses should be
most unmosaic, that is, most illegal, not to say most unnatural.
Nor is it inseparable by the first institution; for then no second
institution of the same law for so many causes could dissolve it;
it being most unworthy a human (as Plato's judgment is in the
fourth book of his Laws), much more a divine lawgiver, to write two
several decrees upon the same thing. But what would Plato have
deemed, if one of these were good and the other evil to be done?
Lastly, suppose it to be inseparable by institution, yet in cornpetition with higher things, as Religion and Charity in mainest
matters, and when the chief end is frustrate for which it was
ordained, as hath been shewn, if still it must remain inseparable, it holds a strange and lawless propriety from all other works
of God under heaven.   From these many considerations we
may safely gather that so much of the first institution as our
Saviour mentions, for he mentions not all, was but to quell and
put to nonplus the tempting Pharisees, and to lay open their
ignorance and shallow understanding of the Scriptures.  For,
saith he, "have ye not read that He which made them at the
beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause
shall a man cleave to his wife?" which the blind usurpers of
Moses's chair could not gainsay  As if this single respect of male
and female were sufficient, against a thousand inconveniences
and mischiefs, to clog a rational creature to his endless sorrow
unrelinquishably under the guileful superscription of his intended
solace and comfort. What if they had thus answered? "M Master,
if thou mean to make wedlock as inseparable as it was from the




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 25,
beginning, let it be made also a fit society, as God meant it, which
we shall soon understand it ought to be, if thou recite the whole
reason of the law." Doubtless our Saviour had applauded their
just answer. For then they had expounded his command of Paradise, even as Moses himself expounds it by the laws of divorce,
that is, with due and wise regard to the premises and reasons
of the first command; according to which, without unclean and
temporizing permissions, he instructs us in this imperfect state
what we may lawfully do about divorce.
But if it be thought that the Disciples, offended at the rigour
of Christ's answer, could yet obtain no mitigation of the former
sentence pronounced to the Pharisees, it may be fully answered,
that our Saviour continues the same reply to his Disciples,
as men leavened with the same customary licence which the
Pharisees maintained, and displeased at the removing of a traditional abuse whereto they had so long not unwillingly been
used. It was no time then to contend with their slow and prejudicial belief in a thing wherein an ordinary measure of light
in Scripture, with some attention, might afterwards inform them
well enough. And yet ere Christ had finished this argument,
they might have picked out of his own concluding words an
answer more to their minds, and in effect the same with that
which hath been all this while entreating audience: "All men,"
saith he, "cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is
given; he that is able to receive it, let him receive it."  What
saying is this which is left to a man's choice to receive or not
receive? What but the 'Married life? Was our Saviour so mild
and so favourable to the weakness of a single man, and is he
turned on the sudden so rigorous and inexorable, to the distresses
and extremities of an ill-wedded man?  Did he so graciously
give leave to change the better single life for the worse married
life? Did he open so to us this hazardous and accidental door
of marriage, to shut upon us like the gate of death, without retracting or returning, without permitting to change the worst,
most insupportable, most unchristian mischance of marriage, for
all the mischiefs and sorrows that can ensue; being an ordinance




256


MAN AND WIFE.


which was especially given as a cordial and exhilarating cup
of solace, the better to bear our other crosses and afflictions?
Questionless this was a hard-heartedness of divorcing, worse than
that in the Jews, which, they say, extorted the allowance from
Moses, and is utterly dissonant from all the doctrine of our Saviour.
After these considerations, therefore, to take a law out of Paradise
given in time of original perfection, and to take it barely without
those just and equal inferences and reasons which mainly establish
it, nor so much as admitting those needful and safe allowances
wherewith Moses himself interprets it to the fallen condition of
man; argues nothing in us but rashness and contempt of those
means that God left us in his pure and chaste law, without which
it will not be possible for us to perform the strict imposition of
this command: or if we strive beyond our strength, we shall strive
to obey it otherwise than God commands it. And lamented
experience daily teaches the bitter and vain fruits of this our
presumption, forcing men in a thing wherein we are not able to
judge either of their strength or their sufferance, whom neither
one voice nor other by natural addiction, but only marriage ruins.
Which doubtless is not the fault of that ordinance, for God gave
it as a blessing; nor always of man's mischoosing, it being an error
above wisdom to prevent, as examples of wisest men so mistaken
manifest: it is the fault therefore of a perverse opinion, that will
have it continued in despite of nature and reason when indeed it
was never so truly joined. All those expositors upon the fifth
Matthew confess the law of Moses to be the law of the Lord,
wherein no addition or diminution hath place; yet coming to the
point of divorce, as if they feared not to be called least in the
kingdom of heaven, any slight evasion will content them to
reconcile those contradictions which they make between Christ
and Moses, between Christ and Christ.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 257
CHAPTER X
The vain Shift of those Te'ho make the Lawc of Divorce lo be only
the Premises of a succeeding Law.
SOME will have it no Law, but the granted premises of another
Law following, contrary to the words of Christ, Mark x. 5, and all
other translations of gravest authority, who render it in form of a
law, agreeably to Mal. ii. i6, as it is most anciently and modernly
expounded. Besides, the bill of divorce, and the particular
occasion therein mentioned, declares it to be orderly and legal.
And what avails this to make the matter more righteous, if such
an adulterous condition shall be mentioned to build a law upon,
without either punishment or so much as forbidding? They
pretend it is implicitly reproved in these words, Deut. xxiv. 4,
" after she is defiled;" but who sees not that this defilement is
only in respect of returning to her former husband after an
intermixed marriage?  Else why was not the defiling condition
first forbidden, which would have saved the labour of this
after-law?  Nor is it seemly or piously attributed to the justice of God and his known hatred of sin, that such a heinous
fault as this through all the law should be only wiped with an
implicit and oblique touch-which yet is falsely supposed,-and
that his peculiar people should be let wallow in adulterous
marriages almost two thousand years, for want of a direct law to
prohibit them. It is rather to be confidently assumed that this
was granted to apparent necessities, as being of unquestionable
right and reason in the law of nature, in that it still passes without
inhibition even when the greatest cause is given to us to expect
it should be directly forbidden.


R




258


MAN AND WIFE.


CHAPTER XI.
The other Shift of saying Divorce was permitted by Law, blut not
ajpproved. ilMore of the Inslitution.
BUT it was not approved. So much the worse that it was allowed;
as if sin had over-mastered the Word of God to conform her
steady and straight rule to sin's crookedness, which is impossible.
Besides, what needed a positive grant of that which was not
approved? It restrained no liberty to him that could but use a
little fraud; it had been better silenced, unless it were approved
in some case or other. But still it was not approved. Miserable excusers!  -Ie who doth evil that good may come thereby,
approves not what he doth; and yet the grand rule forbids him,
and counts his damnation just if he do it. The sorceress Medea
did not approve her own evil doings, yet looked not to be
excused for that. And it is the constant opinion of Plato in
Protagoras, and other of his dialogues, agreeing with that proverbial sentence among the Greeks, that "no man is wicked
willingly." Which also the Peripatetics do rather distinguish
than deny. What great thank then if any man, reputed wise and
constant, will neither do nor permit others under his charge to
do that which he approves not, especially in matter of sin? but
for a judge, but for a magistrate, the shepherd of his people, to
surrender up his approbation, against law and his own judgment,
to the obstinacy of his herd, what more unjudgelike, unmagistratelike, and in. war more uncommanderlike? Twice in a short time
it was the undoing of the Roman state, first when Pompey, next
when Marcus Brutus, had not magnanimity enough but to make
so poor a resignation of what they approved to what the
boisterous tribunes and soldiers bawled for. Twice it was the
saving of two of the greatest Commonwealths in the world, of
Athens by Themistocles at the seafight of Salamis, of Rome by
Fabius Maximus in the Punic war, for that these two matchless
generals had the fortitude at home, against the rashness and the




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 259
clamours of their own captains and confederates, to withstand the
doing or permitting of what they could not approve in their duty
of their great command. Thus far of civil prudence. But when
we speak of sin, let us look again upon the old reverend Eli, who
in his heavy punishment found no difference between the doing
and permitting of what he did not approve. If hardness of heart
in the people may be an excuse, why then is Pilate branded
through all memory? He approved not what he did, he openly
protested, he washed his hands and laboured not a little ere he
would yield to the hard hearts of a whole people, both princes
and plebeians, importuning and tumulting even to the fear of a
revolt. Yet is there any will undertake his cause? If therefore
Pilate for suffering but one act of cruelty against law, though with
much unwillingness testified, at the violent demand of a whole
nation, shall stand so black upon record to all posterity; alas for
Moses! What shall we say for him, while we are taught to believe
he suffered not one act only both of cruelty and uncleanliness in
one divorce, but made it a plain and lasting law against law,
whereby ten thousand acts accounted both cruel and unclean
might be daily committed, and this without the least suit or
petition of the people, that we can read of?
And can we conceive without vile thoughts, that the majesty
and holiness of God could endure so many ages to gratify a
stubborn people in the practice of a foul polluting sin? And could
lie expect they should abstain, he not signifying his mind in a
plain command, at such time especially when he was framing
their laws and them to all possible perfection? But they were to
look back to the first institution; nay, rather why was not that
individual institution brought out of Paradise, as was that of the
Sabbath, and repeated in the body of the law, that men might
have understood it to be a command? For that any sentence
that bears the resemblance of a precept, set there so out of place
in another world, at such a distance from the whole law, and not
once mentioned there, should be an obliging command to us, is
very disputable; and perhaps it might be denied to be a command
without further dispute. However, it commands not absolutely




260


MAN AND WIFE.


as hath been cleared, but only with reference to that precedent
promise of God, which is the very ground of his institution. If
that appear not in some tolerable sort, how can we affirm such a
matrimony to be the same which God instituted? In such an
accident it will best behoove our soberness to follow rather what
moral Sinai prescribes equal to our strength, than fondly to think
within our strength all that lost Paradise relates.
CHAPTER XII.
The third Shzft of them who esteeem it a mere Judicial Law.
Proved again to be a Law of moral Equity.
ANOTHER while it shall suffice them that it was not a moral but
a judicial law, and so was abrogated: nay, rather, not abrogated
because judicial, which law the ministry of Christ came not to
deal with. And who put it in man's power to exempt, where
Christ speaks in general of not abrogating " the least jot or tittle,"
and in special not that of divorce, because it follows among those
laws which he promised expressly not to abrogate, but to vindicate
from abusive traditions? Which is most evidently to be seen in
the x6th of Luke, where this caution of not abrogating is inserted
immediately, and not otherwise than purposely, when no other
point of the law is touched but that of divorce. And if we mark
the 3Ist verse of Matt. v. he there cites not the law of Moses,
but the licentious gloss which traduced the law. That therefore
which he cited, that he abrogated, and not only abrogated, but
disallowed and flatly condemned; which could not be the law of
Moses, for that had been foully to the rebuke of his great servant.
To abrogate a law made with God's allowance, had been to tell
us only that such a law was now to cease; but o refute it with
an ignominious note of civilizing adultery, casts the reproof which
was meant only to the Pharisees even upon him that made the
law. But yet if that be judicial which belongs to a civil court,
this law is less judicial than nine of the ten commandments: for
antiquaries affirm that divorces proceeded among the Jews with



THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 261
out knowledge of the magistrate, only with hands and seals under
the testimony of some rabbis to be then present. Perkins, in a
" Treatise of Conscience," grants, that what in the judicial law is
of common equity binds also the Christian: and how to judge of
this, prescribes two ways: if wise nations have enacted the like
decree; or if it maintain the good of family, church, or commonwealth.  This therefore is a pure moral economical law, too
hastily imputed of tolerating sin; being rather so clear in nature
and reason that it was left to a man's own arbitrement, to be
determined between God and his own conscience; not only
among the Jews, but in every wise nation: the restraint whereof,
who is not too thick-sighted, may see how hurtful and distractive
it is to the house, the church, and commonwealth. And that
power which Christ never took from the master of a family, but
rectified only to a right and wary use at home; that power the
undiscerning canonist hath improperly usurped in his court-leet,
and bescribbled with a thousand trifling impertinences, which
yet have filled the life of man with serious trouble and calamity.
Yet grant it were of old a judicial law, it need not be the less
moral for that, being conversant as it is about virtue or vice.
And our Saviour disputes not here the judicature, for that was
not his office, but the morality of divorce, whether it be adultery
or no. If therefore he touch the law of Moses at all, he touches
the moral part thereof, which is absurd to imagine, that the covenant of grace should reform the exact and perfect law of works,
eternal and immutable; or if he touch not the law at all, then is
not the allowance thereof disallowed to us.
CHAPTER XIII.
YTle ridiculous Opinion t/zha Divorce oas permittedfroim the Custom
in Egypt.   That Moses gave not this Law    nwTilliTIny.
Perkins confesses this Law was not abrogated.
OTHERS are so ridiculous as to allege, that this licence of
divorcing was given them  because they were so accustomed




202


2MAN AND WIFE.


in Egypt. As if an ill custom were to be kept to all posterity;
for the dispensation is both universal and of time unlimited, and
so indeed no dispensation at all; for the over-dated dispensation
of a thing unlawful serves for nothing but to increase hardness
of heart, and makes men but wax more incorrigible; which were
a great reproach to be said of any law or allowance that God
should give us. In these opinions it would be more religion to
advise well, lest we make ourselves juster than God by censuring
rashly that for sin which his unspotted law without rebuke allows
and his people without being conscious of displeasing him have
used. And if we can think so of Moses, as that the Jewish
obstinacy could compel him to write such impure permissions
against the word of God and his own judgment; doubtless it
was his part to have protested publicly what straits he was driven
to, and to have declared his conscience, when he gave any lawv
against his mind. For the law is the touchstone of sin and of
conscience, and must not be intermixed with corrupt indulgences;
for then it loses the greatest praise it has of being certain and
infallible, not leading into error as the Jews were led by this
connivance of Moses, if it were a connivance. But still they fly
back to the primitive institution, and would have us re-enter
Paradise against the sword that guards it. Whom I again thus
reply to, that the place in Genesis contains the description of a
fit and perfect marriage, with an interdict of ever divorcing such
a union: but where nature is discovered to have never joined
indeed, but vehemently seeks to part, it cannot be there conceived that God forbids it; nay, he commands it both in the
law and in the prophet Malachi, which is to be our rule. And
Perkins upon this chapter of Matthew deals plainly, that our
Saviour here confutes not Moses's law, but the false glosses that
depraved the law; which being true, Perkins must needs grant
that something then is left to that law which Christ found no
fault with; and what can that be but the conscionable use of
such liberty, as the plain words import? So that by his own
inference, Christ did not absolutely intend to restrain all divorces
to the only cause of adultery. This therefore is the true scope




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 263
of our Saviour's will, that he who looks upon the law concerning
divorce, should also look back upon the institution, that he may
endeavour what is perfectest: and he that looks upon the institution shall not refuse as sinful and unlawful those allowances
which God affords him in his following law, lest he make himself purer than his Maker, and presuming above strength, slip
into temptations irrecoverably. For this is wonderful, that in
all those decrees concerning marriage God should never once
mention the prime institution, to dissuade them from divorcing,
and that he should forbid smaller sins as opposite to the hardness
of their hearts and let this adulterous matter of divorce pass
ever unreproved.
This is also to be marvelled, that seeing Christ did not condemn whatever it was that Moses suffered, and that thereupon
the Christian magistrate permits usury and open stews, and here
with us adultery to be so slightly punished which was punished
by death to these hard-hearted Jews; why we should strain thus
at the matter of divorce, which may stand so much with Charity
to permit, and make no scruple to allow usury esteemed to be
so much against Charity?  But this it is to embroil ourselves
against the righteous and all-wise judgments and statutes of God;
which are not variable and contrarious, as we would make them,
one while permitting, and another while forbidding, but are most
constant and most harmonious each to other. For how can the
uncorrupt and majestic Law of God, bearing in her hand the
wages of life and death, harbour such a repugnance within herself
as to require an unexempted and impartial obedience to all her
decrees, either from us or from our Mediator, and yet debase
herself to falter so many ages with circumcised adulteries by
unclean and siubbering permissions?




264


MAN AND WIFE.


CHAPTER XIV.
That Beza's 0pinion of regzulatiig Sit by Apostolic Lawz
cannot be found.
YET Beza's opinion is, that a politic law (but what politic law I
know not, unless one of Machiavel's) may regulate sin; may bear
indeed, I grant, with imperfection for a time, as those canons
of the Apostles did in ceremonial things; but as for sin, the
essence of it cannot consist with rule; and if the law fall to
regulate sin, and not to take it utterly away, it necessarily confirms and establishes sin. To make a regularity of sin by law,
either the law must straighten sin into no sin, or sin must crook
the law into no law.  The judicial law can serve to no other
end than to be the protector and champion of religion and
honest civility, as is set down plainly, Rom. xiii., and is but
the arm of moral law, which can no more be separate from
justice, than justice from virtue. Their office also, in a different
manner, steers the same course; the one teaches what is good by
precept, the other unteaches what is bad by punishment. But if
we give way to politic dispensations of lewd uncleanness, the first
good consequence of such a relax will be the justifying of papal
stews, joined with a toleration of epidemic whoredom. Justice
must revolt from the end of her authority, and become the
patron of that whereof she was created the punisher. The example of usury, which is commonly alleged, makes against the
allegation which it brings, as I touched before. Besides that
usury, so much as is permitted by the magistrate and demanded
with common equity, is neither against the Word of God, nor the
rule of Charity; as hath been often discussed by men of eminent
learning and judgment. There must be therefore some other
example found out to shew us wherein civil policy may with
warrant from God settle wickedness by law, and make that lawful
which is lawless. Although I doubt not but, upon deeper consideration, that which is true in physic will be found as true in




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 265
policy, that as of bad pulses those that beat most in order, are
much worse than those that keep the most inordinate circuit; so
of popular vices, those that may be committed legally will be
more pernicious than those that are left to their own course at
peril, not under a stinted privilege to sin orderly and regularly,
which is an implicit contradiction, but under due and fearless
execution of punishment.
The political law, since it cannot regulate vice, is to restrain it
by using all means to root it out. But if it suffer the weed to
grow up to any pleasurable or contented height, upon what pretext soever, it fastens the root, it prunes and dresses vice as if it
were a good plant. Let no man doubt therefore to affirm, that
it is not so hurtful or dishonourable to a commonwealth, nor so
much to the hardening of hearts, when those worse faults pretended to be feared are committed by who so dares under strict
and executed penalty, as when those less faults tolerated for fear
of greater, harden their faces, not their hearts only, under the
protection of public authority. For what less indignity were this
than as if justice herself, the queen of virtues, descending from
her sceptered royalty, instead of conquering, should compound
and treat with sin, her eternal adversary and rebel, upon ignoble
terms? or as if the judicial law were like that untrusty steward in
the Gospel, and instead of calling in the debts of his moral master,
should give out subtile and sly acquittances to keep himself from
begging? Or let us person him like some wretched itinerary judge,
who, to gratify his delinquents before him, would let them basely
break his head, lest they should pull him from the bench and
throw him over the bar. Unless we had rather think both moral
and judicial, full of malice and deadly purpose, conspired to let the
debtor Israelite, the seed of Abraham, run on upon a bankrupt
score, flatter with insufficient and ensnaring discharges, that so he
might be haled to a more cruel forfeit for all the indulgent arrears
which those judicial acquittances had engaged him in.. No, no,
this cannot be, that the Law whose integrity and faithfulness is next
to God, should be either the shameless broker of our impunities,
or the intended instrument of our destruction.  The method of




266


MAN AND WIFE.


holy correction, such as became the commonwealth of Israel, is not
to bribe sin with sin, to capitulate and hire out one crime with
another; but with more noble and graceful severity than Popilius
the Roman legate used with Antiochus to limit and level out the
direct way from vice to virtue with straightest and exactest lines
on either side, not winding or indenting so much as to the right
hand of fair pretences. Violence indeed and insurrection may
force the Law to suffer what it cannot mend; but to write a decree
in allowance of sin, as soon can the hand of justice rot off. Let
this be ever concluded as a truth that will outlive the faith of
those that seek to bear it down.
CHAPTER XV.
That Divorce was not given for Wives only, as Beza and Pareits
write. Mfore of the Institution.
LASTLY, if divorce were granted, as Beza and others say, not for
men, but to release afflicted wives; certainly, it is not only a
dispensation, but a most merciful law. And why it should not
yet be in force, being wholly as needful, I know not what can
be in cause but senseless cruelty. But yet to say divorce was
granted for relief of wives rather than of husbands, is but weakly
conjectured, and is manifestly the extreme shift of a huddled
exposition. Whenas it could not be found how hardness of heart
should be lessened by liberty of divorce, a fancy was devised
to hide the flaw, by commenting that divorce was permitted only
for the help of wives. Palpably uxorious! who can be ignorant,
that woman was created for man, and not man for woman, and
that a husband may be injured as insufferably in marriage as a
wife? What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved!
what to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of houserule who-shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for
that were something reasonable, but out of a female pride! "I
suffer not," saith St. Paul, "the woman to usurp authority over
the man." If the apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 267
he mortified that can? Solomon saith, "that a bad wife is to her
husband as rottenness to his bones, a continual dropping. Better
dwell in the corner of a house-top, or in the wilderness," than with
such a one. "< Whoso hideth her, hideth the wind, and one of
the four mischiefs which the earth cannot bear." If the Spirit of
God wrote such aggravations as these, and-as may be guessed by
these similitudes-counsels the man rather to divorce than to live
with such a colleague; and yet on the other side expresses nothing of the wife's suffering with a bad husband; is it not most
likely that God in his law had more pity towards man thus wecllocked than towards the woman that was created for another?
The same Spirit relates to us the course which the Medes and
Persians took by occasion of Vashti, whose mere denial to come
at her husband's sending lost her the being queen any longer, and
set up a wholesome law, " that every man should bear rule in his
own house." And the divine relater shews us not the least sign
of disliking what was done; how should he, if Moses long before
was nothing less mindful of the honour and pre-eminence due
to man?   So that to say divorce was granted for woman rather
than man, was but fondly invented. Esteeming therefore to have
asserted thus an injured law of Moses from the unwarranted and
guilty name of a dispensation to be again a most equal and
requisite law, we have the word of Christ himself, that he came
not to alter the least tittle of it; and signifies no small displeasure
against him that shall teach to do so. On which relying, I shall
not much waver to affirm, that those words which are made to
intimate as if they forbade all divorce but for adultery-though
Moses have constituted otherwise-those words taken circumscriptly, without regard to any precedent law of Moses or attestation of Christ himself, or without care to preserve those his
fundamental and superior laws of nature and charity to which
all other ordinances give up their seal, are as much against plain
equity and the mercy of religion as those words of "Take, eat;
this is my body," elementally understood, are against nature
and sense.
And surely the restoring of this degraded law hath well re



268


MAN AND WVIFE.


compensed the diligence was used, by enlightening us further
to find out wherefore Christ took off the Pharisees from alleging
the Law, and referred them to the first institution; not condemning, altering, or abolishing this precept of divorce, which
is plainly moral, for that were against his truth, his promise,
and his prophetic office; but knowing how fallaciously they
had cited and concealed the particular and natural reason of
the law, that they might justify any froward reason of their own
he lets go that sophistry unconvinced; for that had been to teach
them else, which his purpose was not. And since they had taken
a liberty which the law gave not, he amuses and repels their
tempting pride with a perfection of Paradise which the law
required not; not thereby to oblige our performance to that
whereto the law never enjoined the fallen estate of man. For if the
first institution must make wedlock, whatever happen, inseparable
to us, it must make it also as perfect, as meetly helpful, and as
comfortable as God promised it should be, at least in some
degree; otherwise it is not equal or proportionable to the strength
of man that he should be reduced into such indissoluble bonds
to his assured misery, if all the other conditions of that covenant
be manifestly altered.
CHAPTER XVI.
How /o be understood, that they must be one Flesh; and Ioww that
those whom God hath joined, Man should not sunder.
NEXT he saith, "They must be one flesh;" which when all
conjecturing is done, will be found to import no mnore but to
make legitimate and good the carnal act, which else might seem
to have something of pollution in it: and infers thus much over,
that the fit union of their souls be such as may even incorporate
them to love and amity. But that can never be where no correspondence is of the mind; nay, instead of being one flesh, they
will be rather two carcasses chained unnaturally together; or, as
it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead corpse; a punish



THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 269
ment too like that inflicted by the tyrant Mezentius, so little
worthy to be received as that remedy of loneliness which God
meant us. Since we know it is not the joining of another body
will remove loneliness, but the uniting of another compliable
mind; and that it is no blessing but a torment, nay, a base and
brutish condition, to be one flesh, unless where nature can in
some measure fix a unity of disposition. The meaning therefore
of these words, " For this cause shall a man leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave to his wife," was first to shew us
the dear affection which naturally grows in every not unnatural
marriage, even to the leaving of parents or other familiarity whatsoever. Next, it justifies a man in so doing, that nothing is done
undutifully to father or mother. But he that should be here
sternly commanded to cleave to his error, a disposition which to
his he finds will never cement, a quotidian of sorrow and discontent
in his house; let us be excused to pause a little, and bethink us
every way round ere we lay such a flat solecism upon the gracious,
and certainly not inexorable, not ruthless and flinty, ordinance
of marriage. For if the meaning of these words must be thus
blocked up within their own letters from all 'equity and fair deduction, they will serve then well indeed their turn who affirm
divorce to have been granted only for wives; whenas we see no
word of this text binds women, but men only, what it binds.
No marvel then if Salomith, sister to Herod, sent a writ of ease
to Costobarus her husband, which, as Josephus there attests, was
lawful only to men. No marvel though Placidia, the sister of
Honorius, threatened the like to earl Constantius for a trivial
cause, as Photius relates from Olympiodorus. No marvel anything, if letters must be turned into palisadoes, to stake out all
requisite sense from entering to their due enlargement.
Lastly, Christ himself tells who should not be put asunder,
namely, those whom God hath joined. A plain solution of this
great controversy, if men would but use their eyes. For when
is it that God may be said to join? When the parties and their
friends consent? No, surely; for that may concur to lewdest
ends. Or is it when Church rites are finished? Neither; for the




270


7MAN AND WIFE.


efficacy of those depends upon the presupposed fitness of either
party. Perhaps after carnal knowledge. Least of all; for that
may join persons whom neither law nor nature dares join. It is
left, that only then when the minds are fitly disposed and enabled
to maintain a cheerful conversation, to the solace and love of
each other, according as God intended and promised in the very
first foundation of matrimony, "I will make him a help-meet for
him;" for surely what God intended and promised, that only can
be thought to be his joining, and not the contrary. So likewise
the apostle witnesseth, i Cor. vii. 15, that in marriage " God hath
called us to peace." And doubtless in what respect He hath
called us to marriage, in that also He hath joined us. The rest,
whom either disproportion, or deadness of spirit, or something
distasteful and averse in the immutable bent of nature renders
conjugal, error may have joined, but God never joined against the
meaning of his own ordinance. And if He joined them not, then
is there no power above their own consent to hinder them from
unjoining, when they cannot reap the soberest ends of being
together in any tolerable sort. Neither can it be said properly
that such twain were ever divorced, but only parted from each
other, as two persons unconjunctive are unmarriable together.
But if, whom God hath made a fit help, frowardness or private
injuries hath made unfit, that being the secret of marriage, God
can better judge than man, neither is man indeed fit or able to
decide this matter. However it be, undoubtedly a peaceful divorce
is a less evil, and less in scandal than hateful, hard-hearted, and
destructive continuance of marriage in the judgment of Moses and
of Christ, that justifies him in choosing the less evil: which if it
were an honest and civil prudence in the Law, what is there in the
Gospel forbidding such a kind of legal wisdom, though we should
admit the common expositors?




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 271
CHAPTER XVII.
lThe sentence of Christ concerning,, DI)vorce how to be expounded.
VWhat Grolius hath observed.  Othler additions.
HAVING thus unfolded those ambiguous reasons, wherewith Christ,
as his wont was, gave to the Pharisees that came to sound him
such an answer as they deserved, it will not be uneasy to explain
the sentence itself that now follows: " Whosoever shall put away
his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another.
committeth adultery." First therefore I will set down what is
observed by Grotius upon this point, a man of general learning.
Next, I produce what mine own thoughts gave me before I had
seen his annotations. Origen, saith he, notes that Christ named
adultery rather as one example of other like cases, than as one
only exception; and that is frequent not only in human but in
divine laws, to express one kind of fact, whereby other causes of
like nature may have the like plea, as Exod. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 26;
Deut. xix. 5. And from the maxims of civil law he shews, that
even in sharpest penal laws the same reason hath the same right;
and in gentler laws, that from like causes to like the law interprets
rightly. But it may be objected, saith he, that nothing destroys
the end of wedlock so much as adultery. To which he answers,
that marriage was not ordained only for copulation, but for
mutual help and comfort of life. And if we mark diligently the
nature of our Saviour's commands, we shall find that both their
beginning and their end consists in Charity: whose will is that we
should so be good to others, as that we be not cruel to ourselves.
And hence it appears why Mark, and Luke, and St. Paul to the
Corinthians, mentioning this precept of Christ, add no exception,
because exceptions that arise from natural equity are included
silently under general terms: it would be considered therefore,
whether the same equity may not have place in other cases less
frequent. Thus far he. From hence is what I add: First, that
this saying of Christ, as it is usually expounded, can be no law at




272


MAN AND WIFE.


all, that a man for no cause should separate but for adultery,
except it be a supernatural law, not binding us as we now are.
Had it been the law of nature, either the Jews, or some other
wise and civil nation would have pressed it. Or let it be so, yet
that law, Deut. xxiv. I, whereby a man hath leave to part whenas,
for just and natural cause discovered, he cannot love, is a law
ancienter and deeper engraven in blameless nature than the
other. Therefore the inspired lawgiver Moses took care, that this
should be specified and allowed; the other he let vanish in
silence, not once repeated in the volume of his law, even as the
reason of it vanished with Paradise. Secondly, this can be no
new command, for the Gospel enjoins no new morality, save
only the infinite enlargement of Charity, which in this respect
is called the new commandment by St. John, as being the
accomplishment of every command.   Thirdly, it is no command of perfection further than it partakes of Charity, which is
"the bond of perfection."  Those commands therefore, which
compel us to self-cruelty above our strength, so hardly will help
forward to perfection that they hinder and set backward in all
the common rudiments of Christianity, as was proved. It being
thus clear that the words of Christ can be no kind of command
as they are vulgarly taken, we shall now see in what sense they
may be a command, and that an excellent one, the same with
that of Moses, and no other. Moses had granted, that only for
a natural annoyance, defect, or dislike, whether in body or mind,
for so the Hebrew word plainly notes, which a man could
not force himself to live with, he might give a bill of divorce,
thereby forbidding any other cause wherein amendment or reconciliation might have place. This law the Pharisees depraving
extended to any slight contentious cause whatsoever. Christ
therefore seeing where they halted, urges the negative part of the
law, which is necessarily understood-for the determinate permission of Moses binds them from further licence-and checking
their supercilious drift, declares that no accidental, temporary,
or reconcilable offence, except fornication, can justify a. divorce.
He touches not here those natural and perpetual hinderances of




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 273
society, whether in body or mind, which are not to be removed;
for such as they are aptest to cause an unchangeable offence, so
are they not capable of reconcilement because not of amendment: they do not break indeed, but they annihilate the bands
of marriage more than adultery. For that fault committed argues
not always a hatred either natural or incidental against whom it
is committed; neither does it infer a disability of all future helpfulness, or loyalty, or loving agreement, being once past and
pardoned, where it can be pardoned. But that which naturally
distastes, and " finds no favour in the eyes " of matrimony, can
never be concealed, never appeased, never intermitted, but proves
a perpetual nullity of love and contentment, a solitude and dead
vacation of all acceptable conversing. Moses therefore permits
divorce, but in cases only that have no hands to join, and more
need separating than adultery. Christ forbids it, but in matters
only that may accord, and those less than fornication. Thus is
Moses's law here plainly confirmed, and those causes which he
permitted not a jot gainsaid. And that this is the true meaning
of this place, I prove by no less an author than St. Paul himself,
i Cor. vii. io, i i; upon which text interpreters agree, that the
Apostle only repeats the precept of Christ: where while he speaks
of the " wife's reconcilement to her husband," he puts it out of
controversy, that our Saviour meant chiefly matters of strife and
reconcilement; of which sort he would not that any difference
should be the occasion of divorce, except fornication. And that
we may learn better how to value a grave and prudent law of
Moses, and how unadvisedly we smatter with our lips when we
talk of Christ's abolishing any judicial law of his great Father,
except in some circumstances which are judaical rather than
judicial and need no abolishing but cease of themselves; I say
again, that this recited law of Moses contains a cause of divorce
greater beyond compare than that for adultery: and whoso cannot so conceive it, errs and wrongs exceedingly a law of deep
wisdom for want of well fathoming. For let him mark, no man
urges the just divorcing of adultery as it is a sin, but as it is an
injury to marriage; and though it be but once committed, and
s




.74


MAN AND WIFE.


that without malice, whether through importunity or opportunity,
the Gospel does not therefore dissuade him who would therefore
divorce. But that natural hatred whenever it arises, is a greater
evil in marriage than the accident of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater injustice, and yet not blameable, he who understands not after all this representing, I doubt his will, like a hard
spleen, draws faster than his understanding can well sanguify:
nor did that man ever know or feel what it is to love truly, nor
ever yet comprehend in his thoughts what the true intent of
marriage is. And this also will be somewhat above his reach,
but yet no less a truth for lack of his perspective, that as no man
apprehends what vice is so well as he who is truly virtuous, no
man knows hell like him who converses most in heaven, so there
is none that can estimate the evil and the affliction of a natural
hatred in matrimony, unless he have a soul gentle enough and
spacious enough to contemplate what is true love.
And the reason why men so disesteem this wise judging law of
God, and count hate, or "the not finding of favour," as it is there
termed, a humorous, a dishonest, and slight cause of divorce,
is because themselves apprehend so little of what true concord
means. For if they did, they would be juster in their balancing between natural hatred and casual adultery; this being but a transient
injury, and soon amended, I mean as to the party against whom
the trespass is: but that other being an unspeakable and unremitting sorrow and offence, whereof no amends can be made, no
cure, no ceasing but by divorce, which like a divine touch in one
moment heals all, and, like the word of God, in one instant
hushes outrageous tempests into a sudden stillness and peaceful
calm. Yet all this so great a good of God's own enlarging to us
is, by the hard reins of them that sit us, wholly diverted and
embezzled from  us.  Maligners of mankind, but who hath
taught you to mangle thus and make more gashes in the miseries
of a blameless creature with the leaden daggers of your literal
decrees, to whose ease you cannot add the tithe of one small
atom but by letting alone your unhelpful surgery? As for such
as think wandering concupiscence to be here newly and more




THE DOCTRINE.AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 275
precisely forbidden than it was before; if the Apostle dan convince them, we know that we are to "know lust by the Law," and
not by any new discovery of the Gospel. The Law of Moses knew
what it permitted, and the Gospel knew what it forbid. He that
under a peevish conceit of debarring concupiscence, shall go
about to make a novice of Moses (not to say a worse thing,
for reverence sake), and such a one of God himself as is a horror
to think, to bind our Saviour in the default of a downright
promise-breaking, and to bind the disunions of complaining
nature in chains together, and curb them with a canon bit; it
is he that commits all the whoredom and adultery which himself
ajudges, besides the former guilt so manifold that lies upon him.
And if none of these considerations, with all their weight and
gravity, can avail to the dispossessing him of his precious literalism,
let some one or other entreat him but to read on in the same
i9th of Matt. till he comes to that place that says, "Some make
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."  And
if then he please to make use of Origen's knife, he may do well
to be his own carver.
CHAPTER XVIII.
VWhether the Words of our Saviour be righi/ly ex/poulded only of
actual Fornication to be the Cause of Divorce. The opinion of
Grotius, with other Reasons.
BUT because we know that Christ never gave a judicial law,
and that the word fornication is variously significant in scripture,
it will be much right done to our Saviour's words, to consider
diligently whether it be meant here, that nothing but actual fornication, proved by witness, can warrant a divorce; for so our
canon law judges. Nevertheless, as I find that Grotius on this
place hath observed, the Christian emperors Theodosius the
Second and Justinian, men of high wisdom and reputed piety,
decreed it to be a divorcive fornication, if the wife attempted
either against the knowledge, or obstinately against the will of her




276


MAN AND WIFE.


husband, such things as gave open suspicion of adulterising, as the
wilful haunting of feasts, and invitations with men not of her near
kindred, the lying forth of her house without probable cause, the
frequenting of theatres against her husband's mind, her endeavour
to prevent or destroy conception. Hence that of Jerome, "Where
fornication is suspected, the wife may lawfully be divorced." Not
that every motion of a jealous mind should be regarded; but
that it should not be exacted to prove all things by the visibility
of law witnessing, or else to hoodwink the mind: for the law is
not able to judge of these things but by the rule of equity, and
by permitting a wise man to walk the middle way of prudent circumspection, neither wretchedly jealous, nor stupidly and tamely
patient. To this purpose hath Grotius in his notes. He shews
also, that fornication is taken in Scripture for such a continual
headstrong behaviour, as tends to plain contempt of the husband,
and proves it out of Judges xix. 2, where the Levite's wife is said
to have played the whore against him; which Josephus and the
Septuagint, wtth the Chaldean, interpret only of stubbornness and
rebellion against her husband. And to this I add, that Kimchi,
and the two other rabbis who gloss the text, are in the same
opinion. Ben Gersom reasons, that had it been whoredom, a
Jew and a Levite would have disdained to fetch her again. And
this I shall contribute, that had it been whoredom, she would
have chosen any other place to run to than to her father's house,
it being so infamous for a Hebrew woman to play the harlot, and
so opprobrious to the parents. Fornication then in this place of
the Judges is understood for stubborn disobedience against the
husband, and not for adultery. A sin of that sudden activity, as
to be already committed when no more is done but only looked
unchastely: which yet I should be loath to judge worthy a
divorce, though in our Saviour's language it be called adultery.
Nevertheless when palpable and frequent signs are given, the law
of God, Numb. v., so far gave way to the jealousy of a man,
as that the woman set before the sanctuary with her head uncovered, was adjured by the priest to swear whether she were false
or no, and constrained to drink that "bitter water," with an un



THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 277
doubted " curse of rottenness and tympany " to follow, unless she
were innocent. And the jealous man had not been guiltless before
God, as seems by the last verse, if having such a suspicion in his
head he should neglect his trial; which if to this day it be not
used, or be thought as uncertain of effect as our antiquated law
of Ordalium, yet all equity will judge, that many adulterous demeanours, which are of lewd suspicion and example, may be held
sufficient to incur a divorce, though the act itself hath not been
proved. And seeing the generosity of our nation is so, as to
account no reproach more abominable than to be nicknamed the
husband of an adulteress; that our law should not be as ample
as the law of God, to vindicate a man from that ignoble sufferance, is our barbarous unskilfulness, not considering that the
law should be exasperated according to our estimation of the
injury. And if it must be suffered till the act be visibly proved,
Solomon himself, whose judgment will be granted to surpass the
acuteness of any canonist, confesses, Prov. xxx. 19, 20, that for
the act of adultery it is as difficult to be found as the "track of
an eagle in the air, or the way of a ship in the sea;" so that
a man may be put to unmanly indignities ere it be found out.
This therefore may be enough to inform us that divorcive adultery
is not limited by our Saviour to the utmost act, and that to be
attested always by eyewitness, but may be extended also to divers
obvious actions, which either plainly lead to adultery, or give
such presumption whereby sensible men may suspect the deed
to be already done. And this the rather may be thought in that
our Saviour chose to use the word fornication, which word is
found to signify other matrimonial transgressions of main breach
to that covenant besides actual adultery. For that sin needed
not the riddance of divorce, but of death by the law, which was
active even till then, by the example of the woman taken in
adultery; or if the law had been dormant, our Saviour was more
likely to have told them of their neglect, than to have let a capital
crime silently scape into a divorce. Or if it be said, his business
was not to tell them what was criminal in the civil courts, but
what was sinful at the bar of conscience, how dare they then,




278


MAN AND WIFE.


having no other ground than these our Saviour's words, draw that
into the trial of law, which both by Moses and our Saviour was
left to the jurisdiction of conscience? But we take from our
Saviour, say they, only that it was adultery, and our law of itself
applies the punishment. But by their leave that so argue, the
great Lawgiver of all the world, who knew best what was adultery,
both to the Jew and to the Gentile, appointed no such applying,
and never likes when mortal men will be vainly presuming to
outstrip his justice.
CHAPTER XIX.
Christ's manner of teaching. St. Paul adds to this matter of
Divorce without command, to shew the matter to be of Equity,
not of Rigour. That the Bondage of a Christian may be as
mluch, and his Peace as little, in some other MAarriages besides
idolatrous. If those Arguments, therefore, be good in thiat one
Case, why not in those other?  Therefore the Apostle himself
adds, iv vol ro7JoUroi.
THUS at length we see, both by this and other places, that there
is scarce any one saying in the Gospel but must be read with
limitations and distinctions to be rightly understood; for Christ
gives no full comments or continued discourses, but, as Demetrius
the rhetorician phrases it, speaks oft in monosyllables, like a
master scattering the heavenly grain of his doctrine like pearls
here and there, which requires a skilful and laborious gatherer,
who must compare the words he finds with other precepts, with
the end of every ordinance, and with the general analogy of
evangelic doctrine. Otherwise many particular sayings would be
but strange repugnant riddles, and the Church would offend in
granting divorce for frigidity, which is not here excepted with
adultery, but by them added. And this was it undoubtedly
which gave reason to St. Paul. of his own authority, as he professes, and without command from the Lord, to enlarge the
seeming construction of those places in the Gospel, by adding
b  ~ C0~~VIVLCIII    /U~~J  I~C1   CLL~-) F]CUII




THE DOCTRINE-AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 279
a case wherein a person deserted, which is something less than
divorced, may lawfully marry again.  And having declared
his opinion in one case, he leaves a further liberty for Christian
prudence to determine in cases of like importance, using words
so plain as not to be shifted off, "that a brother or a sister is not
under bondage in such cases;" adding also, that "God hath
called us to peace " in marriage.
Now if it be plain that a Christian may be brought into
unworthy bondage, and his religious peace not only interrupted
now and then, but perpetually and finally hindered in wedlock,
by misyoking with a diversity of nature as well as of religion, the
reasons of St. Paul cannot be made special to that one case of
infidelity, but are of equal moment to a divorce, wherever Christian liberty and peace are without fault equally obstructed: that
the ordinance which God gave to our comfort may not be pinned
upon us to our undeserved thraldom, to be cooped up, as it were,
in mockery of wedlock, to a perpetual betrothed loneliness and
discontent, if nothing worse ensue. There being nought else of
marriage left between such but a displeasing and forced remedy
against the sting of a brute desire; which fleshly accustoming
without the soul's union and commixture of intellectual delight,
as it is rather a soiling than a fulfilling of marriage rites, so is it
enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit, and sinks him to
a low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in all his actions; or, which
is worse, leaves him in a despairing plight of abject and hardened
thoughts. Which condition rather than a good man should fall
into, a man useful in the service of God and mankind, Christ
himself hath taught us to dispense with the most sacred ordinance
of his worship, even for a bodily healing to dispense with that
holy and speculative rest of Sabbath, much more then with the
erroneous observance of an ill-knotted marriage, for the sustaining
of an overcharged faith and perseverance.




280


MAN AND WIFE.


CHAPTER XX.
The Meaning of St. Panl, that " Charity beieveth all Things."
tWhat is to be said to the Licence which is vainly feared will
-row hereby.  What to those who never have done prcscribing
Patience in this Case.  The Papists most severe against
Divorce, yet most easy to all Licence.  Of all the miseries in
Marriage God is to be cleared, and the faults to be laid on
fian's unjust Laws.
AND though bad causes would take licence by this pretext, if that
cannot be remedied, upon their conscience be it who shall so do.
This was that hardness of heart, and abuse of a good law, which
Moses was content to suffer, rather than good men should not
have it at all to use needfully. And he who; to run after one
lost sheep, left ninety-nine of his own flock at random in the
wilderness, would little perplex his thoughts for the obduring of
nine hundred and ninety such as will daily take worse liberties,
whether they have permission or not. To conclude, as without
Charity God hath given no commandment to men, so without it
neither can men rightly believe any commandment given. For
every act of true faith, as well that whereby we believe the law as
that whereby we endeavour the law, is wrought in us by charity,
according to that in the divine hymn of St. Paul, i Cor. xiii.,
"Charity believeth all things."  Not as if she were so credulous,
which is the exposition hitherto current, for that were a trivial
praise; but to teach us that Charity is the high governess of our
belief, and that we cannot safely assent to any precept written in
the Bible, but as Charity commends it to us. Which agrees with
that of the same Apostle to the Eph. iv. 14, 15; where he tells
us, that the way to get a sure undoubted knowledge of things, is
to hold that for Truth which accords most with Charity. Whose
unerring guidance and conduct having followed as a loadstar
with all diligence and fidelity in this question, I trust, through
the help of that illuminating Spirit which hath favoured me, to




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 281
have done no every day's work in asserting, after many the words
of Christ, with other scriptures of great concernment, from burdensome and remorseless obscurity, tangled with manifold repugnances, to their native lustre and consent between each other;
hereby also dissolving tedious and Gordian difficulties which
have hitherto molested the church of God, and are now decided,
not with the sword of Alexander, but with the immaculate hands
of Charity, to the unspeakable good of Christendom. And let
the extreme literalist sit down now, and revolve whether this in
all necessity be not the due result of our Saviour's words; or if
he persist to be otherwise opinioned, let him well advise, lest
thinking to gripe fast the Gospel he be found instead with the
Canon Law in his fist; whose boisterous edicts tyrannizing the
blessed ordinance of marriage into the quality of a most unnatural
and unchristianly yoke, hath given the flesh this advantage to
hate it and turn aside, ofttimes unwillingly, to all dissolute
uncleanness, even till punishment itself is weary of and overcome by the incredible frequency of trading lust and uncontrolled adulteries. Yet men whose creed is Custom, I doubt
not will be still endeavouring to hide the sloth of their own
timorous capacities with this pretext, that for all this it is
better to endure with patience and silence this affliction which
God hath sent. And I agree it is true, if this be exhorted and
not enjoined; but withal it will be wisely done to be as sure as
may be that what man's iniquity hath laid on be not imputed
to God's sending, lest under the colour of an affected patience
we detain ourselves at the gulf's mouth of many hideous temptations, not to be withstood without proper gifts, which, as Perkins
well notes, God gives not ordinarily, no, not to most earnest
prayers. Therefore we pray, "Lead us not into temptation;"
a vain prayer, if, having led ourselves thither, we love to stay in
that perilous condition.  God sends remedies as well as evils,
under which he who lies and groans, that may lawfully acquit
himself, is accessory to his own ruin. Nor will it excuse him
though he suffer through a sluggish fearfulness to search thoroughly
what is lawful, for fear of disquieting the secure falsity of an old




282


IMAN AND WIFE.


opinion. Who doubts not but that it may be piously said, to..
who would dismiss his frigidity, Bear your trial; take it as if Guo
would have you live this life of continence? If he exhort this, I
hear him as an angel, though he speak without warrant. But if be
would compel me, I know him for Satan. To him who divorces
an adulteress, piety might say, Pardon her; you may shew much
mercy, you may win a soul. Yet the law both of God and man
leaves it freely to him; for God loves not to plough out the heart
of our endeavours with overhard and sad tasks. God delights
not to make a drudge of virtue, whose actions must be all elective
and unconstrained. Forced virtue is as a bolt overshot, it goes
neither forward nor backward, and does no good as it stands.
Seeing, therefore, that neither Scripture nor Reason hath laid this
unjust austerity upon divorce, we may resolve that nothing else
hath wrought it but that letter-bound servility of the canon
doctors, supposing marriage to be a sacrament, and out of the
art they have to lay unnecessary burdens upon all men, to make
a fair shew in the fleshly observance of matrimony, though peace
and love with all other conjugal respects fare never so ill. And,
indeed, the papists, who are the strictest forbidders of divorce, are
the easiest libertines to admit of grossest uncleanness; as if they
had a design by making wedlock a supportless yoke, to violate
it most, under colour of preserving it most inviolable; and withal
delighting, as their mystery is, to make men the day labourers
of their own afflictions, as if there were such a scarcity of miseries
from abroad, that we should be made to melt our choicest home
blessings and coin them into crosses, for want whereby to hold
commerce with patience. If any, therefore, who shall hap to
read this discourse, hath been through misadventure ill engaged
in this contracted evil here complained of, and finds the fits and
workings of a high impatience frequently upon him; of all those
wild words which men in misery think to ease themselves by
uttering, let him not open his lips against the providence of
Heaven, or tax the ways of God and his divine truth. For they
are equal, easy, and not burdensome; nor do they ever cross the
just and reasonable desires of men, nor involve this our portion




'HE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 2S3
f:: iortal life into a necessity of sadness and malcontent, by laws
commanding over the unreducible antipathies of nature, sooner
or later found; but allow us to remedy and shake off those evils
into which human error hath led us through the midst of our
best intentions, and to support our incident extremities by that
authentic precept of sovereign Charity, whose grand commission
is to do and to dispose over all the ordinances of God to man,
that love and truth may advance each other to everlasting. While
we, literally superstitious, through customary faintness of heart
not venturing to pierce with our free thoughts into the full latitude of nature and religion, abandon ourselves to serve under the
tyranny of usurped opinions, suffering those ordinances which
were allotted to our solace and reviving, to trample over us, and
hale us into a multitude of sorrows, which God never meant us.
And where He sets us in a fair allowance of way, with honest
liberty and prudence to our guard, we never leave subtilizing and
casuisting till we have straitened and pared that liberal path into
a razor's edge to walk on, between a precipice of unnecessary
mischief on either side; and starting at every false alarm, we do
not know which way to set a foot forward with manly confidence
and Christian resolution, through the confused ringing in our
ears of panic scruples and amazements.
CHAPTER XXI.
7Tat i/e Maltter of Divorce is nol to be tried by Lac, blut by
Conscience, as mainy other Sins are.  ihe Affagislrate can
only see that the Condition of tAhe Divorce be just and equal.
The Opinion of Fagius, and the Reasons of the Assertion.
ANOTHER act of papal encroachment it was to pluck the power
and arbitrement of divorce from the master of the family, into
whose hands God and the law of all nations had put it, and
Christ so left it, preaching only to the Conscience, and not
authorizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection between man and wife,




284


iMAN AND WIFE.


as a thing most improperly answerable to any such kind of trial.
But the popes of Rome, perceiving the great revenue and high
authority it would give them even over princes, to have the
judging and deciding of such a main consequence in the life of
man as was divorce, wrought so upon the superstition of those
ages, as to divest them of that right, which God from the beginning had entrusted to the husband. By which means they subjected
that ancient and naturally domestic prerogative to an external
and unbefitting judicature. For although differences in divorce
about dowries, jointures, and the like, besides the punishing of
adultery, ought not to pass without referring, if need be, to the
magistrate; yet that the absolute and final hindering of divorce
cannot belong to any civil or earthly power, against the will and
consent of both parties, or of the husband alone, some reasons
will be here urged as shall not need to decline the touch. But
first I shall recite what hath been already yielded by others in
favour of this opinion. Grotius and many more agree, that notwithstanding what Christ spake therein to the conscience, the
magistrate is not thereby enjoined aught against the preservation
of civil peace, of equity, and of convenience. And among these
Fagius is most remarkable, and gives the same liberty of pronouncing divorce to the Christian magistrate as the Mosaic had.
"For whatever," saith he, " Christ spake to the regenerate, the
judge hath to deal with the vulgar: if therefore any through
hardness of heart will not be a tolerable wife to her husband, it
will be lawful as well now as of old to pass the bill of divorce,
not by private but by public authority. Nor doth man separate
them then, but God by his law of divorce given by Moses.
What can hinder the magistrate from so doing, to whose government all outward things are subject, to separate and remove
from perpetual vexation and no small danger those bodies
whose minds are already separate; it being his office to procure
peaceable and convenient living in the commonwealth; and
being as certain also, that they so necessarily separated cannot
all receive a single life?" And this I observe, that our divines
do generally condemn separation of bed and board without




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 285
the liberty of second choice: if that therefore in some cases be
most purely necessary-as who so blockish to deny?-then
is this also as needful.  Thus far by others is already well
stepped, to inform us that divorce is not a matter of law, but
of charity. If there remain a furlong yet to end the question,
these following reasons may serve to gain it with any apprehension not too unlearned or too wayward. First because ofttimes
the causes of seeking divorce reside so deeply in the radical and
innocent affections of nature, as is not within the diocese of law
to tamper with.  Other relations may aptly enough be held
together by a civil and virtuous love: but the duties of man and
wife are such as are chiefly conversant in that love which is most
ancient and merely natural, whose two prime statutes are to join
itself to that which is good, and acceptable, and friendly; and to
turn aside and depart from what is disagreeable, displeasing, and
unlike. Of the two this latter is the strongest, and most equal to
be regarded; for although a man may often be unjust in seeking
that which he loves, yet he can never be unjust or blameable in
retiring from his endless trouble and distaste, whenas his tarrying
can redound to no true content on either side. Hate is of all
things the mightiest divider; nay, is division itself. To couple
hatred therefore, though wedlock try all her golden links and
borrow to her aid all the iron manacles and fetters of law, it does
but seek to twist a rope of sand, which was a task they say that
posed the devil: and that sluggish fiend in hell, Ocnus, whom
the poems tell of, brought his idle cordage to as good effect,
which never served to bind with, but to feed the ass that stood
at his elbow. And that the restrictive law against divorce attains
as little to bind anything truly in a disjointed marriage, or to keep
it bound, but serves only to feed the ignorance and definite impertinence of a doltish canon, were no absurd allusion. To
hinder therefore those deep and serious regresses of nature in a
reasonable soul, parting from that mistaken help which he justly
seeks in a person created for him, recollecting himself from an
unmeet help which was never meant, and to detain him by compulsion in such an unpredestined misery as this, is in diameter




286


MAN AND WIFE.


against both nature and institution. But to interpose a jurisdictive
power over the inward and irremediable disposition of man, to
command love and sympathy, to forbid dislike against the guiltless instinct of nature, is not within the province of any law to
reach; and were indeed an uncommodious rudeness, not a just
power. For that law may bandy with nature, and traverse her
sage motions, was an error in Callicles the rhetorician, whom
Socrates from high principles confutes in Plato's Gorgias.  If
therefore divorce may be so natural, and that law and nature are
not to go contrary; then to forbid divorce compulsively is not
only against nature but against law.
Next, it must be remembered, that all law is for some good
that may be frequently attained without the admixture of a worse
inconvenience; and therefore many gross faults, as ingratitude
and the like, which are too far within the soul to be cured by
constraint of law, are left only to be wrought on by conscience
and persuasion. Which made Aristotle, in the Ioth of his Ethics
to Nicomachus, aim at a kind of division of law into private or
persuasive, and public or compulsive.  Hence it is, that the law
forbidding divorce never attains to any good end of.such prohibition but rather multiplies evil. For if nature's resistless sway
in love or hate be once compelled, it grows careless of itself,
vicious, useless to friends, unserviceable and spiritless to the
commonwealth. Which Moses rightly foresaw, and all wise lawgivers that ever knew man, what kind of creature he was. The
parliament also and clergy of England were not ignorant of this,
when they consented that Harry VIII. might put away his queen
Anne of Cleve, whom he could not like after he had been wedded
half a year; unless it were that, contrary to the proverb, they
made a necessity of that which might have been a virtue in them
to do; for even the freedom and eminence of man's creation
gives him to be a law in this matter to himself, being the head
of the other sex which was made for him: whom therefore though
he ought not to injure, yet neither should he be forced to retain
in society to his own overthrown nor to hear any judge therein
above himself: it being also an unseemly affront to the sequestered




THE DOCTRINE.AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 287
and veiled modesty of that sex, to have her unpleasingness and
other concealments bandied up and down, and aggravated in open
court by those hired masters of tongue-fence. Such uncomely
exigencies it befell no less a majesty than Henry VIII. to be reduced to, who, finding just reason in his conscience to forego his
brother's wife, after many indignities of being deluded and made
a boy of by those his two cardinal judges, was constrained at last,
for want of other proof that she had been carnally known by
Prince Arthur, even to uncover the nakedness of that virtuous
lady and to recite openly the obscene evidence of his brother's
chamberlain. Yet it pleased God to make him see all the tyranny
of Rome, by discovering this which they exercised over divorce,
and to make him the beginner of a reformation to this whole
kingdom, by first asserting into his familiary power the right of
just divorce. It is true, an adulteress cannot be shamed enough
by any public proceeding; but the woman whose honour is not
appeached is less injured by a silent dismission, being otherwise
not illiberally dealt with, than to endure a clamouring debate of
utterless things, in a business of that civil secrecy and difficult
discerning as not to be overmuch questioned by nearest friends.
Which drew that answer from the greatest and worthiest Roman
of his time, Paulus LEmilius, being demanded why he would put
away his wife for no visible reason? "This shoe," said he, and
held it out on his foot, "is a neat shoe, a new shoe, and yet none
of you know where it wrings me:" much less by the unfamiliar
cognizance of a feed gamester can such a private difference be
examined, neither ought it.
Again, if law aim at the firm establishment and preservation of
matrimonial faith, w'e know that cannot thrive under violent means,
but is the more violated. It is not when two unfortunately met
are by the canon forced to draw in that yoke an unmerciful day's
work of sorrow till death unharness them, that then the law keeps
marriage most unviolated and unbroken; but when the law takes
order that marriage be accountant and responsible to perform that
society, whether it be religious, civil, or corporal, which may be
conscionably required and claimed therein, or else to be dissolvcd




288


MAN AND WIFE.


if it cannot be undergone. This is to make marriage most indissoluble, by making it a just and equal dealer, a performer of those
due helps, which instituted the covenant; being otherwise a most
unjust contract, and no more to be maintained under tuition of
law, than the vilest fraud, or cheat, or theft, that may be committed. But because this is such a secret kind of fraud or theft
as cannot be discerned by law but only by the plaintiff himself;
therefore to divorce was never counted a political or civil offence,
neither to Jew nor Gentile, nor by any judicial intendment of
Christ, further than could be discerned to transgress the allowance
of Moses, which was of necessity so large that it doth all one as if
it sent back the matter undeterminable at law, and intractable by
rough dealing, to have instructions and admonitions bestowed
about it by them whose spiritual office is to adjure and to denounce, and so left to the conscience. The law can only appoint
the just and equal conditions of divorce; and is to look how it is
an injury to the divorced, which in truth it can be none, as a mere
separation; for if she consent, wherein has the law to right her?
or consent not, then is it either just and so deserved, or if unjust
such in all likelihood was the divorcer, and to part from an unjust man is a happiness, and no injury to be lamented. But
suppose it to be an injury, the law is not able to amend it, unless
she think it other than a miserable redress to return back from
whence she was expelled or but entreated to be gone, or else to
live apart, still married without marriage, a married widow. Last,
if it be to chasten the divorcer, what law punishes a deed which
is not moral but natural, a deed which cannot certainly be found
to be an injury; or how can it be punished by prohibiting the
divorce, but that the innocent must equally partake both in the
shame and in the smart? So that which way soever we look, the
law can to no rational purpose forbid divorce, it can only take
care that the conditions of divorce be not injurious. Thus then
we see the trial of law, how impertinent it is to the question of
divorce, how helpless next, and then how hurtful.




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 289
CHAPTER XXII.
The last Reason why Ditvorce is not to be restrained by Law, it
being against the Law of Nature and of n7ations.  The
larger Proof whereof referred to Mlr. Seden's Book, "Dejure
VNalurali et Gentizium."  An Objection of Parceus answered.
rlow it ought to be ordered by the Churchl.  That this will
not breed any worse Inconvenience, nor so bad as is now
sufered.
THEREFORE the last reason why it should not be, is the example
we have, not only from the noblest and wisest commonwealths
guided by the clearest light of human knowledge, but also from
the divine testimonies of God himself lawgiving in person to
a sanctified people. That all this is true whoso desires to
know at large with least pains, and expects not here overlong
rehearsals of that which is by others already so judiciously
gathered, let him hasten to be acquainted with that noble
volume written by our learned Selden, "Of the Law of Nature
and of Nations," a work more useful and more worthy to be
perused by whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom,
equity, and justice, than all those " decretals and sumless sums,"
which the pontifical clerks have doted on, ever since that unfortunate mother famously sinned thrice, and died impenitent of
her bringing into the world those two misbegotten infants, and
for ever infants, Lombard and Gratian, him the compiler of canon
iniquity, the other the Tubal Cain of scholastic sophistry, whose
overspreading barbarism hath not only infused their own bastardy
upon the fruitfullest part of human learning, not only dissipated
and dejected the clear light of nature in us, and of nations, but
hath tainted also the fountains of divine doctrine, and rendered
the pure and solid law of God unbeneficial to us by their
calumnious dunceries. Yet this law which their unskilfulness
hath made liable to all ignominy, the purity and wisdom of this
law shall be the buckler of our dispute. Liberty of divorce we
T




290


MA AND WIFE.


claim not, we think not, but from this law; the dignity, the faith,
the authority thereof is now grown among Christians, 0 astonishment, a labour of no mean difficulty and envy to defend. That
it should not be counted a faltering dispense a flattering permission of sin, the bill of adultery a snare, is the expense of all this
Apology. And all that we solicit is, that it may be suffered to
stand in the place where God set it, amidst the firmament of His
Holy Laws, to shine, as it was wont, upon the weaknesses and
errors of men, perishing else in the sincerity of their honest purposes. For certain there is no memory of whoredoms and adulteries
left among us now, when this warranted freedom of God's own
giving is made dangerous, and discarded for a scroll of licence.
It must be your suffrages and votes, 0 Englishmen, that this
exploded decree of God and Moses may scape and come off fair,
without the censure of a shameful abrogating: which, if yonder
sun ride sure and means not to break word with us to-morrow,
was never yet abrogated by our Saviour. Give sentence if you
please that the frivolous canon may reverse the infallible judgment of Moses and his great director. Or if it be the Reformed
writers, whose doctrine persuades this rather, their reasons I dare
affirm are all silenced, unless it be only this. Parseus, on the
Corinthians, would prove, that hardness of heart in divorce is
no more now to be permitted, but to be amerced with fine and
imprisonment. I am not willing to discover the forgettings of
reverend men, yet here I must: what article or clause of the
whole new covenant can Pareus bring, to exasperate the judicial
law upon any infirmity under the Gospel? I say infirmity, for if
it were the high hand of sin, the Law as little would have endured
it as the Gospel. It would not stretch to the dividing of an inheritance; it refused to condemn adultery, not that these things
should not be done at law, but to shew that the Gospel hath not
the least influence upon judicial courts, much less to make them
sharper and more heavy, least of all to arraign before a temporal
judge that which the law without summons acquitted. "But,"
saith he, " the Law was the time of youth, under violent affections;
the Gospel in us is mature age, and ought to subdue affections."




TIIE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 29I
True, and so ought the Law too, if they be found inordinate, and
not merely natural and blameless. Next I distinguish, that the
time of the Law is compared to youth and pupilage in respect
of the ceremonial part, which led the Jews as children through
corporal and garish rudiments, until the fulness of time should
reveal to them the higher lessons of faith and redemption. This
is not meant of the moral part; therein it soberly concerned
them not to be babies, but to be men in good earnest. The sad
and awful majesty of that Law was not to be jested with. To
bring a bearded nonage with lascivious dispensations before that
throne had been a lewd affront, as it is now a gross mistake.
But what discipline is this, Paraeus, to nourish violent affections
in youth by cockering and wanton indulgencies, and to chastise
them in mature age with a boyish rod of correction? How much
more coherent is it to Scripture, that the Law, as a strict schoolmaster, should have punished every trespass without indulgence
so baneful to youth, and that the Gospel should now correct that
by admonition and reproof only, in free and mature age, which
was punished with stripes in the childhood and bondage of the
Law? What, therefore, it allowed them so fairly, much less is
to be whipped now, especially in penal courts: and if it ought
now to trouble the conscience, why did that angry accuser and condemner Law reprieve it? So then, neither from Moses nor from
Christ hath the magistrate any authority to proceed against it.
But what, shall then the disposal of that power return again to
the master of a family? Wherefore not, since God there put
it, and the presumptuous canon thence bereft it? This only
must be provided, that the ancient manner be observed in the
presence of the minister and other grave selected elders, who
after they shall have admonished and pressed upon him the words
of our Saviour, and he shall have protested, in the faith of the
eternal Gospel, and the hope he has of happy resurrection, that
otherwise than thus he cannot do, and thinks himself and this his
case not contained in that prohibition of divorce which Christ
pronounced, the matter not being of malice, but of nature, and
so not capable of reconciling; to constrain him further were to




292


MAN AND WIFE.


unchristian him, to unman him, to throw the mountain of Sinai
upon him, with the weight of the whole law to boot, flat against
the liberty and essence of the gospel; and yet nothing available
either to the sanctity of marriage, the good of husband, wife, or
children, nothing profitable either to Church or Commonwealth,
but hurtful and pernicious in all these respects.  But this will
bring in confusion: yet these cautious mistrusters might consider,
that what they thus object lights not upon this book, but upon
that which I engage against them, the Book of God and Moses,
with all the wisdom and providence which had forecast the worst
of confusion that could succeed, and yet thought fit of such a
permission. But let them be of good cheer, it wrought so little
disorder among the Jews, that from Moses till after the captivity,
not one of the prophets thought it worth the rebuking; for that
of Malachi well looked into will appear to be not against divorcing, but rather against keeping strange concubines, to the vexation of their Hebrew wives. If, therefore, we Christians may be
thought as good and tractable as the Jews were-and certainly
the prohibitors of divorce presume us to be better-then less confusion is to be feared for this among us than was among them.
If we be worse, or but as bad, which lamentable examples confirm
we are, then have we more, or at least as much, need of this
permitted law as they to whom God therefore gave it, as they
say, under a harsher covenant. Let not, therefore, the frailty of
man go on thus inventing needless troubles to itself, to groan
under the false imagination of a strictness never imposed from
above; enjoining that for duty which is an impossible and vain
supererogating. " Be not righteous overmuch," is the counsel of
Ecclesiastes; "why shouldst thou destroy thyself?" Let us not
be thus overcurious to strain at atoms, and yet to stop every vent
and cranny of permissive liberty, lest nature, wanting those needful
pores and breathing-places which God hath not debarred our
weakness, either suddenly break out into some wide rupture of
open vice and frantic heresy, or else inwardly fester with repining
and blasphemous thoughts under an unreasonable and fruitless
rigour of unwarranted law.  Against which evils nothing can




THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 293
more beseem the Religion of the Church, or the Wisdom of the
State, than to consider timely and provide. And in so doing let
them not doubt but they shall vindicate the misreputed honour
of God and his great lawgiver, by suffering him to give his own
laws according to the condition of man's nature best known to
him, without the unsufferable imputation of dispensing legally
with many ages of ratified adultery. They shall recover the misattended words of Christ to the sincerity of their true sense from
manifold contradictions, and shall open them with the key of
Charity. Many helpless Christians they shall raise from the depth
of sadness and distress, utterly unfitted as they are to serve God
or man. Many they shall reclaim from obscure and giddy sects,
many regain from dissolute and brutish licence, many from desperate hardness, if ever that were justly pleaded. They shall set
free many daughters of Israel not wanting much of her sad plight
whom " Satan had bound eighteen years." Man they shall restore
to his just dignity and prerogative in nature, preferring the soul's
free peace before the promiscuous draining of a carnal rage.
Marriage, from a perilous hazard and snare, they shall reduce to
be a more certain haven and retirement of happy society; when
they shall judge according to God and Moses-and how not
then according to Christ-when they shall judge it more wisdom
and goodness to break that covenant seemingly and keep it really,
than by compulsion of law to keep it seemingly and by compulsion of blameless nature to break it really, at least if it were ever
truly joined. The vigour of discipline they may then turn with
better success upon the prostitute looseness of the times, when
men, finding in themselves the infirmities of former ages, shall
not be constrained above the gift of God in them to unprofitable
and impossible observances, never required from the civilest, the
wisest, the holiest nations, whose other excellencies in moral
virtue they never yet could equal. Last of all, to those whose
mind is still to maintain textual restrictions, whereof the bare
sound cannot consist sometimes with humanity, much less with
Charity; I would ever answer, by putting them in remembrance
of a command above all commands, which they seem to have




294                MAN AND WIFE.
forgot, and who spake it: in comparison whereof, this which they
so exalt is but a petty and subordinate precept. "Let them 'go,"
therefore," with'whom I 'am loth to couple themn yet they 'will
needs run into the same blindness with the Pharisees; "let them
go therefore," and consider well what this lesson means, "I will
have mercy and not sacrifice:" for on that saying 'all the law
and prophets depend;' much more the Gospel, whose end and
excellence is mercy and peace. Or if they cannot learn that,
how will they hear this, which yet I shall not doubt to leave with
them as a conclusion, that God the Son hath put all other things
under his own feet, but his commandments he hath left all under
the feet of Charity.




MAN AND CI-IILD.




" How charming is divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns."
-Comus.




OF E          UCATI N.
MASTER HARTLIB,-I am long since persuaded that to say and
do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect
should sooner move us than simply the love of God and of mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the reforming of Education,
though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be
thought on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes, I had
not yet at this time been induced but by your earnest entreaties
and serious conjurements; as having my mind diverted for the
present in the pursuance of some other assertions, the knowledge
and the use of which cannot but be a great furtherance both to the
enlargement of truth and honest living with much more peace.
Nor should the laws of any private friendship have prevailed with
me to divide thus or transpose my former thoughts; but that I
see those aims, those actions which have won you with me the
esteem of a person sent hither by some good providence from a
far country to be the occasion and incitement of great good to
this island, and as I hear you have obtained the same repute with
men of most approved wisdom and some of the highest authority
among us, not to mention the learned correspondence which you
hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence
which you have used in this matter both here and beyond the seas,
either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar sway
of nature, which also is God's working. Neither can I think, that
so reputed and so valued as you are, you would, to the forfeit of
your own discerning ability, impose upon me an unfit and overponderous argument; but that the satisfaction which you profess
to have received from those incidental discourses which we have
wandered into hath pressed and almost constrained you into a




298


2IMAN AND CHILD.


persuasion, that what you require from me in this point I neither
ought nor can in conscience defer beyond this time both of so
much need at once and so much opportunity to try what God
hath determined. I will not resist, therefore, whatever it is either
of divine or human obligement that you lay upon me; but will
forthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary
idea, which hath long in silence presented itself to me, of a better
education, in extent and comprehension far more large, and yet
of time far shorter and of attainment far more certain, than hath
been yet in practice. Brief I shall endeavour to be; for that
which I have to say assuredly this nation hath extreme need
should be done sooner than spoken. To tell you, therefore, that
I have benefited herein among old renowned authors I shall
spare; and to search what many modern Januas and Didactics
more than ever I shall read have projected, my inclination leads
me not. But if you can accept of these few observations which
have flowered off, and are, as it were, the burnishing of many
contemplative years altogether spent in the search of religious and
civil knowledge, and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I
here give you them to dispose of.
The end, then, of learning is, to repair the ruins of our first
parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the
nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which, being united
to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection.
But because our understanding cannot in this body found itself
but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of
God and things invisible as by orderly conning over the visible
and inferior creature, the same method is necessarily to be followed
in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore
we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at
any time been most industrious after Wisdom; so that Language
is-but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known.
And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues
that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the
solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman




OF EDUCATION.


29?


or tradesman competently wise in his mother-dialect only. Hence
appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so
unpleasing' and so unsuccessful. First, we do amiss to spend
seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable
Latin and Greek as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year. And that which casts our proficiency therein
so much behind, is our time lost in too oft idle vacancies given
both to schools and universities; partly in a preposterous exaction,
forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and
orations, which are the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work
of a head filled by long reading and observing with elegant
maxims and copious invention. These are not matters to be
wrung from poor striplings, like blood out of the nose, or the
plucking of untimely fruit; besides the ill habit which they get of
wretched barbarising against the Latin and Greek idiom with their
untutored Anglicisms, odious to be read, yet not to be avoided
without a well-continued and judicious conversing among pure
authors, digested, which they scarce taste. Whereas, if after some
preparatory grounds of speech by their certain forms got into
memory, they were led to the praxis hereof in some chosen short
book lesserned thoroughly to them, they might then forthwith
proceed to learn the substance of good things and arts in due
order, which would bring the whole language quickly into their
power. This I take to be the most rational and most profitable
way of learning Languages, and whereby we may best hope to
give account to God of our youth spent herein. And for the
usual method of teaching Arts, I deem it to be an old error of
Universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness
of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with arts most easy
(and those be such as are most obvious to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the
most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics; so that
they having but newly left those grammatic flats and shallows
where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under
another climate to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted
wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do, for the
most part, grow into hatred and contempt of learning, imocked




300


MAN AND CHILD.


and deluded all this while with ragged notions and babblenments,
while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge; till poverty
or youthful years call them importunately their several ways, and
hasten them, with the sway of friends, either to an ambitious and
mercenary, or ignorantly zealous Divinity: some allured to the
trade of Law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and
heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never
taught them, but on the promising and pleasing thoughts of
litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees: others betake
them to State Affairs with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true
generous breeding, that flattery, and court-shifts, and tyrannous
aphorisms appear to them the highest points of wisdom, instilling
their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery, if, as I rather
think, it be not feigned: others, lastly, of a more delicious and
airy spirit, retire themselves, knowing no better, to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in feast and
jollity, which, indeed, is the wisest and safest course of all
these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. And
these are the errors, and these are the fruits of mis-spending
our prime youth at the schools and universities, as we do, either
in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better
unlearnt.
I shall detain you no longer in the demonstration of what we
should not do, but straight conduct you to a hillside, where I will
point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education;
laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green,
so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side,
that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not
but ye shall have more ado to drive our dullest and laziest youth,
our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire of such a happy
nurture, than we have now to haul and drag our choicest and
hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of sow-thistles and brambles
which is commonly set before them as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docible age. I call, therefore,
a complete and generous Education, that which fits a mhan to
perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both
private and public, of peace and war. And how all this may be
done between twelve and one-and-twenty, less time than is now




OF EDUCATION.


i01


bestowed in pure trifling at grammar and sophistry, is to be thus
ordered:First, to find out a spacious house and ground about it fit for
an Academy, and big enough to lodge one hundred and fifty
persons, whereof twenty or thereabout may be attendants, all
under the government of one who shall be thought of desert
sufficient and ability either to do all or wisely to direct and oversee it done. This place should be at once both School and
University, not needing a remove to any other house of scholarship, except it be some peculiar college of law or physic where
they mean to be practitioners; but as for those general studies
which take up all our time from Lilly to the commencing, as
they term it, Master of Art, it should be absolute. After this
pattern as many edifices may be converted to this use as shall
be needful in every city throughout this land, which would tend
much to the increase of learning and civility everywhere. This
number, less or more, thus collected, to the convenience of a
foot-company or interchangeably two troops of cavalry, should
divide their day's work into three parts, as it lies orderly-their
Studies, their Exercise, and their Diet.
For their Studies: first, they should begin with the chief and
necessary rules of some good grammar, either that now used, or
any better; and while this is doing, their speech is to be fashioned
to a distinct and clear pronunciation, as near as may be to the
Italian, especially in the vowels. For w' Englishmen, being far
northerly, do not open our mouths in the cold air wide enough to
grace a southern tongue, but are observed by all other nations to
speak exceeding close and inward; so that to smatter Latin with
an English mouth is as ill a hearing as Law French. Next, to
make them expert in the usefullest points of grammar, and withal
to season them and win them early to the love of virtue and true
labour, ere any flattering seducement or vain principle seize them
wandering, some easy and delightful book of education should
be read to them, whereof the Greeks have store, as Cebes,
Plutarch, and other Socratic discourses; but in Latin we have
none of classic authority extant, except the two or three first books
of Quintilian and some select pieces elsewhere. But here the main
skill and groundwork will be to temper them with such lectures




302


MAN AND CHILD.


and explanations upon every opportunity as may lead and draw
them in willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learning
and the admiration of virtue, stirred up with high hopes of living
to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God and famous
to all ages: that they may despise and scorn all their childish
and ill-taught qualities, to delight in manly and liberal exercises;
which he who hath the art and proper eloquence to catch them
with, what with mild and effectual persuasions, and what with
the intimation of some fear, if need be, but chiefly by his own
example, might in a short space gain them to an incredible
diligence and courage, infusing into their young breasts such an
ingenuous and noble ardour as would not fail to make many of
them renowned and matchless men. At the same time, some
other hour of the day might be taught them the rules of arithmetic, and, soon after, the elements of geometry, even playing,
as the old manner was. After evening repast till bed-time their
thoughts would be best taken up in the easy grounds of Religion
and the story of Scripture. The next step would be to the
authors of agriculture, Cato, Varro, and Columella, for the matter
is most easy; and if the language is difficult, so much the better;
it is not a difficulty above their years. And here will be an
occasion of inciting and enabling them hereafter to improve the
tillage of their country, to recover the bad soil, and to remedy
the waste that is made of good; for this was one of Hercules'
praises. Ere half these authors be read (which will soon be, with
plying hard and daily) they cannot choose but be masters of an
ordinary prose: so that it will be then seasonable for them to
learn in any modern author the use of the globes and all the
maps, first with the old names and then with the new. Or they
might then be capable to read any compendious method of natural
philosophy; and, at the same time, might be entering into the
Greek tongue, after the same manner as was before prescribed
for the Latin; whereby the difficulties of grammar being soon
overcome, all the historical physiology of Aristotle and Theophrastus are open before them, and, as I may say, under contribution. The like access will be to Vitruvius, to Seneca's
"Natural Questions," to Mela, Celsus, Pliny, or Solinus. And
having thus past the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,




OF EDUCATION.3


3o3


and geography, with a general compact of physics, they may
descend in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, and from thence to fortification, architecture, enginery, or
navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely
from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living creatures,
as far as anatomy. Then also in course might be read to them
out of some not tedious writer the institution of physic; that they
may know the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and how to
manage a crudity, which he who can wisely and timely do is not
only a great physician to himself and to his friends, but also may
at some time or other save an army by this frugal and expenseless
means only, and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young
men rot away under him for want of this discipline, which is
a great pity, and no less a shame to the commander. To set
forward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what
hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful,
the helpful experiences of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries; and in other sciences, architects,
engineers, mariners, anatomists, who, doubtless, would be ready,
some for reward and some to favour such a hopeful seminary.
And this would give them such a real tincture of natural knowledge as they shall never forget, but daily augment with delight.
Then also those poets which are now counted most hard will
be both facile and pleasant, Orpheus, Hesiod, Theocritus, Aratus,
Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius; and, in Latin, Lucretius, Manilius,
and the rural part of Virgil..By this time years and good general precepts will have furnished
them more distinctly with that act of reason which in ethics is
called proairesis, that they may 'with some judgmen  nt contemplate
upon moral good and evil. Then will be required a special
reinforcement of constant and sound endoctrinating to set them
right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge
of virtue and the hatred of vice, while their young and pliant
affections are led through all the moral works of Plato, Xenophon,
Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and those Locrian remnants; but still
to be reduced in their nightward studies, wherewith they close the
day's work, under the determinate sentence of David or Solomon,
or the Evangels and Apostolic Scriptures. Being perfect in the




304


MAN AND CHILD.


knowledge of personal duty, they may then begin the study of
economics. And either now or before this they may have easily
learned at any odd hour the Italian tongue. And soon after, but
with wariness and good antidote, it would be wholesome enough
to let them taste some choice comedies, Greek, Latin, or Italian;
those tragedies also that treat of household matters, as Trachinies,
Alcestis, and the like. The next remove must be to the study of
politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political
societies, that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor shaken uncertain reeds, of such a tottering
conscience as many of our great councillors have lately shown
themselves, but steadfast pillars of the State. After this they are
to dive into the grounds of law and legal justice, delivered first
and with best warrant by Moses, and, as far as human prudence
can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers,
Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas; and thence to all the
Roman edicts and tables, with their Justinian; and so down
to the Saxon and common laws of England and the statutes.
Sundays also and every evening may now be understandingly
spent in the highest matters of theology and church history, ancient
and modern: and ere this time at a set hour the Hebrew tongue
might have been gained, that the Scriptures may be now read in
their own original; whereto it would be no impossibility to add
the Chaldee and the Syrian dialect. When all these employments
are well conquered, then will the choice histories, heroic poems,
and Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument, with all
the famous political orations, offer themselves; which, if they were
not only read, but some of them got by memory, and solemnly
pronounced with right accent and grace, as might be taught, would
endue them even with the spirit and vigour of Demosthenes or
Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles. And now, lastly, will be the
time to read with them those organic arts which enable men to
discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the
fitted style of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic, therefore, so much
as is useful, is to be referred to this duenpTace, with all her wellcouched heads and topics, until it be time to open her contracted
palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric taught out of the rule of
Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To




OF EDUCATIONN.


305


which poetry would be made subsequent, or, indeed, rather precedent, as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous,
and passionate; I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which
they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of
grammar, but that sublime art which in Aristotle's Poetics, in
Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro, Tasso,
Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic
poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which
is the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them
soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rhymers and
playwriters be; and show them what religious, what glorious and
magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in divine and
human things. From hence, and not till now, will be the right
season of forming them to be able writers and composers in every
excellent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an universal
insight into things: or whether they be to speak in parliament or
council, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips.
There would then appear in pulpits other visages, other gestures,
and stuff otherwise wrought than we now sit under, ofttimes to
as great a trial of our patience as any other that they preach to
us. These are the studies wherein our noble and our gentle youth
ought to bestow their time in a disciplinary way from twelve to
one-and-twenty, unless they rely more upon their ancestors dead
than upon themselves living. In which methodical course it is
so supposed they must proceed by the steady pace of learning
onward, as at convenient times for memory's sake to retire back
into the middle ward, and sometimes into the rear of what they
have been taught, until they have confirmed and solidly united
the whole body of their perfected knowledge, like the last
embattling of a Roman legion.
Now will be worth the seeing what exercises and recreations
may best agree and become those studies.
THEIR EXERCISE.
The Course of Study hitherto briefly described is, what I can
guess by reading, likest to those ancient and famous Schools of
Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and such others, out of
u




306


MAN AND CHILD.


which were bred such a number of renowned philosophers,
orators, historians, poets, and princes all over Greece, Italy, and
Asia, besides the flourishing studies of Cyrene and Alexandria.
But herein it shall exceed them, and supply a defect as great as
that which Plato noted in the commonwealth of Sparta. Whereas
that city trained up their youth most for war, and these in their
Academies and Lycaum1 all for the gown, this institution of breeding which 'I here delineate shall be equally good both for peace
and war. Therefore,- about an hour and a half ere they eat at
noon should be allowed them for exercise, and due rest afterwards; but the time for this may be enlarged at pleasure, according as their rising in the morning shall be early. The exercise
which I commend first is the exact use of their weapon, to guard;
and to strike safely with edge or point. This will. keep them
healthy, nimble, strong, and well in breath; is also the likeliest
means to make them grow large and tall, and to inspire them
with a gallant and fearless courage, which being tempered with
seasonable lectures and precepts to make them of true fortitude
and patience, will turn into a native and heroic valour, and make
them hate the cowardice of doing wrong. They must be also
practised in all the locks and gripes of wrestling, wherein Englishmen are wont to excel, as need may often be in fight to tug, to
grapple, and to close. And this, perhaps, will be enough wherein
to prove and heat their single strength. The interim of unsweating themselves regularly, and convenient rest before meat, may
both with profit and delight be taken up in recreating and composing their travailed spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies
of music heard or learned, either whilst the skilful organist plies
his grave and fancied descant in lofty fugues, or the whole
symphony with artful and unimaginable touches adorn and grace
the well-studied chords of some choice composer; sometimes the
lute or soft organ-stop, waiting on elegant voices either to religious,
martial, or civil ditties, which, if wise men and prophets be not
extremely out, have a great power over dispositions and manners
to smooth and make them gentle from rustic harshness and distempered passions.  The like also would not be unexpedient
after meat, to assist and cherish nature in her first concoction,
and send their minds back to study in good tune and satisfaction.




OF EDUCATION.


307


Where having followed it under vigilant eyes until about two
hours before supper, they are, by a sudden alarum or watchword, \
to be called out of their military motions, under sky or covert,
according to the season, as was the Roman wont; first on foot,
then, as their age permits, on horseback to all the art of cavalry;
that having in sport, but with much exactness and daily muster,
served out the rudiments of their soldiership in all the skill of
embattling, marching, encamping, fortifying, besieging, and battering, with all the helps of ancient and modern stratagems, tactics,
and warlike maxims, they may, as it were out of a long war, come
-forth renowned and perfect commanders in the service of their
country. They would not then, if they were trusted with fair
and hopeful armies, suffer them for want of just and wise discipline
to shed away from about them like sick feathers, though they be
never so oft supplied; they would not suffer their empty and
unrecruitable colonels of twenty men in a company to quaff out
or convey into secret hoards the wages of a delusive list and
miserable remnant, yet in the meanwhile to be overmastered
with a score or two of drunkards, the only soldiery left about
them, or else to comply with all rapines and violences. No, certainly, if they knew aught of that knowledge which belongs to
good men or good governors they would not suffer these things.
But to return to our own institute. Besides these constant
exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining experience to be won from pleasure itself abroad. In those vernal
seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an
injury and sullenness against nature not to go out and see her
riches and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth. I
should not, therefore, be a persuader to them of studying much
then, after two or three years that they have well laid their
grounds, but to ride out in companies with prudent and staid
guides to all the quarters of the land, learning and observing all
places of strength, all commodities of building and of soil for
towns and tillage, harbours, and ports for trade.  Sometimes
taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they can
in the practical knowledge of sailing and sea-fight. These ways
would try all their peculiar gifts of nature, and if there were any
secret excellence among them, would fetch it out and give it fair




308


MAN AND CHILD.


opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily
redound to the good of this nation, and bring into fashion again
those old admired virtues and excellencies with far more advantage
now in this purity of Christian knowledge. Nor shall we then
need the monsieurs of Paris to take our hopeful youth into their
slight and prodigal custodies, and send them over back again
transformed into mimics, apes, and kekshose. But if they desire
to see other countries at three or four and twenty years of age,
not to learn principles but to enlarge experience and make wise
observation, they will by that time be such as shall deserve the
regard and honour of all men where they pass, and the society
and friendship of those in all places who are best and most
eminent. And perhaps then other nations will be glad to visit us
for their breeding, or else to imitate us in their own country,
Now, lastly, for their Diet there cannot be much to say, save
only that it would be best in the same house; for much time
else would be lost abroad, and many ill habits got; and that it
should be plain, healthful, 'and moderate I suppose is out of
controversy.
Thus, Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in writing, as your
desire was, of that which at several times I had discoursed with
you concerning the best and noblest way of education; not
beginning, as some have done, from the cradle, which yet might
be worth many considerations, if brevity had not been my scope.
Many other circumstances also I could have mentioned, but this,
to such as have the worth in them to make trial, for light and
direction may be enough. Only I believe that this is not a bow
for every man to shoot in that counts himself a teacher, but will
require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses;
yet I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy
in the assay than it now seems at distance, and much more
illustrious: howbeit not more difficult than I imagine, and that
imagination presents me with nothing but very happy and very
possible according to best wishes, if God have so decreed, and
this age have spirit and capacity enough to apprehend.




MAN A-ND MAN.




4


" Liberty
o.. always with right Reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being
Reason il Man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate Desires
And upstart Passions catch the Government
From Reason, and to Servitude reduce
Man till thlen free. Theiefore, since he pe-criits
Within himself unworthy powers to reign
Over free Reason, God, in Judgment just,
Subjects him from without to violent Lords,
Who oft as undeservedly enthral
His outward Freedom: Tyranny must be;
Though to the Tyrant thereby no excuse."
-Paradise Lost. Book xii.




AREOPAGITICA.
A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED
PRINTING.
To the Farliamzent of E]nglad.
THEY, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct
their speech, high Court of Parliament, or wanting such access in
a private condition, write that which they foresee may advance the
public good, I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean
endeavour, not a little altered and moved inwardly in their minds;
some with doubt of what will be the success, others with fear of
what will be the censure, some with hope, others with confidence
of what they have to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may have at
other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost
expressions now also disclose which of them swayed most, but
that the very attempt of this address thus made, and the thought
of whom it hath recourse to, hath got the power within me to a
passion far more welcome than incidental to a preface.
Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask I shall be
blameless, if it be no other than the joy and gratulation which it
brings to all who wish to promote their country's liberty, whereof
this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a
trophy. For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no
grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth, that let no
man in this world expect; but whei! complaints are freely heard,
deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost
bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men look for. To which
if I now manifest, by the very sound of this which I shall utter,
that we are already in good part arrived, and yet from such a




312


MAN AND MAN.


steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into
our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery,
it will be attributed first, as is most due, to the strong assistance
r of God, our deliverer; next, to your faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom, Lords and Commons of England. Neither is it
in God's esteem, the' diminution of His glory, when honourable
things are spoken of good men, and worthy magistrates; which
if I now first should begin to do, after so fair a progress of your
-laudable deeds and such a long obligement upon the whole realm
to your indefatigable virtues, I might be justly reckoned among
the tardiest and the anwillingest of them that praise ye.
Nevertheless there beirng three principal things, without which
all praising is but courtship and flattery: first, when that only is
praised which is solidly worth praise-; next, when greatesL-lik~e
hoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those
persons to whom they areasried; the other, when he who
praises, by showing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he
writes         nstrate that he flatters not: the former two of
these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment
from him who went about to impair your merits with a trivial and
malignant encomium; the latter, as belonging chiefly to mine own
acquittal, that whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been
reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done and fears not to declare as
freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of
his fidelity, and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on
your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery, and his
plainest advice is a kind of praising. For though I should affirm
and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth, with
learning, and the commonwealth, if one of your published orders,
which I should name,l wre called in; yet at the same time it
could not but much i'oundto the lustre of your mild and equal
government, whenas private persons are hereby animated to think
ye better pleased with public advice than other statists have been
delighted heretofore with public flattery. And men will then see
what difference there is between the magnanimity of a triennial
parliament and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin
counsellors that usurped of late, whenas they shall observe ye in
the midst of your victories and successes more gently brooking




A REOPA GITICA.


3x3


written exceptions against a voted order, than other courts, which
had produced nothing worth memory but the weak ostentation of|
wealth, would have endured the least signified dislike at any
sudden proclamation.
If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of
your civil and gentle greatness, Lords and Commons, as what
your published order hath directly said that to gainsay, I might
defend myself with ease if any should accuse me of being new
or insolent, did they but know how much better I find ye esteem
it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece than the
barbaric pride of a Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And
out of those ages to whose polite wisdom and letters we owe
that we are not yet Goths and Jutlanders, I could name him
who from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament
of Athens that persuades them to change the form of democracy
which was then established. Such honour was done in those
days to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence,
not only in their own country but in other lands, that cities and
signiories heard them gladly and with great respect, if they had
aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus,
a stranger and a private orator, counsel the Rhodians against a
former edict; and I abound with other like examples, which to
set here would be superfluous. But if from the industry of a
life wholly dedicated to studious labours and those natural
endowments haply not the worst for two and fifty degrees of
northern latitude so much must be derogated as to count me
not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I would obtain
to be thought not so inferior, as yourselves are superior to the
most of them who received their counsel; and how far you excel
them, be assured, Lords and Commons, there can no greater (
testimony appear than when your prudent spirit acknowledge
and obeys the voice of reason, from what quarter soever it b el
heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any act of
your own setting forth as any set forth by your predecessors.  }  ~J
Ifye be thus resolved, as it were injury to think ye were not,
I know not what should withhold me from presenting ye with a
fit instance wherein to show both that love of truth which ye
eminently profess and that uprightness of your judgment which
is not wont to be partial to yourselves, by judging over again!




314                 MAN AND MAN.
-
that order which ye have ordained "'to regulate printing: that
no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless
the same be first approved and licensed by such, or at least one
of such, as shall be thereto appointed."  For that part which
preserves justly every man's copy to himself, or provides for the
poor, I touch not; only wish they be not made pretences to abuse
and persecute honest and painful men who offend not in either
of these particulars. But that other clause of licensing books,
which we thought had died with his brother quadragesimal and
'matrimonial when the prelates expired, I shall now attend with
such a homily as shall lay before ye, fryr the inventors of it to
y be those whom ye will be loath to own; ne;   what is to -be
thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and
([) that this order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous,
seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be
nsuppressed.    Last, that it will be primely to the discouragement
of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising
and blunting our abilities in what we know already, but by
hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further
made both in religious and civil wisdom.
I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church
and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean
themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison,
and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. '.For books are
not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in
-- them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay,
they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of
that living intellect that bred them.) I know they are as lively and
as vigorously productive as those fabulous dragon's teeth: and
being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.
And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good
almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills
a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good
book, kills Reason itself, kills the image of God as it were, in the
eve.   any a man lves a burdento the earth; but a good book
is the precious life blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life  It is true, no age can
restore a life, whereof, perhaps, there is n8 great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for


A




*AREOPAGITICA.


3I5


the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should
be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise aainst the living
labours of public men, how we spillthat seasoned lif of man preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide
may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend
to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution
ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the
ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life. But lest I should be condemned of
introducing licence while I oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains
to be so much historical as will serve to show what hath been
done by ancient and famous commonwealths against this disorder
till the very time that this project of licensing, crept out of the
inquisition, was catched up by our prelates, and hath caught some
of our presbyters.
In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any
other part of Greece, I find but only two sorts of writings whichl
the magistrate cared to take notice of; those either blasphemous
and atheistical, or libellous. Thus the books of Protagoras were
by the judges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt, and himself
banished the territory, for a discourse begun with his confessing
not to know " whether there were gods, or whether not." And
against defaming, it was agreed that none should be traduced by
name, as was the manner of Vetus Comcdia, whereby we may
guess how they censured libelling. And this course was quick
enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the desperate wits of other
atheists and the open way of defaming, as the event showed.
Of other sects and opinions, though tending to voluptuousness
and the denying of divine Providence, they took no heed. Therefore we do not read that either Enicurus or that libertine school
of Cyrene, or what the Cynic impudence uttered, was ever questioned by the laws. Neither is it recorded that the writings
of those old comedians were suppressed, though the acting of
them were forbid. And that Plato commended the reading of
Aristophanes, the loosest of them all, to his royal scholar,
Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused if holy
Chrysostom, as is reported, nightly studied so much the same
author, and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into
the style of a rousing sermon.




3i6


MAN AND MAN.


[ That other leading city of Greece, Lacedemon, considering
that Lycurgus their lawgiver was so addicted to elegant learning
as to have been the first that brought out of Ionia the scattered
works of Homer, and sent the poet Thales from Crete to prepare
and mollify the Spartan surliness with his smooth songs and odes,
the better to plant among them law and civility, it is to be
wondered how Museless and unbookish they were, minding nought
hlJ       but the feats of war. i There needed no licensing of books a
them, for they disliked all but their own Laconic aplegs,
and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus ou heir cy,
perhaps for composing in a higher strain — thaiTrlr ownslery
ballads and roundels could reach to) or if it were fgris broad
verses, they were not therein so cautious but-they were as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing; whence Euripides affirms,
in Andromache, that their women were all unchaste.
This much may give us light after what sort of books were prohibited among the Greeks. The Romans, also for many ages
trained up only to a military roughness, resembling most the
Lacedaemonian guise, knew of learning little but what their twelve
tables and the pontific college with their augurs and flamens.taught them in religion and law; so unacquainted with other
learning, that when Carneades and Critolaus, with the stoic
Diogenes, coming ambassadors to Rome, took thereby occasion
to give the city a taste of their philosophy, they were suspected
for seducers by no less a man than Cato the Censor, who moved
it in the Senate to dismiss them speedily, and to banish all such
Attic babblers out of Italy. But Scipio and others of the noblest
senators withstood him and his old Sabine austerity; honoured
and admired the men; and the Censor himself at last, in his old
age, fell to the study of that whereof before he was so scrupulous.
And yet, at the same time, Noevius and Plautus, the first Latin
comedians, had filled the city with all the borrowed scenes of
Menander and Philemon. Then began to be considered there
also what was to be done to libellous books and authors; for
Nxvius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, and
released by the tribunes upon his recantation: we read also that
libels were burnt, and the makers punished, by Augustus.
The like severity, no doubt, was used, if aught were impiously
written against their esteemed gods. Except in these two points,




AREOPAGITICA.                    3
how the world went in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning.J
And therefore Lucretius, without impeachment, versifies his
Epicurism to Memmius, and had the honour to be set forth the
second time by Cicero, so great a father of the commonwealth;
although himself disputes against that opinion in his own writings.
Nor was the satirica shDrpness r nakd pla esof Lucilius, or
Catullus, or Flaccs. by any order prohibited. And for matters
of State, the story of Titus Livius, though it extolled that part
which Pompey held, was not therefore suppressed by Octavius
Caesar, of the other faction. But that Naso was by him banished
in his old age, for the wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere
covert of state over some secret cause; and besides, the books
were neither banished nor called in. _From hence, we shall meet
with little else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we may
not marvel if not so often bad as good books were silence7 I
shall therefore deem to have been large enough, in producing
what among the ancients was punishable to write, save only which,
all other arguments were free to treat on.
By this time the emperors were become Christians, whose
discipline in this point I do not find to have been more severe
than what was formerly in practice. The books of those whom
they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the General Councils; and not till then were prohibited,
or burnt, by authority of the emperor. As for the writings of heathen
authors, unless they were plain invectives against Christianity, as
those of Porphyrius and Proclus, they met with no interdict that
can be cited, till about the year 400, in a Carthaginian Council,
wherein bishops themselves were forbid to read the books of
Gentiles, but heresies they might read; while others long before
them, on the contrary, scrupled more the books of heretics, than
of Gentiles. And that the primitive Councils and bishops were
wont only to declare what books were not commendable, passing
no further, but leaving it to each one's conscience to read or to
lay by, till after the year 800, is observed already by Padre Paolo,
the great unmasker of the Trentine council. After which time
the popes of Rome, engrossing what they pleased of political rule
into their own hands, extended their dominion over men's eyes,
as they had before over their judgments, burning and prohibiting
to be read what they fancied not; yet sparing in their censures,




318


MAN AND MAN.


and the books not many which they so dealt with; till Martin
the Fifth, by his bull, not only prohibited, but was the first that
excommunicated the reading of heretical books; for about that
time Wyclif- and Huss growing terrible, were they who first
drove the papal court to a stricter policy of prohibiting. Which
course Leo the Tenth and his successors followed, until the
Council of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendering together, brought forth or perfected those catalogues and expurging
indexes that rake through the entrails of many an old good author,
with a violation worse than any could be offered to his tomb.
Nor did they stay in matters heretical, but any subject that
was not to their palate they either condemned in a prohibition,
or had it straight into the new purgatory of an index. To fill up
the measure of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain
that no book, pamphlet, or paper should be printed-as if St.
Peter had bequeathed them the keys of the press also as well as
of Paradise) unless it were approved and licensed under the hands
of two or three gluttonous friars. For example:" Let the chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this present work
be contained aught that may withstand the printing.
"Vincent Rabbata, Vicar of Florence."
" I have seen this present work, and find nothing athwart the
Catholic faith and good manners: in witness whereof I have
given, &c.       " Nicolo Cini, Chancellor of Florence."
' Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present
work of Davanzati may be printed.: Vincent Rabbata, &c."
" It may be printed, July I-5.
" Friar Simon Mompei d'Amelia, Chancellor of the Holy
Office in Florence."
Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomless pit had not
long since broke prison, that this quadruple exorcism would bar
him down. I fear their next design will be to get into their
custody the licensing of that which they say Claudius intended,*
* "Quo veniam daret flaturn crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi."Sueton, in Claudio.




AREOPA GIT"C                     319
but went not through with. Vou  safe to see another of their
forms, the Roman stamp:-  /
' Imprimatur. If it seem goo to the reverend master of the Holy
Palace.           /        " Belcastro, Viceerent.'
'; Imprimatur,      /
' Friar Nicholo Rodolphi, Master of the Holy Palace."
Sometimes five imprimaturs are seen together, dialogue wise,
in the piazza of one titlepage, complimenting and ducking each
to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who
stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press
or to the sponge. These are the pretty responsories, these are
the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our prelates and
their chaplains, with the goodly echo they made; and besotted
us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambethhouse, another from the west end of Paul's; so apishly romanizing,
that the word of command still was set down in Latin; as if the
learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast no ink without
Latin; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar tongue
was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur; but
rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever
famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily
find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption
Englished.
And thus ye have the inventors and the original of BookI
Licensing ripped up and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. XWe
have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or
polity, or church, nor by any statute left us by our ancestors
elder or later; nor from the modern custom of any reformed city  Goor church abroad; but from the most Antichristian Council, and
the most tyrannous Inquisition that ever inquired. Till then
books were ever as freely admitted into the world as any other
birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue
of the womb: no envious Juno sat cross-legged over the nativity
of any man's intellectual offspring; but if it proved a monster,
who denies but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea? But
that a book, in worse condition than a peccant soul, should be to
stand before a jury ere it be born to the world, and undergo yet
-in darkness the judgment of Rhadamanth and his colleagues, ere




320


MAN AND MAN.


it can pass the ferry backward into light, was never heard before,
till that mysterious iniquity, provoked and troubled at the first
entrance of Reformation, sought out new limbos and new hells
wherein they might include our books also within the number of
their damned. And this was the rare morsel so officiously snatched
up, and so ill-favouredly imitated by our inquisiturient bishops,
and the attendant minorities, their chaplains.  That ye like
not now these most certain authors of this licensing order, and
that all sinister intention was far distant from your thoughts
when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who know the
integrity of your actions, and how ye honour truth, will clear ye
readily..<   ' -    tt..
*sBF'isome will say, what though the inventors were bad, the
thing for all that may be good. It may so; yet if that thing be
no such deep invention, but obvious and easy for any man to
light on, and yet best and wisest commonwealths through all
ages and occasions have forborne to use it, and falsest seducers
and oppressors of men were the first who took it up, and to no
other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of
reformation; I am of those who believe, it will be a harder alchymy
than Lullius ever knew, to sublimate any good use out of such
an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this
reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fiuit, as
certainly it deserves, for the tree that bore it, until I can dissect
one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as
was propounded, what is to be thought in general of reading
books, whatever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit
or the harm that thence proceeds.
""ot to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel, and Paul,
who were skilful in all the learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans,
and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their
books of all sorts, in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into Holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek
poets, and one of them a tragedian; the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive doctors,
but with great odds on that side which affirmed it both lawful
and profitable, as was then evidently perceived when Julian the
Apostate and subtlest enemy to our faith made a decree forbidding
Christians the study of heathen learning; for, said he, they wound




AREOPA GITICA.


321


us with our own weapons, and with our own arts and sciences
they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to
their shifts by this crafty means, and so much in danger to decline
into all ignorance, that the two Appollinarii were fain, as a man
may say, to coin all the seven liberal sciences out of the Bible,
reducing it into divers forms of orations, poems, dialogues, even
to the calculating of a new Christian grammar.
But, saith the historian Socrates, the providence of God provided better than the industry of Appollinarius and his son, by
taking away that illiterate law with the life of him who devised it.
So great an injury they then held it to be deprived of Hellenic
learning; and thought it a persecution more undermining, and
secretly decaying the Church, than the open cruelty of Deciusor Diocletian. And perhaps it was with the same politic drift
that the devil whipped St. Jerome in a lenten dream, for reading
Cicero; or else it was a phantasm bred by the fever which
had then seized him. For had an angel been his discipliner,
unless it were for dwelling too much on Ciceronianisms, and
had chastised the reading, not the vanity, it-had been plainly
partial, first, to correct him for grave Cicero, and not for scurril
Plautus, whom he confesses to have been reading not long before;
next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient Fathers
wax old in those pleasant and florid studies, without the lash of
such a tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how
some good use may be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not
now extant, writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante, an
Italian romance much to the same purpose?
But if it be agreed we shall be tried by visions, there is a vi.~n
recorded by Eusebius, far ancienter than this tale of Jerome to
the nun Eustochium, and besides, has nothing of a fever in it.
Dionysius Alexandrinus was, about the year 240, a person of
great name in the-Church, for piety and learning, who had wont
to avail himself much against heretics by being conversant in
their books; until a certain presbyter laid it scrupulously to his
conscience, how he durst venture himself among those defiling
volumes. The worthy man, loth to give offence, fell into a new
debate with himself, what was to be thought; when suddenly a
vision sent from God (it is his own epistle that so avers it) confirmed him in these words: "Read any books whatever come to
x




322                 -A N AND MAN.
thy hands, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright, and to
examine each matter." To this revelation he assented the sooner,
as he confesses, because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to
the Thessalonians: " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good."
And he might have added another remarkable saying of the
same author: "To the pure, all things are pure;" not only meats
and drinks, but all kind of knowledge whether of good or evil:
the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books, if the
will and conscience be not defiled. (For books are as meats and
viands are; some of good, some of evil substance; and yet God
in that unapocryphal vision said without exception, "Rise, Peter,
kill and eat:" leaving the choice to each man's discretion.
A Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomach differ little or nothing
from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not
unapplicable to occasions of evil. Bad meats will scarce breed
good nourishment in the healthiest concoction; but herein the
difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious
reader serve in many respects to discover, to confute, to forewarn,
and to illustrate. Whereof what better witness can ye expect I
should produce, than one of your own now sitting in Parliament,
the chief of learned men reputed in this land, Mr. Selden; whose
volume of Natural and National Laws proves, not nlTy by great
authorities brought together, but by exquisite reasons and theorems
almost mathematically demonstrative, that all opinions, yea, errors,
known, read, and collated, are of main service and assistance
toward the speedy attainment of what is truest.
I conceive, therefore, that when God did enlarge the universal
diet of man's body (saving ever the rules of temperance), he then
also, as before, left arbitrary the dieting and repasting of our
minds; as wherein every mature man might have to exercise his
own leading capacity. How great a virtue is temperance, how
much of moment through the whole life of man! Yet God
commits the managing so great a trust, without particular law or
prescription, wholly to the demeanour of every grown man. And
therefore when he himself tabled the Jews from heaven, that omer,
which was every man's daily portion of manna, is computed to
have been more than might have well sufficed the heartiest feeder
thrice as many meals. For those actions which enter into a man
rather than issue out of him, and therefore defile not, God uses




A REOPA GITICA.




not to captivate under a perpetual childhood of prescription, but
trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own chooser; there
were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should
grow so fast upon those things which heretofore were governed
only by exhortation. Solomon informs us, that much reading is a
weariness to the flesh; but neither he, nor other inspired author,
tells us that such or such reading is unlawful; yet certainly had God
thought good to limit us herein, it had been much more expedient
to have told us what was unlawful than what was wearisome.
As for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Paul's converts, it is replied, the books were magic, the Syriac so renders
them. It was a private act, a voluntary act, and leaves us to a
voluntary imitation: the men in remorse burnt those books
which were their own; the magistrate by this example is not
appointed; these men practised the books, another might perhaps
have read them in some sort usefully. Good and evil we know
in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably;
and the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with
the knowledge of evil, and in so many cunning resemblances
hardly to be discerned, that those confused seeds which were imposed upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull out, and sort
asunder, were not more intermixed. It was from out the rind
of one apple tasted, that the knowledge of good and evil, as two
twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into, of knowing good and
evil; that is to say, of knowing good by evil./
As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there
be to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge
of evil? | He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her
baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish,
and yet pefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring
Christian) I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and seeks her
adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland
is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring
not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather;
that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
That virtue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evil, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her




324


MAN AND MAN.


followers,-and rejects it, is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her
whiteness is but an excremental whiteness; which was the reason
why our sage and serious poet Spenser (whom I dare be known
to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas), describing
true temperance under the person of Guyon, brings him in with
lhis palmer through the cave of Mammon, and the bower of
earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and yet abstain.
Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this
worldso necessary to the constituing ofTuman virtue, and the
(   scanninoferror to the confirmationeof truth, how can we more
safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of si and
falsity, than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all
ma-nner of reason?  And this is the benefit which may be had
j\1   [ of books promiscuously read. But of the harm tlat may result
4   hence, three kinds are usually reckoned. Fir-.is feared the in- fection, that may spread: but then, all human learning and controversy in religious points must remove out of the world, yea, the
Bible itself; for that ofttimes relates blasphemy not nicely, it
describes the carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly, it
brings in holiest men passionately murmuring against Providence
through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it
answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader; and ask a
Talmudist what ails the modesty of his marginal Keri, that Moses
and all the prophets cannot persuade him to pronounce the
textual Chetiv. For these causes we all know the Bible itself put
by the papist into the first rank of prohibited books.  The
ancientest Fathers must be next removed, as Clement of Alexandria,
and that Eusebian book of Evangelic Preparation, transmitting our
ears through a hoard of heathenish obscenities to receive the
Gospel. Who finds not that Irenzeus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and
others discover more heresies than they well confute, and that oft
for heresy which is the truer opinion?
Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen writers of
greatest infection, if it must be thought so, with whom is bound
up the life of human learning, that they wrote in an unknown
tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well
", to the worst of men, who are both most able and most diligent
to instil the poison they suck, first into the courts of princes,
acquainting them with the choicest delights and criticisms of sin.




AREOPAGITICA.


325


As perhaps did that Petronius, whom Nero called his Arbiter, the
master of his revels; and that notorious ribald of Arezzo, dreaded
and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name not him, for
posterity's sake, whom Henry the Eighth named in merriment his
vicar of hell. By which compendious way all the contagion that
foreign books can infuse will find a passage to the people far easier
andshorter than In ndian voyage, though it could be sailed either
by the north of Cataio eastward, or of Canada westward, while
our Spanish Licensing gags the English press never so severely.
But, on the other side, that infection which is from books of
controversy in religion, is more doubtful and dangerous to the. learned than to the ignorant; and yet those books must be permitted untouched by the licenser. It will be hard to instance
where any ignorant man hath been ever seduced by any papistical
book in English, unless it were commended and expounded to
him by some of that clergy; and indeed all such tractates,
whether false or true, are as the prophecy of Isaiah was to the
eunuch, not to be "understood without a guide." But of our
priests and doctors how many have been corrupted by studying
the comments of Jesuits and Sorbonnists, and how fast they could
transfuse that corruption into the people, our experience is both
late and sad.  It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct
Arminius was perverted merely by the perusing of a nameless discourse written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to confute.
Seeing therefore that those books, and those in great abundance, which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine, cannot
/   be suppressed without the fall of learning, and of all ability in
disputation and that these books of either sort are most and
soonest catching to the learned-from whom to the common
people whatever is heretical or dissolute may quickly be conveyed;-and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt without books
a thousand other ways which cannot be stopped; and evil doctrine
not with books can propagate; except a teacher guide, which he
might also do without writing, and so beyond prohibiting; I am
not unable to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licensing
can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts.
And he who were pleasantly disposed, could not well avoid to
liken it to the exploit of that gallant man, who thought to pound
up the crows by shutting his park gate.




326               MAAN AND MAN.
Besides another inconvenience,-if learned men be the first
receivers out of books, and dispreaders both of vice and error,
how shall the licensers themselves be confided in, unless we can
confer upon them, or they assume to themselves, above all others
in the land, the grace of infallibility and uncorruptedness? And
again, if it be true, that a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather
gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool
with the best book, yea, or without book; there is no reason that
we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdom,
while we seek to restrain from a fool that which being restrained
will be no hindrance to his folly. For if there should be so
much exactness always used to keep that from him which is unfit
for his reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle not only,
but of Solomon, and of our Saviour, not vouchsafe him good
precepts, and by consequence not willingly admit him to good
books; as being certain that a wise man will make better use of
an idle pamphlet than a fool will do of sacred Scripture.
It is next alleged, we must not expose ourselves to temptations
without necessity; and next to that, not employ our time in vain
things. To both these objections one answer will serve, out of
the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are not
temptations, nor vanities, but useful drugs and materials wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong medicines, which
man's life cannot want. The -rest, as children and childish men
who have not the art to qualify and prepare these working
minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear; but hindered forcibly
they cannot be, by all the licensing that sainted Inquisition could
/ ever yet contrive; which is what I promised to deliver next: that
)    this Order of Licensing conduces nothing to the end for which it
/  was framed; and hath almost prevented me by being clear alrea y
while thusi much hath been explaining. See the ingenuity of
truth, who, when she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself
faster than the pace of method and discourse can overtake her.
It was the task which I began with, to show that no nation or
well instituted state, i they valued books at all, did ever use this
way of licensing and it might be answered, that this is a piece ofT'
lTo which I return, that as it was a thing slight and obvious to
think on, so if it had been difficult to find out, there wanted not




V


AREOPAGITICA.                    327
among them long since who suggested such a course; which
they not following, leave us a pattern of their judgment that it
was not the not knowing, but the not approving, which was the
cause ot their not using it. Plato, a-man of high authority indeed,
but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of his Laws,
which no city ever yet received, fed his fancy with making many
edicts to his airy burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire
him, wish had been rather buried and excused in the genial cups
of an academic night sitting. By wvhich Laws he seems to tolerate
no kind of learning, but by unalterable decree, consisting most of
practical traditions, to the attainment whereof a library of smaller
bulk than his own Dialogues would be abundant. And there also
enacts, that no poet should so much as read to any private man
what he had written, until the judges and law keepers had seen
it, and allowed it. But that Plato meant this law peculiarly to that
Commonwealth which he had imagined, and to no other, is evident. Why was he not else a lawgiver to himself but a transgressor, and to be expelled by his own magistrates, both for the
wanton epigrams and dialogues which he made, and his perpetual
reading of Sophron Mimus and Aristophanes, books of grossest
infamy; and also for commending the latter of them, though he
were the malicious libeller of his chief friends, to be read by the
tyrant Dionysius, who had little need of such trash to spend his
time on? But that he knew this licensing of poems had reference
and dependence to many other provisoes there set down in his
fancied Republic, which in this world could have no place; and
so neither he himself, nor any magistrate or city, ever imitated
that course, which, taken apart from those other collateral injunctions, must needs be vain and fruitless.
F6r if they fell upon one kind of strictness, unless their care
were equal to regulate all other things of like aptness to corrupt
the mind, that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond
labour; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be
necessitated to leave others round about wide open. If we think
to regulate printing thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate
all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No
music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but what is grave
and Doric. There must be licensing dancers, that no gesture,
motion, or deportment be taught our youth, but what by thei




328                 MAN AND MAN.
allowance shall be thought honest; for such Plato was provided
of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine
all the lutes, the violins, and the guitars in every house; they
must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but must be licensed
t  what they may say. And who shall silence all the airs and
l) \ madrigals that whisper softness in chambers? The windows also
and the balconies must be thought on; these are shrewd books,
with dangerous frontispieces, set to sale: who shall prohibit them,
shall twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors
to inquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebeck reads, even to
the ballatry and the gamut of every municipal fiddler; for these
are the countryman's Arcadias, and his Montemayors.
Next, what more national corruption, for which England hears
ill abroad, than household gluttony? Who shall be the rectors
of our daily rioting? And what shall be done to inhibit the
multitudes that frequent those houses where drunkenness is sold
and harboured? Our garments also should be referred to the
licensing of some more sober workmasters, to see them cut into
a less wanton garb. Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation of our youth, male and female together, as is the fashion of
this country? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed,
what presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and
separate all idle resort, all evil company? These things will be, and
must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing,
herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a state.
To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian
politics, which never can be drawn into use, will not mend our
condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the
midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably. Nor is it Plato's
licensing of books will do this, which necessarily pulls along with
it so many other kinds of licensing, as will make us all both
ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or
at least unconstraining laws of virtuous education, religious and
civil nurture, which Plato there mentions, as the bonds and ligaments of the commonwealth, the pillars and the sustainers of
every written statute: these they be, which will bear chief sway in
such matters as these, when all licensing will be easily eluded.
Impunity and remissness for certain are the bane of a commonwealth; but here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is




AREOPA GITICA.


to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion
only is to work. If every action which is good or evil in man at
ripe years were to be under pittance, prescription, and compulsion, what were virtue but a name, what praise could be then due
to well doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent?
Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffer-)
ing Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! when God gave him
reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choo>Ag; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as
he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience,
or love, or gift, which is of force; God therefore left him free, set
before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes; herein
consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of
his abstinence.  Wherefore did he create passions within us,
pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are
the very ingredients of virtue? They are not skilful considerers
of human things, who imagine to remove sin by removing the
matter of sin; for besides that it is a huge heap increasing under
the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a
time be withdrawn from some persons it cannot from all, in such
a universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin
remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his
treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his
covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into
the severest discipline that can be exercised in any hermitage, ye
cannot make them chaste that came not thither so: such great
care and wisdom is required to the right managing of this point.
Suppose we could expel sin by this means; look how much we
thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of
them both is the same: remove that, and ye remove them both
alike. This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he
commands us temperance, justice, continence, yet pours out before us even to a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us
minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should
we then affect a rigour contrary to the manner of God and of
nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely
permitted are, both to the trial of virtue and the exercise of truth?
It would be better done, to learn that the law must need f
be frivolous which goes to restrain things uncertainly and yetJ




330


IMAN AND MAN.


equally working to good and to evil. And were I the chooser,
a dram of well-doing should be preferred before many times as
much the forcible hindrance of evil doing.  For God sure
esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more
than the restraint of ten vicious. And albeit, whatever thing we. hear or see, sitting, walking, travelling, or conversing, may be fitly
called our book, and is -ofti e same effectE that writings are;  t
it tile thing to be prohibited were only books, it appearsthat
this order itherto is ar insufficient t the end which it intends.
-o we not see, not once or oftener, but weekly, that continued
court-libel against the parliament and city, printed, as the wet
sheets can witness, and dispersed among us for all that licensing
can do? Yet this is the prime service a man would think wherein
this order should give proof of itself. If it were executed, you will
say. But certain, if execution be remiss or blindfold now, and
in this particular, what will it be hereafter, and in other books?
If then the Order shall not be vain and frustrate, behold a new
labour, Lords and Commons, ye mst ree  al and proscribe all
scandalous and unlicensed books already printed andivuled
after ye haedrawn them up into a list, that all may know which
are condemned, and which not; and ordain that no foreign books
be delivered out of custody till they have been read over. This
office will require the whole time of not a few overseers, and those
no vulgar men. There be also books which are partly useful and
excellent, partly culpable and pernicious; this work will ask as
many more officials, to make expurgations and expunctions, that
the commonwealth of learning be not damnified. In fine, when
the multitude of books increase upon their hands, ye must be fain
to catalogue all those printers who are found frequently offending,
and forbid the importation of their whole suspected typography.
In a word, that this your order may be exact, and not deficient,, ye must reform it perfectly, according to the model of Trent and
E Seville, which I know ye abhor to do.
Yet though ye should condescend to this, which God forbid,
the Order still would be but fruitless and defective to that end
whereto ye meant it. If to prevent sects and schisms, who is so
unread or uncatechised in story that hath not heard of many
sects refusing books as a hindrance, and preserving their doctrine
unmixed for many ages only by unwritten traditions?  The




AREOPAGI TICA.


33I


Christian faith (for that was once a schism) is not unknown to have
spread all over Asia, ere any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing.
If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into Italy and
Spain, wiether those places be one scruple the better, the honester, the wiser, the chaster, since all the inquisitional rigour that
hath been executed upon books.
Another reason, whereby to make it plain that this Order will
miss the end it seeks, consider by the quality which ought to be
in every licenser. It cannot be denied, but that he who is made
judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may
be wafted into this world or not, had need to be a man above the
common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious; there
may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable
or not; which is also no mean injury. If he be of such worth as
behoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing
journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to
be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets,
ofttimes huge volumes. There is no book that is acceptable,
unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoined the reading of that
at all times, and in a hand scarce legible, whereof three pages
would not down at any time in the fairest print, is an imposition
I cannot believe how he that values time and his own studies,
or is but of a sensible nostril, should be able to endure. In this
one thing I crave leave of the present licensers to be pardoned
for so thinking: who doubtless took this office up, looking on it
through their obedience to the parliament, whose command perhaps made all things seem easy and unlaborious to them; but
that this short trial hath wearied them out already, their own
expressions and excuses to them who make so many journeys to
solicit their licence, are testimony enough. Seeing therefore those
who now possess the employment, by all evident signs wish themselves well rid of it, and that no man of worth, none that is not
a plain unthrift of his own hours, is ever likely to succeed them,
except he mean to put himself to the salary of a press correcter,
we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect
hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary. This is what I had to show, wherein this Order cannot
conduce to that end whereof it bears tie intention.
- I lastly proceed from the no good it can do, to the manifest
P




332


3MAN AND MAN.


hurt it causes, in being first the greatest discouragement and
affront that can be offered to learning and to learned men.X It
was the complaint and lamentation of prelates, upon every least
of a motion to remove pluralities and distribute more equally
Church revenues, that then all learning would be for ever dashed
and discouraged. But as for that opinion, I never found cause
to think that the tenth part of learning stood or fell with the
clergy: nor could I ever but hold it for a sordid and unworthy
speech of any Churchman, who had a competency left him. If
therefore ye be loth to dishearten utterly and discontent, not
the mercenary crew of false pretenders to learning, but the free
and ingenious sort of such as evidently were born to study and
love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other end, but the
service of God and of truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and
perpetuity of praise which God and good men have consented
shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance
the good of mankind: then know, that so far to distrust the judgment and the honesty of one who hath but a common repute in
learning, and never yet offended, as not to count him fit to print his
mind without a tutor and examiner, lest he should drop a schism,
or something of corruption, is the greatest displeasure and indignity to a free and knowing spirit that can be put upon him.
What advantage is it to be a man, over it is to be a boy at
school, if we have only escaped the ferula, to come under the
/1 fescue of an Imprimatur? if serious and elaborate writings, as
if they were no more than the theme of a grammar-lad under his
pedagogue, must not be uttered without the cursory eyes of a
temporizing and extemporizing licenser? He who is not trusted
with his own actions, his drift not being known to be evil, and
standing to the hazard of law and penalty, has no great argument
to think himself reputed in the commonwealth wherein he was
born for other than a fool or a foreigner. When a man writes
to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to
assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely
consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which
done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well
as any that wrote before him; if in this, the most consummate
act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former
proof of his abilities, can bring him to that state of maturity, as




AREOPAGITICA.


333


not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his
considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of
Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps
much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps
one who never knew the labour of bookwriting; and if he be
not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with
his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title to
be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot or seducer; it cannot
be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book,
to the privilege and dignity of learning.. And,what if the author shall be one so copious of fancy, as to: have many things, well worth the adding, come into his mind after
licensing, while the book is yet under the press, which not seldom
happens to the best and diligentest writers: and that perhaps a
dozen times in one book. The printer dares not go beyond his
licensed copy; so often then must the author trudge to his leavegiver, that those his new insertions may be viewed; and many
a jaunt will be made ere that licenser, for it must be the same
man, can either be found, or found at leisure; meanwhile either
the press must stand still, which is no small damage, or the author
lose his accuratest thoughts, and send the book forth worse than
he had made it, which to a diligent writer is the greatest melancholy and vexation that can befall.
And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of(
Z teaching; how can he be a doctor in his book, as he ought to
be, or else had better be silent; whenas all he teaches, all he
delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction of his
patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not
with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? When
every acute reader, upon the first sight of a pedantic licence, will
be ready with these like words to ding the book a quoit's distance
from him:-' I hate a pupil teacher; I endure not an instructor
that comes to me under the wardship of an overseeing fist. I
know nothing of the licenser, but that I have his own hand here
for his arrogance; who shall warrant me his judgment?' 'The
State, sir,' replies the stationer: but has a quick return:-' The
State shall be my governors, but not my critics; they may be
mistaken in the choice of a licenser, as easily as this licenser may
be mistaken in an author. This is some common stuff:' and




334


M~AN AND MAN.


he might add from Sir Francis Bacon, that 'such authorized
books are but the language of the times.' For though a licenser
should happen to be judicious more than ordinary, which will be
a great jeopardy of the next succession, yet his very office and
his commission enjoins him to let pass nothing but what is
vulgarly received already.
Nay, which is more lamentable, if the work of any deceased
author, though never so famous in his lifetime, and even to this
day, comes to their hands for licence to be printed or reprinted,
if there be found in his book one sentence of a venturous edge,
uttered in the height of zeal-and who knows whether it might
not be the dictate of a divine spirit?-yet, not suiting with every
low decrepit humour of their own, though it were Knox himself,
the reformer of a kingdom, that spake it, they will not pardon
him their dash; the sense of that great man shall to all posterity
be lost, for the fearfulness, or the presumptuous rashness of a
perfunctory licenser. And to what an author this violence hathl
been lately done, and in what book, of greatest consequence to
be faithfully published, I could now instance, but shall forbears
till a more convenient season.  Yet if these things be not resented seriously and timely by them who have the remedy in
their power, but that such ironmoulds as these shall have
authority to gnaw out the choicest periods of exquisitest books,
and to commit such a treacherous fraud against the orphan
emainders of worthiest men after death, the more sorrow will
belong to that hapless race of men, whose misfortune it is to
have understanding. Henceforth let no man care to learn, or
care to be more than worldly wise; for certainly in higher matters
to be ignorant and slothful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will
be the only pleasant life, and only in request.
" And as it is a particular disesteem of every knowing person
alive, and most injurious to the written labours and monuments
of the dead, so to me it seems an undervaluing and vilifying of
the whole nation. I cannot set so light by all the invention, the
art, the wit, the grave and solid judgment which is in England,
as that it can be comprehended in any twenty capacities, how
good soever; much less that it should not pass except their
superintendence be over it, except it be sifted and strained with
their strainers, that it should be uncurrent without their manual




-AREOPA GITICA.


335
I -.)J.


stamp. Truth and understanding are not such wares as to beJ
monopolized and traded in by tickets, and statutes, and standards./
We must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land, to mark and license it like our broadcloth
and our woolpacks. What is it but a servitude like that imposed
by the Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening of our own
axes and coulters, but we must repair from all quarters to twenty
licensing forges?
Had any one written and divulged erroneous things and scandalous to honest life, misusing and forfeiting the esteem had of
his reason among men, if after conviction this only censure were
adjudged him, that he should never henceforth write but what
were first examined by an appointed officer, whose hand should be
annexed to pass his credit for him that now he might be safely
read; it could not be apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole nation, and those that never
yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So
much the more whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad
'without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir forth _
without a visible jailor in their title. Nor is it to the common
people less than a reproach; fori-twe be so jealous over them,
as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what
do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, and ungrounded
people; in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion,
as to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a
licenser? That this is care or love of them, we cannot pretend,
whenas in those popish places, where the laity are most hated
and despised, the same strictness is used over them. Wisdom
we cannot call it, because it stops but one breach of licence,
nor that neither: whenas those corruptions which it seeks to prevent break in faster at other doors, which cannot be shut.
And, in conclusion, it reflects to the disrepute of our ministers
also, of whose labours we should hope better, and of their
proficiency which their flock reaps by them, than that after all
this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continual preaching, they should be still frequented with such an
unprincipled, unedified, and laic rabble, as that the whiff of every
new pamphlet should stagger them out of their catechism, and




336


3MAN AND MAN.


Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage
the ministers, when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations and the benefiting of their hearers as that they are not
thought fit to be turned loose to three sheets of paper without
a licenser; that all the sermons, all the lectures preached, printed,
vended in such numbers and such volumes as have now wellnigh made all other books unsaleable, should not be armour
enough against one single Enchiridion, without the castle of St.
Angelo of an Imprimatur.
" And lest some should persuade ye, Lords and Commons, that
these arguments of learned men's discouragement at this your
order are mere flourishes, and not real, I could recount what I
have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned men
(for that honour I had), and been counted happy to be born
in such a place of philosophic freedom as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile
condition into which learning amongst them was brought; that this
was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing
had been there written nowthese many years but flattery and fustian.
There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown
old, a prisoner to the inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought. And
though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under
the prelatical yoke, nevertheless I took it as a pledge of future
happiness, that other nations were so persuaded of her liberty.
Yet was it beyond my hope, that those worthies were then
breathing in her air who should be her leaders to such a deliverance as shall never be forgotten by any revolution of time that
this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as
little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among
learned men of other parts uttered against the Inquisition, the
same I should hear, by as learned men at home, uttered in time
of Parliament against an Order of Licensing; and that so generally,
that when I had disclosed myself a companion of their discontent,
I might say, if without envy, that he whom an honest quxastorship
had endeared to the Sicilians was not more by them importuned
against Verres, than the favourable opinion which I had -among
many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded




AREOPA GITICA.


337


me with entreaties and persuasions that I would not despair to
lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind
towards the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon learning.
That this is not therefore the disburdening of a particular fancy,
but the common grievance of all those who had prepared their
minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in
others and from others to entertain it, thus much may satisfy.
And in their name I shall for neither friend nor foe conceal what
the general murmur is; that if it come to Inquisitioning again,
and Licensing, and that we are so timorous of ourselves and suspicious of all men as to fear each book and the shaking of each
leaf before we know what the contents are; if some who but of
late were little better than silenced from preaching, shall come
now to silence us from reading except what they please, it cannot
be guessed what is intended by some but a second tyranny over
learning: and will soon put it out of controversy that bishops and
presbyters are the same to us, both name and thing.
That those evils of prelaty which before from five or six and
twenty sees were distributively charged upon the whole people
will now light wholly upon learning, is not obscure to us, whenas
now the pastor of a small unlearned parish, on the sudden shall
be exalted archbishop over a large diocess of books, and yet not
remove, but keep his other cure too, a mystical pluralist. He
who but of late cried down the sole ordination of every novice
Bachelor of Art, and denied sole jurisdiction over the simplest
parishioner, shall now, at home in his private chair, assume both
these over worthiest and excellentest books, and ablest authors
that write them. This is not the covenants and protestations that
we have made! This is not to put down prelacy; this is but to
chop an episcopacy; this is but to translate the palace metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another; this is but an
old canonical sleight of commuting our penance.  To startle
thus betimes at a mere unlicensed pamphlet, will, after a while
be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a con.
venticle of every Christian meeting.
But I am certain that a State governed by the rules of justice
-and fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock of
faith and true knowledge, cannot be so pusillanimous. While
things are yet not constituted in religion, that freedom of writing
By




338


MAN AND MAN.


should be restrained by a discipline imitated from the prelates
and learned by them from the Inquisition to shut us up all again
into the breast of a Licenser, must needs give cause of doubt and
discouragement to all learned and religious men; who cannot
but discern the fineness of this politic drift, and who are the
contrivers: that while bishops were to be baited down,.then all
presses might be open; it was the people's birthright and privilege
in time of Parliament, it was the breaking forth of light.
But now the bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church,
3 as if our Reformation sought no more but to make room for others
into their seats under another name; the episcopal arts begin to
bud again; the cruise of truth must run no more oil; liberty of
printing must be enthralled again, under a prelatical commission
of twenty; the privilege of the people nullified; and, which is
worse, the freedom of learning must groan again, and to her old
fetters: all this the Parliament yet sitting. Although their own
late arguments and defences against the prelates might remember
them, that this obstructing violence meets for the most part with
an event utterly opposite to the end which it drives at. Instead
of suppressing sects and schisms, it raises them and invests
them with a reputation: "The punishing of wits enhances their
authority," saith the Viscount St. Albans; "and a forbidden
writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in
the faces of them who seek to tread it out."  This order, therefore, may prove a nursing mother to sects, but I shall easily show
how it will be a stepdame to truth: and first, by disenabling us..to the maintenance of what is known already.. -i '        Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and know,
ledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion.
Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her
waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a
muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic
in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so,
or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though
his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.
There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another,
than the charge and care of their religion. There be-who knows
not that there be?-of Protestants and professors, who live and die
in as errant and implicit faith, as any lay papist of Loretto.




A REOPA GITICA.


339


A wealthy man, addicted to his pleasure and to his profits, finds
Religion to be a traffic so entangled, and of so many piddling
accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill to keep a stock
going upon that trade. What should he do? Fain he would
have the name to be religious, fain he would bear up with his
neighbours in that. What does he, therefore, but resolves to give
over toiling, and to find himself out some factor, to whose care
and credit he may commit the whole managing of his religious
affairs; some divine of note and estimation that must be. To
him he adheres, resigns the whole warehouse of his religion,
with all the locks and keys, into his custody; and indeed makes
the very person of that man his religion; esteems his associating
with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own
piety. So that a man may say his religion is now no more within
himself, but is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes
near him, according as that good man frequents the house. He
entertains him, gives him gifts, feasts him, lodges him; his religion
comes home at night, prays, is liberally supped, and sumptuously
laid to sleep; rises, is saluted, and after the malmsey, or some
well-spiced bruage, and better breakfasted than He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs between Bethany
and Jerusalem, his religion walks abroad at eight, and leaves his
kind entertainer in the shop trading all day without his religion.
Another sort there be, who when they hear that all things shall
be ordered, all things regulated and settled; nothing written but
what passes through the custom-house of certain publicans that
have the tonnaging and poundaging of all free-spoken truth; will
straight give themselves up into your hands, make them and cut
them out what religion ye please. There be delights, there be recreations and jolly pastimes, that will fetch the day about from
sun to sun, and rock the tedious year as in a delightful dream.
What need they torture their heads with that which others have
taken so strictly and so unalterably into their own purveying?
These are the fruits which a dull ease and cessation of our knowledge will bring forth among the people. How goodly, and how to
be wished were such an obedient unanimity as this! What a fine
conformity would it starch us all into! Doubtless a staunch and
solid piece of framework, as any January could freeze together.
\ Nor much better will be the consequence even among the




340


MAN AND MAN.


clergy themselves. It is no new thing never heard of before, for a
parochial minister, who has his reward, and is at his Hercules
pillars in a warm benefice, to be easily inclinable, if he have
nothing else that may rouse up his studies, to finish his circuit in
an English Concordance and a topic folio, the gatherings and
savings of a sober graduateship, a Harmony and a Catena, treading the constant round of certain common doctrinal heads,
attended with their uses, motives, marks, and means; out of
which, as out of an alphabet or sol-fa, by forming and transforming,
joining and disjoining variously, a little bookcraft, and two hours'
meditation, might furnish him unspeakably to the performance
of more than a weekly charge of sermoning: not to reckon up
the infinite helps of interliniaries, breviaries, synopses, and other
loitering gear. But as for the multitude of sermons ready printed
and piled up, on every text that is not difficult, our London
trading St. Thomas in his vestry, and add to boot St. Martin and
St. Hugh, have not within their hallowed limits more vendible
ware of all sorts ready made: so that penury he never need fear
of pilpit provision, having where so plenteously to refresh his
magazine. But if his rear and flanks be not impaled, if his back
door be not secured by the rigid licenser, but that a bold book
may now and then issue forth and give the assault to some of his
old collections in their trenches, it will concern him then to keep
waking, to stand in watch, to set good guards and sentinels about
his received opinions, to walk the round and counter-round with his
fellow-inspectors, fearing lest any of his flock be seduced who also
then would be better instructed, better exercised, and disciplined.
And God send that the fear of this diligence, which must then be
used, do not make us affect the laziness of a licensing church?
For if we be sure we are in the right, and do not hold the truth
guiltily, which becomes not, if we ourselves condemn not our own
weak and frivolous teaching, and the people for an untaught and
irreligious gadding route; what can be more fair, than when a
man judicious, learned, and of a conscience, for aught we know,
as good as theirs that taught us what we know, shall-not privily
from house to house, which is more dangerous, but openly-by
writing, publish to the world what his opinion is, what his reasons,
and wherefore that which is now thought cannot be sound?
Christ urged it as wherewith to justify himself, that he preached




k  A REOPA GITICA.


341


in public; yet writing is more public than preaching; and more
easy to refutation if need be, there being so many whose business
and profession merely it is to be the champions of truth; which
if they neglect, what can be imputed but their sloth or inability? )
Thus much we are hindered and disinured by this course of
licensing towards the true knowledge of what we seem to know.
For how much it hurts and hinders the licensers themselves in
the calling of their ministry, more than any secular employment,
if they will discharge that office as they ought, so that of necessity
they must neglect either the one duty or the other, I insist not,
because it is a particular, but leave it to their own conscience
how they will decide it there.
There is yet behind of what I purposed to lay open, the incredible loss and detriment that this plot of licensing puts us to,
more than if some enemy at sea should stop up all our havens,
and ports, and creeks; it hinders and retards the importation of
our richest merchandise  tru. Nay, it was first established and
put in pracfice byanti-Christian malice and mystery, or set purpose to extinguish, if it were possible, the light of reformation,
and to settle falsehood; little differing from that policy wherewith
the Turk upholds his Alcoran, by the prohibiting of printing.
It is not denied, but gladly confessed, we are to send our thanks
and vows to heaven louder than most of nations, for that great
measure of truth which we enjoy, especially in those main points
between us and the pope, with his appurtenances the prelates.
But he who thinks we are to pitch our tent here, and have attained
the utmost prospect of reformation that the mortal glass wherein
we contemplate can show us till we come to beatific vision, that
man by this very opinion declares that he is yet far short of truth.
Truth indeed came once into the world with her Divine Master,
and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he
ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight
arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the
Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the
good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a
thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From
that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear,
imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body
of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as




342


MAN AND MAN.


they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and
Commons, nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming; he
shall bring together every joint and member, and shall mould them
into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection. Suffer not
these licensing prohibitions to stand at every place of opportunity
forbidding and disturbing them that continue seeking, that continue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint.
We boast our light; but if we look not wisely on the sun itself,
it smites us into darkness. Who can discern those planets that
are oft combust, and those stars of brightest magnitude that rise
and set with the sun, until the opposite motion of their orbs bring
them to such a place in the firmament where they may be seen
evening or morning? The light which we have gained was given
us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things
more remote from our knowledge. It is not the unfrocking of a
priest, the unmitring of a bishop, and the removing him from off
the Presbyterian shoulders, that will make us a happy nation. No;
if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule of life both
economical and political, be not looked into and reformed, we
have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin
have beaconed up to us that we are stark blind.
1V There be who perpetually complain of schisms and sects, and
make it such a calamity that any man dissents from their maxims.
It is their own pride and ignorance which causes the disturbing,
who neither will hear with meekness nor can convince, yet all
must be suppressed which is not found in their Syntagma. They
are the troublers, they are the dividers of unity, who neglect and
permit not others to unite those dissevered pieces, which are yet
wanting to the body of Truth. To be still searching what we
know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we
find it (for all her body is homogeneal, and proportional), this is
the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic, and makes
up the best harmony in a Church; not the forced and outward
3 union of cold, and neutral, and inwardly divided minds.
Lords and Commons of England! consider what nation it is
w-hereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors: a nation not
slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and piercing spirit; acute
to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach
of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to. There



AREOPAGITICA;


343 -

fore the studies of learning in her deepest sciences have been so
ancient and so eminent among us, that writers of good antiquity
and able judgment have been persuaded that even the school o
Pythagoras and the Persian wisdom took beginning from the old
philosophy of this island. And that wise and civil Roman, Julius
Agricola, who governed once here for Caesar, preferred the natural
wits of Britain before the laboured studies of the French.
4 { \ Nor is it for nothing that the grave and frugal Transylvanian
sends out yearly from as far as the mountainous borders of Russia
and beyond the Hercynian wilderness, not their youth, but their
staid men, to learn our language and our theological arts. Yet
that which is above all this, the favour and the love of Heaven,
we have great argument to think in a peculiar manner propitious
and propending towards us. Why else was this nation chosen
before any other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclaimed and sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to all Europe? And had it not been the obstinate perverseness of our prelates against the divine and admirable spirit of
Wyclif, to suppress him as a schismatic and innovator, perhaps
neither the Bohemian Huss and Jerome, no, nor the name of
Luther or of Calvin, had been ever known: the glory of reforming all our neighbours had been completely ours. But now, as
our obdurate clergy have with violence demeaned the matter, we
are become hitherto the latest and the backwardest scholars, of
whom God offered to have made us the teachers.
a~    Now once again by all concurrence of signs, and by the general
instinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly
express their thoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and
great period in His Church, even to the reforming of Reformation
itself; what does he then but reveal himself to his servants, and
as his manner is, first to his Englishmen? I say, as his manner
is, first to us; though we mark not the method of his counsels
and are unworthy. Behold now this vast city, a city of refuge,
the mansion-house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with
his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and
hammers working to fashion out the plates and instruments of
armed justice in defence of beleagured truth, than there be pens
and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as




344


31AN AND MAN.


with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation:
others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of
reason and convincement.
What could a man require more from a nation so pliant and so
prone to seek after knowledge?  What wants there to such a
towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful lbourers, to
male a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of
worthies? We reckon more than five months yet to harvest;
there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up the
fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn,
there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many
opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.
Under these fantastic terrors of sect and schism, we wrong the
earnest and zealous thirst after knowledge and understanding
which God hath stirred up in this city. What some lament of, we
rather should rejoice at, should rather praise this pious forwardness
among men to reassume the ill-deputed care of their religion into
their own hands again. A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all
these diligencies to join and unite into one general and brotherly
search after truth; could we but forego this prelatical tradition of
crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and
precepts of men. I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger
should come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a
people and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims,
the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasonings in
the pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out
as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, "If
such were my EpirQts, I would not despair the greatest design
that could be attempted to make a Church or Kingdom happy."
Yet these are the men cried out against for schismatics and
sectaries, as if, while the temple of the Lord was building, some
cutting, some squaring the marble, others hewing the cedars, there
should be a sort of irrational men, who could not consider there
must be many schisms and many dissections made in the quarry
and in the timber ere the house of God can be built. And when
every stone is laid artfully together, it cannot be united, into a continuity, it can but be contiguous in this world. Neither can every
piece of the building be of one form.; nay, rather the perfection con



A REOPA GITICA.


345


sists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and
the graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure.
Let us therefore be more considerate builders, more wise in
spiritual architecture, when great reformation is expected. For
now the time seems come, wherein Moses, the great prophet, may
sit in heaven rejoicing to see that memorable and glorious wish
of his fulfilled, when not only our seventy elders, but all the
Lord's people, are become prophets. No marvel then though
some men, and some good men too perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their
own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions
will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour:
when they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough
into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees
not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches;
nor will beware, until he see our small divided maniples cutting
through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade.
And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects and
schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude, honest perhaps
though over-timorous, of them that vex in this behalf, but shall
laugh in the end at those malicious applauders of our differences,
I have these reasons to persuade me.
First, when a city shall be as it were besieged and blocked
about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round,
defiance and battle oft rumoured to be marching up, even to her
walls and suburb trenches; that then the people, or the greater
part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of
highest and most important matters to be reformed, should be
disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a
rarity and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of,
argues first a singular good will, contentedness, and confidence
in your prudent foresight, and safe government, Lords and Commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bravery and
well-grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small
number of as great spirits among us as his was who, when Rome
was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that
piece of ground at no cheap rate whereon Hannibal himself
encamped his own regiment




M 34                      MAN AND MAN.^    Next, it is a lively aid cheerful presage of our happy success
and victory. For as in a body when the blood is fresh, the spirits
pure and vigorous, not only to vital but to rational faculties, and
those in the acutest and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety,
it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is; so
when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it
has not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety,
but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points
of controversy and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated,
nor drooping to a fatal decay, by casting off the old and wrinkled
skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again,
entering the glorious ways of truth and prosperous virtue, destined
to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks
I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like
a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks.
Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and
kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging
and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of
heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking
birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed
at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.
What should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery
crop of knowledge and new light sprung tip and yet springing daily
in this city? Should ye set an oligarchy of twenty engrossers
over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall
know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel?
Believe it, Lords and Commons! they who counsel ye to such a
suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will
soon show how. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of
all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a
truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government; it
is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and
happy counsels have purchased us; liberty which is the nurse of
all great wits: this is that which hath rarified and enlightened
our spirits like the influence of heaven: this is that which hath
enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up our apprehensions degrees
above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less
Jknowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make




A REEOPA~ GI TICA.


347


yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders o
our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal,
and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that
which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they
were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more
capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue
propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that, unless ye reinforce an
abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may dispatch at will
their own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye and
excite others? Not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct,
and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the
defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if that were
all. Give me the liberty to know, to uttei, and to argue freely l
according to conscience, above all liberties.
What would be best advised then, if it be found so hurtful and
so unequal to suppress opinions for the newness or the unsuitableness to a customary acceptance, will not be my task to say. I
shall only repeat what I have learned from one of your own
honourable number, a right noble and pious lord, who had he
not sacrificed his life and fortunes to the Church and commonwealth, we had not now missed and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument. Ye know him, I am sure; yet
I for honour's sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall name him,
the Lord Brook. He writing of episcopacy, and by the way
treating of sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or rather now the
last words of his dying charge, which I know will ever be of dear
and honoured regard with ye, so full of meekness and breathing
charity, that next to His last testament who bequeathed love and
peace to His disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or
heard words more mild and peaceful. He there exhorts us to
hear with patience and humility those, however they be miscalled,
that desire to live purely in such a use of God's ordinances as
the best guidance of their conscience gives them, and to tolerate
them, though in some disconformity to ourselves. The book itself
will tell us more at large, being published to the world, and dedicated
to the Parliament by him, who both for his life and for his death
deserves that what advice he left be not laid by without perusal.
And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak




3y                   MAN AND MAN.
what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation.
The temple of Janus, with his two controversial faces, might now
not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of
doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the
field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt
her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew
Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? Her con.
futing is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clear knowledge to be sent down among
us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the
discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricated already to our hands.
Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us,
there be who envy and oppose if it come not first in at their
casements. What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by
the wise man to use diligence, " to seek for wisdom as for hidden
treasures," early and late, that another order shall enjoin us, to
know nothing but by statute? When a man hath been labouring
the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished
out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as
it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in
his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the
advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the
matter by dint of argument; for his opponents then to skulk, to
lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the
challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For
who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she
needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her
victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that Error uses
against her power. Give her but room, and do not bind her when
she sleeps, for then she speaks not true as the old Proteus did
who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then
rather she turns herself into all shapes except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time as Micaiah did before
Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness.
Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than
one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein
Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike
herself?  What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of "those




AREOPAGITICA.


349


ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross?"  What great
purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of?
His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day or
regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other
things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we
but Charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy
to be ever judging one another? I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the
ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble, and are
impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from
another, though it be not in fundamentals. And through our
forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any
enthralled piece of Truth out of the grip of custom, we care not to
keep Truth separated from Truth, which is the fiercest rent and
disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect by all
means a rigid external formality we may as soon fall again into
a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of
" wood and hay and stubble" forced and frozen together, which is
more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms.
Not that I can think well of every light separation; or that all
in a church is to be expected "gold and silver, and precious
stones;" it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the
tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the angels'
ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one
mind, as who looks they should be? this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many be tolerated
rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery and
open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil
supremacies so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all
charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain
the weak and the misled. That also which is impious or evil
absolutely either against faith or manners, no law can possibly
permit that intends not to unlaw itself. But those neighbouring
differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether
in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may
be many yet need not interrupt the unity of spirit, if we could
but find among us the bond of peace.
In the meanwhile, if any one would write, and bring his helpful




350


MAN AND MAN.


hand to the slow-moving reformation which we labour under, if
truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least
to speak,. who hath so bejesuited us, that we should trouble that
man with asking licence to do so worthy a deed; and not csider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not aught nlore
likely to be prohibited than Truth itself: whose first appearance
to our eyes, bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is
more unsightly and unplausible than many errors; even as the
person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to.
And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very
opinion of theirs that none must be heard but whom they like,
is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief
cause why sects and schisms do so much abound and true knowledge is kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger
which is in it. For when God shakes a kingdom with strong and
healthful commotions to a general reforming, it is not untrue that
many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing.
But yet more true it is, that God then raises to his own work
men of rare abilities and more than common industry, not only
to look back and revive what hath been taught heretofore, but to
gain further, and to go on some new enlightened steps in the
discovery of truth. For such is the order of God's enlightening
his Church, to dispense and deal out by degrees his beam, so as
our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed
and confined, where and out of what place these his chosen shall
be first heard to speak; for He sees not as man sees, chooses not
as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set
places and assemblies and outward callings of men; planting our
faith one while in the old Convocation house; and another while
in the chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that
shall be there canonized is not sufficient, without plain convincement and the charity of patient instruction, to supple the least
bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian who desires
to walk in the spirit and not in the letter of human trust, for all
the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry
the Seventh himself there, with all his liege tombs about him,
should lend them voices from the dead to swell their number.
h     And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading
schismIatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and




AREOPAGITICA.


distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the
matter thoroughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for
their sakes yet for our own? seeing no man who hath tasted
learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those
who, not contented with stale receipts, are able to manage and
set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the
dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may
yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of truth even for
that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they
be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these
times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither
among the priests, nor among the Pharisees, and we, in the haste
of a precipitant zeal, shall make no distinction, but resolve to
stop their mouths because we fear they come with new and
dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them  ere ve
understand them; no less than woe to us! While thinking thus to
defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.
There have been not a few since the beginning ot this parliament, both of the presbytery and others, who by their unlicensed
books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple
ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day. I
hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us
this bondage, which they themselves have wrought so much good
by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to
young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to
young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought
unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is; if neither their own
remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church by this lett
of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade and execute
the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already
with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no
unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors
themselves; whom the change of their condition hath puffed up,
more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise.
4   And as for regulating the press, let no man think to have the
honour of advising ye better than yourselves have done in that




I


352                 MAN AND MAN.
Order published next before this, "That no book be printed,
unless the printer's and the author's name, or at least the
printer's be registered." Those which otherwise come forth, if
they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy that
man's prevention can use. For this authentic Spanish policy
of licensing books, if I have said aught, will prove the most
unlicensed book itself within a short while; and was the immediate image of a Star Chamber Decree to that purpose made
in those times when that court did the rest of those her pious
works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer,
Whereby ye may guess what kind of state prudence, what love
of the people, what care of religion or good manners there was
at the contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pretended
to bind books to their good behaviour. And how it got the upper
hand of your precedent order so well constituted before, if we
may believe those men whose profession gives them cause to
inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of
some old patentees and monopolizers, in the trade of bookselling;
who, under pretence of the poor in their company not to be
defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy —
which God forbid should be gainsaid-brought divers glossing
colours to the House, which were indeed but colours, and serving
to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours; men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession
to which learning is indebted that they should be made other
men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some
of them in procuring by petition this Order, that having power in
their hands, malignant books might the easier escape abroad, as
the event shows. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not. This I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what magistrate
may not be misinformed, and much the sooner if Liberty of Printing
be reduced into the power of a few? But to redress willingly
and speedily what hath been erred, and in highest authority to
esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a
sumptuous bride, is a virtue, honoured Lords and Commons,
answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.




THE TENURE OF KINGS AND
MAGISTRATES:
PROVING
That it is Lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any), who
have the power, to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and
after due Conviction, to De5ose, and put him to Death, if the ordinary Magistrate have neglected or denied to do it. And that they
who of late so much blame Deposing, are the Men that did it
themselves.
IF men within themselves would be governed by Reason and
not generally give up their understanding to a double, tyranny,
of Custom-from without, and blind Affections within, they would
discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a
nation. But, being slaves within doors, no wonder that they
strive so much to have the public state conformably governed to
the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves. For,
indeed, none can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest
love not freedom but licence, which never hath more scope, or
more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence is it that tyrants are
not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being
all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is
eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters;
against them lies all their hatred and suspicion. Consequently,
neither do bad men hate tyrants, but have been always readiest,
with the falsified names of loyalty and obedience, to colour over
their base compliances.
And although sometimes for shame, and when it comes to
their own grievances, of purse especially, they would seem good
patriots and side with the better cause, yet when others, for the
z




354


MAN AND MAAN.


deliverance of their country, endued with fortitude and heroic
virtue to fear nothing but the curse written against those "that do
the work of the Lord negligently," would go on to remove, not
only the calamities and thraldoms of a people, but the roots and
causes whence they spring; straight these men and sure helpers
at need, as if they hated only the miseries but not the mischiefs,
after they have juggled and paltered with the world, bandied and
borne arms against their king, divested him, disanointed him,
nay, cursed him all over in their pulpits and their pamphlets,
to the engaging of sincere and real men beyond what is possible
or honest to retreat from, not only turn revolters from those
principles which only could at first move them, but lay the strain
of disloyalty, and worse, on those proceedings which are the
necessary consequences of their own former actions; nor disliked
by themselves, were they managed to the entire advantages of
their own faction: not considering the while that he toward whom
they boasted their new fidelity, counted them accessory, and
by those statutes and laws which they so impotently brandish
against others would have doomed them to a traitor's death for
what they have done already.
It is true that most men are apt enough to civil wars and
commotions as a novelty, and for a flash hot and active, but
through sloth or inconstancy and weakness of spirit, either
fainting ere their own pretences, though never so just, be half
attained, or through an inbred falsehood and wickedness, betray
ofttimes to destruction with themselves men of noblest temper
joined with them for causes whereof they in their rash undertakings were not capable. If God and a good cause give them
victory, the prosecution whereof for the most part inevitably
draws after it the alteration of laws, change of government, downfall of princes with their families; then comes the task to those
worthies which are the soul of that enterprise, to be sweat and
laboured out amidst the throng and noses of vulgar and irrational
men. Some contesting for privileges, customs, forms, and that
old entanglement of iniquity, their gibberish laws, though the badge
of their ancient slavery. Others, who have been fiercest against
their prince under the notion of a tyrant, and no mean incendiaries of the war against him, when God, out of his providence
and high disposal hath delivered him into the hand of their




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


355


brethren, on a sudden and in a new garb of allegiance which
their doings have long since cancelled, they plead for him, pity
him, extol him, protest against those that talk of bringing him to
the trial of justice, which is the sword of God, superior to all
mortal things, in whose hand soever by apparent signs his testified
will is to put it.
But certainly, if we consider who and what they are, on a
sudden grown so pitiful, we may conclude their pity can be no
true and Christian commiseration, but either levity and shallowness of mind, or else a carnal admiring of that worldly pomp and
greatness from whence they see him fallen; or rather, lastly, a
dissembled and seditious pity, feigned of industry to beget new
discord. As for mercy, if it be to a tyrant, under which name
they themselves have cited him so oft in the hearing of God, of
angels, and the holy Church assembled, and there charged him
with the spilling of more innocent blood by far than ever Nero
did, undoubtedly the mercy which they pretend is the mercy of
wicked men,-and "their mercies," we read, "are cruelties,"hazarding the welfare of a whole nation, to have saved one whom
they so oft have termed Agag, and vilifying the blood of many
Jonathans who have saved Israel; insisting with much niceness on
the unnecessariest clause of their covenant wrested, wherein the
fear of change and the absurd contradiction of a flattering hostility
had hampered them, but not scrupling to give away for compliments to an implacable revenge, the heads of many thousand
Christians more.
Another sort there is, who coming in the course of these affairs
to have their share in great actions above the form of law or
custom, at least to give their voice and approbation, begin to
swerve and almost shiver at the majesty and grandeur of some
noble deed, as if they were newly entered into a great sin; disputing precedents, forms, and circumstances, when the commonwealth nigh perishes for want of deeds in substance, done with
just and faithful expedition. To these I wish better instruction,
and virtue equal to their calling; the former of which, that is to
say, instruction, I shall endeavour, as my duty is, to bestow on
them; and exhort them not to startle from the just and pious
resolution of adhering, with all their strength and assistance, to
the present Parliament and Army, in the glorious way wherein




356


MAN AND MAN.


justice and victory hath set them-the only warrants through all
ages, next under immediate revelation, to exercise supreme
power-in those proceedings, which hitherto appear equal to
what hath been done in any age or nation heretofore justly or
magnanimously.
Nor let them be discouraged or deterred by any new apostate
scarecrows, who, under show of giving counsel, send out their
barking monitories and mementoes, empty of aught else but the
spleen of a frustrated faction.  For how can that pretended
counsel be either sound or faithful, when they that give it see
not, for madness and vexation of their ends lost, that those
Statutes and Scriptures which both falsely and scandalously they
wrest against their friends and associates, would, by sentence of
the common adversary, fall first and heaviest upon their own
heads? Neither by mild and tender dispositions be foolishly
softened from their duty and perseverance with the unmasculine
rhetoric of any puling priest or chaplain, sent as a friendly letter
of advice, for fashion's sake in private, and forthwith published
by the sender himself that we may know how much of friend
there was in it, to cast an odious envy upon them to whom it
was pretended to be sent in charity. Nor let any man be deluded
by either the ignorance or the notorious hypocrisy and selfrepugnance of our dancing divines, who have the conscience and
the boldness to come with Scripture in their mouths, glossed and
fitted for their turns with a double contradictory sense, transforming the sacred verity of God to an idol with two faces,
looking at once two several ways; and with the same quotations to charge others, which in the same case they made serve
to justify themselves. For while the hope to be made classic
and provincial lords led them on, while pluralities greased them
thick and deep, to the shame and scandal of religion more than
all the sects and heresies they exclaim against; then to fight
against the king's person, and no less a party of his Lords and
Commons, or to put force upon both the Houses, was good, was
lawful, was no resisting of superior powers; they only were
powers not to be resisted who countenanced the good and
punished the evil.
But now that their censorious domineering is not suffered to
be universal, truth and conscience to be freed, tithes and plu



TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


357


ralities to be no more,-though competent allowance provided,and the warm experience of large gifts, and they so good at taking
them; yet now to exclude and seize upon impeached members,
to bring delinquents without exemption to a fair tribunal by the
common national law against murder, is now to be no less than /
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.   He who but erewbile in the
pulpits was a cursed tyrant, an enemy to God and saints, laden
with all the innocent blood spilt in three kingdoms, and so to
be fought against; is now, though nothing penitent or altered
from his first principles, a lawful magistrate, a sovereign lord,
the Lord's anointed, not to be touched, though by themselves
imprisoned.  As if this only were obedience, to preserve the
mere useless bulk of his person, and that only in prison not in
the field, not to disobey his commands, deny him his dignity and
office, everywhere to resist his power, but where they think it
only surviving in their own faction.
But who in particular is a tyrant, cannot be determined in a
general discourse, otherwise than by supposition; his particular
charge, and the sufficient proof of it, must determine that. Which
I leave to magistrates, at least to the uprighter sort of them, and
of the people, though in number less by many, in whom faction
least hath prevailed above the law of nature and right reason, to
judge as they find cause. 'But this I dare own as part of my
faith, that if such a one there be, by whose commission whole
massacres have been committed on his faithful subjects, his
provinces offered to pawn or alienation as the hire of those
whom he had solicited to come in and destroy whole cities and
countries; be he king, or tyrant, or emperor, the sword of justice
is above him; in whose hand soever is found sufficient power to
avenge the effusion and so great a deluge of innocent blood.
For if all human power to execute, not accidentally but intendedly,
the wrath of God upon evil-doers without exception, be of God;
then that power, whether ordinary, or if that fail, extraordinary,
so executing that intent of God, is lawful, and not to be resisted.
But to unfold more at large this whole question, though with all
expedient brevity, I shall here set down, from first beginning, the
original of kings; how and wherefore exalted to that dignity
above their brethren; and from thence shall prove, that turning
to tyranny they may be as lawfully deposed and punished, as they  k




358


MI AN AND MAN.


were at first elected. This I shall do by authorities and reasons,
not learnt in corners among schisms and heresies as our doubling
divines are ready to calumniate, but fetched out of the midst of
choicest and most authentic learning, and no prohibited authors;
nor many heathen, but iVjsaical, Christian, orthodoxal, and, which
must needs be more convincing to our adversaries, presbyterial.
1  No man, who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny, that all
l en naturally were born free, being the image and resemblance
pf God himself, and were, by privilege above all the creatures,
born to command, and not to obey. And that they lived so, till
from the root of Adam's transgression falling among themselves
to do wrong and violence, and foreseeing that such courses must
needs tend to the destruction of them all, they agreed by common
league to bind each other from mutual injury, and jointly to defend
themselves against any that gave disturbance or opposition to such
agreement. Hence came cities, towns, and commonwealths. And
because no faith in all was found sufficiently binding, they saw it
needful to ordain some authority that might restrain by force and
punishment what was violated against peace and common right.
This authority and power of self-defence and preservation being
originally and naturally in every one of them, and unitedly in
them all; for ease, for order, and lest each man should be his
own partial judge, they communicated and derived either to one
whom for the eminence of his wisdom and integrity they chose
above the rest, or to more than one, whom they thought of equal
deserving: the first was called a king; the other, magistrates:
not to be their lords and masters-though afterwards those names
in some places were given voluntarily to such as had been authors
of inestimable good to the people-but to be their deputies and
commissioners, to execute, by virtue of their intrusted power, that
justice, which else every man by the bond of nature and of covenant must have executed for himself, and for one another. And
to him that shall consider well, why among free persons one man
by civil right should bear authority and jurisdiction over another,
no other end or reason can be imaginable.
These for a while governed well, and with much equity decided
all things at their own arbitrement; till the temptation of such a
power left absolute in their hands, perverted them at length to
\injustice and partiality. Then did they who now by trial had
k




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


3;9


found the danger and inconveniencies of committing arbitrary
power to any, invent laws, either framed or consented to by all,
that should confine and limit the authority of whom they chose
to govern them: that so Man, of whose failing they had proof,
might no more rule over them, but Law and Reason, abstracted as
much as might be from personal errors and frailties. " While,
as the magistrate was set above the people, so the law was set
above the magistrate."  When this would not serve, but that the
law was either not executed, or misapplied, they were constrained
from that time, the only remedy left them, to put conditions and
take oaths from all kings and magistrates at their first instalment,
to do impartial justice by law: who, upon those terms and no
other, received allegiance from the people, that is to say, bond or
covenant to obey them in execution of those laws, which they,
the people, had themselves made or assented to. And this
ofttimes with express warning, that if the king or magistrate
proved unfaithful to his trust, the people would be disengaged.
They added also counsellors and parliaments, not to be only at
his beck, but, with him or without him, at set times, or at all
times, when any danger threatened, to have care of the public
safety. Therefore saith Claudius Sesell, a French statesman,
"The Parliament was set as a bridle to the king;" which I
instance rather, not because our English lawyers have not said
the same long before, but because that French monarchy is
granted by all to be a far more absolute one than ours. That
this and the rest of what hath hitherto been spoken is most true,
might be copiously made appear through all stories, heathen and
Christian; even of those nations where kings and emperors have
sought means to abolish all ancient memory of the people's right
by their encroachments and usurpations. But I spare long insertions, appealing to the German, French, Italian, Arragonian, English,
and not least the Scottish histories; not forgetting this only by the
way, that William the Norman, though a conqueror, and not unsworn at his coronation, was compelled a second time to take oath
at St. Alban's ere the people would be brought to yield obedience.
It beinthus manifest, that the Power of Kings and Magistrates
is nothing else but what is only derivative, transferred, and committed to them in trust from the People to the common good of
them all in whom  the power yet remains fundamentally and




360


MAN AND MAN.


cannot be taken from them without a violation of their natural
birthright; and seeing that from hence Aristotle and the best of
political writers have defined a king, "him who governs to the
good and profit of his people, and not for his own ends;" it
follows from necessary causes, that the titles of sovereign lord,
natural lord and the like are either arrogancies or flatteries, not
admitted by emperors and kings of best note, and disliked by the
Church both of Jews (Isa. xxvi. i3) and ancient Christians, as
appears by Tertullian and others. Although generally the people
of Asia, and with them the Jews also, especially since the time
they chose a king against the advice and counsel of God, are
noted by wise authors much inclinable to slavery.
Secondly, that to say, as is usual, the King hath as good right
to his crown and dignity as any man to his inheritance, is to make
the subject no better than the king's slave, his chattel, or his possession that may be bought and sold: and doubtless, if hereditary
title were sufficiently inquired, the best foundation of it would be
found but either in courtesy or convenience. But suppose it to
be of right hereditary, what can be more just and legal, if a subject for certain crimes be to forfeit by law from himself and posterity
all his inheritance to the king, than that a king, for crimes proportional, should forfeit all his title and inheritance to the people?
Unless the people must be thought created all for him, he not
for them, and they all in one body inferior to him single; which
were a kind of treason against the dignity of mankind to affirm.
Thirdly, it follows, that to say Kings are accountable to none
but God, is the overcoming of all law and government. For if
they may refuse to give account, then all covenants made with
them at coronation, all oaths are in vain, and mere mockeries;
all laws which they swear to keep, made to no purpose: for
if the king fear not God-as how many of them do not-we
hold then our lives and estates by the tenure of his mere grace
and mercy, as from a god, not a mortal magistrate; a position
that none but court parasites or men besotted would maintain.
Aristotle, therefore, whom we commonly allow for one of the
best interpreters of nature and morality, writes in the fourth of
his Politics, chap. x., that " monarchy unaccountable is the worst
sort of tyranny, and least of all to be endured by free-born men."
And surely no Christian prince, not drunk with hill mind and




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


36I


prouder than those pagan Caesars that deified themselves, would
arrogate so unreasonably above human condition, or derogate so
basely from a whole nation of men, his brethren, as if for him
only subsisting and to serve his glory, valuing them in comparison of his own brute will and pleasure no more than so many
beasts, or vermin under his feet not to be reasoned with but to be
trod on; among whom there might be found so many thousand
men for wisdom, virtue, nobleness of mind, and all other respects
but the fortune of his dignity, far above him. Yet some would
persuade us that this absurd opinion was King David's, because
in the 5Ist Psalm he cries out to God, "Against thee only have
I sinned;" as if David had imagined, that to murder Uriah and
adulterate his wife had been no sin against his neighbour, whenas
that law of Moses was to the king expressly (Deut. xvii.) not
to think so highly of himself above his brethren. David, therefore, by those words, could mean no other, than either that the
depth of his guiltiness was known to God only, or to so few as
had not the will or power to question him, or that the sin against
God was greater beyond compare than against Uriah. Whatever
his meaning were, any wise man will see, that the pathetical
words of a psalm can be no certain decision to a point that hath
abundantly more certain rules to go by.
How much more rationally spake the heathen king Demophoon,
in a tragedy of Euripides, than these interpreters would put upon
King David! "I rule not my people by tyranny, as if they were
barbarians; but am myself liable, if I do unjustly, to suffer justly."
Not unlike was the speech of Trajan, the worthy emperor, to
one whom he made general of his praetorian forces: "Take this
drawn sword," saith he, "to use for me if I reign well; if not, to
use against me." Thus Dion relates. And not Trajan only, but
Theodosius, the younger, a Christian emperor, and one of the
best, caused it to be enacted as a rule undeniable and fit to be
acknowledged by all kings and emperors, that a prince is bound to
the laws; that on the authority of law the authority of a prince
depends, and to the laws ought to submit. Which edict of his
remains yet unrepealed in the code of Justinian (1. i. tit. 24),
as a sacred constitution to all the succeeding emperors. How
can any king in Europe maintain and write himself accountable to none but God, when emperors in their own imperial




362


MAN AND MAN.


statutes have written and decreed themselves accountable to
law? And indeed where such account is not feared, he that
bids a man reign over him above law, may bid as well a savage
beast.
It follows, lastly, that since the King or Magistrate holds nis
authority of the People, both originally and naturally for their
good, in the first place, and not his own, then may the people, as
oft as they shall judge it for the best, either choose him or reject
him, retain him or depose him, though no tyannt, merely by the
liberty and right of freeborn men to be governed as seems to
them best. This, though it cannot but stand with plain reason,
shall be made good also by Scripture (Deut. xvii. 14): "When
thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,
and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations
about me." These words confirm us that the right of choosing,
yea of changing their own government, is by the grant of God
himself in the people. And therefore when they desired a king,
though then under another form of government, and though their
changing displeased him, yet he that was himself their king, and
rejected by them, would not be a hindrance to what they intended, further than by persuasion, but that they might do therein
as they saw good (r Sam. viii.), only he reserved to himself the
nomination of who should reign over them. Neither did that
exempt the king, as if he were to God only accountable, though
by his especial command anointed. Therefore " David first made
a covenant with the elders of Israel, and so was by them anointed
king" (2 Sam. v. 3; i Chron. xi.). And Jehoiada the priest,
making Jehoash king, made a covenant between him and the
people (2 Kings xi. 17). Therefore when Rehoboam, at his
coming to the crown, rejected those conditions which the Israelites
brought him, hear what they answer him: "What portion have
we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse? See to thine
own house, David." And for the like conditions not performed,
all Israel before that time deposed Samuel; not for his own
default, but for the misgovernment of his sons.
But some will say to both these examples, it was evilly done.
I answer, that not the latter, because it was expressly allowed
them in the Law, to set up a king if they pleased; and God himself joined with them in the work; though in some sort it was at




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


363


that time displeasing to him, in respect of old Samuel, who had
governed them uprightly; as Livy praises the Romans, who took
occasion from Tarquinius, a wicked prince, to gain their liberty,
which to have extorted, saith he, from Numa, or any of the good
kings before, had not been seasonable. Nor was it in the former
example done unlawfully; for when Rehoboam had prepared a
huge army to reduce the Israelites, he was forbidden by the prophet
(i Kings xii. 24): "Thus saith the Lord, ye shall not go up, nor
fight against your brethren, for this thing is from me." He calls
them their brethren, not rebels, and forbids to be proceeded
against them, owning the thing himself, not by single providence
but by approbation, and that not only of the act, as in the former
example, but of the fit season also: he had not otherwise forbid
to molest them. And those grave and wise counsellors, whom
Rehoboam first advised with, spake no such thing as our old
grey-headed flatterers now are wont-' Stand upon your birthright,
scorn to capitulate; you hold of God, not of them; '-for they
knew no such matter, unless conditionally, but gave him politic
counsel, as in a civil transaction.
Therefore Kingdom and Magistracy, whether supreme or subordinate, is called "a human ordinance" (i Pet. ii. 13, &c.),
which we are there taught is the will of God we should submit to,
so far as for the punishment of evil-doers and the encouragement
of them that do well. "Submit," saith he, " as free men."  But
to any civil power unaccountable, unquestionable, and not to be
resisted, no, not in wickedness, and violent actions, how can we
submit as free men? "There is no power but of God," saith
Paul (Rom. xiii.); as much as to say, God put it into man's
heart to find out that way at first for common peace and preservation, approving the exercise thereof; else it contradicts Peter,
who calls the same authority an ordinance of man. It must be
also understood of lawful and just power, else we read of great
power in the affairs and kingdoms of the world permitted to the
devil: for saith he to Christ (Luke iv. 6), "All this power will
I give thee, and the glory of them, for it is delivered to me,
and to whomsoever I will, I give it." Neither did he lie, or Christ
gainsay what he affirmed; for in the thirteenth of the Revelation,
we read how the Dragon gave to the Beast his power, his seat, and
great authority: which beast so authorized most expound to be




364


MAN AND MAN.


the tyrannical powers and kingdoms of the earth. Therefore
Saint Paul in the forecited chapter tells us, that such magistrates
he means as are not a terror to the good but to the evil; such
as bear not the sword in vain, but to punish offenders, and to
encourage the good.
If such only be mentioned here as powers to be obeyed, and
our submission to them only required, then doubtless those powers
that do the contrary are no powers ordained of God; and by consequence no obligation laid upon us to obey or not to resist them.
And it may be well observed, that both these Apostles, whenever
they give this precept, express it in terms not concrete, but
abstract, as logicians are wont to speak; that is, they mention
the ordinance, the power, the authority, before the persons that
execute it; and what that power is, lest we should be deceived,
they describe exactly. So that if the power be not such, or the
person execute not such power, neither the one nor the other is of
God, but of the devil, and by consequence to be resisted. From
this exposition Chrysostom also, on the same place, dissents not;
explaining that these words were not written in behalf of a tyrant.
And this is verified by David, himself a king, and likeliest to be
author of the Psalm (xciv. 20) which saith, "Shall the throne of
iniquity have fellowship with thee?"  And it were worth the
knowing, since kings in these days, and that by Scripture, boast
the justness of their title by holding it immediately of God yet
cannot show the time when God ever set on the throne them or
their forefathers, but only when the people chose them; why by
the same reason, since God ascribes as oft to himself the casting
down of princes from the throne, it should not be thought as
lawful, and as much from God, when none are seen to do it but
the people, and that for just causes. For if it needs must be a
sin in them to depose, it may as likely be a sin to have elected.
And contrary, if the people's act in election be pleaded by a king
as the act of God and the most just title to enthrone him, why
may not the people's act of rejection be as well pleaded by the
people as the act of God and the most just reason to depose him?
So that we see the title and just right of reigning or deposing, in
reference to God, is found in Scripture to be all one; visible only
in the people, and depending merely upon justice and demerit.
Thus far hath been considered chiefly the Power of Kings and




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


365


Magistrates; how it was and is originally the people's, and by
them conferred in trust only to be employed to the common
peace and benefit; with liberty therefore and right remaining in
them, to reassume it to themselves, if by kings or magistrates
it be abused; or to dispose of it by any alteration, as they shall
judge most conducing to the public good.
We may from hence with more ease and force of argument
determine what a tyrant is, and what the people may do against
him. A tyrant, whether by wrong or by right coming to the
crown, is he who, regarding neither law nor the common good,
reigns only for himself and his faction: thus St. Basil, among
others, defines him. And because his power is great, his will
boundless and exorbitant, the fulfilling whereof is for the most
part accompanied with innumerable wrongs and oppressions of
the people, murders, massacres, rapes, adulteries, desolation, and
subversion of cities and whole provinces; look how great a good
and happiness a just king is so great a mischief is a tyrant; as
he the public father of his country, so this the common enemy
against whom what the people lawfully may do, as against a
common pest and destroyer of mankind, I suppose no man of
clear judgment need go further to be guided than by the very
principles of nature in him.
But because it is the vulgar folly of men to desert their own
reason, and shutting their eyes to think they see best with other
men's, I shall show, by such examples as ought to have most weight
with us, what hath been done in this case heretofore. The Greeks
and Romans, as their prime authors witness, held it not only lawful, but a glorious and heroic deed, rewarded publicly with statues
and garlands, to kill an infamous tyrant at any time without
trial; and but reason, that he who trod down all law should not
be vouchsafed the benefit of law. Insomuch that Seneca, the
tragedian, brings in Hercules, the grand suppressor of tyrants,
thus speaking:"Victima haud ulla amplior
Potest, magisque opima mactari Jovi
Quam rex iniquus."
"There can be slain
No sacrifice to God more acceptable
Than an unjust and wicked king."




366


MAN AND MAN.


But of these I name no more, lest it be objected they were
heathen; and come to produce another sort of men, that had the
knowledge of true religion.  Among the Jews this custom of
tyrant-killing was not unusual. First, Ehud, a man whom God
had raised to deliver Israel from Eglon, King of Moab, who had
conquered and ruled over them eighteen years, being sent to him
as an ambassador with a present, slew him in his own house.
But he was a foreign prince, an enemy, and Ehud besides had
special warrant from God. To the first I answer, it imports not
whether foreign or native: for no prince so native but professes
to hold by Law; which when he himself overturns, breaking all
the covenants and oaths that gave title to his dignity and were
the bond and alliance between him and his people, what differs
he from an outlandish king or from an enemy?
For look how much right the King of Spain hath to govern us
at all, so much right hath the King of England to govern us
tyrannically.  If he, though not bound to us by any league,
coming from Spain in person to subdue us or to destroy us,
might lawfully by the people of England either be slain in fight
or put to death in captivity, what hath a native king to plead,bound by so many covenants, benefits, and honours, to the
welfare of his people,-why he through the contempt of all laws
and parliaments, the only tie of our obedience to him, for his own
vill's sake, and a boasted prerogative unaccountable, after seven
years' warring and destroying of his best subjects, overcome, and
yielded prisoner, should think to scape unquestionable as a thing
divine, in respect of whom so many thousand Christians destroyed
should lie unaccounted for, polluting with their slaughtered carcasses all the land over and crying for vengeance against the
living that should have righted them? Who knows not that there
is a mutual bond of amity and brotherhood between Man ahd
Man over all the world, neither is it the English sea that can
sever us from that duty and relation: a straiter bond yet there is
between fellow-subjects, neighbours, and friends. But when any
of these do one to another so as hostility could do no worse, what
doth the law decree less against them, than open enemies and
invaders? or if the law be not present or too weak, what doth it
warrant us to less than single defence or civil war? and from that
time forward the law of civil defensive war differs nothing from




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRA TES.


367


the law of foreign hostility. Nor is it distance of place that
makes enmity, but enmity that makes distance. He, therefore,
that keeps peace with me, near or remote, of whatsoever nation,
is to me, as far as all civil and human offices, an Englishman and
a neighbour: but if an Englishman, forgetting all laws, human,
civil, and religious, offend against life and liberty, to him offended,
and to the Law in his behalf, though born in the same womb, he
is no better than a Turk, a Saracen, a heathen.
This is Gospel, and this was ever law among equals; how much
rather then in force against any king whatever who in respect of
the people is confessed inferior and not equal: to distinguish,
therefore, of a tyrant by outlandish, or domestic, is a weak
evasion. To the second, that he was an enemy, I answer, what
tyrant is not? yet Eglon by the Jews had been acknowledged as
their sovereign, they had served him eighteen years, as long
almost as we our William the Conqueror, in all which he could
not be so unwise a statesman but to have taken of them oaths of
fealty and allegiance; by which they made themselves his proper
subjects, as their homage and present sent by Ehud testified. To
the third, that he had special warrant to kill Eglon in that manner,
it cannot be granted, because not expressed; it is plain that he
was raised by God to be a deliverer, and wefit on just principles,
such as were then and ever held allowable to deal so by a tyrant
that could no otherwise be dealt with.
Neither did Samuel, though a prophet, with his own hand
abstain from Agag; a foreign enemy no doubt; but mark the
reason: " As thy sword has made women childless;" a cause that
by the sentence of law itself nullifies all relations. And as the
Law is between brother and brother, father and son, master and
servant, wherefore not between king, or rather tyrant, and people?
And whereas Jehu had special command to slay Jehoram, a
successive and hereditary tyrant, it seems not the less imitable
for that; for where a thing grounded so much on natural reason
hath the addition of a command from God, what does it but
establish the lawfulness of such an act?  Nor is it likely that
God, who had so many ways of punishing the house of Ahab,
would have sent a subject against his prince, if the fact in itself,
as done to a tyrant, had been of bad example. And if David
refused to lift his hand against the Lord's anointed, the matter




368


MAN AND MAN.


between them was not tyranny, but private enmity; and David,
as a private person, had been his own revenger, not so much the
people's. But when any tyrant at this day can show himself to be
the Lord's anointed, the only mentioned reason why David withheld his hand, he may then, but not till then, presume on the
same privilege.
We may pass, therefore, hence to Christian times. And first,
our Saviour himself, how much he favoured tyrants and how
much intended they should be found or honoured among Christians, declared his mind not obscurely; accounting their absolute
authority no better than Gentilism, yea, though they flourished it
over with the splendid name of benefactors; charging those that
would be his disciples to usurp no such dominion; but that they
who were to be of most authority among them, should esteem
themselves ministers and servants to the public, Matt. xx. 25:
"The princes of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them;" and
Mark x. 42: "They that seem to rule," saith he, either slighting
or accounting them no lawful rulers; "but ye shall not be so,
but the greatest among you shall be your servant." And although
he himself were the meekest, and came on earth to be so, yet to
a tyrant we hear him not vouchsafe an humble word: but, "Tell
that fox," Luke xiii. So far we ought to be from thinking that
Christ and his Gospel should be made a sanctuary for tyrants from
justice, to whom his law before never gave such protection.
And wherefore did his mother, the Virgin Mary, give such praise
to God in her prophetic song, that he had now, by the coming of
Christ, cut down dynastas, or proud monarchs, from the throne,
if the Church, when God manifests his power in them to do so,
should rather choose all misery and vassalage to serve them, and
let them still sit on their potent seats to be adored for doing
mischief?
Surely it is not for nothing that tyrants, by a kind of natural
instinct, both hate and fear none more than the true Church and
saints of God, as the most dangerous enemies and subverters of
monarchy, though indeed of tyranny. Hath not this been the
perpetual cry of courtiers and court-prelates? Whereof no likelier
cause can be alleged, but that they well discerned the mind and
principles of most devout and zealous men, and indeed the very
discipline of Church. tending to the dissolution of all tyranny.




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


369


No marvel then if since the faith of Christ received, in purer or
impurer times, to depose a king and put him to death for tyranny
hath been accounted so just and requisite, that neighbour kings
have both upheld and taken part with subjects in the action.
And Ludovicus Pius, himself an emperor, and son of Charles the
Great, being made judge (du Haillan is my author) between
Milegast, king of the Vultzes, and his subjects, who had deposed
him, gave his verdict for the subjects, and for him whom they
had chosen in his room. Note here, that the right of electing
whom they please is, by the impartial testimony of an emperor,
in the people: for, said he, " A just prince ought to be preferred
before an unjust, and the end of government before the prerogative."
And Constantinus Leo, another emperor, in the Byzantine
laws, saith, "That the end of a king is for the general good,
which he not performing, is but the counterfeit of a king."  And
to prove that some of our own monarchs have acknowledged
that their high office exempted them not from punishment, they
had the sword of St. Edward borne before them by an officer,
who was called earl of the palace, even at the times of their
highest pomp and solemnities; to mind them, saith Matthew
Paris, the best of our historians, "that if they erred, the sword
had power to restrain them."  And what restraint the sword
comes to at length, having both edge and point, if any sceptic
will doubt, let him feel. It is also affirmed from diligent search
made in our ancient books of law, that the peers and barons of
England had a legal right to judge the king: which was the
cause most likely-for it could be no slight cause-that they were
called his peers, or equals. This, however, may stand immovable, so long as man hath to deal with no better than man; that
if our law judge all men to the lowest by their peers, it should,
in all equity, ascend also, and judge the highest.
And so much I find both in our own and foreign story, that
dukes, earls, and marquisses were at first not hereditary, not
empty and vain titles, but names of trust and office, and with the
office ceasing; as induces me to be of opinion, that every worthy
man in Parliament-for the word baron imports no more-might
for the public good be thought a fit peer and judge of the king,
without regard had to petty caveats and circumstances, the chief
2A




370


M~AN AND MAN.~


impediment in high affairs, and ever stood upon most by circumstantial men. Whence doubtless our ancestors who were not
ignorant with what rights either nature or ancient constitution had
endowed them, when oaths both at coronation and renewed in
parliament would not serve, thought it no way illegal to depose
and put to death their tyrannous kings. Insomuch that the
Parliament drew up a charge against Richard the Second, and the
Commons requested to have judgment decreed against him, that
the realm might not be endangered. And Peter Martyr, a divine
of foremost rank, on the third of Judges approves their doings.
Sir Thomas Smith also, a Protestant and a statesman, in his
Commonwealth of England, putting the question, " whether it be
lawful to rise against a tyrant;" answers, "that the vulgar judge
of it according to the event and the learned according to the
purpose of them that do it."
But far before those days, Gildas, the most ancient of all our
historians, speaking of those times wherein the Roman empire
decaying, quitted and relinquished what right they had by conquest to this island, and resigned it all into the people's hands,
testifies that the people thus reinvested with their own original
right, about the year 446, both elected them kings, whom they
thought best, the first Christian British kings that ever reigned
here since the Romans, and by the same right, when they
apprehended cause, usually deposed and put them to death.
This is the most fundamental and ancient tenure that any King
of England can produce or pretend to; in comparison of which,
all other titles and pleas are but of yesterday. If any object,
that Gildas condemns the Britons for so doing, the answer is as
ready; that he condemns them no more for so doing than he did
before for choosing such; for, saith he, "They anointed them
kings not of God, but such as were more bloody than the rest."
Next, he condemns them not at all for deposing or putting them
to death, but for doing it over hastily, without trial or well exanYining the cause, and for electing others worse in their room.
Thus we have here both domestic and most ancient examples,
that the people of Britain have deposed and put to death their
kings in those primitive Christian times. And to couple reason
with example, if the Church in all ages, primitive, Romish, or
Protestant, held it ever no less their duty than the power of their




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAIGISTRATES.


371


keys, though without express warrant of Scripture, to bring indifferently both king and peasant under the utmost rigour of their
canons and censures ecclesiastical, even to the smiting him with a
final excommunion if he persist impenitent; what hinders but that
the temporal law both may and ought, though without a special
text or precedent, extend with like indifference the civil sword,
to the cutting off, without exemption, him that capitally offends,
seeing that justice and religion are from the same God, and works
of justice ofttimes more acceptable? Yet because that some lately,
with the tongues and arguments of malignant backsliders, have
written that the proceedings now in Parliament against the king
are without precedent from any Protestant state or kingdom, the
examples which follow shall be all Protestant, and chiefly Presbyterian.
In the year I546, the Duke of Saxony, Landgrave of Hesse,
and the whole Protestant league, raised open war against Charles
the Fifth, their emperor, sent him a defiance, renounced all faith
and allegiance toward him, and debated long in council whether
they should give him so much as the title of Caesar. Let all men
judge what this wanted of deposing or of killing, but the power to
do it.
In the year 1559, the Scots Protestants claiming promise of
their queen-regent for liberty of conscience, she answering that
promises were not to be claimed of princes beyond what was
commodious for them to grant, told her to her face in the Parliament then at Stirling, that if it were so, they renounced their
obedience; and soon after betook them to arms. Certainly,
when allegiance is renounced, that very hour the king or queen
is in effect deposed.
In the year 1564, John Knox, a most famous divine, and the
Reformer of Scotland to the Presbyterian discipline, at a General
Assembly maintained openly, in a dispute against Lethington, the
Secretary of State, that subjects might and ought to execute God's
judgments upon their king; that the fact of Jehu and others
against their king, having the ground of God's ordinary command
to put such and such offenders to death, was not extraordinary,
but to be imitated of all that preferred the honour of God to the
affection of flesh and wicked princes; that kings, if they offend,
have no privilege to be exempted from the punishments of law




372


MAN AND MAN.


more than any other subject: so that if the king be a murderer,
adulterer, or idolater, he should suffer, not as a king, but as an
offender; and this position he repeats again and again before them.
Answerable was the opinion of John Craig, another learned divine,
and that laws made by the tyranny of princes or the negligence
of people their posterity might abrogate, and reform all things
according to the original institution of commonwealths. And
Knox being commanded by the nobility to write to Calvin and
other learned men for their judgments in that question, refused,
alleging, that both himself was fully resolved in conscience, and
had heard their judgments, and had the same opinion under
handwriting of many the most godly and most learned that he
knew in Europe; that if he should move the question to them
again, what should he do but show his own forgetfulness or inconstancy? All this is far more largely in the ecclesiastical history
of Scotland (1. iv.) with many other passages to this effect all the
book over, set out with diligence by Scotsmen of best repute
among them at the beginning of these troubles; as if they laboured
to inform us what we were to do, and what they intended upon
the like occasion.
And to let the world know, that the whole Church and Protestant state of Scotland in those purest times of Reformation were
of the same belief, three years after, they met in the field Mary,
their lawful and hereditary queen, took her prisoner, yielding
before fight, kept her in prison, and the same year deposed her.
And four years after that, the Scots, in justification of their
deposing Queen Mary, sent ambassadors to Queen Elizabeth,
and in a written declaration alleged, that they had used towards
her more lenity than she deserved; that their ancestors had heretofore punished their kings by death or banishment; that the
Scots were a free nation, made king whom they freely chose, and
with the same freedom unkinged him if they saw cause, by right
of ancient laws and ceremonies yet remaining, and old customs
yet among the highlanders in choosing the head of their clans
or families; all which, with many other arguments, bore witness,
that regal power was nothing else but a mutual covenant or stipu.
lation between King and People. These were Scotchmen and
Presbyterians: but what measure then have they lately offered, to
think such liberty less beseeming us than themselves, presuming




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


373


to put him upon us for a master whom their law scarce allows to
be their own equal? If now then we hear them in another strain
than heretofore in the purest times of their Church, we may be
confident it is the voice of faction speaking in them, not of truth
and reformation, which no less in England than in Scotland, by
the mouths of those faithful witnesses commonly called Puritans
and Nonconformists, spake as clearly for the putting down, yea,
the utmost punishing of kings, as in their several treatises may
be read; even from the first reign of Elizabeth to these times.
Insomuch that one of them, whose name was Gibson, foretold
King James he should be rooted out, and conclude his race, if
he persisted to uphold bishops. And that very inscription,
stamped upon the first coins at his coronation, a naked sword in
a hand with these words, " Si mereor in mle," " Against me, if I
deserve," not only manifested the judgment of that state, but
seemed also to presage the sentence of divine justice in this
event upon his son.
In the year I58i, the States of Holland, in a general assembly
at the Hague, abjured all obedience and subjection to Philip,
King of Spain; and in a declaration justify their so doing; for
that by his tyrannous government, against faith so many times
given and broken, he had lost his right to all the Belgic provinces;
that therefore they deposed him, and declared it lawful to choose
another in his stead. From that time to this, no state or kingdom in the world hath equally prospered: but let them remember
not to look with an evil and prejudicial eye upon their neighbours,
walking by the same rule.
But what need these examples to Presbyterians, I mean to
those who now of late would seem so much to abhor deposing,
whenas they to all Christendom have given the latest and the,/
liveliest example of doing it themselves? I question not the
lawfulness of raising war against a tyrant in defence of religion,
or civil liberty; for no Protestant Church, from the first Waldenses
of Lyons and Languedoc to this day, but done it round, and
maintained it lawful. But this I doubt not to affirm, that the
Presbyterians, who now so much condemn deposing, were the
men themselves that deposed the king, and cannot, with all their
shifting and relapsing, wash off the guiltiness from their own
hands. For they themselves, by these their late doings, have




374


MAN AND MAN.


made it guiltiness, and turned their own warrantable actions into
rebellion.
There is nothing that so actually makes a King of England,
as rightful possession and supremacy in all causes both civil and
ecclesiastical: and nothing that so actually makes a subject of
England as those two oaths of allegiance and supremacy observed
without equivocating or any mental reservation. Out of doubt
then, when the king shall command things already constituted in
Church or State, obedience is the true essence of a subject, either
to do, if it be lawful, or if he hold the thing unlawful, to submit
to that penalty which the law imposes, so long as he intends to
remain a subject. Therefore when the people, or any part of
them, shall rise against the king and his authority, executing the
law in anything established, civil or ecclesiastical, I do not say it
is rebellion, if the thing commanded though established be unlawful, and that they sought first all due means of redress (and
no man is further bound to law); but I say it is an absolute
renouncing both of supremacy and allegiance, which, in one word,
is an actual and total deposing of the king, and the setting up of
another supreme authority over them.
And whether the Presbyterians have not done all this and much
more, they will not put me, I suppose, to reckon up a seven
years' story, fresh in the memory of all men. Have they not
utterly broke the oath of allegiance, rejecting the king's command
and authority sent them from any part of the kingdom, whether
in things lawful or unlawful? Have they not abjured the oath
of supremacy, by setting up the Parliament without the king,
supreme to all their obedience; and though their vow and covenant bound them in general to the Parliament, yet sometimes
adhering to the lesser part of Lords and Commons that remained
faithful, as they term it, and even of them, one while to the
Commons without the Lords, another while to the Lords without
the Commons?   Have they not still declared their meaning,
whatever their oath were, to hold them only for supreme whom
they found at any time most yielding to what they petitioned?
Both these oaths which were the straitest bond of an English
subject in reference to the king, being thus broke and made void,
it follows undeniably, that the king from that time was by them
in fact absolutely deposed, and they no longer in reality to be




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


375


thought his subjects, notwithstanding their fine clause in the
Covenant to preserve his person, crown, and dignity, set there
by some dodging casuist with more craft than sincerity, to mitigate
the matter in case of ill success, and not taken, I suppose, by any
honest man, but as a condition subordinate to every the least
particle, that might more concern religion, liberty, or the public
peace.
To prove it yet more plainly, that they are the men who have
deposed the king, I thus argue. We know that king and subject
are relatives, and relatives have no longer being than in the
relation; the relation between king and subject can be no other
than regal authority and subjection. Hence I infer, past their
defending, that if the subject, who is one relative, take away the
relation, of force he takes away also the other relative; but the
Presbyterians, who were one relative, that is to say, subjects,
have for this seven years taken away the relation, that is to say,
the king's authority, and their subjection to it; therefore the
Presbyterians for these seven years have removed and extinguished
the other relative, that is to say, the king; or, to speak more in
brief, have deposed him; not only by depriving him the execution of his authority, but by conferring it upon others.
If then their oaths of subjection broken, new supremacy obeyed,
new oaths and covenant taken, notwithstanding frivolous evasions,
have in plain terms unkinged the king, much more than hath
their seven years' war; not deposed him only, but outlawed him,
and defied him as an alien, a rebel to law, and enemy to the
state; it must needs be clear to any man not averse fromre ason,
that hostility and subjection are two direct and positive contraries,
and can no more in one subject stand together in respect of the
same king, than one person at the same time can be in two
remote places. Against whom therefore the subject is in act of
hostility, we may be confident, that to him he is in no subjection:
and in whom hostility takes place of subjection, for they can by
no means consist together, to him the king can be not only no
king, but an enemy.
So that from hence we shall not need dispute, whether they
have deposed him, or what they have defaulted towards him as
no king, but show manifestly how much they have done towards
the killing him. Have they not levied all these wars against




376


MAN AND MAN.


him, whether offensive or defensive-for defence in war equally
offends, and most prudently beforehand-and given commission
to slay, where they knew his person could not be exempt from
danger? And if chance or flight had not saved him, how often
had they killed him, directing their artillery, without blame or
prohibition, to the very place where they saw him stand? Have
they not sequestered him, judged or unjudged, and converted his
revenue to other uses, detaining from him, as a grand delinquent,
all means of livelihood, so that for them long since he might
have perished or have starved?  Have they not hunted and
pursued him round about the kingdom with sword and fire?
Have they not formerly denied to treat with him, and their now
recanting ministers preached against him, as a reprobate incurable, an enemy to God and his Church, marked for destruction,
and therefore not to be treated with? Have they not besieged
him, and to their power forbid him water and fire, save what
they shot against him to the hazard of his life? Yet while they
thus assaulted and endangered it with hostile deeds, they swore
in words to defend it, with his crown and dignity; not in order,
as it seems now, to a firm and lasting peace, or to his repentance
after all this blood; but simply, without regard, without remorse,
or any comparable value of all the miseries and calamities suffered
by the poor people, or to suffer hereafter, through his obstinacy
or impenitence.
No understanding man can be ignorant, that covenants are
ever made according to the present state of persons and of
things; and have ever the more general laws of nature and of
reason included in them, though not expressed.  If I make a
voluntary covenant, as with a man to do him good, and he prove
afterward a monster to me, I should conceive a disobligement.
If I covenant not to hurt an enemy, in favour of him and forbearance and hope of his amendment, and he, after that, shall
do me tenfold injury and mischief to what he had done when I
so covenanted, and still be plotting what may tend to my destruction, I question not but that his after-actions release me; nor
know I covenant so sacred, that withholds me from demanding
justice on him.
Howbeit, had not their distrust in a good cause, and the fast
and loose of our prevaricating divines, overswayed, it had been




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


377


doubtless better not to have inserted in a Covenant unnecessary
obligations, and words, not works, of supererogating allegiance to
their enemy; no way advantageous to themselves, had the king
prevailed, as to their cost many would have felt, but full of
snare and distraction to our friends; useful only, as we now find,
to our adversaries, who under such a latitude and shelter of
ambiguous interpretation have ever since been plotting and contriving new opportunities to trouble all again. How much better
had it been, and more becoming an undaunted virtue, to have
declared openly and boldly whom and what power the people
were to hold supreme, as on the like occasion Protestants have
done before, and many conscientious men now in these times
have more than once besought the Parliament to do, that they
might go on upon a sure foundation, and not with a riddling
Covenant in their mouths, seeming to swear counter, almost in
the same breath, allegiance and no allegiance; which doubtless
had drawn off all the minds of sincere men from siding with
them, had they not discerned their actions far more deposing
him than their words upholding him; which words, made now
the subject of cavillous interpretations, stood ever in the Covenant, by judgment of the more discerning sort, an evidence of
their fear, not of their fidelity.
What I should return to speak on, of those attempts for which
the king himself hath often charged the Presbyterians of seeking
his life, whenas, in the due estimation of things, they might without a fallacy be said to have done the deed outright? Who knows
not, that the king is a name of dignity and office, not of person?
Who therefore kills a king, must kill him while he is a king.
Then they certainly who by deposing him have long since taken
from him the life of a king, his office and his dignity, they in the
truest sense may be said to have killed the king: not only by
their deposing and waging war against him, which besides the
danger to his personal life, set him in the furthest opposite point
from any vital function of a king, but by their holding him in
prison, vanquished and yielded into their absolute and despotic
power, which brought him to the lowest degradement and incapacity of the regal name. I say not by whose matchless valour,
next under God, lest the story of their ingratitude thereupon
carry me from the purpose in hand, which is to convince them




378


MAN AND MAN.


that they, which I repeat again, were the men who in the truest
sense killed.the king, not only as is proved before; but by depressing him, their king, far below the rank of a subject to the
condition of a captive, without intention to restore him, as the
chancellor of Scotland in a speech told him plainly at Newcastle,
I unless he granted fully all their demands, which they knew he
I never meant.
Nor did they treat, or think of treating, with him, till their
hatred to the army that delivered them, not their love or duty
to the king, joined them secretly with men sentenced so oft for
reprobates in their own mouths, by whose subtle inspiring they
grew mad upon a most tardy and improper treaty. Whereas if
the whole bent of their actions had not been against the king
himself, but only against his evil counsellors, as they feigned and
published, wherefore did they not restore him all that while to
the true life of a king, his office, crown, and dignity, when he
was in their power and they themselves his nearest counsellors?
'I he truth, therefore, is, both that they would not, and that indeed
they could not without their own certain destruction, having reduced him to such a final pass as was the very death and burial
of all that in him was regal, and from whence never King of
England yet revived, but by the new reinforcement of his own
party which was a kind of resurrection to him.
Thus having quite extinguished all that could be in him of
a king, and from a total privation clad him over, like another
specifical thing, with forms and habitudes destructive to the
former, they left in his person, dead as to law and all the civil
right either of king or subject, the life only of a prisoner, a captive and a malefactor. Whom the equal and impartial hand of
justice finding was no more to spare than another ordinary man,
not only made obnoxious to the doom of law, by a charge more
than once drawn up against him, and his own confession to the
first article at Newport, but summoned and arraigned in the sight
of God and his people, cursed and devoted to perdition worse
than any Ahab or Antiochus, with exhortation to curse all those
in the name of God that made not war against him, as bitterly
as Meroz was to be cursed that went not out against a Canaanitish
king, almost in all the sermons, prayers, and fulminations, that
have been uttered this seven years by those cloven tongues of




TENURE OF KINGS AND MA GISTRA TES.


379


falsehood and dissension who now, to the stirring up of new
discord, acquit him, and against their own discipline, which they
boast to be the throne and sceptre of Christ, absolve him, unconfound him; though unconverted, unrepentant, insensible of all
their precious saints and martyrs whose blood they have so often
laid upon his head, and now again, with a new sovereign
anointment, can wash it all off, as if it were as vile and no more
to be reckoned for than the blood of so many dogs in a time of
pestilence: giving the most opprobrious lie to all the acted zeal
that for these many years hath filled their bellies and fed them
fat upon the foolish people. Ministers of sedition, not of the
Gospel, who, while they saw it manifestly tend to civil war and
bloodshed, never ceased exasperating the People against him;
and now that they see it likely to breed new commotion, cease
not to incite others against the People that have saved them
from him, as if sedition were their only aim, whether against him
or for him.
But God, as we have cause to trust, will put other thoughts
into the people, and turn them from giving ear or heed to these
mercenary noisemakers, of whose fury and false prophecies we
have enough experience; and from the murmurs of new discord
will incline them to hearken rather with erected minds to the
voice of our supreme magistracy, calling us to liberty, and the
flourishing deeds of a reformed commonwealth; with this hope,
that as God was heretofore angry with the Jews who rejected him
and his form of government to choose a king, so that he will bless
us, and be propitious to us who reject a king to make Him only
our leader, and supreme governor, in the conformity, as near as
may be, of his own ancient government. If we have at least but
so much worth in us to entertain the sense of our future happiness,
and the courage to receive what God vouchsafes us; wherein we
have the honour to precede other nations, who are now labouring
to be our followers.
For as to this question in hand, what the people by their just
right may do in change of government, or of governor, we see it
cleared sufficiently, besides other ample authority, even from the
mouths of princes themselves. And surely they that shall boast,
as we do, to be a free nation, and not have in themselves the
power to remove or to abolish any governor, supreme or subordi



380


MAN AND MAN.


nate, with the government itself, upon urgent causes, may please
their fancy with a ridiculous and painted freedom, fit to cozen
babies; but then are indeed under tyranny and servitude, as wanting that power which is the root and source of all liberty, to
dispose and economise in the land which God hath given them,
as masters of family in their own house and free inheritance.
Wl ithout which natural and essential power of a free nation,
though bearing high their heads, they can in due esteem be
thought no better than slaves and vassals born in the tenure and
occupation of another inheriting lord, whose government, though
not illegal, or intolerable, hangs over them as a lordly scourge,
not as a free government; and therefore to be abrogated.
How much more justly then may they fling off tyranny, or
tyrants, who being once deposed can be no more than private
inen, as subject to the reach of justice and arraignment as any
other transgressors? And certainly if men, not to speak of
heathen, both wise and religious, have done justice upon tyrants
what way they could soonest, how much more mild and humane
then is it, to give them fair and open trial; to teach lawless kings,
and all who so much adore them, that not mortal man or his
imperious will, but Justice, is the only true sovereign and supreme
Majesty upon earth? Let men cease therefore, out of faction and
hyprocrisy, to make outcries and horrid things of things so just
and honourable, though perhaps till now no Protestant state or
kingdom can be alleged to have openly put to death their king,
which lately some have written, and imputed to their great glory;
much mistaking the matter. It is not, neither ought to be, the
glory of a Protestant state never to have put their king to death;
it is the glory of a Protestant king never to have deserved death.
And if the Parliament and military council do what they do without precedent, if it appear their duty, it argues the more wisdom,
virtue and magnanimity, that they know themselves able to be
a precedent to others; who perhaps in future ages, if they prove
not too degenerate, will look up with honour, and aspire towards
these exemplary and matchless deeds of their ancestors, as to the
highest top of their civil glory and emulation; which heretofore,
in the pursuance of fame and foreign dominion, spent itself vaingloriously abroad; but henceforth may learn a better fortitude, to
dare execute highest justice on them that shall by force of arms




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


38I


endeavour the oppressing and bereaving of Religion and their
Liberty at home. That no unbridled potentate or tyrant, but to
his sorrow, for the future may presume such high and irresponsible
licence over mankind, to havoc and turn upside down whole kingdoms of men, as though they were no more in respect of his perverse will than a nation of pismires.
As for the party called Presbyterian, of whom I believe very
many to be good and faithful Christians, though misled by some
of turbulent spirit, I wish them, earnestly and calmly not to
fall off from their first principles, nor to affect rigour and superiority over men not under them; not to compel unforcible things,
in religion especially, which, if not voluntary, becomes a sin;
not to assist the clamour and malicious drifts of men whom
they themselves have judged to be the worst of men, the obdurate
enemies of God and his Church: nor to dart against the actions
of their brethren, for want of other argument, those wrested laws
and Scriptures thrown by prelates and malignants against their
own sides, which though they hurt not otherwise, yet taken up
bythem to the condemnation of their own doings, give scandal
to all men, and discover in themselves either extreme passion or
apostacy. Let them not oppose their best friends and associates,
who molest them not at all, infringe not the least of their liberties,
unless they call it their liberty to bind other men's consciences,
but are still seeking to live at peace with them and brotherly
accord. Let them beware an old and perfect enemy, who, though
he hope by sowing discord to make them his instruments, yet
cannot forbear a minute the open threatening of his destined
revenge upon them, when they have served his purposes. Let
them fear, therefore, if they be wise, rather what they have done
already, than what remains to do, and be warned in time that they
put no confidence in princes whom they have provoked, lest they
be added to the examples of those that miserably have tasted the
event.
Stories can inform them how Christiern the Second, King of
Denmark, not much above a hundred years past, driven out by
his subjects, and received again upon new oaths and conditions,
broke through them all to his most bloody revenge; slaying his
chief opposers, when he saw his time, both them and their children, invited to a feast for that purpose; how Maximilian dealt




382


MAN AND MAN.


with those of Bruges, though by mediation of the German princes
reconciled to them by solemn and public writings drawn and
sealed; how the massacre at Paris was the effect of that credulous peace, which the French Protestants made with Charles IX.
their king: and that the main visible cause, which to this day
hath saved the Netherlands from utter ruin, was their final not
believing the perfidious cruelty, which, as a constant maxim of
state, hath been used by the Spanish kings on their subjects that
have taken arms, and after trusted them; as no latter age but
can testify, heretofore in Belgia itself, and this very year in Naples.
And to conclude with one past exception, though far more ancient,
David, whose sanctified prudence might be alone sufficient, not
to warrant us only, but to instruct us, when once he had taken
arms never after that trusted Saul, though with tears and mluch
relenting he twice promised not to hurt him. These instances,
few of many, might admonish them, both English and Scotch,
not to let their own ends, and the driving on of a faction, betray
them blindly into the snare of those enemies whose revenge looks
on them as the men who first begun, fomented, and carried on,
beyond the cure of any sound or safe accommodation, all the
evil which hath since unavoidably befallen them and their king.
I have something also to the divines, though brief to what were
needful: not to be disturbers of the civil affairs, being in hands
better able and more belonging to manage them; but to study
harder, and to attend the office of good pastors, knowing that he
whose flock is least among them hath a dreadful charge not performed by mounting twice into the chair with a formal preachment
huddled up at the odd hours of a whole lazy week, but by incessant pains and watching, in season and out of season, from house
to house, over the souls of whom they have to feed. Which if
they ever well considered, how little leisure would they find, to
be the most pragmatical sidesmen of every popular tumult and
sedition, and all this while are to learn what the true end and
reason is of the Gospel which they teach; and what a world
it differs from the censorious and supercilious droling over conscience. It would be good also they lived so as might persuade
the people they hated covetousness, which, worse than heresy, is
idolatry; hated pluralities, and all kind of simony; left rambling
from benefice to benefice, like ravenous wolves seeking where they




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


383


may devour the biggest. Of which if some, well and warmly
seated from the beginning, be not guilty, it were good they held
not conversation with such as are. Let them be sorry that, being
called to assemble about reforming the Church, they fell to progging and soliciting the Parliament, though they had renounced
the name of priests, for a new settling of their tithes and oblations, and double-lined themselves with spiritual places of commodity beyond the possible discharge of their duty. Let them
assemble in consistory with their elders and deacons, according
to ancient ecclesiastical rule, to the preserving of Church discipline, each in his several charge, and not a pack of clergymen by
themselves to bellycheer in their presumptuous Sion, or to promote designs, abuse and gull the simple laity, and stir up tumult, as
the prelates did, for the maintenance of their pride and avarice.
These things if they observe, and wait with patience, no doubt
but all things will go well without their importunities or exclamations; and the printed letters, which they sent subscribed with
the ostentation of great characters and little moment, would be
more considerable than now they are. But if they be the ministers of Mammon instead of Christ, and scandalise his Church
with the filthy love of gain, aspiring also to sit the closest and the
heaviest of all tyrants upon the conscience, and fall notoriously
into the same sins whereof so lately and so loud they accused
the prelates; as God rooted out those wicked ones immediately
before, so will he root out them, their imitators; and, to vindicate
his own glory and religion, will uncover their hypocrisy to the
open world, and visit upon their own heads that "Curse ye
Meroz," the very motto of their pulpits, wherewith so frequently,
not as Meroz, but more like atheists, they have blasphemed the
vengeance of God, and traduced the zeal of his people.
And that they be not what they go for, true ministers of the
Protestant doctrine, taught by those abroad, famous and religious
men, who first reformed the Church, or by those no less zealous
who withstood corruption and the bishops here at home, branded
with the name of Puritans and Nonconformists, we shall abound
with testimonies to make appear: that men may yet more fully
know the difference between Protestant divines, and these pulpitfirebrands. "Such is the state of things at this day, that men
neither can, nor will, nor indeed, ought to endure longer the




384


MAN AND MAN.


domination of you princes." " Neither is Caesar to make war as
head of Christendom protector of the Church, defender of the
faith; these titles being false and windy, and most kings being
the greatest enemies to religion." What hinders then, but that
we may depose or punish them? These also are recited by
Cochleus in his Miscellanies to be the words of Luther, or some
other eminent divine, then in Germany, when the Protestants
there entered into solemn covenant at Smalcaldia: "Ut ora fis
obturem," &c. " That I may stop their mouths, the pope and
emperor are not born, but elected; and may also be deposed, as
hath been often done." If Luther, or whoever else, thought so,
he could not stay there; for the right of birth or succession can
I be no privilege in nature to let a tyrant sit irremovable over a
nation freeborn, without transforming that nation from the nature
and condition of men born free, into natural, hereditary, and successive slaves.  Therefore he saith further: "To displace and
I throw down this exactor, this Phalaris, this Nero, is a work
pleasing to God;" namely, for being such a one: which is a
moral reason. Shall then so slight a consideration as his hap to
be not elective simply, but by birth, which was a mere accident,
overthrow that which is moral, and make unpleasing to God that
which otherwise had so well pleased him? Certainly not: for if
the matter be rightly argued, election, much rather than chance,
binds a man to content himself with what he suffers by his own
bad election. Though indeed neither one nor the other binds
any man, much less any people, to a necessary sufferance of those
wrongs and evils which they have ability and strength enough
given them to remove.
" When kings reign perfidiously, and against the rule of Christ,
they may, according to the Word of God, be deposed." " I know
not how it comes to pass that kings reign by succession, unless
it be with consent of the whole people." " But when by suffrage
and consent of the whole people, or the better part of them, a
tyrant is deposed or put to death, God is the chief leader in that
action." "Now that we are so lukewarm in upholding public
justice, we endure the vices of tyrants to reign now-a-days with
impunity; justly therefore by them we are trod underfoot, and
shall at length with them be punished. Yet ways are not wanting by which tyrants may be removed, but there wants public




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


385


justice."  "Beware, ye tyrants! for now the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, spreading far and wide, will renew the lives of many to
love innocence and justice; which if ye also shall do, ye shall
be honoured. But if ye shall go on to rage, and do violence, ye
shall be trampled on by all men."  "When the Roman empire,
or any other, shall begin to oppress religion, and we negligently
suffer it, we are as much guilty of religion so violated, as the
oppressors themselves." [Zwinglius.]
"Now-a-days monarchs pretend always in their titles to be
kings by the grace of God; but how many of them to this end
only pretend it, that they may reign without control! For to
what purpose is the grace of God mentioned in the title of kings,
but that they may acknowledge no superior? In the meanwhile
God, whose name they use to support themselves, they willingly
would tread under their feet. It is therefore a mere cheat, when
they boast to reign by the grace of God."  "Earthly princes
depose themselves, while they rise against God; yea, they are
unworthy to be numbered among men: rather it behoves us to
spit upon their heads than to obey them." [Calvin.]
"If a sovereign prince endeavour by arms to defend transgressors, to subvert those things which are taught in the Word of
God, they, who are in authority under him, ought first to dissuade
him; if they prevail not, and that he now bears himself not as a
prince but as an enemy, and seeks to violate privileges and rights
granted to inferior magistrates or commonalties, it is the part
of pious magistrates, imploring first the assistance of God, rather
to try all ways and means than to betray the flock of Christ to
such an enemy of God: for they also are to this end ordained,
that they may defend the people of God and maintain those
things which are good and just. For to have supreme power
lessens not the evil committed by that power, but makes it
the less tolerable by how much the more generally hurtful.
Then certainly the less tolerable, the more unpardonably to be
punished." [Brucer.] Of Peter Martyr we have spoke before.
"They whose part is to set up magistrates, may restrain them also
from outrageous deeds, or pull them down; but all magistrates are
set up either by Parliament or by electors, or by other magistrates;
they, therefore, who exalted them  may lawfully degrade and
punish them." [Paraeus.]
2B




386


MAN AND MAN.


Of the Scots divines I need not mention others than the
famousest among them, Knox, and his fellow-labourers in the
reformation of Scotland; whose large treatise on this subject
defends the same opinion. To cite them sufficiently, were to
insert their whole books, written purposely on this argument.
"Knox's Appeal," and "To the Reader," where he promises
in a postscript that the book which he intended to set forth,
called "The Second Blast of the Trumpet," should maintain
more at large, that the same men most justly may depose and
punish him whom unadvisedly they have elected, notwithstanding birth, succession, or any oath of allegiance. Among our own
divines, Cartwright and Fenner, two of the learnedest, may in
reason satisfy us what was held by the rest. Fenner, in his book
of Theology, maintaining, that they who have power, that is to
say, a Parliament, may either by fair means or by force depose a
tyrant, whom he defines to be him that wilfully breaks all or the
principal conditions made between him and the commonwealth.
And Cartwright, in a prefixed epistle, testifies his approbation of
the whole book.
" Kings have their authority of the people, who may upon occasion reassume it to themselves."  "The people may kill wicked
princes, as monsters and cruel beasts." [Gilby.] "  hen kings or
rulers become blasphemers of God, oppressors and murderers of
their subjects, they ought no more to be accounted kings, or lawful magistrates, but as private men to be examined, accused, and
condemned and punished by the law of God; and being convicted
and punished by that law, it is not man's but God's doing."
"By the civil laws, a fool or idiot born, and so proved, shall lose
the lands and inheritance whereto he is born, because he is not
able to use them aright: and especially ought in no case be
suffered to have the government of a whole nation; but there is
no such evil can come to the commonwealth by fools and idiots
as doth by the rage and fury of ungodly rulers; such, therefore,
being without God, ought to have no authority over God's people,
who by his Word requireth the contrary." " No person is exempt
by any law of God from this punishment: be he king, queen, or
emperor, he must die the death; for God hath not placed them
above others to transgress his laws as they list, but to be subject
to them as well as others; and if they be subject to his laws, then




TENURE OF KINGS AND MA GISTRATES.


387


to the punishment also, so much the more as their example is
more dangerous."  "When magistrates cease to do their duty,
the people are, as it were, without magistrates, yea, worse, and
then God giveth the sword into the people's hand, and he himself
is become immediately their head."  ' If princes do right, and
keep promise with you, then do you owe to them all humble obedience; if not, ye are discharged, and your study ought to be in
this case how ye may depose and punish according to the law such
rebels against God, and oppressors of their country." [Goodman.]
This Goodman was a minister of the English church at Geneva,
as Dudley Fenner was at Middleburgh, or some other place in
that country. These were the pastors of those saints and confessors, who, flying from the bloody persecution of Queen Mary,
gathered up at length their scattered members into many congregations; whereof some in Upper, some in Lower Germany,
part of them settled at Geneva; where this author having preached
on this subject, to the great liking of certain learned and godly
men who heard him, was by them sundry times and with much
instance required to write more fully on that point. Who thereupon took it in hand, and conferring with the best learned in
those parts (among whom Calvin was then living in the same
city), with their special approbation he published this treatise,
aiming principally, as is testified by Whittingham in the Preface,
that his brethren of England, the Protestants, might be persuaded in the truth of that doctrine concerning obedience to
magistrates.            i
These were the true Protestant divines of England, our fathers
in the faith we hold; this was their sense, who for so many years
labouring urrder prelacy, through all storms and persecutions kept
religion from extinguishing; and delivered it pure to us, till there
arose a covetous and ambitious generation of divines (for divines
they call themselves), who, feigning on a sudden to be new converts and proselytes from episcopacy under which they had long
temporised, opened their mouths at length in show against
pluralities and prelacy, but with intent to swallow them down
both; gorging themselves like harpies on those simonious places
and preferments of their outed predecessors, as the quarr;y..for
which they hunted, not to plurality only but to multiplicity, for
possessing which they had accused them, their brethren, and




388


MAN AND MAN.


aspiring under another title to the same authority and usurpation
over the consciences of all men.
Of this faction, divers reverend and learned divines, as they
are styled in the phylactery of their own title-page, pleading the
lawfulness of defensive arms against the king, in a treatise called
"Scripture and Reason," seem in words to disclaim utterly the
deposing of a king; but both the Scripture, and the reasons
which they use, draw consequences after them which, without
their bidding, conclude it lawful. For if by Scripture, and by
that especially to the Romans, which they most insist upon, kings,
doing that which is contrary to St. Paul's definition of a magistrate,
may be resisted, they may altogether with as much force of consequence be deposed or punished. And if by Reason the unjust
authority of kings " may be forfeited in part, and his power be
reassumed in part, either by the Parliament or people, for the
case in hazard and the present necessity," as they affirm, p. 34,
there can no Scripture be alleged, no imaginable reason given,
-that necessity continuing as it may always, and they in all
prudence and their duty may take upon them to foresee it,-why
in such a case they may not finally amerce him with the loss of
his kingdom of whose amendment they have no hope. And if
one wicked action persisted in against religion, laws, and liberties,
may warrant us to thus much in part, why may not forty times as
many tyrannies, by him committed, warrant us to proceed on
restraining him, till the restraint become total? For the ways of
justice are exactest proportion; if for one trespass of a king it
require so much remedy or satisfaction, then for twenty more
as heinous crimes, it requires of him twenty-fold; and so proportionably, till it come to what is utmost among men. If in
these proceedings against their king they may not finish, by the
usual course of justice, what they have begun, they could not
lawfully begin at all. For this golden rule of justice and morality,
as well as of arithmetic, out of three terms which they admit, will
as certainly and unavoidably bring out the fourth as any problem
that ever Euclid or Apollonius made good by demonstration.
And if the Parliamer., being undeposable but by themselves,
as.is affirmed, p. 37, 38, might for his whole life, if they saw
cause, take all power, authority, and the sword out of his hand,
which in effect is to uninagistrate him, why might they not, being




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


389


then themselves the sole magistrates in force, proceed to punish
him, who, being lawfully deprived of all things that define a
magistrate can be now no magistrate to be degraded lower, but
an offender to be punished. Lastly, whom they may defy and
meet in battle, why may they not as well prosecute by justice?
For lawful war is but the execution of justice against them who i
refuse law. Among whom if it be lawful (as they deny not, p.
19, 20), to slay the king himself coming in front at his own peril,
wherefore may not justice do that intendedly, which the chance
of a defensive war might without blame have done casually, nay,
purposely, if there it find him among the rest? They ask, p. I9,
"By what rule of conscience or God a state is bound to sacrifice
religion, laws, and liberties, rather than a prince defending such
as subvert them should come in hazard of his life." And I ask
by what conscience, or divinity, or law, or reason, a state is bound
to leave all these sacred concernments under a perpetual hazard
and extremity of danger, rather than cut off a wicked prince who
sits plotting day and night to subvert them.
They tell us that the law of nature justifies any man to defend
himself, even against the king in person: let them show us then
why the same law may not justify much more a state or whole
people to do justice upon him against whom each private man
may lawfully defend himself; seeing all kind of justice done is a
defence to good men, as well as a punishment to bad; and justice
done upon a tyrant is no more but the necessary self-defence of a
whole commonwealth. To war upon a king that his instruments
may be brought to condign punishment, and thereafter to punish
them, the instruments, and not to spare only but to defend and
honour him, the author, is the strangest piece of justice to be
called Christian, and the strangest piece of Reason to be called
human, that by men of reverence and learning, as their style
imports them, ever yet was vented. They maintain in the third
and fourth section, that a judge or inferior magistrate is anointed
of God, is his minister, hath the sword in his hand, is to be
obeyed by St. Peter's rule as well as the supreme, and without
difference anywhere expressed: and yet will have us fight against
the supreme till he remove and punish the inferior magistrate,
for such were greatest delinquents; whereas by Scripture and
by Reason there can no more authority be shown to resist the




390


2MAN AND nMAN.


one than the other; and altogether as much to punish or depose
the supreme himself, as to make war upon him till he punish or
deliver up his inferior magistrates, whom in the same terms we
are commanded to obey, and not to resist.
Thus while they, in a cautious line or two here and there
stuffed in, are only verbal against the pulling down or punishing
of tyrants, all the Scripture and the reason which they bring, is in
every leaf direct and rational, to infer it altogether as lawful as
to resist them. And yet in all their sermons, as hath by others
been well noted, they went much further. For divines, if we
observe them, have their postures and their motions no less expertly, and with no less variety, than they that practice feats in
the Artillery-ground.  Sometimes they seem furiously to march
on, and presently march counter; by and by they stand, and then
retreat; or if need be, can face about, or wheel in a whole body,
with that cunning and dexterity as is almost unperceivable, to
wind themselves by shifting ground into places of more advantage. And Providence only must be the drum, Providence the
word of command, that calls them from above, but always to
some larger benefice, or acts them into such or such figures and
promotions. At their turns and doublings no men readier, to
the right, or to the left; for it is their turns which they serve
chiefly; herein only singular, that with them there is no certain
hand right or left but as their own commodity thinks best to call
it. But if there come a truth to be defended which to them and
their interest of this world seems not so profitable, straight these
nimble motionists can find not even legs to stand upon; and are
no more of use to reformation thoroughly performed and not
superficially, or to the advancement of Truth —which among mortal
men is always in her progress-than if on a sudden they were
struck maim and crippled.  Which the better to conceal, or the
more to countenance by a general conformity to their own limping, they would have Scripture, they would have Reason also, made
to halt with them for company; and would put us off with impotent conclusions, lame and shorter than the premisses.
In this posture they seem to stand with great zeal and confidence on the wall of Sion; but like Jebusites, not like Israelites, or
Levites: blind also as well as lame, they discern not David from
Adonibezec: but cry him up for the Lord's anointed, whose




TENURE OF KINGS AND MAGISTRATES.


391


thumbs and great toes not long before they had cut off upon their
pulpit cushions. Therefore he who is our only King, the Root
of David, and whose kingdom is eternal righteousness, with ail
those that war under him, whose happiness and final hopes are
laid up in that only just and rightful kingdom which we pray
incessantly may come soon, and in so praying wish hasty ruin and
destruction to all tyrants, even he our immortal King, and all
that love him, must of necessity have in abomination these blind
and lame defenders of Jerusalem, as the soul of David hated
them, and forbid them entrance into God's house and his own.
But as to those before them, which I cited first, and with an easy
search, for many more might be added, as they there stand,
without more in number, being the best and chief of Protestant
divines, we may follow them  for faithful guides, and without
doubting may receive them as witnesses abundant of what we
here affirm concerning tyrants. And indeed I find it generally
the clear and positive determination of them all, not prelatical,
or of this late faction subprelatical, who have written on this
argument, that to do justice on a lawless king is to a private
man unlawful; to an inferior magistrate lawful: or if they were
divided in opinion, yet greater than these here alleged, or of more
authority in the Church, there can be none produced.
If any one shall go about, by bringing other testimonies to
disable these, or by bringing these against themselves in other
cited passages of their books, he will not only fail to make good
that false and impudent assertion of those mutinous ministers,
that the deposing and punishing of a king or tyrant, "is against
the constant judgment of all Protestant divines," it being quite
the contrary; but will prove rather what perhaps he intended not,
that the judgment of divines, if it be so various and inconstant to
itself, is not considerable, or to be esteemed at all. Ere which be
yielded, as I-hope it never will, these ignorant assertors in their
owni art will have proved themselves more and more, not to be
Protestant divines, whose constant judgment in this point they
have so audaciously belied, but rather to be a pack of hungry
church-wolves, who in the steps of Simon Magus their father,
following the hot scent of double livings and pluralities, advowsons, donatives, inductions, and augmentations, though uncalled
to the flock of Christ, but by the mere suggestion of their bellies



392                 MAN AND MAN.
like those priests of Bel whose pranks Daniel found out-have
got possession, or rather seized upon the pulpit, as the stronghold and fortress of their sedition and rebellion against the Civil
Magistrate. Whose friendly and victorious hand having rescued
them from the bishops, their insulting lords, fed them plenteously
both in public and in private, raised them to be high and rich, of
poor and base; only suffered not their covetousness and fierce
ambition-which as the pit that sent out their fellow-locusts
hath been ever bottomless and boundless-to interpose in all
things, and over all persons, their impetuous ignorance and
importunity?




FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.




" To know
Both Spiritual Power and Civil, what each means,
What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done;
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe:
Therefore on thy firm hand Religion bows
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son."
-Mllillon's Sonnet to Sir HIenry Vane the YoungcJ;




A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN
ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES;
Showing that it is not lawful for any Power on Earth to Comzpel
in A/atters of Religion.
To Mhe Par-liament of the Comnionzoealtzh of Engl zand;, ith 7hie
Dominiions thereof.
I HAVE prepared, supreme Council, against the much-expected
time of your sitting, this treatise; which, though to all Christian
magistrates equally belonging, and therefore to have been written
in the common language of Christendom, natural duty and affection hath confined, and dedicated first to my own nation; and in
a season wherein the timely reading thereof, to the easier accomplishment of your great work, may save you much labour and
interruption: of two parts usually proposed, Civil and Ecclesiastical, recommending Civil only to your proper care; Ecclesiastical,
to them only from whom it takes both that name and nature.
Yet not for this cause only do I require or trust to find acceptance, but in a twofold respect besides. First, as bringing clear
evidence of Scripture, and Protestant maxims, to the Parliament
of England, who in all their late acts, upon occasion, have professed to assert only the true Protestant Christian Religion, as it
is contained in the Holy Scriptures. Next, in regard that your
power being but for a time, and having in yourselves a Christian
liberty of your own, which at one time or other may be oppressed,
thereof truly sensible, it will concern you while you are in power
so to regard other men's Consciences as you would your own
should be regarded in the power of others; and to consider that




396


FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.


any law against Conscience is alike in force against any conscience,
and so may one way or other justly redound upon yourselves.
One advantage I make no doubt of, that I shall write to many
eminent persons of your number already perfect and resolved in
this important article of Christianity. Some of whom I remember
to have heard often for several years, at a Council next in authority
to your own, so well joining Religion with Civil Prudence, and yet
so well distinguishing the different power of either; and this not
only voting, but frequently reasoning why it should be so, that if
any there present had been before of an opinion contrary he
might doubtless have departed thence a convert in that point,
and have confessed that then both Commonwealth and Religion
will at length, if ever, flourish in Christendom when either they
who govern discern between Civil and Religious or they only
who so discern shall be admitted to govern. Till then, nothing
but troubles, persecutions, commotions can be expected; the
inward decay of true Religion among ourselves, and the utter
overthrow at last by a common enemy.
Of Civil Liberty I have written heretofore by the appointment,
and not without the approbation, of civil power: of Christian
Liberty I write now, which others long since having done with all
freedom under heathen emperors, I should do wrong to suspect
that I now shall with less under Christian governors, and such
especially as profess openly their defence of Christian liberty.
Although I write this, not otherwise appointed or induced, than
by an inward persuasion of the Christian duty which I may usefully
discharge herein to the common Lord and Master of us all, and
the certain hope of His approbation, first and chiefest to be
sought: in the hand of whose providence I remain, praying all
success and good event on your public councils to the defence of
true Religion and our Civil Rights.
JOHN MILTON.




A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER IN
ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.
Two things there be, which have been ever found working much
mischief to the Church of God and the advancement of truth:
Force on one side restraining, and Hire on the other side corrupting, the teachers thereof. Few ages have been since the ascension
of our Saviour, wherein the one of these two, or both together,
have not prevailed. It can be at no time, therefore, unseasonable
to speak of these things; since by them the Church is either in
continual detriment and oppression, or in continual danger. The
former shall be at this time my argument; the latter as I shall
find God disposing me, and opportunity inviting. What I argue
shall be drawn from the Scripture only; and therein from true
fundamental principles of the Gospel, to all knowing Christians
undeniable. And if the governors of this Commonwealth, since
the rooting out of prelates, have made least use of force in Religion
and most have favoured Christian liberty of any in this island
before them since the first preaching of the Gospel, for which we
are not to forget our thanks to God, and their due praise; they
may, I doubt not, in this treatise find that which not only will
confirm them to defend still the Christian Liberty which we enjoy,
but will incite them also to enlarge it, if in aught they yet straiten
it. To them who perhaps hereafter, less experienced in Religion,
may come to govern or give us laws, this or other such, if they
please, may be a timely instruction: however, to the truth it will
be at all times no unneedful testimony, at least some discharge of
that general duty which no Christian, but according to what he
hath received, knows is required of him, if he have aught more
conducing to the advancement of Religion than what is usually
endeavoured, freely to impart it.




398       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
It will require no great labour of exposition to unfold what is
here meant by matters of Religion; being as soon apprehended
as defined, such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and
service of God, and are either above the reach and light of nature
without revelation from above, and therefore liable to be variously
understood by human reason, or such things as are enjoined or
forbidden by divine precept, which else by the light of reason
would seem indifferent to be done or not done, and so likewise
must needs appear to every man as the precept is understood.
Whence I here mean by Conscience or Religion that full persuasion whereby we are assured that our belief and practice, as
far as we are able to apprehend and probably make appear, is
according to the will of God and his Holy Spirit within us, which
we ought to follow much rather than any law of man, as not only
his Word everywhere bids us, but the very dictate of reason tells
us, Acts iv. I9: "Whether it be right in the sight of God, to
hearken to you more than to God, judge ye." That for belief or
practice in Religion according to this conscientious persuasion,
no man ought to be punished or molested by any outward force
on earth whatsoever, I distrust not, through God's implored assistance, to make plain by these following arguments.
First, it cannot be denied,-being the main foundation of our
Protestant Religion,-that we of these ages, having no other
divine rule or authority from without us warrantable to one another
as a common ground but the Holy Scripture, and no other within
us but the illumination of the Holy Spirit so interpreting that
Scripture as warrantable only to ourselves and to such whose consciences we can so persuade, can have no other ground in matters
of Religion but only from the Scriptures. And these being not
possible to be understood without this divine illumination, which
no man can know at all times to be in himself much less to be
at any time for certain in any other, it follows clearly, that no man
or body of men in these times can be the infallible judges or
determiners in matters of Religion to any other men's consciences
but their own. And therefore those Bereans are commended,
Acts xvii. i i, who after the preaching even of St. Paul, "searched
the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so."  Nor did
they more than what God himself in many places commands us by
the same Apostle, to search, to try, to judge of these things our



CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.           399
selves: and gives us reason also, Gal. vi. 4, 5: "' Let every man prove
his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone,
and not in another: for every man shall bear his own burden."
If then we count it so ignorant and irreligious in the papist,
to think himself discharged in God's account believing only as
the Church believes, how much greater condemnation will it be
to the Protestant, his condemner, to think himself justified believing only as the State believes? With good cause, therefore, it is
the general consent of all sound Protestant writers, that neither
traditions, councils, nor canons of any visible Church, much less
edicts of any magistrate or civil session, but the Scripture only,
can be the final judge or rule in matters of Religion, and that
only in the Conscience of every Christian to himself. Which
protestation made by the first public Reformers of our Religion
against the imperial edicts of Charles the Fifth, imposing Church
traditions without Scripture, gave first beginning to the name of
Protestant. And with that name hath ever been received this
doctrine, which prefers the Scripture before the Church, and
acknowledges none but the Scripture sole interpreter of itself
to the conscience. For if the Church be not sufficient to be
implicitly believed, as we hold it is not, what can there else be
named of more authority than the Church but the Conscience,
than which God only is greater? i John iii. 20. But if any man
shall pretend that the Scripture judges to his conscience for other
men, he makes himself greater not only than the Church but also
than the Scripture, than the consciences of other men. A presumption too high for any mortal, since every true Christian able
to give a reason of his faith hath the Word of God before him,
the promised Holy Spirit, and the mind of Christ within him,
i Cor. ii. 6; a much better and safer guide of conscience, which,
as far as concerns himself he may far more certainly know than
any outward rule imposed upon him by others, whom he inwardly
neither knows nor can know; at least knows nothing of them
more sure than this one thing, that they cannot be his judges in
Religion; i Cor. ii. 15: "The spiritual man judgeth all things,
but he himself is judged of no man."
Chiefly for this cause do all true Protestants account the pope
Antichrist, for that he assumes to himself this Infallibility over
both the Conscience and the Scripture; "sitting in the temple




400       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
of God," as it were opposite to God, "and exalting himself above
all that is called God, or is worshipped," 2 Thess. ii. 4.; that is to
say, not only above all judges and magistrates, who though they
be called gods, are far beneath infallible; but also above God
himself, by giving law both to the Scripture, to the Conscience,
and to the Spirit itself of God within us, whenas we find, James
iv. I 2, "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy:
Who art thou that judgest another?"
That Christ is the only lawgiver of his Church, and that it is here
meant in religious matters, no well-grounded Christian will deny.
Thus also St. Paul, Rom. xiv. 4, " Who art thou that judgest the
servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth: but
he shall stand; for God is able to make him stand." As therefore of one beyond expression bold and presumptuous, both
these Apostles demand, "Who art thou" that presumest to impose other law or judgment in Religion than the only lawgiver
and judge Christ, who only can save and destroy, gives to the
Conscience? And the forecited place to the Thessalonians, by
compared effects, resolves us, that be he or they who or wherever
they be or can be, they are of far less authority than the Church,
whom in these things as Protestants they receive not, and yet no
less Antichrist in this main point of Antichristianism, no less a
pope or popedom than he at Rome, if not much more, by setting
up supreme interpreters of Scripture-either those doctors whom
they follow, or, which is far worse, themselves-as a civil papacy,
assuming unaccountable supremacy to themselves not in civil
only but in ecclesiastical causes. Seeing then that in matters of
Religion, as hath been proved, none can judge or determine
here on earth, no, not Church governors themselves, against the
consciences of other believers, my inference is, or rather not
mine but our Saviour's own, that in those matters they neither
can command nor use constraint, lest they run rashly on a pernicious consequence, forewarned in that parable, Matt. xiii. from
ver. 29 to 3: "Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up
also the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the
harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,
Gather ye together first the tares," &c. Whereby he declares,
that this work neither his own ministers nor any else can discerningly enough or judgingly perform without his own immediate




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.           401
direction, in his own fit season; and that they ought till then
hot to attempt it.  Which is further confirmed, 2 Cor. i. 24,
"Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of
your joy." If Apostles had no dominion or constraining power
over faith or conscience, much less have ordinary ministers:
Pet. v. 2, 3, "Feed the flock of God, &c., not by constraint,
neither as being lords over God's heritage."
But some will object, that this overthrows all Church Discipline,
all censure of errors, if no man can determine. My answer is,
that what they hear is plain Scripture, which forbids not Church
sentence or determining, but as it ends in violence upon the
conscience unconvinced. Let whoso will interpret or determine,
so it be according to true Church Discipline which is exercised
on them  only who have willingly joined themselves in that
Covenant of Union, and proceeds only to a separation from the
rest; proceeds never to any corporal enforcement, or forfeiture of
money, which in all spiritual things are the two arms of Antichrist,
not of the True Church; the one being an Inquisition, the other
no better than a temporal Indulgence of sin for money, whether
by the Church exacted or by the magistrate; both the one and
the other a temporal satisfaction for what Christ hath satisfied
eternally: a popish commuting of penalty, corporal for spiritual;
a satisfaction to man, especially to the magistrate, for what and to
whom we owe none. These and more are the injustices of force
and fining in religion, besides what I most insist on, the violation of
God's express commandment in the Gospel, as bath been shown.
Thus then, if Church Governors cannot use force in Religion,
though but for this reason, because they cannot infallibly determine to the Conscience without convincement, much less have
Civil Magistrates authority to use force where they can much less
judge; unless they mean only to be the civil executioners of
them who have no civil power to give them such commission,
no, nor yet ecclesiastical, to any force or violence in Religion.
To sum up all in brief, if we must believe as the Magistrate
appoints, why not rather as the Church? If not as either without convincement, how can force be lawful?
But some are ready to cry out, What shall then be done to
blasphemy? Them I would first exhort not thus to terrify and
pose the people with a Greek word; but to teach them better
2 C




402       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
what it is, being a most usual and common word in that language
to signify any slander, any malicious or evil speaking, whether
against God or man or anything to good belonging. Blasphemy
or evil speaking against God maliciously, is far from Conscience
in religion, according to that of Mark ix. 39, "6 There is none who
doth a powerful work in my name, and can lightly speak evil of
me." If this suffice not, I refer them to that prudent and well
deliberated act, August 9, I650, where the Parliament defines
Blasphemy against God, as far as it is a crime belonging to civil
judicature, plenius ac melizis Chrysippo el Crantore; in plain
English, more warily, more judiciously, more orthodoxally than
twice their number of divines have done in many a prolix
volume: although in all likelihood they whose whole study and
profession these things are, should be most intelligent and
authentic therein, as they are for the most part; yet neither they
nor these unerring always, or infallible.
But we shall not carry it thus; another Greek apparition stands
in our way,-Heresy and Heretic, in like manner also railed at
to the people as in a tongue unknown. They should first interpret
to them that Heresy, by what it signifies in that language, is no
word of evil note, meaning only the choice or following of any
opinion, good or bad, in Religion, or any other learning, and thus
not only in heathen authors, but in the New Testament itself,
without censure or blame: Acts xv. 5, " Certain of the heresy of
the Pharisees which believed;" and xxvi. 5, "After the exactest
heresy of our religion I lived a Pharisee." In which sense
Presbyterian or Independent may without reproach be called a
Heresy. Where it is mentioned with blame, it seems to differ
little from Schism: i Cor. xi. I8, I9, "I hear that there be
schisms among you," &c., "for there must also heresies be among
you," &c. Though some, who write of Heresy after their own
heads, would make it far worse than Schism; whenas on the contrary, Schism signifies division, and in the worst sense; Heresy,
choice only of one opinion before another, which may be without discord. In apostolic times, therefore, ere the Scripture was
written, heresy was a doctrine maintained against the doctrine
by them delivered; which in these times can be no otherwise
defined than a doctrine maintained against the light which we
now only have of the Scripture.




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CA USES.          4o3
Seeing, therefore, that no man, no synod, no session of men,
though called the Church, can judge definitely the sense of
Scripture to another man's Conscience, which is well known to be
a general maxim of the Protestant Religion; it follows plainly,
that lie who holds in Religion that belief or those opinions which
to his Conscience and utmost understanding appear with most
evidence or probability in the Scripture, though to others he
seem erroneous, can no more be justly censured for a heretic than
his censurers; who do but the same thing themselves while they
censure him for so doing. For ask them, or any Protestant,
which hath most authority, the Church or the Scripture? They
will answer, doubtless, that the Scripture: and what hath most
authority that no doubt but they will confess is to be followed.
He then who to his best apprehension follows the Scripture,
though against any point of doctrine by the whole Church received,
is -not the heretic; but he who follows the Church against his
conscience and persuasion grounded on the Scripture. To make
this yet more undeniable, I shall only borrow a plain simile, the
same which our own writers, when they would demonstrate plainest
that we rightly prefer the Scripture before the Church, use frequently against the papist in this manner. As the Samaritans
believed Christ, first for the woman's word, but next and much
rather for his own, so we the Scripture: first on the Church's
word, but afterwards and much more for its own, as the Word of
God; yea, the Church itself we believe then for the Scripture.
The inference of itself follows: If by the Protestant doctrine we
believe the Scripture, not for the Church's saying, but for its own,
as the Word of God, then ought we to believe what in our
Conscience we apprehend the Scripture to say, though the visible
Church with all her doctors gainsay. And being taught to believe
them only for the Scripture, they who so do are not heretics,
but the best Protestants: and by their opinions, whatever they
be, can hurt no Protestant, whose rule is not to receive them but
from the Scripture: which to interpret convincingly to his own
conscience, none is able but himself, guided by the Holy Spirit;
and not so guided, none than he to himself can be a worse deceiver.
To Protestants, therefore, whose common rule and touchstone is
the Scripture, nothing can with more conscience, more equity,
nothing more protestantly can be permitted, than a free and lawful




404


FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.


debate at all times by writing, conference, or disputation of what
opinion soever disputable by Scripture: concluding that no man
in Religion is properly a heretic at this day but he who maintains
traditions or opinions not probable by Scripture, who, for aught
I know, is the papist only, he the only heretic who counts all
heretics but himself.
Such as these, indeed, were capitally punished by the law of
Moses, as the only true heretics, idolaters, plain and open deserters
of God and his known Law. But in the Gospel such are punished
by excommunion only: Tit. iii. Io, "An heretic, after the first
and second admonition, reject." But they who think not this
heavy enough, and understand not that dreadful awe and spiritual
efficacy which the Apostle hath expressed so highly to be in
Church Discipline, 2 Cor. x., of which anon, and think weakly
that the Church of God cannot long subsist but in a bodily fear,
for want of other proof will needs rest that place of St. Paul, Rom.
xiii., to set up Civil Inquisition, and give power to the magistrate
both of Civil Judgment and punishment in causes Ecclesiastical.
But let us see with what strength of argument.  "Let every soul
be subject to the higher powers."  First, how prove they that the
Apostle means other powers than such as they to whom he writes
were then under, who meddled not at all in ecclesiastical causes,
unless as tyrants and persecutors? And from them, I hope, they
will not derive either the right of magistrates to judge in spiritual
things, or the duty of such our obedience.
How prove they next that he entitles them here to spiritual
causes from whom he withheld as much as in him lay the judging
of civil?  Cor. vi. i, &c. If he himself appealed to Caesar, it
was to judge his innocence not his religion.  "For rulers are not
a terror to good works, but to the evil:" then they are not a terror
to Conscience, which is the rule or judge of good works grounded
on the Scripture. But Heresy, they say, is reckoned among evil
works, Gal. v. 20, as if all evil works were to be punished by the
magistrate; whereof this place, their own citation, reckons up
besides heresy a sufficient number to confute them; " uncleanness,
wantonness, enmity, strife, emulations, animosities, contentions,
envyings;" all which are far more manifest to be judged by him
than heresy, as they define it; and yet I suppose they will not
subject these evil works, nor many more suchlike, to his cognizance




I


CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES. 405
and punishment. "Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?
Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same."
This shows that religious matters are not here meant; wherein from
the power here spoken of they could have no praise. "For he is
the minister of God to thee for good: " true; but in that office, and
to that end, and by those means, which in this place must be
clearly found, if from this place they intend to argue. And how
for thy good, by forcing, oppressing, and ensnaring thy conscience?
Many are the Ministers of God, and their offices no less
different than many; none more different than State and Church
Government. Who seeks to govern both, must needs be worse
than any lord prelate, or church pluralist: for he in his own faculty
and profession, the other not in his own, and for the most part
not thoroughly understood, makes himself supreme lord or pope
of the Church, as far as his civil jurisdiction stretches, and all the
ministers of God therein, his ministers or his curates rather, in
the function only not in the government, while he himself assumes
to rule by civil power things to be ruled only by spiritual. Whenas this very chapter, verse 6, appointing him his peculiar office,
which requires utmost attendance, forbids him this worse than
church plurality from that full and weighty charge wherein alone he
is the minister of God, attending continually on this very thing.
To little purpose will they here instance Moses, who did all by
immediate divine direction; no, nor yet Asa, Jehoshaphat, or
Josiah, who both might, when they pleased, receive answer from
God, and had a commonwealth by him delivered them, incorporated with a national Church, exercised more in bodily than in
spiritual worship: so as that the Church might be called a Commonwealth, and the whole Commonwealth a Church. Nothing
of which can be said of Christianity, delivered without the help
of magistrates, yea, in the midst of their opposition; how little
then with any reference to them or mention of them, save only
of our obedience to their civil laws as they countenance good
and deter evil, which is the proper work of the magistrate, following
in the same verse, and shows distinctly wherein he is the minister
of God, "a revenger to execute wrath on him that doth evil."
But we must first know who it is that doth evil. The heretic,
they say, among the first. Let it be known then certainly who is
a heretic; and that he who holds opinions in Religion professedly




406       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
from tradition or his own inventions, and not from Scripture but
rather against it, is the only heretic. And yet though such, not
always punishable by the magistrate, unless he do evil against a
civil law properly so called, hath been already proved without need
of repetition: " But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid." To do
by Scripture and the Gospel, according to Conscience, is not to
do evil. If we thereof ought not to be afraid, he ought not by his
judging to give cause: causes therefore of religion are not here
meant. "For he beareth not the sword in vain: " Yes, altogether
in vain if it smite he knows not what; if that for heresy, which not
the Church itself, much less he, can determine absolutely to be soif truth for error, being himself so often fallible-he bears the sword
not in vain only, but unjustly and to evil. "Be subject not only for
wrath, but for conscience sake:" How for conscience sake, against
conscience? By all these reasons it appears plainly, that the
Apostle in this place gives no judgment or coercive power to magistrates, neither to those then, nor these now, in matters of Religion;
and exhorts us no otherwise than he exhorted those Romans.
It hath now twice befallen me to assert, through God's assistance, this most wrested and vexed place of Scripture: heretofore
against Salmasius, and regal tyranny over the State; now against
Erastus, and state tyranny over the Church. If from such uncertain, or rather such improbable grounds as these, they endue
magistracy with spiritual judgment, they may as well invest him
in the same spiritual kind with power of utmost punishment,
excommunication; and then turn spiritual into corporal, as no
worse authors did than Chrysostom, Jerome, and Austin, whom
Erasmus and others in their notes on the New Testament have
cited, to interpret that cutting off which St. Paul wished to them
who had brought back the Galatians to circumcision, no less than
the amercement of their whole virility. And Grotius adds, that
this concising punishment of circumcisers became a penal law
thereupon among the Visigoths: a dangerous example of beginning in the spirit to end so in the flesh; whereas that cutting off
much likelier seems meant a cutting off from the Church, not
unusually so termed in Scripture, and a zealous imprecation, not
a command. But I have mentioned this passage to show how
absurd they often prove who have not learned to distinguish
rightly between Civil power and Ecclesiastical.  How many




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES. ' 407
persecutions, then, imprisonments, banishments, penalties, and
stripes; how much bloodshed have the Forcers of Conscience to
answer for, and Protestants rather than Papists! For the Papist,
judging by his principles, punishes them who believe not as tlie
Church believes, though against the Scripture; but the Protestant,
teaching every one to believe the Scripture, though against the
Church, counts heretical and persecutes against his own principles
them who in any particular so believe as he in general teaches
them; them who most honour and believe divine Scripture, but
not against it any human interpretation, though universal; them
who interpret Scripture only to themselves, which by his own
position none but they to themselves can interpret: them who use
the Scripture no otherwise by his own doctrine to their edification
than he himself uses it to their punishing. And so whom his
Doctrine acknowledges a true believer, his Discipline persecutes
as a heretic. The Papist exacts our belief as to the Church due
above Scripture; and by the Church, which is the whole people
of God, understands the Pope, the General Councils, prelatical
only, and the surnamed Fathers. But the forcing Protestant,
though he deny such belief to any Church whatsoever, yet takes
it to himself and his teachers of far less authority than to be called
the Church and above Scripture believed: which renders his
practice both contrary to his belief, and far worse than that belief
which he condemns in the Papist. By all which, well considered,
the more he professes to be a true Protestant, the more he hath to
answer for his persecuting than a Papist. No Protestant therefore, of what sect soever, following Scripture only, which is the
common sect wherein they all agree, and the granted rule of every
man's conscience to himself, ought by the common doctrine of
Protestants to be forced or molested for religion.
But as for popery and idolatry, why they also may not hence
plead to be tolerated, I have much less to say. Their religion
the more considered, the less can be acknowledged a religion,
but a Roman principality rather, endeavouring to keep up her
old universal dominion under a new name, and mere shadow of a
catholic religion; being indeed more rightly named a catholic
heresy against the Scripture, supported mainly by a civil, and,
except in Rome, by a foreign, power: justly therefore to be
suspected, not tolerated, by the magistrate of another country.




408       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
Besides, of an implicit faith which they profess, the conscience
also becomes implicit, and so by voluntary servitude to man's law,
forfeits her Christian liberty. Who then can plead for such a
conscience as, being implicitly enthralled to man instead of God,
almost becomes no conscience, as the will not free becomes no
will? Nevertheless, if they ought not to be tolerated, it is for
just reason of State more than of Religion; which they who force,
though professing to be Protestants, deserve as little to be tolerated
themselves, being no less guilty of popery in the most popish
point. Lastly, for idolatry, who knows it not to be evidently against
all Scripture, both of the Old and NewTestament, and therefore a
true heresy, or rather an impiety, wherein a right conscience can
have nought to do; and the works thereof so manifest, that a
magistrate can hardly err in prohibiting and quite removing at
least the public and scandalous use thereof?
From the riddance of these objections, I proceed yet to another
reason why it is unlawful for the Civil Magistrate to use force in
matters of Religion; which is, because to judge in those things
though we should grant him able, which is proved he is not, yet
as a Civil Magistrate he hath no right. Christ hath a government of his own, sufficient of itself to all his ends and purposes
in governing his Church, but much different from that of the
Civil Magistrate; and the difference in this very thing principally
consists, that it governs not by outward force. And that for two
reasons: First, Because it deals only with the inward man and
his actions, which are all spiritual and to outward force not
liable.  Secondly, To show us the divine excellence of his
spiritual kingdom, able, without worldly force, to subdue all the
powers and kingdoms of this world, which are upheld by outward
force only. That the inward man is nothing else but the inward
part of man, his understanding and his will; and that his actions
thence proceeding, yet not simply thence but from the work of
divine grace upon them, are the whole matter of Religion under
the Gospel, will appear plainly by considering what that Religion
is; whence we shall perceive yet more plainly that it cannot be
forced. What Evangelic Religion is, is told in two words,Faith and Charity, or Belief and Practice. That both these flow,
either, the one from the understanding, the other from the will,
or both jointly from both, once indeed naturally free, but now




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CA USES. 409c
only as they are regenerate and wrought on by divine grace, is in
part evident to common sense and principles unquestioned, the
rest by Scripture. Concerning our belief, Matt. xvi. I7, "Flesh
and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which
is in heaven;" concerning our practice, as it is religious, and not
merely civil, Gal. v. 22, 23, and other places, declare it to be the
fruit of the spirit only. Nay, our whole practical duty in Religion
is contained in Charity, or the Love of God and our Neighbour, no
way to be forced, yet the fulfilling of the whole law; that is to say,
our whole practice in religion. If then both our Belief and Practice,
which comprehend our whole Religion, flow from faculties of the
inward man, free and unconstrainable of themselves by nature, and
our practice not only from faculties endued with freedom, but from
Love and Charity besides incapable of force, and all these things
by transgression lost but renewed and regenerated in us by the power
and gift of God alone; how can such Religion as this admit of force
from man, or force be any way applied to such religion, especially
under the free offer of grace in the Gospel, but it must forthwith
frustrate and make of no effect both the Religion and the Gospel?
And that to compel outward profession, which they will say perhaps ought to be compelled though inward religion cannot, is to
compel hypocrisy, not to advance religion, shall yet, though of
itself clear enough, be ere the conclusion further manifest.
The other reason why Christ rejects outward force in the
government of his Church, is, as I said before, to show us the
divine excellence of his spiritual kingdom, able without worldly
force to subdue all the powers and kingdoms of this world,
which are upheld by outward force only. By which to uphold
Religion,-otherwise than to defend the religious from outward
violence,-is no service to Christ or his kingdom, but rather a
disparagement, and degrades it from a divine and spiritual
kingdom, to a kingdom of this world: which he denies it to be,
because it needs not force to confirm it: John xviii. 36, "If
my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight,
that I should not be delivered to the Jews." This proves the
kingdom of Christ not governed by outward force, as being none
of this world, whose kingdoms are maintained all by force only;
and yet disproves not that a Christian Commonwealth may defend
itself against outward force, in the cause of Religion as well as




410        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
in any other: though Christ himself coming purposely to die for
us, would not be so defended.  I Cor. i. 27: "God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which are
mighty." Then surely he hath not chosen the Force of this world
to subdue Conscience, and conscientious men, who in this world
are counted weakest; but rather Conscience, as being weakest, to
subdue and regulate Force, his adversary, not his aid or instrument in governing the Church: 2 Cor. x. 3, 4, 5, 6, ' For though
we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: for the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God
to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations,
and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of
God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ: and having in a readiness to avenge all disobedience."
It is evident by the first and second verses of this chapter, and
the Apostle here speaks of that spiritual power by which Christ
governs his Church, how all-sufficient it is, how powerful to reach
the conscience and the inward man with whom it chiefly deals,
and whom no power else can deal with. In comparison of which,
as it is here thus magnificently described, how ineffectual and
weak is outward force with all her boisterous tools, to the shame
of those Christians, and especially those churchmen, who to the
exercising of Church Discipline, never cease calling on the Civil
Magistrate to interpose his fleshly force! An argument that all
true ministerial and spiritual power is dead within them who
think the Gospel, which both began and spread over the whole
world for above three hundred years, under heathen and persecuting emperors, cannot stand or continue, supported by the
same divine presence and protection, to the world's end, much
easier under the defensive favour only of a Christian magistrate,
unless it be enacted and settled, as they call it, by the State, a
statute or a State Religion; and understand not that the Church
itself cannot, much less the State, settle or impose one tittle of
Religion upon our obedience implicit, but can only recommend
or propound it to our free and conscientious examination. Unless
they mean to set the State higher than the Church in religion,
and with a gross contradiction give to the State in their settling
petition that command of our implicit belief which they deny in
their settled confession both to the State and to the Church.




CIVIL POWIER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CA USES.       41I
Let them cease then to importune and interrupt the Magistrate
from attending to his own charge in civil and moral things,-the
settling of things just, things honest, the defence of things religious,
settled by the Churches within themselves, and the repressing of
their contraries, determinable by the common light of nature.
which is not to constrain or to repress Religion probable by Scripture, but the violaters and persecutors thereof: of all which things
he hath enough and more than enough to do, left yet undone,
for which the land groans, and justice goes to wrack the while.
Let him also forbear force where he hath no right to judge-for
the conscience is not his province-lest a worse woe arrive him
for worse offending than was denounced by our Saviour, Matt.
xxiii. 23, against the Pharisees: Ye have forced the conscience,
which was not to be forced; but judgment and mercy ye have
not executed; this ye should have done, and the other let alone.
And since it is the counsel and set purpose of God in the Gospel,
by spiritual means which are counted weak to overcome all power
which resists him; let them not go about to do that by worldly
strength which he hath decreed to do by those means which the
world counts weakness, lest they be again obnoxious to that saying,
which in another place is also written of the Pharisees, Luke vii.
30, that they frustrated the counsel of God.
The main plea is, and urged with much vehemence to their imitation, that the kings of Judah, as I touched before, and especially
Josiah, both judged and used force in religion: 2 Chron. xxxiv.
33, "He made all that were present in Israel to serve the Lord
their God: " an argument, if it be well weighed, worse than that
used by the false prophet Shemaia to the high priest, that in imitation of Jehoiada, he ought to put Jeremiah in the stocks, Jer. xxix.
24, 26, &c.; for which he received his due denouncement from
God. But to this besides I return a threefold answer.
First, That the state of Religion under the Gospel is far differing from what it was under the Law.  Then was the state of
rigour, childhood, bondage, and works, to all which force was
not unbefitting. Now is the state of grace, manhood, freedom,
and faith, to all which belongs willingness and reason, not force:
the Law was then written on tables of stone, and to be performed
according to the letter, willingly or unwillingly. The Gospel, our
new covenant, upon the heart of every believer, to be interpreted




412       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
only by the sense of charity and inward persuasion. The law
had no distinct government or governors of Church and Commonwealth, but the priests and Levites judged in all causes, not
ecclesiastical only, but Civil, Deut. xvii. 8, &c.; which. under the
Gospel is forbidden to all Church ministers, as a thing which
Christ their Master in his ministry disclaimed, Luke xii. I4, as a
thing beneath them, I Cor. vi. 4, and by many other statutes, as to
them who have a peculiar and far-differing government of their own.
If not, why different the governors? Why not Church ministers
in State affairs, as well as State ministers in Church affairs? If
Church and State shall be made one flesh again, as under the Law,
let it be withal considered, that God, who then joined them, hath
now severed them. That which, he so ordaining, was then a lawful
conjunction, to such on either side as join again what he hath severed
would be nothing now but their own presumptuous fornication.
Secondly, the kings of Judah, and those magistrates under the
Law, might have recourse, as I said before, to divine inspiration;
which our magistrates under the Gospel have not, more than to
the same Spirit which those whom they force have ofttimes in
greater measure than themselves: and so, instead of forcing the
Christian, they force the Holy Ghost; and, against that wise forewarning of Gamaliel, fight against God.
Thirdly, those kings and magistrates used force in such things
only as were undoubtedly known and forbidden in the Law of
Moses, idolatry and direct apostacy from that national and strict
enjoined worship of God; whereof the corporal punishment was by
himself expressly set down. But magistrates under the Gospel, our
free, elective, and rational worship, are most commonly busiest to
force those things which in the Gospel are either left free, nay, sometimes abolished when by them compelled, or else controverted
equally by writers on both sides, and sometimes with odds on that
side which is against them. By which means they either punish
that which they ought to favour and protect, or that with corporal
punishment and of their own inventing which not they but the
Church had received command to chastise with a spiritual rod only.
Yet some are so eager in their zeal of forcing, that they refuse not
to descend at length to the utmost shift of that parabolical proof,
Luke xiv. 16, &c.," Compel them to come in:" therefore Magistrates
may compel in Religion. As if a parable were to be strained through




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CA USES.          413
every word or phrase, and not expounded by the general scope
thereof; which is no other here than the earnest expression of God's
displeasure on those recusant Jews, and his purpose to prefer the
Gentiles on any terms before them, expressed here by the word compel. But how compels he? Doubtless no other way than he draws,
without which no man can come to him, John vi. 44; and that is by
the inward persuasive motions of his Spirit, and by his ministers;
not by the outward compulsions of a magistrate or his officers.
The true people of Christ, as is foretold, Psalm cx. 3, "are a
willing people in the day of his power; " then much more now
when he rules all things by outward weakness, that both his inward power and their sincerity may the more appear. " God loveth
a cheerful giver: " then certainly is not pleased with an uncheerful worshipper: as the very words declare of his evangelical invitation, Isa. lv. i, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come."  John
vii. 37, "If any man thirsteth."  Rev. iii. i8, " I counsel thee."
And xxii. I7, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely." And in that grand commission of preaching, to invite
all nations, Mark xvi. i6, as the reward of them who come, so
the penalty of them who come not, is only spiritual.
But they bring now some reason with their force, which must
not pass unanswered, that the Church of Thyatira was blamed,
Rev. ii. 20, for suffering the false "prophetess to teach and to
seduce." I answer, That seducement is to be hindered by fit
and proper means ordained in Church Discipline, by instant and
powerful demonstration to the contrary; by opposing truth to
error, no unequal match; truth the strong to error the weak,
though sly and shifting. Force is no honest confutation, but uneffectual, and for the most part unsuccessful; ofttimes fatal to them
who use it. Sound doctrine, diligently and duly taught, is of herself both sufficient, and of herself (if some secret judgment of God
hinder not) always prevalent against seducers. This the Thyatirans
had neglected, suffering, against Church Discipline, that woman to
teach and seduce among them. Civil Force they had not then in
their power, being the Christian part only of that city, and then
especially under one of those ten great persecutions, whereof this,
the second, was raised by Domitian: force therefore in these matters
could not be required of them who were under force themselves.
I have shown that the Civil Power neither hath right, nor can




414       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATS.
do right, by forcing religious things. I will now show the wrong it
doth by violating the fundamental privilege of the Gospel, the newv
birthright of every true believer, Christian Liberty: 2 Cor. iii. 17,
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty." Gal. iv. 26,
" Jerusalem which is above is free; which is the mother of us
all." And verse 31, "WVe are not children of the Bondwoman,
but of the Free." It will be sufficient in this place to say no
more of Christian Liberty, than that it sets us free not only from
the bondage of those ceremonies, but also from the forcible
imposition of those circumstances, place and time, in the worship
of God, which though by him commanded in the old law, yet in
respect of that verity and freedom which is evangelical, St. Paul
comprehends-both kinds alike, that is to say, both ceremony
and circumstance-under one and the same contemptuous name
of "weak and beggarly rudiments," Gal. iv. 3, 9, Io; Col. ii. 8
with i6, conformable to what our Saviour Himself taught, John iv.
21, 23, "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem. In
spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him."
That is to say, not only sincere of heart, for such he sought ever;
but also, as the words here chiefly import, not compelled to place,
and by the same reason, not to any set time. As his Apostle by
the same Spirit hath taught us, Rom. xiv. 6, &c., "One man
esteemeth one day above another," &c.; Gal. iv. IO, "Ye observe
days and months," &c.; Col. ii. i6.  These and other such
places in Scripture, the best and learnedest reformed writers have
thought evident enough to instruct us in our freedom not only
from ceremonies but from  those circumstances also, though
imposed with a confident persuasion of morality in them, which
they hold impossible to be in place or time.
By what warrant then our opinions and practices herein are of
late turned quite against all other Protestants, and that which is
to them orthodoxal to us becomes scandalous and punishable by
statute, I wish were once again considered, if we mean not to
proclaim a schism in this point from the best and most reformed
Churches abroad. They who would seem more knowing, confess
that these things are indifferent, but for that very cause by the
magistrate may be commanded. As if God of his special grace
in the Gospel had to this end freed us from his own commandments in these things, that our freedom should subject us to a




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CA USES.         415
more grievous yoke, the commandments of men. As well may
the magistrate call that common or unclean which God hath
cleansed, forbidden to St. Peter, Acts x. I5; as well may he
loosen that which God hath straitened or straiten that which God
hath loosened, as he may enjoy those things in Religion which
God hath left free, and lay on that yoke which God hath taken
off. For he hath not only given us this gift as a special privilege
and excellence of the free Gospel above the servile Law, but strictly
also hath commanded us to keep it and enjoy it: Gal. v. 13, "You are
called to Liberty." I Cor. vii. 23, "Benotmade the servants of men."
Gal. v. I4, "Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free: and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
Neither is this a mere command, but for the most part in these
forecited places, accompanied with the very weightiest and inmost
reasons of Christian religion: Rom. xiv. 9, 10, "For to this end
Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord
both of the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy
brother?" &c. How presumest thou to be his lord, to be whose
only Lord, at least in these things, Christ both died, and rose,
and lived again? "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat
of Christ." Why then dost thou not only judge, but persecute
in these things for which we are to be accountable to the tribunal
of Christ only, our Lord and lawgiver? I Cor. vii. 23, "Ye are
bought with a price: be not made the servants of men." Some
trivial price belike and for some frivolous pretences paid, in
their opinion, if-bought and by him redeemed, who is God,
from what was once the service of God-we shall be enthralled
again and forced by men to what now is but the service of
men: Gal. iv. 31, with v. i, "We are not children of the
bondwoman, &c.; stand fast therefore," &c. Col. ii. 8, "Beware lest any man spoil you, &c., after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ." Solid reasons whereof are continued through the whole chapter. Ver. o, "Ye are complete
in him, which is the head of all principality and power:" not
completed therefore or made the more religious by those ordinances of civil power from which Christ their head hath discharged
us; "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us, which was contrary to us; and took it out of the way, nailing
it to his cross," ver. 14. Blotting out ordinances written by God




4I6        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
himself, much more those so boldly written over again by men;
ordinances which were against us, that is, against our frailty, much
more those which are against our conscience.  "Let no man
therefore judge you in respect of," &c., ver. i6; Gal. iv. 3, &c.
"Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the
rudiments of the world: but when the fulness of time was come,
God sent forth his Son, &c., to redeem them that were under the
law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, &c. Wherefore
thou art no more a servant, but a son, &c. But now, &c., how
turn ye again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye
desire again to be in bondage?  Ye observe days," &c. Hence
it plainly appears, that if we be not free, we are not sons, but still
servants unadopted; and if we turn again to those weak and
beggarly rudiments, we are not free; yea, though willingly, and
with a misguided conscience, we desire to be in bondage to them;
how much more then if unwillingly and against our conscience?
Ill was our condition changed from legal to evangelical, and
small advantage gotten by the Gospel, if for the spirit of adoption
to freedom promised us, we receive again the spirit of bondage to
fear; if our fear, which was then servile towards God only, must
be now servile in religion towards men. Strange also and preposterous fear, if when and wherein it hath attained by the redemption of our Saviour to be filial only towards God, it must be
now servile towards the magistrate, who, by subjecting us to his
punishment in these things, brings back into religion that law of
terror and satisfaction belonging now only to civil crimes; and
thereby in effect abolishes the Gospel, by establishing again the
Law to a far worse yoke of servitude upon us than before. It
will therefore not misbecome the meanest Christian to put in
mind Christian magistrates, and so much the more freely by how
much the more they desire to be thought Christian,-for they will
be thereby, as they ought to be in these things, the more our
brethren and the less our lords,-that they meddle not rashly with
Christian Liberty, the birthright and outward testimony of our
adoption; lest while they little think it, nay, think they do God service, they themselves, like the sons of that bondwoman, be found
persecuting them who are freeborn of the Spirit, and by a sacrilege
of not the least aggravation, bereaving them of that sacred Liberty
which our Saviour with his own blood purchased for them.




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.           417
A fourth reason why the Magistrate ought not to use Force in
Religion, I bring from the consideration of all those ends which
he can likely pretend to the interposing of his force therein. And
those hardly oan be other than first the glory of God; next, either
the spiritual good of them whom he forces, or the temporal
punishment of their scandal to others. As for the promoting of
God's glory, none, I think, will say that His glory ought to be
promoted in religious things by unwarrantable means, much less
by means contrary to what He hath commanded. That outward
force is such, and that God's glory in the whole administration of
the Gospel according to his own will and counsel ought to )e
fulfilled by weakness-at least so refuted, not by force; or if by
force, inward and spiritual, not outward and corporeal-is already
proved at large. That outward force cannot tend to the good
of him who is forced in Religion, is unquestionable. For in
Religion whatever we do under the Gospel, we ought to be
thereof persuaded without scruple; and are justified by the faith
we have, not by the work we do: Rom. xiv. 5, "Let every
man be fully persuaded in his own mind." The other reason,
which follows necessarily, is obvious, Gal. ii. I6, and in many
other places of St. Paul, as the groundwork and foundation of
the whole Gospel, that we are "justified by the faith of Christ,
and not by the works of the law." If not by the works of God's
law, how then by the injunctions of man's law? Surely Force cannot work persuasion, which is Faith; cannot therefore justify nor
pacify the Conscience. And that which justifies not in the Gospel,
condemns; is not only not good, but sinful to do: Rom. xiv. 23,
"Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." It concerns the Magistrate,
then, to take heed how he forces in Religion conscientious men,
lest, by compelling them to do that whereof they cannot be persuaded, that wherein they cannot find themselves justified, but by
their own consciences condemned, instead of aiming at theirspiritual
good, he force them to do evil; and while he thinks himself Asa,
Josiah, Nehemiah, he be found Jeroboam, who caused Israel to sin;
and thereby draw upon his own head all those sins and shipwrecks
of implicit faith and conformity which he hath forced, and all
the wounds given to those little ones, whom to offend he will find
worse one day than that violent drowning mentioned Matt. xviii. 6.
Lastly, as a preface to force, it is the usual pretence, that
2 D




418


FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.


although tender consciences shall be tolerated, yet scandals
thereby given shall not be unpunished. Profane and licentious
men shall not be encouraged to neglect the performance of
religious and holy duties by colour of any law giving liberty to
tender consciences. By which contrivance, the way lies ready
open to them hereafter who may be so minded to take away by
little and little that Liberty which Christ and his Gospel, not any
magistrate, hath right to give: though this kind of his giving be
but to give with one hand and take away with the other, which
is a deluding not a giving. As for scandals, if any man be
offended at the conscientious liberty of another, it is a taken
scandal not a given. To heal one conscience, we must not
wound another.   And men must be exhorted to beware of
scandals in Christian liberty not forced by the magistrate; lest
while he goes about to take away the scandal, which is uncertain
whether given or taken, he take away our Liberty, which is the
certain and the sacred gift of God, neither to be touched by him
nor to be parted with by us. None more cautious of giving
scandal than St. Paul. Yet while he made himself "servant to
all," that he "might gain the more," he made himself so of his
own accord, was not made so by outward force, testifying at the
same time that he "was free from all men," i Cor. ix. I9; and
thereafter exhorts us also, Gal. v. 13, "Ye were called to liberty,
&c., but by love serve one another:" then not by force. As for
that fear lest profane and licentious men should be encouraged
to omit the performance of religious and holy duties, how can
that care belong to the civil magistrate, especially to his force?
For if profane and licentious persons must not neglect the performance of religious and holy duties, it implies that such duties
they can perform; which no Protestant will affirm. They who
mean the outward performance, may so explain it; and it will
then appear yet more plainly, that such performance of religious
and holy duties, especially by profane and licentious persons, is
a dishonouring rather than a worshipping of God; and not only
by him not required, but detested: Prov. xxi. 27, "The sacrifice
of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he
bringeth it with a wicked mind?"  To compel, therefore, the
profane to things holy, in his profaneness, is all one under the
Gospel as to have compelled the unclean to sacrifice in his




CIVIL POIVER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.          419
uncleanness under the Law. And I add withal, that to compel
the licentious in his licentiousness, and the conscientious against
his conscience, comes all to one; tends not to the honour of
God, but to the multiplying and the aggravating of sin to them
both. We read not that Christ ever exercised force but once,
and that was to drive profane ones out of his temple, not to
force them in. And if their being there was an offence, we find
by many other Scriptures that their praying there was an abomination. And yet to the Jewish law that nation, as a servant, was
obliged; but to the Gospel each person is left voluntary, called only
as a son, by the preaching of the Word; not to be driven in by edicts
and force of arms. For if by the Apostle, Rom. xii. i, we are " beseeched as brethren by the mercies of God to present our bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service," or worship, then is no man to be forced by the compulsive laws
of men to present his body a dead sacrifice; and so under the
Gospel most unholy and unacceptable, because it is his unreasonable service, that is to say, not only unwilling but unconscionable.
But if profane and licentious persons may not omit the performance of holy duties, why may they not partake of holy things?
Why are they prohibited the Lord's Supper, since both the one
and the other action may be outward; and outward performance
of duty may attain at least an outward participation of benefit?
The Church denying them that communion of grace and thanksgiving, as it justly doth, why doth the Magistrate compel them to
the union of performing that which they neither truly can, being
themselves unholy, and to do seemingly is both hateful to God,
and perhaps no less dangerous to perform holy duties irreligiously
than to receive holy signs or sacraments unworthily? All profane
and licentious men, so known, can be considered but either so
without the Church as never yet within it, or departed thence of
their own accord, or excommunicate. If never yet within the
Church, whom the Apostle, and so, consequently, the Cihurch
have nought to do to judge, as he professes, i Cor. v. i2, then
by what authority doth the Magistrate judge, or, which is worse,
compel, in relation to the Church? If departed of his own
accord, like that lost sheep, Luke xv. 4, &c., the true Church,
either with her own or any borrowed force worries him not in
again, but rather in all charitable manner sends after him; and




420       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
if she find him, lays him gently on her shoulders, bears him, yea,
bears his burdens, his errors, his infirmities any way tolerable, "so
fulfilling the law of Christ," Gal. vi. 2. If excommunicate, whom
the Church hath bid go out in whose name doth the Magistrate
compel to go in? The Church, indeed, hinders none from hearing in her public congregation, for the doors are open to all: nor
excommunicates to destruction; but, as much as in her lies, to a
final saving. Her meaning, therefore, must needs be, that as her
driving out brings on no outward penalty, so no outward force of
penalty of an improper and only a destructive power should drive
in again her infectious sheep, therefore sent out because infectious,
and not driven in but with the danger not only of the whole and
sound but also of his own utter perishing, since Force neither
instructs in Religion, nor begets repentance or amendment or
life, but, on the contrary, hardness of heart, formality, hypocrisy,
and, as I said before, every way increase of sin; more and more
alienates the mind from a violent Religion expelling out and
compelling in, and reduces it to a condition like that which the
Britons complain of in our story, driven to and fro between the
Picts and the sea. If, after excommunion, he be found intractable, incurable, and will not hear the Church, he becomes as one
never yet within her pale, "a heathen or a publican," Matt. xviii.
17, not further to be judged, no, not by the Magistrate, unless for
civil causes; but left to the final sentence of that Judge, whose
coming shall be in flames of fire; that Maranatha, i Cor. xvi. 22,
than which, to him so left, nothing can be more dreadful, and
ofttimes to him particularly nothing more speedy, that is to say,
The Lord cometh: in the meanwhile delivered up to Satan, i
Cor. v. 5, I Tim. i. 20, that is, from the fold of Christ and kingdom
of grace to the world again, which is the kingdom of Satan; and
as he was received "from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan to God," Acts xxvi. I8, so now delivered up again from
light to darkness, and from God to the power of Satan; yet so
as is in both places manifested, to the intent of saving him,
brought sooner to contrition by spiritual than by any corporal
severity. But grant it belonging any way to the magistrate, that
profane and licentious persons omit not the performance of holy
duties which in them were odious to God even under the Law,
much more now under the Gospel; yet ought his care both as a




CIVIL POWER IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.           421
magistrate and a Christian, to be much more that Conscience be
not inwardly violated, than that licence in these things be made outwardly conformable: since his part is undoubtedly as a Christian,
which puts him upon this office much more than as a Magistrate,
in all respects to have more care of the conscientious than of the
profane; and not for their sakes to take away (while they pretend
to give) or to diminish the rightful liberty of religious consciences.
On these four scriptural reasons, as on a firm square, this Truth,
the right of Christian and Evangelic Liberty, will stand immovable against all those pretended consequences of licence and
confusion, which for the most part men most licentious and confused themselves, or such as whose severity would be wiser than
divine wisdom, are ever aptest to object against the ways of God.
As if God without them, when he gave us this Liberty, knew not
of the worst which these men in their arrogance pretend will
follow. Yet knowing all their worst, he gave us this liberty as by
him judged best. As to those Magistrates who think it their
work to settle Religion, and those Ministers or others, who so
oft call upon them to do so, I trust, that having well considered
what hath been here argued, neither they will continue in that intention, nor these in that expectation from them; when they shall
find that the settlement of Religion belongs only to each particular
Church by persuasive and spiritual means within itself, and that
the defence only of the Church belongs to the magistrate. Had he
once learned not further to concern himself with Church affairs, half
his labour might be spared, and the commonwealth better tended.
To which end, that which I premised in the beginning, and in
due place treated of more at large, I desire now, concluding, that
they would consider seriously what Religion is; and they will
find it to be, in sum, both our belief and our practice depending
upon God only. That there can be no place then left for the
Magistrate or his force in the settlement of Religion, by appointing either what we shall believe in divine things, or practise
in religious,-neither of which things are in the power of man
either to perform himself or to enable others,-I persuade me in
the Christian ingenuity of all religious men the more they examine
seriously the more they will find clearly to be true; and find how
false and deviseable that common saying is, which is so much
relied upon, that the Christian magistrate is Cusfos utriusque




422       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
Tabucla, Keeper of both Tables; unless is meant by keeper the
defender only. Neither can that maxim be maintained by any
proof or argument, which hath not in this discourse first or last
been refuted. For the two Tables, or Ten Commandments,
teach our duty to God and our Neighbour from the Love of both;
give magistrates no authority to force either. They seek that
from the judicial law, though on false grounds, especially in
the first Table, as I have shown; and both in first and second
execute that authority for the most part, not according to God's
judicial laws, but their own. As for civil crimes and of the
outward man,-which all are not, no, not of those against the
second Table, as that of coveting,-in them what power they have
they had from the beginning, long before Moses or the two
Tables were in being. And whether they be not now as little in
being to be kept by any Christian, as they are two legal -Tables,
remains yet as undecided, as it is sure they never were yet
delivered to the keeping of any Christian Magistrate. But of
these things, perhaps, more some other time. What may serve
the present hath been above discoursed sufficiently out of the
Scriptures: and to those produced, might be added testimonies,
examples, experiences, of all succeeding ages to these times,
asserting this doctrine. But having herein the Scripture so
copious and so plain, we have all that can be properly called true
strength and nerve; the rest would be but pomp and encumbrance. Pomp and ostentation of reading is admired among the
vulgar; but doubtless, in matters of Religion, he is learnedest
iwho is plainest. The brevity I use, not exceeding a small manual,
will not therefore, I suppose, be thought the less considerable, unless
with them, perhaps, who think that great books only can determine great matters. I rather choose the common rule, not to make
much ado where less may serve; which in controversies, and those
especially of Religion, would make them less tedious, and by consequence read oftener by many more and with more benefit.




THE READY AND EASY WAY


TO ESTABLISH
A FREE COMMONWEALTH,
AND THE EXCELLENCE THEREOF,
COMPARED WITH THE INCONVENIENCES AND DANGERS OF
READMITTING KINGSHIP IN THIS NATION.
[First published i I 660.]
" Et nos
Consilium dedimus Syllke, demus Populo nunc."
ALTHOUGH, since the writing of this treatise, the face of things
hath had some change, writs for new elections have been recalled,
and the members at first chosen re-admitted from exclusion; yet not
a little rejoicing to hear declared the resolution of those who are in
power, tending to the establishment of a Free Commonwealth, and
to remove, if it be possible, this noxious humour of returning to
bondage, instilled of late by some deceivers, and nourished from bad
principles and false apprehensions among too many of the people,
I thought best not to suppress what I had written, hoping that it
may now be of much more use and concernment to be freely published, in the midst of our elections to a free Parliament, or their
sitting to consider freely of the government whom it behoves to have
all things represented to them that may direct their judgment therein.
And I never read of any state, scarce of any tyrant, grown so incurable,' as to refuse counsel from any in a time of public deliberation,
much less to be offended.  If their absolute determination be to enthral us, before so long a Lent of servitude they may permit us a
little shroving-time first, wherein to speak freely and to take our
leaves of Liberty. And because in the former edition, through haste,
many faults escaped, and many books were suddenly dispersed ere




424       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
the note to mend them could be sent, I took the opportunity from
this occasion to revise and somewhat to enlarge the whole discourse,
especially that part which argues for a Perpetual Senate. The treatise
thus revised and enlarged is as follows:
The Parliament of England, assisted by a great number of the
people who appeared and stuck to them faithfulest in defence of
Religion and their Civil Liberties, judging kingship by long experience a government unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous, justly
and magnanimously abolished it, turning regal bondage into a Free
Commonwealth, to the admiration and terror of our emulous neighbours. They took themselves not bound by the light of Nature or
Religion to any former covenant from which the king himself, by many
forfeitures of a latter date or discovery and our own longer consideration thereon, had more and more unbound us both to himself and his
posterity; as hath been ever the justice and the prudence of all wise
nations that have ejected tyranny. They covenanted "to preserve
the king's person and authority, in the preservation of the true religion,
and our liberties;" not in his endeavouring to bring in upon our
consciences a popish religion; upon our liberties, thraldom; upon
our lives, destruction, by his occasioning, if not complotting, as was
after discovered, the Irish massacre; his fomenting and arming the
rebellion; his covert leaguing with the rebels against us; his refusing, more than seven times, propositions most just and necessary to
the true religion and our liberties, tendered him by the Parliament
both of England and Scotland. They made not their covenant concerning him with no difference between a king and a God; or promised him, as Job did to the Almighty, "to trust in him though he
slay us." They understood that the solemn engagement wherein we
all foreswore kingship, was no more a breach of the covenant, than
the covenant was of the protestation before, but a faithful and prudent
going on both in words well weighed, and in the true sense of the covenant "without respect of persons," when we could not serve two contrary
masters, God and the King, or the king and that more supreme law
sworn in the first place to maintain our safety and our liberty. They
knew the people of England to be a free people, themselves the representers of that freedom; and although many were excluded, and as
many fled, so they pretended, from tumults to Oxford, yet they were
left a sufficient number to act in Parliament, therefore not bound by
any statute of preceding parliaments, but by the Law of Nature only.
Which is the only law of laws truly and properly to all mankind
fundamental; the beginning and the end of all government; to which
no parliament or people that will thoroughly reform but may and




A FREE COMMON[VEALTH.


425


must have recourse, as they had, and must yet have in Church
Reformation (if they thoroughly intend it) to evangelic rules, not to
ecclesiastical canons, though never so ancient, so ratified and established in the land by statutes which for the most part are mere positive laws, neither natural nor moral, and so by any parliament for
just and serious considerations, without scruple to be at any time
repealed.
If others of their number in these things were under force,-they
were not, but under free conscience:-if others were excluded by a
power which they could not resist, they were not therefore to leave
the helm of government in no hands, to discontinue their care of
the public peace and safety, to desert the people in anarchy and
confusion, no more than when so many of their members left them
as made up in outward formality a more legal parliament of three
estates against them. The best affected also and best principled of
the people stood not numbering or computing on which side were
most voices in Parliament, but on which side appeared to them most
reason, most safety, when the House divided upon main matters.
What was well mentioned and advised, they examined not whether
fear or persuasion carried it in the vote, neither did they measure
votes and counsels by the intentions of them that voted; knowing
that intentions either are but guessed at, or not soon enough known,
and although good, can neither make the deed such, nor prevent the
consequence from being bad.   Suppose bad intentions otherwise
well done; what was well done was by them who so thought, not the
less obeyed or followed in the State; since in the Church, who had
not rather follow Iscariot or Simon the magician, though to covetous
ends preaching, than Saul, though in the uprightness of his heart
persecuting the Gospel?
Safer they, therefore, judged what they thought the better counsels,
though carried on by some perhaps to bad ends, than the worst by
others, though endeavoured with best intentions. And yet they were
not to learn that a greater number might be corrupt within the walls
of a Parliament, as well as of a City. Whereof in matters of nearest
concernment all men will be judges; nor easily permit that the odds of
voices in their greatest Council shall more endanger them by corrupt
or credulous votes, than the odds of enemies by open assaults; judging that most voices ought not always to prevail where main matters
are in question. If others hence will pretend to disturb all counsels,
what is that to them who pretend not, but are in real danger, not
they only so judging, but a great, though not the greatest number of
their chosen patriots, who might be more in weight than the others
in numbers; there being in number little virtue, but by weight and




426        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
measure wisdom working all things. And the dangers on either side
they seriously thus weighed?
From the treaty, short fruits of long labours, and seven years' war;
security for twenty years, if we can hold it; Reformation in the
Church for three years: then put to shift again with our vanquished
master. His justice, his honour, his conscience declared quite contrary to ours; which would have furnished him with many such
evasions as in a book entitled "An Inquisition for Blood," soon after
were not concealed. Bishops not totally removed, but left, as it were,
in ambush, a reserve, with ordination in their sole power; their
lands already sold, not to be alienated, but rented, and the sale of
them called "sacrilege."  Delinquents, few of many brought to
condign punishment; accessories punished, the chief author, above
pardon, though, after utmost resistance, vanquished, not to give, but
to receive, laws; yet besought, treated with, and to be thanked for
his gracious concessions, to be honoured, worshipped, glorified.
If this we swore to do, with what righteousness in the sight of God,
with what assurance that we bring not by such an oath the whole sea
of blood-guiltiness upon our heads?  If on the other side we prefer
a Free Government, though for the present not obtained, yet all those
suggested fears and difficulties, as the event will prove, easily overcome, we remain finally secure from the exasperated regal power, and
out of snares; shall retain the best part of our Liberty, which is our
Religion, and the civil part will be from these who defer us much
more easily recovered, being neither so subtle nor so awful as a king
reinthroned.  Nor were their actions less both at home and abroad
than might become the hopes of a glorious rising Commonwealth:
nor were the expressions both of army and people, whether in their
public declarations or several writings, other than such as testified a
spirit in this nation, no less noble and well-fitted to the liberty of a
commonwealth, than in the ancient Greeks or Romans.  Nor was
the heroic cause unsuccessfully defended to all Christendom against
the tongue of a famous and thought invincible adversary; nor the
constancy and fortitude that so nobly vindicated our liberty, our
victory at once against two the most prevailing usurpers over mankind, superstition and tyranny, unpraised or uncelebrated in a written
monument, likely to outlive detraction as it hath hitherto convinced
or silenced not a few of our detractors, especially in parts abroad.
After our Liberty and Religion thus prosperously fought for, gained,
and many years possessed, except in those unhappy interruptions
which God hath removed; now that nothing remains, but in all
reason the certain hopes of a speedy and immediate settlement for
ever in a firm and free Commonwealth,-for this extolled and magni



A FREE COMMONWIEALTH.


427


fled nation, regardless both of honour won, or deliverances vouchsafed
from heaven, to fall back, or rather to creep back so poorly as it
seems the multitude would, to their once abjured and detested thraldom
of kingship; to be ourselves the slanderers of our own just and religious deeds, though done by some to covetous and ambitious ends
yet not therefore to be stained with their infamy, or they to asperse
the integrity of others; and yet these now by revolting from the conscience of deeds well done both in Church and State, to throw away
and forsake, or rather to betray, a just and noble cause for the mixture of bad men who have ill-managed and abused it (which had our
fathers done heretofore, and on the same pretence deserted true religion, what had long ere this become of our Gospel, and all Protestant
Reformation so much intermixed with the avarice and ambition of
some reformers?) and by thus relapsing, to verify all the bitter predictions of our triumphing enemies, who will now think they wisely
discerned and justly censured both us and all our actions as rash,
rebellious, hypocritical, and impious;-not only argues a strange,
degenerate contagion suddenly spread among us, fitted and prepared
for new slavery, but will render us a scorn and derision to all our
neighbours. And what will they at best say of us, and of the whole
English name, but scoffingly, as of that foolish builder mentioned by
our Saviour, who began to build a tower, and was not able to finish
it:-Where is this goodly tower of a Commonwealth, which the
English boasted they would build to overshadow kings, and be
another Rome in the west? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly,
but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues, but of factions, than
those at the tower of Babel; and have left no memorial of their work
behind them remaining but in the common laughter of Europe!
Which must needs redound the more to our shame, if we but look
on our neighbours the United Provinces, to us inferior in all outward
advantages; who notwithstanding, in the midst of greater difficulties,
courageously, wisely, constantly went through with the same work,
and are settled in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing
republic to this day.
Besides this, if we return to kingship, and soon repent (as undoubtedly we shall, when we begin to find the old encroachment
coming on by little and little upon our consciences, which must
necessarily proceed from king and bishop united inseparably in one
interest), we may be forced perhaps to fight over again all that we
have fought, and spend over again all that we have spent, but are
never like to attain thus far as we are now advanced to the recovers of
our freedom, never to have it in possession as we now have it, never
to be vouchsafed hereafter the like mercies and signal assistances




428        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
from Heaven in our cause, if by our ingrateful backsliding we make
these fruitless; flying now to regal concessions from his divine condescensions and gracious answers to our once importuning prayers
against the tyranny which we then groaned under; making vain and
viler than dirt the blood of so many thousand faithful and valiant
Englishmen, who left us in this liberty, bought with their lives; losing
by a strange after-game of folly all the battles we have won, together
with all Scotland as to our conquest hereby lost, which never any of
our kings could conquer; all the treasure we have spent, not that corruptible treasure only, but that far more precious of all our late miraculous deliverances; treading back again with lost labour all our
happy steps in the progress of Reformation, and most pitifully depriving ourselves the instant fruition of that free government which we
have so dearly purchased, a Free Commonwealth, not only held by
wisest men in all ages the noblest, the manliest, the equallest, the
ustest government, the most agreeable to all due liberty and proportioned equality, both human, civil, and Christian, most cherishing to
virtue and true religion, but also (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended or rather enjoined by our Saviour himself
to all Christians, not without remarkable disallowance and the brand
of Gentilism upon kingship.
God in much displeasure gave a king to the Israelites, and imputed it a sin to them that they sought one; but Christ apparently
forbids his disciples to admit of any such heathenish government.
"The kings of the Gentiles," saith he, "exercise lordship over
them," and they that "exercise authority upon them are called
benefactors: but ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among
you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that
serveth."  The occasion of these his words was the ambitious
desire of Zebedee's two sons to be exalted above their brethren in
his kingdom, which they thought was to be ere long upon earth.
That he speaks of civil government, is manifest by the former part
of the comparison, which infers the other part to be always in the
same kind. And what government comes nearer to this precept
of Christ, than a Free Commonwealth; wherein they who are the. greatest are perpetual servants and drudges to the public at their
own cost and charges, neglect their own affairs, yet are not elevated
above their brethren; live soberly in their families, walk the street
as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without
adoration? Whereas a king must be adored like a demigod, with
a dissolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury,
masks and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male
and female, not in their pastimes only, but in earnest, by the loose




A FREE COMMION IEALTH.


429


employments of court-service, which will be then thought honourable.
There will be a queen of no less charge; in most likelihood outlandish and a papist, besides a queen-mother such already; together
with both their Courts and numerous train.  Then a royal issue,
and ere long severally their sumptuous Courts, to the multiplying
of a servile crew, not of servants only but of nobility and gentry
bred up then to the hopes not of public but of Court-offices, to be
stewards, chamberlains, ushers, grooms even of the close-stool. And
the lower their minds debased with Court-opinions contrary to all
virtue and reformation, the haughtier will be their pride and profuseness. We may well remember this not long since at home;
nor need but look at present into the French court, where enticements and preferments daily draw away and pervert the Protestant
nobility.
As to the burden of expense, to our cost we shall soon know it,
for any good to us, deserving to be termed no better than the vast
and lavish price of our subjection and their debauchery, which we
are now so greedily cheapening and would so fain be paying most
inconsiderately to a single person who, for anything wherein the
public really needs him, will have little else to do but to bestow the
eating and drinking of excessive dainties, to set a pompous lace
upon the superficial actings of State, to pageant himself up and down
in progress among the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject
people on either side deifying and adoring him for nothing done that
can deserve it. For what can he more than another man who, even
in the expression of a late court-poet, sits only like a great cipher
set to no purpose before a long row of other significant figures. Nay,
it is well and happy for the people if their king be but a cipher, being
ofttimes a mischief, a pest, a scourge of the nation and, which is
worse, not to be removed, not to be controlled, much less accused
or brought to punishment, without the danger of a common ruin, without the shaking and almost subversion of the whole land. Whereas
in a Free Commonwealth, any governor or chief counsellor offending
may be removed and punished without the least commotion.
Certainly then that people must needs be mad or strangely infatuated that build the chief hope of their common happiness or safety
on a single person; who, if he happen to be good, can do no more
than another man; if to be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil
without check than millions of other men. The happiness of a
nation must needs be firmest and certainest in full and free Council
of their own electing, where no single person, but Reason only,
sways. And what madness is it for them who might manage nobly
their own affairs themselves, sluggishly and weakly to devolve all on




430        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
a single person, and, more like boys under age than men, to commit
all to his patronage and disposal who neither can perform what he
undertakes, and yet for undertaking it, though royally paid, will not
be their servant, but their lord. How unmanly must it needs be to
count such a one the breath of our nostrils, to hang all our felicity
on him, all our safety, our well-being, for which if we were aught else
but sluggards or babies we need depend on none but God and our
own counsels, our own active virtue and industry! Go to the ant,
thou sluggard, saith Solomon; consider her ways, and be wise;
which having no prince, ruler, or lord, provides her meat in the
summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. Which evidently
shows us that they who think the nation undone without a king,
though they look grave or haughty, have not so much true spirit and
understanding in them as a pismire. Neither are these diligent
creatures hence concluded to live in lawless anarchy, or that commended; but are set the examples to imprudent and ungoverned men
of a frugal and self-governing democracy or commonwealth, safer and
more thriving in the joint providence and counsel of many industrious
equals than under the single domination of one imperious lord.
It may be well wondered that any nation styling themselves free
can suffer any man to pretend hereditary right over them as their
lord; whenas, by acknowledging that right, they conclude themselves
his servants and his vassals, and so renounce their own freedom.
Which how a people, and their leaders especially, can do, who have
fought so gloriously for liberty; how they can change their noble
words and actions, heretofore so becoming the majesty of a free
people, into the base necessity of court flatteries and prostrations, is
not only strange and admirable but lamentable to think on. That a
nation should be so valorous and courageous to win their liberty in
the field, and when they have won it, should be so heartless and
unwise in their counsels as not to know how to use it, value it, what
to do with it, or with themselves, but after ten or twelve years' prosperous war and contestation with tyranny, basely and besottedly to
run their necks again into the yoke which they have broken, and
prostrate all the fruits of their victory for nought at the feet of the
vanquished,-besides our loss of glory, and such an example as kings
or tyrants never yet had the like to boast of,-will be an ignominy if
it befall us that never yet befell any nation possessed of their liberty.
Worthy indeed themselves, whatsoever they be, to be for ever slaves:
but that part of the nation which consents not with them, as I persuade me of a great number, far worthier than by their means to be
brought into the same bondage.
Considering these things so plain, so rational, I cannot but yet




A FREE CO.IMMON TTEALTH.


43I


further admire on the other side how any man who hath the true
principles of justice and religion in him can presume or take upon
him to be a king and lord over his brethren whom he cannot but
know, whether as men or Christians, to be for the most part every
way equal or superior to himself; how he can display with such
vanity and ostentation his regal splendour so supereminently above
other mortal men; or, being a Christian, can assume such extraordinary honour and worship to himself, while the kingdom of Christ,
our common king and lord, is hid to this world, and such gentilish
imitation forbid in express words by himself to all his disciples. All
Protestants hold that Christ in his Church hath left no vicegerent of
his power; but himself, without deputy, is the only head thereof,
governing it from heaven.  How then can any Christian man derive
his kingship from Christ, but with worse usurpation than the pope
his headship over the Church, since Christ not only hath not left the
least shadow of a command for any such vicegerence from him in
the State, as the pope pretends for his in the Church, but hath expressly declared that such regal dominion is from the gentiles, not
from him, and hath strictly charged us not to imitate them therein?
I doubt not but all ingenuous and knowing men will easily agree
with me, that a Free Commonwealth without Single Person or House
of Lords is by far the best government, if it can be had; but we
have all this while, say they, been expecting it, and cannot yet attain
it. It is true, indeed, when Monarchy was dissolved, the form of a
Commonwealth should have forthwith been framed, and the practice
thereof immediately begun, that the people might have soon been
satisfied and delighted with the decent order, ease and benefit thereof.
We had been then by this time firmly rooted, past fear of commotions or mutations, and now flourishing; this care of timely settling
a new government instead of the old, too much neglected, hath been
our mischief. Yet the cause thereof may be ascribed with most
reason to the frequent disturbances, interruptions, and dissolutions,
which the Parliament hath had, partly from the impatient or disaffected people, partly from some ambitious leaders in the army,
much contrary, I believe, to the mind and approbation of the army
itself, and their other commanders, once undeceived or in their own
power.
Now is the opportunity, now the very season, wherein we may
obtain a Free Commonwealth, and establish it for ever in the land,
without difficulty or much delay. Writs are sent out for elections,
and, which is worth observing, in the name, not of any king, but of
the keepers of our liberty, to summon a free parliament; which then
only will indeed be free, and deserve the true honour of that supreme




432        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
title, if they preserve us a free people. Which never Parliament
was more free to do, being now called, not, as heretofore, by
the summons of a king, but by the voice of liberty.  And if the
people, laying aside prejudice and impatience, will seriously and
calmly now consider their own good, both religious and civil, their
own liberty and the only means thereof, as shall be here laid
down before them, and will elect their knights and burgesses able
men, and according to the just and necessary qualifications-wvhich,
for aught-I hear, remain yet in force unrepealed, as they were formerly decreed in Parliament-men not addicted to a Single Person
or House of Lords, the work is done; at least the foundation firmly
laid of a Free Commonwealth, and good part also erected of the
main structure.
For the ground and basis of every just and free governmentsince men have smarted so oft for committing all to one person-is
a General Council of ablest men, chosen by the People to consult
of public affairs from time to time for the common good. In this
Grand Council must the sovereignty, not transferred but delegated
only and as it were deposited, reside; with this caution, they must
have the forces by sea and land committed to them for preservation
of the common peace and liberty; must raise and manage the public
revenue, at least with some inspectors deputed for satisfaction of the
people how it is employed; must make or propose, as more expressly
shall be said anon, civil laws; treat of commerce, peace or war with
foreign nations; and, for the carrying on some particular affairs with
more secrecy and expedition, must elect, as they have already out of
their own number and others, a Council of State.
And, although it may seem strange at first hearing, by reason
that men's minds are prepossessed with the notion of Successive
Parliaments, I affirm, that the Grand or General Council, being well
chosen, should be Perpetual. For so their business is or may be,
and ofttimes urgent; the opportunity of affairs gained or lost in a
moment. The day of Council cannot be set as the day of a festival,
but must be ready always to prevent or answer all occasions. By
this continuance they will become every way skilfullest, best provided of intelligence from abroad, best acquainted with the people at
home, and the people with them. The ship of the commonwealth
is always under sail; they sit at the stern, and if they steer well,
what need is there to change them, it being rather dangerous? Add
to this, that the Grand Council is both foundation and main pillar
of the whole State; and to move pillars and foundations, not faulty,
cannot be safe for the building.
I see not, therefore, how we can be advantaged by successive and




A FREE COMMONIVEAiLTH.


433


transitory parliaments; but that they are much likelier continually
to unsettle rather than to settle a free government, to breed commotions, changes, novelties, and uncertainties, to bring neglect upon
present affairs and opportunities, while all minds are in suspense
with expectation of a new assembly, and the assembly, for a good
space, taken up with the new settling of itself.  After which, if they
find no great work to do, they will make it, by altering or repealing
former acts, or making and multiplying new, that they may seem to
see what their predecessors saw not, and not to have assembled for
nothing; till all law be lost in the multitude of clashing statutes.
But if the ambition of such as think themselves injured, that they
also partake not of the government, and are impatient till they be
chosen, cannot brook the perpetuity of others chosen before them;
or if it be feared, that long continuance of power may corrupt sincerest men, the known expedient is, and by some lately propounded,
that annually (or if the space be longer, so much perhaps the better)
the third part of senators may go out according to the precedence of
their election, and the like number be chosen in their places, to prevent their settling of too absolute a power, if it should be perpetual:
and this they call " partial rotation."
But I could wish, that this wheel, or partial wheel in State, if
it be possible, might be avoided, as having too much affinity with
the wheel of Fortune.  For it appears not how this can be done,
without danger and mischance of putting out a great number of the
best and ablest: in whose stead new elections may bring in as many
raw, unexperienced, and otherwise affected, to the weakening and
much altering for the worse of public transactions.  Neither do
I think a Perpetual Senate especially chosen or entrusted by the
people much in this land to be feared, where the well-affected either
in a standing army or in a settled militia have their arms in their
own hands.  Safest therefore to me it seems, and of least hazard or
interruption to affairs, that none of the Grand Council be moved,
unless by death, or just conviction of some crime: for what can be
expected firm or steadfast from a floating foundation?  However, I
forejudge not any probable expedient, any temperament that can be
found in things of this nature, so disputable on either side.
Yet lest this which I affirm be thought my single opinion, I shall
add sufficient testimony.  Kingship itself is therefore counted the
more safe and durable because the king, and for the most part his
council, is not changed during life. But a Commonwealth is held
immortal, and therein firmest, safest, and most above fortune; for
the death of a king causeth ofttimes many dangerous alterations;
but the death now and then of a senator is not felt, the main body
2E




434        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
of them still continuing permanent in greatest and noblest commonwealths and as it were eternal. Therefore among the Jews, the
supreme council of seventy, called the Sanhedrim, founded by Moses,
in Athens that of Areopagus, in Sparta that of the Ancients, in Rome
the Senate, consisted of members chosen for term of life; and by
that means remained as it were still the same to generations. In
Venice they change indeed ofteher than every year some particular
Council of State, as that of Six, or such other: but the true Senate,
which upholds and sustains the government, is the whole aristocracy
immovable. So in the United Provinces, the States General, which
are indeed but a Council of State deputed by the whole union, are
not usually the same persons for above three or six years; but the
States of every city, in whom the sovereignty hath been placed time
out of mind, are a standing Senate, without succession, and accounted
chiefly in that regard the main prop of their liberty. And why they
should be so in every well-ordered commonwealth, they who write of
policy give these reasons: That to make the Senate successive, not
only impairs the dignity and lustre of the Senate, but weakens the
whole Commonwealth, and brings it into manifest danger; while by
this means the secrets of state are frequently divulged, and matters
of greatest consequence committed to inexpert and novice counsellors,
utterly to seek in the full and intimate knowledge of affairs past.
I know not, therefore, what should be peculiar in England, to make
successive parliaments thought safest, or convenient here more than
in other nations, unless it be the fickleness which is attributed to us
as we are islanders. But good education and acquisite wisdom ought
to correct the fluxible fault, if any such be, of our watery situation.
It will be objected, that in those places where they had Perpetual
Senates, they had also popular remedies against their growing too
imperious: as in Athens, besides Areopagus, another senate of four
or five hundred; in Sparta, the Ephori; in Rome, the Tribunes of
the People.
But the event tells us, that these remedies either little availed the
people, or brought them to such a licentious and unbridled democracy,
as in fine ruined themselves with their own excessive power. So
that the main reason urged why popular assemblies are to be trusted
with the people's liberty, rather than a senate of principal men,
because great men will be still endeavouring to enlarge their power,
but the common sort will be contented to maintain their own liberty,
is by experience found false; none being more immoderate and
ambitious to amplify their power than such popularities. Which
were seen in the People of Rome, who, at first contented to have
their tribunes, at length contended with the senate that one consul,




A FREE COMMONWEALTH.


435


then both, soon after, that the censors and prators also, should be
created plebeian, and the whole empire put into their hands; adoring
lastly those who most were adverse to the senate, till Marius, by
fulfilling their inordinate desires, quite lost them  all the power
for which they had so long been striving, and left them under the
tyranny of Sylla. The balance therefore must be exactly so set, as
to preserve and keep up due authority on either side, as well in the
Senate as in the People. And this annual rotation of a Senate to
consist of three hundred, as is lately propounded, requires also another
popular assembly upward of a thousand, with an answerable rotation.
Which, besides that it will be liable to all those inconveniences found
in the aforesaid remedies, cannot but be troublesome and chargeable,
both in their motion and their session, to the whole land; unwieldy
with their own bulk; unable in so great a number to mature their
consultations as they ought, if any be allotted them, and that they
meet not from so many parts remote to sit a whole year lieger in one
place, only now and then to hold up a forest of fingers, or to convey
each man his bean or ballot into the box without reason shown or
common deliberation; incontinent of secrets, if any be imparted to
them; emulous and always jarring with the other senate. The much
better way doubtless will be, in this wavering condition of our affairs,
to defer the changing or circumscribing of our Senate, more than
may be done with ease, till the Commonwealth be thoroughly settled
in peace and safety, and they themselves give us the occasion.
Military men hold it dangerous to change the form of battle in
view of an enemy: neither did the people of Rome bandy with their
Senate, while any of the Tarquins lived, the enemies of their liberty;
nor sought, by creating tribunes, to defend themselves against the
fear of their patricians, till, sixteen years after the expulsion of their
kings, and in full security of their state, they had or thought they
had just cause given them by the Senate. Another way will be, to
well qualify and refine elections: not committing all to the noise and
shouting of a rude multitude, but permitting only those of them who
are rightly qualified to nominate as many as they will; and out of
that number others of a better breeding, to choose a less number
more judiciously; till after a third or fourth sifting and refining of
exactest choice, they only be left chosen who are the due number,
and seem by most voices the worthiest.
To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to
govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education, to teach
the people faith, not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety,
parsimony, justice; not to admire wealth or honour; to hate turbulence and ambition; to place every one his private Awelfare and




436        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
happiness in the public peace, liberty, and safety. They shall not
then need to be much mistrustful of their chosen patriots in the Grand
Council; who will be then rightly called the true keepers of our
liberty, though the most of their business will be in foreign affairs.
But to prevent all mistrust, the people then will have their several
ordinary Assemblies (which will henceforth quite annihilate the odious
power and name of Committees) in the chief towns of every county,
without the trouble, charge, or time lost of summoning and assembling from far in so great a number, and so long residing from their
own houses or removing of their families, to do as much at home in
their several shires, entire or subdivided, toward the securing of their
liberty, as a numerous Assembly of them all formed and convened
on purpose with the wariest rotation. Whereof I shall speak more
ere the end of this discourse; for it may be referred to time, so we
be still going on by degrees to perfection. The people well weighing
and performing these things, I suppose would have no cause to fear,
though the Parliament, abolishing that name, as originally signifying
but the parley of our lords and commons with the Norman king
when he pleased to call them, should, with certain limitations of their
power; sit perpetual if their ends be faithful and for a free commonwealth, under the name of a Grand or General Council.
Till this be done, I am in doubt whether our State will be ever
certainly and throughly settled; never likely till then to see an end
of our troubles and continual changes, or at least never the true
settlement and assurance of our liberty. The Grand Council being
thus firmly constituted to perpetuity, and still, upon the death or
default of any member, supplied and kept in full number, there
can be no cause alleged why peace, justice, plentiful trade, and all
prosperity should not thereupon ensue throughout the whole land,
with as much assurance as can be of human things, that they shall
so continue-if God favour us, and our wilful sins provoke him noteven to the coming of our true and rightful, and only to be expected
King, only worthy, as he is our only Saviour, the Messiah, the Christ,
the only heir of his eternal Father, the only by him anointed and
ordained since the work of our redemption finished, universal Lord of
mankind.
The way propounded is plain, easy, and open before us; without
intricacies, without the introducement of new or absolute forms or
terms, or exotic models; ideas that would effect nothing but with a
number of new injunctions to manacle the native liberty of mankind;
turning all virtue into prescription, servitude, and necessity, to the
great impairing and frustrating of Christian liberty.  I say again,
this way lies free and smooth before us; is not tangled with incon



A FREE CO-MMONWEALTH.


437


veniences; invents no new incumbrances; requires no perilous, no
injurious alteration or circumscription of men's lands and properties;
secure, that in this commonwealth, Temporal and Spiritual lords
removed, no man or number of men can attain to such wealth or
vast possession, as will need the hedge of an agrarian law-never
successful, but the cause rather of sedition, save only where it began
seasonably with first possession-to confine them from endangering
our public liberty.
To conclude, it can have no considerable objection made against
it, that it is not practicable; lest it be said hereafter, that we gave up
our liberty for want of a ready way or distinct form proposed of a
Free Commonwealth. And this facility we shall have above our next
neighbouring commonwealth, if we can keep us from the fond conceit
of something like a duke of Venice, put lately into many men's heads,
by some one or other subtly driving on under that notion his own
ambitious ends to lurch a crown, that our liberty shall not be hampered
or hovered over by any engagement to such a potent family as the
house of Nassau, of whom to stand in perpetual doubt and suspicion;
but we shall live the clearest and absolutest free nation in the world.
On the contrary, if there be a king, which the inconsiderate multitude are now so mad upon, mark how far short we are like to come
of all those happinesses which in a Free State we shall immediately
be possessed of.  First, the Grand Council, which, as I showed
before, should sit perpetually-unless their leisure give them now
and then some intermissions or vacations, easily manageable by the
Council of State left sitting-shall be called, by the king's good
will and utmost endeavour, as seldom as may be. For it is only the
king's right, he will say, to call a Parliament; and this he will do
most commonly about his own affairs rather than the kingdom's, as
will appear plainly so soon as they are called.  For what will their
business then be, and the chief expense of their time, but an endless
tugging between Petition of Right, and Royal Prerogative, especially
about the negative voice, militia, or subsidies, demanded and ofttimes extorted without reasonable cause appearing to the Commons,
who are the only true representatives of the people and their liberty
but will be then mingled with a Court-faction. Besides which, within
their own walls the sincere part of them who stand faithful to the
people will again have to deal with two troublesome counter-working
adversaries from without, mere creatures of the king, spiritual, and
the greater part, as is likeliest, of temporal lords, nothing concerned
with the people's liberty.
If these prevail not in what they please, though never so much
against the people's interest, the Parliament shall be soon dissolved,




438       FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
or sit and do nothing; not suffered to remedy the least grievance,
or enact aught advantageous to the people.
Next, the Council of State shall not be chosen by the Parliament,
but by the king, still his own creatures, courtiers, and favourers;
who will be sure in all their counsels to set their master's grandeur
and absolute power, in what they are able, far above the people's
liberty. I deny not but that there may be such a king who may
regard the common good before his own, may have no vicious
favourite, may hearken only to the wisest and incorruptest of his
Parliament. But this rarely happens in a monarchy not elective:
and it behoves not a wise nation to commit the sum of their wellbeing, the whole state of their safety, to fortune. What need they?
And how absurd would it be, whenas they themselves, to whom his
chief virtue will be but to hearken, may with much better management and dispatch, with much more commendation of their own
worth and magnanimity, govern without a master? Can the folly
be paralleled, to adore and be slaves of a single person for doing that
which it is ten thousand to one whether he can or will do, and we
without him might do more easily, more effectually, more laudably
ourselves? Shall we never grow old enough to be wise, to make
seasonable use of gravest authorities, experiences, examples? Is it
such an unspeakable joy to serve, such felicity to wear a yoke? to
clink our shackles, locked on by pretended law of subjection, more
intolerable and hopeless to be ever shaken off than those which are
knocked on by illegal injury and violence?
Aristotle, our chief instructor in the Universities, lest this doctrine
be thought sectarian as the Royalist would have it thought, tells us
in the third of his Politics, that certain men at first, for the matchless
excellence of their virtue above others, or some great public benefit,
were created kings by the people in small cities and territories, and
in the scarcity of others to be found like them; but when they abused
their power, and governments grew larger, and the number of prudent men increased, that then the people, soon deposing their tyrants,
betook them, in all civilest places, to the form of a Free Commonwealth. And why should we thus disparage and prejudicate our
own nation, as to fear a scarcity of able and worthy men united in
counsel to govern us, if we will but use diligence and impartiality to find
them out and choose them; rather yoking ourselves to a single person,
the natural adversary and oppressor of liberty, though good, yet far
easier corruptible by the excess of his single power and exaltation,
or at best not comparably sufficient to bear the weight of government, nor equally disposed to make us happy in the enjoyment of
our liberty under him?




A FREE COMMONWEALTIH.


439


But admit that monarchy of itself may be convenient to some
nations; yet to us who have thrown it out, received back again it
cannot but prove pernicious. For kings to come, never forgetting
their former ejection, will be sure to fortify and arm themselves sufficiently for the future against all such attempts hereafter from the
people; who shall be then so narrowly watched and kept so low,
that though they would never so fain and at the same rate of their
blood and treasure, they never shall be able to regain what they now
have purchased and may enjoy, or to free themselves from any yoke
imposed upon them. Nor will they dare to go about it; utterly disheartened for the future, if these their highest attempts prove unsuccessful. Which will be tie triumph of all tyrants hereafter over any
people that shall resist oppression; and their' song will then be, to
others, How sped the rebellious English? to our posterity, How sped
the rebels, your fathers?
This is not my conjecture, but drawn from God s known denouncement against the gentilising Israelites, who, though they were governed
in a commonwealth of God's own ordaining, he only their king, they
his peculiar people, yet affecting rather to resemble heathen, but
pretending the misgovernment of Samuel's sons, no more a reason
to dislike their commonwealth than the violence of Eli's sons was
imputable to that priesthood or religion, clamoured for a king. They
had their longing, but with this testimony of God's wrath: " Ye shall
cry out in that day, because of your king whom ye shall have chosen,
and the Lord will not hear you in that day."  Us if he shall hear
now, how much less will he hear when we cry hereafter, who once
delivered by him from a king, and not without wondrous acts of his
providence, insensible and unworthy of those high mercies, are returning precipitantly, if he withhold us not, back to the captivity
from whence he freed us.
Yet neither shall we obtain or buy at an easy rate this new gilded
yoke which thus transports us. A new royal revenue must be found,
a new episcopal; for those are individual: both which being wholly
dissipated, or bought by private persons, or assigned for service done,
and especially to the army, cannot be recovered without general
detriment and confusion to men's estates or a heavy imposition on
all men's purses; benefit to none but to the worst and ignoblest sort
of men, whose hope is to be either the ministers of court riot and
excess, or the gainers by it. But not to speak more of losses and
extraordinary levies on our estates, what will then be the revenges
and offences remembered and returned, not only by the chief person,
but by all his adherents; accounts and reparations that will be required, suits, indictments, inquiries, discoveries, complaints, informa.




440        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
tions, who knows against whom or how many, though perhaps neuters,
if not to utmost infliction, yet to imprisonment, fines, banishment, or
molestation? if not these, yet disfavour, discountenance, disregard,
and contempt on all but the known royalist, or whom he favours, will
be plenteous.
Nor let the new royalised Presbyterians persuade themselves that
their old doings, though now recanted, will be forgotten, whatever
conditions be contrived or trusted on. Will they not believe this,
nor remember the pacification, how it was kept to the Scots; how
other solemn promises many a time to us? Let them but now read
the diabolical forerunning libels, the faces, the gestures, that now
appear foremost and briskest in all public places, as the harbingers
of those that are in expectation to reign over us. Let them but hear
the insolencies, the menaces, the insultings, of our newly animated
common enemies, crept lately out of their holes, their hell I might
say by the language of their infernal pamphlets, the spew of every
drunkard, every ribald, nameless, yet not for want of licence but for
very shame of their own vile persons not daring to name themselves,
while they traduce others by name, and give us to foresee that they
intend to second their wicked words, if ever they have power, with
more wicked deeds.
Let our zealous backsliders forethink now with themselves how
their necks yoked with these tigers of Bacchus, these new fanatics
of not the preaching but the sweating-tub, inspired with nothing
holier than the venereal pox, can draw one way under monarchy
to the establishing of Church Discipline with these new disgorged
atheisms. Yet shall they not have the honour to yoke with these, but
shall be yoked under them; these shall plough on their backs. And
do they among them who are so forward to bring in the single person,
think to be by him trusted or long regarded?  So trusted they shall
be, and so regarded, as by kings are wont reconciled enemies;
neglected, and soon after discarded, if not persecuted for old traitors;
the first inciters, beginners, and more than to the third part actors,
of all that followed.
It will be found also, that there must be then, as necessarily as
now-for the contrary part will be still feared-a standing army;
which for certain shall not be this, but of the fiercest cavaliers, of no
less expense, and perhaps again under Rupert.  But let this army
be sure they shall be soon disbanded, and likeliest without arrear or
pay; and being disbanded, not be sure but they may as soon be
questioned for being in arms against their king. The same let them
fear who have contributed money, which will amount to no small
number, that must then take their turn to be made delinquents and




A FREE COMMON TEALTH.


441


compounders. They who past reason and recovery are devoted to
kingship perhaps will answer, that a greater part by far of the nation
will have it so; the rest therefore must yield.
Not so much to convince these, which I little hope, as to confirm
them who yield not, I reply, that this greatest part have both in
reason and the trial of just battle, lost the right of their election
what the government shall be. Of them who have not lost that
right, whether they for kingship be the greater number who can
certainly determine? Suppose they be, yet of freedom they partake
all alike, one main end of government, which if the greater part
value not, but will degenerately forego, is it just or reasonable that
most voices against the main end of government should enslave the
less number that would be free? More just it is, doubtless, if it
come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain-which
can be no wrong to them-their liberty, than that a greater number,
for the pleasure of their baseness, compel a less most injuriously to
be their fellow-slaves. They who seek nothing but their own just
liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it whenever they
have power, be the voices never so numerous that oppose it. And
how much we above others are concerned to defend it from kingship, and from them who in pursuance thereof so perniciously would
betray us and themselves to most certain misery and thraldom, will
be needless to repeat.
Having thus far shown with what ease we may now obtain a Free
Commonwealth, and by it, with as much ease, all the freedom, peace,
justice, plenty, that we can desire; on the other side, the difficulties,
troubles, uncertainties, nay, rather impossibilities, to enjoy these things
constantly under a Monarch; I will now proceed to show more particularly wherein our freedom and flourishing condition will be more ample
and secure to us under a free commonwealth, than under kingship.
The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil
liberty. As for spiritual, who can be at rest, who can enjoy anything in this world with contentment, who hath not liberty to serve
God and to save his own soul according to the best light which God
hath planted in him to that purpose by the reading of his revealed
will and the guidance of his Holy Spirit? That this is best pleasing
to God, and that the whole Protestant Church allows no supremejudge
or rule in matters of religion, but the Scriptures, and these to be
interpreted by the Scriptures themselves, which necessarily infers
Liberty of Conscience, I have heretofore proved at large in another
treatise; and might yet further, by the public declarations, confessions, and admonitions of whole Churches and States, obvious in all
histories since the Reformation.




442        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
This Liberty of Conscience, which above all other things ought
to be to all men dearest and most precious, no government more
inclinable not to favour only, but to protect, than a Free Common.
wealth; as being most magnanimous, most fearless, and confident
of its own fair proceedings. Whereas kingship, though looking big,
yet indeed most pusillanimous, full of fears, full of jealousies, startled
at every umbrage, as it hath been observed of old to have ever suspected most and mistrusted them who were in most esteem for virtue
and generosity of mind, so it is now known to have most in doubt
and suspicion them who are most reputed to be religious. Queen
Elizabeth, though herself accounted so good a Protestant, so
moderate, so confident of her subjects' love, would never give
way so much as to Presbyterian Reformation in this land, though
once and again besought, as Camden relates; but imprisoned and
persecuted the very proposers thereof, alleging it as her mind and
maxim unalterable, that such Reformation would diminish regal
authority.
What Liberty of Conscience can we then expect of others, far
worse principled from the cradle, trained up and governed by Popish
and Spanish counsels, and on such depending hitherto for subsistence? Especially what can this last Parliament expect, who having
revived lately and published the Covenant, have re-engaged themselves, never to readmit episcopacy? Which no son of Charles
returning but will most certainly bring back with him, if he regard
the last and strictest charge of his father, " to persevere in, not the
doctrine only, but government of the Church of England, not to
neglect the speedy and effectual suppressing of errors and schisms;"
among which he accounted Presbytery one of the chief.
Or if, notwithstanding that charge of his father, he submit to
the Covenant, how will he keep faith to us, with disobedience to
him; or regard that faith given, which must be founded on the
breach of that last and solemnest paternal charge, and the reluctance, I may say the antipathy, which is in all kings, against Presbyterian and Independent discipline?  For they hear the Gospel
speaking much of Liberty; a word which monarchy and her bishops
both fear and hate, but a Free Commonwealth both favours and
promotes; and not the word only, but the thing itself. But let our
governors beware in time, lest their hard measure to Liberty of
Conscience be found the rock whereon they shipwreck themselves,
as others have now done before them in the course wherein God
was directing their steerage to a Free Commonwealth; and the abandoning of all those whom they call sectaries, for the detected falsehood and ambition of some, be a wilful rejection of their own chief




A FREE COMMON. 'VEALT1H.


443


strength and interest in the freedom of all Protestant Religion, under
what abusive name soever calumniated.
The other part of our freedom consists in the Civil Rights and
advancements of every person according to his merit: the enjoyment
of those never more certain, and the access to these never more open,
than in a Free Commonwealth. Both which, in my opinion, may
be best and soonest obtained, if every county in the land were made
a kind of subordinate commonalty or commonwealth, and one chief
town or more, according as the shire is in circuit, made cities, if they
be not so called already; where the nobility and chief gentry, from
a proportionable compass of territory annexed to each city, may build
houses or palaces befitting their quality, may bear part in the government, make their own judicial laws, or use those that are, and execute
them by their own elected judicatures and judges without appeal, in
all things of Civil Government between Man and Man. So they shall
have justice in their own hands, law executed fully and finally in
their own counties and precincts, long wished and spoken of, but
never yet obtained. They shall have none then to blame but themselves, if it be not well administered; and fewer laws to expect or
fear from the supreme authority. Or to those that shall be made,
of any great concernment to public liberty, they may, without much
trouble in these commonalties, or in more general assemblies called
to their cities from the whole territory on such occasion, declare and
publish their assent or dissent by deputies, within a time limited,
sent to the Grand Council; yet so as this their judgment declared
shall submit to the greater number of other counties or commonalties,
and not avail them to any exemption of themselves, or refusal of
agreement with the rest, as it may in any of the United Provinces,
being sovereign within itself ofttimes to the great disadvantage of
that Union.
In these employments they may, much better than they do now,
exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into the
Grand Council, according as their worth and merit shall be taken
notice of by the people. As for controversies that shall happen
between men of several counties, they may repair, as they do now,
to the capital city, or any other more commodious, indifferent place,
and equal judges. And this I find to have been practised in the old
Athenian commonwealth, reputed the first and ancientest place of
civility in all Greece, that they had in their several cities a peculiar,
in Athens a common government, and their right, as it befell them,
to the administration of both.
They should have here also Schools and Academies at their own
choice, wherein their children may be bred up in their own sight to




444        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
all learning and noble education; not in grammar only, but in all
liberal arts and exercises. This would soon spread much more
knowledge and civility, yea, religion, through all parts of the land,
by communicating the natural heat of government and culture more
distributively to all extreme parts, which now lie numb and neglected;
would soon make the whole nation more industrious, more ingenious
at home, more potent, more honourable abroad. To this a Free
Commonwealth will easily assent; nay, the Parliament hath had
already s    some such thing in design; for of all governments a Commonwealth aims most to make the people flourishing, virtuous, noble,
and high-spirited. Monarchs will never permit; whose aim is to
make the people wealthy indeed perhaps, and well fleeced for their
own shearing and the supply of regal prodigality, but otherwise
softest, basest, viciousest, servilest, easiest to be kept under, and not
only in fleece but in mind also sheepishest. And will have all the
benches of judicature annexed to the throne, as a gift of royal grace
that we have justice done us; whenas nothing can be more essential
to the freedom of a people than to have the administration of justice
and all public ornaments in their own election, and within their own
bounds, without long travelling or depending upon remote places to
obtain their right, or any civil accomplishment, so it be not supreme,
but subordinate to the general power and union of the whole
Republic.
In which happy firmness, as in the particular above-mentioned,
we shall also far exceed the United Provinces, by having not as they,
to the retarding and distracting ofttimes of their counsels on urgentest
occasions, many sovereignties united in one Commonwealth, but
many commonwealths under one united and intrusted Sovereignty.
And when we have our forces by sea and land, either of a faithful
army or a settled militia, in our own hands, to the firm establishing
of a free commonwealth, public accounts under our own inspection,
general laws and taxes, with their causes in our own domestic
suffrages, judicial laws, offices, and ornaments at home in our own
ordering and administration, all distinction of lords and commoners
that may any way divide or sever the public interest removed; what
can a Perpetual Senate have then, wherein to grow corrupt, wherein
to encroach upon us, or usurp? Or if they do, wherein to be
formidable? Yet if all this avail not to remove the fear or envy of
a perpetual sitting, it may be easily provided, to change a third part
of them yearly, or every two or three years, as was above mentioned:
or that it be at those times in the people's choice, whether they will
change them, or renew their power, as they shall find cause.
I have no more to say at present. Few words will save us, well




A FREE COMMONWEALTH.


445


considered; few and easy things, now seasonably done. But if the
people be so affected as to prostitute Religion and Liberty to the
vain and groundless apprehension that nothing but kingship can
restore trade, not remembering the frequent plagues and pestilences
that then wasted this city, such as through God's mercy we never
have felt since; and that trade flourishes nowhere more than in the
Free Commonwealths of Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries,
before their eyes at this day; yet if trade be grown so craving and
importunate through the profuse living of tradesmen that nothing
can support it but the luxurious expenses of a nation upon trifles or
superfluities; so as if the people generally should betake themselves
to frugality, it might prove a dangerous matter, lest tradesmen should
mutiny for want of trading; and that therefore we must forego and
set to sale religion, liberty, honour, safety, all concernments divine
or human, to keep up trading; if, lastly, after all this light among
us, the same reason shall pass for current, to put our necks again
under kingship, as was made use of by the Jews to return back to
Egypt and to the worship of their idol queen, because they falsely
imagined that they then lived in more plenty and prosperity; our
condition is not sound, but rotten, both in religion and all civil
prudence, and will bring us soon, the way w\e are marching, to those
calamities which attend always and unavoidably on luxury, all
national judgments under foreign and domestic slavery: so far we
shall be from mending our condition by monarchising our government, whatever new conceit now possesses us.
However, with all hazard I have ventured what I thought my duty
to speak in season, and to forewarn my country in time; wherein I
doubt not but there be many wise men in all places and degrees,
but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. Many
circumstances and particulars I could have added in those things
whereof I have spoken; but a few main matters now put speedily
in execution will suffice to recover us and set all right. And there
will want at no time who are good at circumstances; but men who
set their minds on main matters and sufficiently urge them, in these
most difficult times I find not many.
What I have spoken, is the language of that which is not called
amiss "The good old Cause:" if it seem strange to any, it will not
seem more strange, I hope, than convincing to backsliders. Thus
much I should perhaps have said, though I was sure I should have
spoken only to trees and stones; and had none to cry to, but with
the prophet, " 0 earth, earth, earth!" to tell the very soil itself what
her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have
spoke should happen-which thou suffer not, who didst create man



446        FREEDOM IN CHURCH AND STATE.
kind free, nor thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants
of men!-to be the last words of our expiring liberty. But I trust I
shall have spoken persuasion to abundance of sensible and ingenious
men,-to some, perhaps, whom God may raise from these stones to
become children of reviving liberty, and may reclaim, though they
seem now choosing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little, and consider whither they are rushing; to exhort this
torrent also of the people, not to be so impetuous, but to keep their
due channel; and at length recovering and uniting their better
resolutions, now that they see already how open and unbounded the
insolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay these ruinous
proceedings, justly and timely fearing to what a precipice of destruction the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through
the general defection of a misguided and abused multitude.
THE END.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.




MORLEY'S UNIYERSAL LIBRARY.
Coamplete in Sixty- Three Volumes, OINE SHIL LINVG each, clota,
cut edges; or Is. 6d. Parclhment Back, uncuct edges.
I. SHERIDAN'S PLAYS.
2. PLAYS FROM MOLItRE. By ENGLISH DRAMATISTS.
3. MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS AND GOETHE'S FAUST,
4. CHRONICLE OF THE CID.
5. RABELAIS' GARGANTUA, AND THE HEROIC DEEDS OF PANTAGRUEL.
6. THE PRINCE. By MACHIAVELLI,
7. BACON'S ESSAYS.
8. DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR.
9. LOCKE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT; with SIR ROBERT FILIER'S
PATRIARCHA.
o0. BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION.
Ii. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.
12. SIR WALTER SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT.
I3. HERRICK'S HESPERIDES.
I4. COLERIDGE'S TABLE-TALK; with THE ANCIENT MARINER AND
CHRISTABEL.
15. BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON.
I6. STERNE'S TRISTRAM SHANDY.
17. HOMER'S ILIAD. Translated by GEORGE CHAPMAN.
I8. MEDIEVAL TALES.
19. JOHNSON'S RASSELAS; and VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE.
20. PLAYS AND POEMS. By BEN JONSON.
21. HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.
22. BUTLER'S HUDIBRAS.
23. IDEAL COMMONWEALTHS; MORE'S UTOPIA; BACON'S NEW
ATLANTIS; and CAMPANELLA'S CITY OF THE SUN,
24. CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY.
25 & 26. DON QUIXOTE (Two Volumes).
27. BURLESQUE PLAYS AND POEMS.
28. DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY. LONGFELLOW'S Translation.
29. GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD, PLAYS, AND POEMS.
30. FABLES AND PROVERBS FROM THE SANSKRIT.
31. CHARLES LAMB'S ESSAYS OF ELIA,




JMOJLEY S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY-continued.
32. THE HISTORY OF THOMAS ELLWOOD. Written by Himself.
33. EMERSON'S ESSAYS, REPRESENTATIVE MEN, AND SOCIETY
AND SOLITUDE.
34. SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF NELSON.
35. DE QUINCEY'S OPIUM-EATER, SHAKSPEARE, GOETHE.
36. STORIES OF IRELAND. By MARIA EDGEWORTH.
37. THE PLAYS OF ARISTOPHANES. Translated by FRERE.
38. SPEECHES AND LETTERS. By EDMUND BURKE.
39. THOMAS A KEMPIS' IMITATION OF CHRIST.
40. POPULAR SONGS OF IRELAND. Collected by THOMAS CROFTON
CROKER.
4I. THE PLAYS OF ZASCHYLUS. Translated by R. POTTER.
42. GOETHE'S FAUST. The Second Part.
43. FAMOUS PAMPHLETS.
44. SOPHOCLES. Translated by FRANCKLIN.
45. TALES OF TERROR AND WONDER.
46. VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.
47. THE BARONS' WARS, &c. By MICHAEL DRAYTON.
48. COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.
49. THE BANQUET OF DANTE. Translated by ELIZABETH P. SAYER.
50. WALKER'S ORIGINAL.
51. POEMS AND BALLADS BY SCHILLER.
52. PEELE'S PLAYS AND POEMS.
53. HARRINGTON'S OCEANA.
54. EURIPIDES-ALCESTIS, &c.
55. ESSAYS. By WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED.
56. TRADITIONAL TALES. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
57. HOOKER'S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. Books I.-IV.
58. EURIPIDES-THE BACCHANALS, and other PLAYS.
59. WALTON'S LIVES OF DONNE, WOTTON, HOOKER, GEORGE
HERBERT, &c.
6o. ARISTOTLE ON GOVERNMENT.
6I. EURIPIDES-HECUBA, and other PLAYS.
62. RABELAIS' HEROIC DEEDS OF PANTAGRUEL. Books III., IV.,
and V.
63. A MISCELLANY.
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND                  SONS,
LONDON, GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK.
MAY 11 1920




N-,4




t i f i




4




,I
t
I
II
tI




I
I,..
I
II
I
i
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I. I




THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
Iraiv
L 7
Oh  t   7.o
~7 ~1'




UNiv~ 3 9015 00471 6000
LIBSRARY - - -




II i. -.4.   a    -   "". — *,
I.
",*o') -, -* #
lor4*
I -.0, O'
-— l,                - i.1 4,
I.,


-w-,, f I
14


DO NOT REMOVE


OR


MUTILATE CARD




7- ':
2")
p4ft -,