first. If a truly Christian Bishop had there succeeded to the Bishop appointed by the Roman Pontiff, and had Evangelical Pastors, content with the rights and incomes of the Churches, succeeded to the Sacrificers of the Mass, the affairs both of Church and State would be more tranquil there. The same I assert concerning the other provinces, from which the tyrant of the Churches has been ejected. But what is to be done when men's minds are prejudiced, and persuaded that the very existence of Bishops, and their maintenance by tithes and other oblations of the laity, is itself Papistical? The remedies which you are seeking to apply to the evils of your Churches, will provoke greater evils, not so much because they are in themselves evil remedies, as because the whole state is so disordered as not to be able to bear them. You require great prudence and great moderation, which, being never found in many, there is need of one single man who shall carry out good designs; and shall devote his care, not to this or that part, but to all parts

alike. I do not mean all the parts of the whole Church throughout the world, for that no single mortal could do, or ever will be able to do; but all the parts of each city or each province, so far as it may be done by human ability. It is safer to follow the footsteps of the old Fathers, than to attempt to pave a new way. How you will receive my freedom of speech, I know not; but I hope well of you, and commit the whole matter to God. In times of perplexity, it is the duty of a good citizen not to conceal his opinion concerning public matters, nor may the faithful servant of Christ suppress his opinion touching the interests of the Church. Should I have obtained my end, I shall have reason to be thankful to God; if otherwise, I shall have done my duty towards the Church of Christ to which I hold myself so bounden by my allegiance, that I may not pass over in silence any error that may come to my knowledge. For although, perhaps, I may not influence those for whom I write these things, I shall leave to posterity a testimony

against manifest error, so that it may some time or other come to amend what their fathers shall appear to have done amiss.

Your most affectionate,

HADRIAN SARAVIA.

London, March 29, 1590.

TO THE READER.

WHOEVER thou art, kind Reader, into whose hands this book may fall, I would not have you imagine, from the discussion it contains, that any fundamental doctrine of faith, on which salvation depends, is called in question, by my asserting that Episcopacy ought to be restored in those reformed Churches which at present have it not; asserting it, as I do, against the opinion of some writers of great eminence, whom God has employed in this our age for the edification of His Church. Did I thus act solely on my own opinion, and unsupported by the authority of Scripture, and the consent of the old Fathers and the whole Church, I own

that every one might blame me. What, then, it may be asked, were those eminent men of whom you speak wholly wrong? Did they perceive nothing of what you maintain? Far from it. On the contrary, I assert, that they saw things as I see them; but it happened to them as it happens to people who set about repairing an old house, who, seeing much on all sides decayed and spoilt, although there remain many goodly apartments, and necessary portions which they would wish to preserve, yet, because these are connected with what is rotten and unsafe, think the latter cannot be removed and then restored, unless the whole edifice be utterly demolished. Even so, the men of whoin I speak imagined they could not extirpate Papistical superstition and tyranny, unless they also uprooted with them many ornaments of the Church, which were thought to be either contaminated by that superstition, or inseparably connected with it whence it came to pass, that, together with idolatry and superstition, those things were in many places abolished which may be