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 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 blast.

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"O 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, O 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

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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 heard 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 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 super-eminence of beatific vision, progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp inseparable hands with joy and bliss, in over-measure 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, shall be thrown down eternally into the darkest and deepest gulf of hell, where they shall remain in that plight for ever, the basest, the lowermost, the most dejected, most underfoot, and downtrodden vassals of perdition."

OF PRELATICAL EPISCOPACY,

AND WHETHER IT MAY BE DEDUCED FROM THE APOSTOLICAL TIMES, BY VIRTUE OF THOSE TESTIMONIES WHICH ARE ALLEGED TO THAT PURPOSE IN SOME LATE TREATISES.

THE

HE Treatises here referred to are those by Bishop Hall and by Archbishop Usher, who of course would maintain the divine origin of Prelatical Episcopacy. They would agree with Milton that "it is clear in Scripture that a bishop and presbyter is all one both in name and office," but they would disagree with his next proposition "that what was done by Timothy and Titus, executing an extraordinary place, as fellow-labourers with the Apostles, and of a universal charge in planting Christianity through divers regions, cannot be drawn into particular and daily example." Here we have the thing itself acknowledged, and the quarrel about names is profitless. Timothy

and Titus are confessed to have executed an extraordinary office, as fellow-labourers of the Apostles, distinct from that of the two inferior Orders of presbyters or episcopi, as they were also called at first by reason of their being overseers of their respective

flocks, and of Deacons. The form of Church Government presented to our view in these epistles of St. Paul is therefore threefold: first, individuals exercising authority over all, both Clergy and Laity; secondly, presbyters or bishops; thirdly, deacons. Afterwards the title of bishops was transferred and confined to the highest Order of the Clergy; and therefore the Preface to the Ordinal of the Church of England truly says, "It is evident unto all men diligently reading the Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there ever have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.

The thing itself is found in Scripture, and the explanation of the change in name is easy and satisfactory. From what has been said we may see the reason why this Treatise is entitled Of Prelatical Episcopacy. Milton's quarrel is not with the word " bishop" as applied to the presbytery, but only with the word "prelate." Accordingly, his first words explain what he means by Prelatical Episcopacy.

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"Episcopacy, as it is taken for an order in the church above a presbyter, or, as we commonly name him, the minister of a congregation, is either of divine constitution or of human. If only of human, we have the same human privilege that all men have ever had since Adam, being born free, and in the mistress island of all the British, to retain this episcopacy, or