PREFACE.

THE opposition to the tyranny of a Roman Bishop over all the Churches of Christ, kingdoms, and governments, in the whole earth, has now proceeded so far, that many imagine it necessary to extinguish all Primacy in the Church, even to its very name, in order to avoid tyrannical Prelates. But men err herein, as I think. When the Tarquinii had been expelled from Rome, the Romans abolished the name of King for ever after, as though by abolishing the name of the tyranny which they abhorred, the tyranny itself could be abolished with its name: yet afterwards they had to endure more forms of tyranny, than would have befallen them had they

retained the kingly title and authority. For the tyranny was not in them, but in Tarquin. Even so, I affirm, the tyranny which has oppressed the Churches of Christ consisted not in the Primacy of Bishops and Archbishops, but in those who abused that Primacy, and who, overleaping all bounds, extended their province beyond the limits. allowed to it by the Christian religion, removing the boundaries fixed by the Fathers: hence has arisen the immense and intolerable power of the Bishop of Rome.

I dare not accuse as tyrannical the Primitive form of Church government, nor the many men of consummate erudition and piety who have been Bishops; nor to charge with error the Councils which confirmed the ancient polity of the Church as they had received it from their forefathers. For although I am well aware that the Fathers and Councils may err, (as, for instance, if they should decree any thing contrary to the word of God,) yet it does not thence follow that they have erred in this particular point. If

we were equally clear-sighted in discerning in ourselves that innate corruption which we confess to belong to all men, we should be more keen in rebuking our own errors than those of others. But it happens contrariwise. If we meet with any thing in the Fathers which happens not to be to our fancy, forthwith it occurs to us that THEY were but men: and because men are prone to error, we set the thing down at once as one of the errors of the age in which they lived: little thinking of OURSELVES meanwhile, but speaking and acting as though we were exempt from the common lot of humanity, and as though that might not happen to OURSELVES, in our condemnation of the Fathers, which we make the very ground of our condemnation of THEM. No innovation may be made contrary to the unanimous and constant consent of all the Fathers of the old Church, except on the authority of the express word of God: this I assert fearlessly: for whoever denies all authority to the Fathers, leaves himself none. Allowing that the Fathers were men and

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had their failings, still it is no small matter to have them on our side, in such of the chief matters of the Christian religion, and of the external polity of the Church, as are disputed between us and the adherents of the Roman Pontiff. Although the consent of the whole people of God, from the times of the Apostles down to our days, ought not to be set on an equality with the word of God, still it is justly entitled to the next place to it in point of authority. Any usage of the people of God, received in all the Churches of the whole world, is a kind of inviolable law. It is not likely that an universal consent of all the Churches in all times can have come to pass without the sanction of the word of God or Apostolical tradition. Yet since no consent, no custom, no prescription arising from length of time, ought to gain ground in the Church of Christ contrary to the word of God, we ought to weigh the reasons and examine the passages of Scripture, whereby the Fathers were induced to receive that regimen of the Church which is rejected by

the men of our times, that it may be ascertained whether they erred, or we ourselves are mistaken. In former times, no one disapproved of Bishops and Archbishops; but now hatred of the Bishop of Rome and his satellites has brought it to pass, that these titles are made matter of controversy, and that too by different parties on different grounds. Some would have them forthwith abolished as inventions of Antichrist, or of those who have prepared the way before him: others, more modest, out of respect for antiquity, are of opinion, although they disapprove of them, that they are to be tolerated until they may conveniently be set aside together with the offices themselves. They do not dare condemn openly the Bishops and Archbishops whom they know to have governed the Church greatly to its profit; but because they see, that some reformed Churches of our times, having received the Gospel and shaken off the yoke of the Roman Pontiff, have also rejected Episcopal government, they disapprove of the Fathers, and prefer