SECTION III.

Of the First Article of the Covenant.

WHEREIN, first, we are not satisfied, how we can with judgment swear to endeavour to preserve the religion of another kingdom.

1. Whereof, as it doth not concern us to have very much, so we profess to have very little understanding.

2. Which (so far as the occurrents of these unhappy times have brought it to our knowledge, and we are able to judge) is in three of the four specified particulars, viz. worship, discipline, and government, much worse; and in the fourth (that of doctrine) not at all better than our own; which we are in the next passage of the article required to reform.

3. Wherein if hereafter we shall find any thing (as, upon further understanding thereof, it is not impossible we may) that may seem to us savouring of popery, superstition, heresy, or schism, or contrary to sound doctrine, or the power of godliness; we shall be bound by the next article to endeavour the extirpation, after we have bound ourselves by this first article to the preservation thereof.

4. Wherein we already find some things (to our thinking) so far tending towards superstition1 and schism, that it seemeth to us more reasonable that we should call upon them to reform the same, than that they should call upon us to preserve it.

1 Viz. in accounting Bishops Anti-Christian, and indifferent ceremonies unlawful.

2 Viz. in making their discipline and government a mark of the true church, and the setting up thereof the erecting the throne of Christ.

Secondly, we are not satisfied in the next branch, concerning the reformation of religion in our own kingdom, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; how we can swear to endeavour the same, (which without making a change therein cannot be done,)

1. Without manifest scandal to the Papist and Separatist,

1. By yielding the cause, which our godly Bishops and Martyrs, and all our learned Divines ever since the Reformation, have both by their writings and sufferings maintained; who have justified, against them both, the religion established in the Church of England to be agreeable to the word of God.

2. By justifying the Papists in the reproaches and scorn by them cast upon our religion, whose usual objection it hath been, and is, that we know not what our religion is; that since we left them, we cannot tell where to stay and that our religion is' a Parliamentary religion.

3. By a tacit acknowledgment that there is something both in the doctrine and worship, whereunto their conformity hath been required, not agreeable to the word of God, and consequently justifying them both, the one in his recusancy, the other in his separation.

4. By an implied confession, that the laws formerly made against Papists in this kingdom, and all punishments by virtue thereof inflicted upon them, were unjust; in punishing them for refusing to join with us in that form of worship, which ourselves (as well as they) do not approve of.

1 "Let us not be blamed, if we call it Parliament religion, Parliament gospel, Parliament faith." Harding. Confut. of Apology, part vi. chap. 2.

2. Without manifest wrong unto ourselves, our consciences, reputation, and estates, in bearing false witness against ourselves, and sundry other ways; by swearing to endeavour to reform that, as corrupt and vicious,

1. Which we have formerly by our personal subscriptions approved, as agreeable to God's Word; and have not been since either con-> demned by our own hearts for so doing, or convinced in our own judgments by any of our brethren that therein we did amiss.

2. Which in our consciences we are persuaded not to be in any of the four specified particulars, (as it standeth by law established,) much less in the whole four, against the word of God.

3. Which we verily believe (and as we think, upon good grounds) to be in sundry respects much better, and more agreeable to the word of God, and the practice of the Catholic Church, than that which we should by the former words of this article swear to preserve.

4. Whereunto the 'laws yet in force require of all such clerks as shall be admitted to any benefice, the signification of their hearty assent, to be attested openly in the time of divine service, before the whole congregation there present, within a limited time, and that under pain (upon default made) of the loss of every such benefice.

3. Without manifest danger of perjury: this branch of the article (to our best understandings) seeming directly contrary,

1. To our former solemn protestation, which we have bound ourselves neither for hope, fear, or other respect, ever to relinquish. Wherein the doctrine which we have vowed to maintain, by

Stat. 13 Eliz. 12.

the name of the true Protestant religion, expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England, we take to be the same, which now we are required to endeavour to reform and alter.

2. To the Oath of Supremacy, by us also taken, according to the laws of the realm, and the statutes of our University in that behalf. Wherein having first testified and declared in our consciences, that the King's Highness is the only supreme Governor of this realm, we do after swear to our power to assist and defend all jurisdictions, privileges, pre-eminences, and authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness, his heirs and successors, or united and annexed to the imperial Crown of this realm. One of the which privileges and pre-eminences, by an expressed statute so annexed, and that even, in terminis, in the self-same words in a manner with those used in the oath, is the whole power of spiritual or ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for the correction and reformation of all manner of errors and abuses in matters ecclesiastical: as by the words' of the said statute more at large appeareth. The oath affording the proposition, and the statute the assumption, we find no way how to avoid the conclusion.

1 "Such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and pre-eminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any, &c. for the visitation of the ecclesiastical state and persons, and for reformation, order, and correction of the same, and of all manner of errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, shall for ever, by authority of this present Parliament, be united and annexed to the imperial Crown of this realm."—An Act restoring to the Crown the ancient Jurisdiction, &c. 1 Eliz. 1.

SECTION IV.

Of the Second Article of the Covenant.

FIRST, it cannot but affect us with some grief and amazement, to see that ancient form of churchgovernment, which we heartily (and, as we hope worthily) honour, as under which our religion was at first so orderly, without violence or tumult, and so happily reformed, and hath since so long flourished with truth and peace, to the honour and happiness of our own, and the envy and admiration of other nations, not only

1. Endeavoured to be extirpated, without any reason offered to our understandings, for which it should be thought necessary, or but so much as expedient, so to do. But also,

2. Ranked with popery, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness: which we unfeignedly profess ourselves to detest as much as any others whatsoever.

3. And that with some intimation also, as if that government were some way or other so contrary to sound doctrine, or the power of godliness, that whosoever should not endeavour the extirpation thereof must of necessity partake in other men's sins, which we cannot yet be persuaded to believe.

4. And we desire it may be considered, in case a covenant of like form should be tendered to the citizens of London, wherein they should be required to swear, they would sincerely, really, and constantly, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of treason, (the city government, by a Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Common Council, and other officers