but of mere necessity, to vindicate the spotless truth from an ignominious bondage, whose native worth is now become of such 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 those names were utterly abolisht, like the Brazen Serpent, than that men's opinions should thus idolize them, and the heavenly truth be thus captivated."

As for the Bishops, he says that he denied not but many of them had been good men, though not infallible, nor above all human frailties. He affirmed, however, that, though at the beginning they had renounced the Pope, yet they had 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." He again states, that, in the reign of EDWARD the Sixth, they lent themselves as the tools of the semi-popish king's ministers, to accomplish every politic fetch that was then on foot. 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, should 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 killing and time-serving prelates, that after much bold importunity, they went their way, not without shame and tears. "And when the Lord SUDLEY, Admiral of England, and the Protector's brother, was wrongfully to lose his life, no man could be found fitter than LATIMER to divulge, in his sermon, the forged accusations laid to his charge, thereby to defame him with the people. Cranmer, one of king Henry's executors, and the other Bishops did, to gratify the ambition of a traytor, consent to exclude from the succession, not only MARY, the Papist, but also ELIZABETH, the Protestant, though before declared by themselves the lawful issue of their late master."

Speaking of the reign of ELIZABETH, he still imputes the obstructions of a further Reformation to the Bishops, and then proceeds to prove from antiquity, that, in the primitive church, elections to ecclesiastical offices belonged to the people. "But," he added, "in those early ages, after the Apostles' days, even if they favoured episcopacy, it would not much concern the age in which we live; because, since the best times were speedily infected, the best men of those times were foully tainted, and the best writings of those men dangerously adulterated;" all which propositions he

labours to prove at large, and in his own strong and powerful style.

In contemplating the glorious event of the Reformation, he expresses himself with perfect rapture. "How the bright and glorious Reformation (by divine power,) shone 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 imbueth his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. Then was the sacred BIBLE brought out of the dusty corners, where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it; the schools opened; divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues; princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation; the martyrs with the irresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon."

He thus continues his discourse of prelatical episcopacy, and displays its politics, which he contended had always been opposed to liberty.. He traces its history from its most remote origin, and proves, that as it existed in England particularly, it was so far from being, as they commonly allege, the only form of church discipline agreeable to monarchy, that the most mortal diseases and convulsions of the govern

ment had always proceeded from the craft or pride of the Bishops! He then boldly encourages the English and the Scotch, united by "the solemn league and covenant," to pursue the contest for liberty in Church and State, which they had so nobly begun. "Go on both, hand in hand, O nations, never to be disunited. Be the praise and the heroic song of all posterity--Merit this; but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits; for what need you 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 you; envy shall sink to hell; craft and malice be confounded, whether it be homebred mischief, or outlandish cunning; yea, other nations will then covet to serve you; for lordship and victory are but the passes of justice and virtue. Commit securely to true wisdom the vanquishing and unusing of craft and subtilty, which are but her two renegades. Join your invincible might to do worthy and godlike deeds, and then he that wishes to break your union, a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations." Alas! how bitterly must Milton have lamented the disunion which soon after took place between these nations, and the oceans of noble blood which flowed of whole hecatombs, (chiefly Scotch,) from the

victims offered to appease mutual pride and jealousy, craft and treachery!

With one other short extract I will conclude this article:-"The sour leven of human tradi

tions," he says, "mixt in one putrified mass, with the poisonous dross of hypocrisy 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 ingender 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. Believe me, Sir, right truly it may be said, that Antichrist is Mammon's son."

In 1641, certain of the Presbyterian ministers published a treatise against Episcopacy, the title, Smectymnuus, consisting of the initial letters of their names.* A Bishop having condescended to answer it, MILTON says: "I supposed myself to be not less able to write for truth, than others for their profit or unjust power." He therefore undertook to answer the lordly prelate, and published his work of Prelatical Episcopacy. "In this work," says Toland,

* This was a quarto work, and was written by Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow.