THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

THE FIRST DEFENCE 27
pacy there was brought into the church an evil much greater
than those schisms which used to be feared before: the plague
which came out of it into the church struck down the whole
body of the church beneath a vile despotism: nay, put even
5 kings and princes under the yoke: the church would profit
more by the abolition of the whole hierarchy than by the abolition
of its head only, the Pope (p. 196). That episcopacy and
papacy together might be removed with the greatest benefit to
the church: that, episcopacy once removed, papacy itself, as
10 founded thereon, would fall (p. 171). He considers that
there are special reasons why it should be done away in those
kingdoms which have already renounced papacy, and sees no
reason why it should be retained there. That a reformation this
part of which has been left unaccomplished seems incomplete:
15 that no jot of reason or probable cause can be adduced why,
when Papal supremacy is got rid of, episcopacy ought to be
kept, or can be" (p. 197).
But though he wrote all this and much more four years
ago, yet now he is so false and so shameless that he dares in this
20 passage violently to reproach the Parliament of England for
voting that Episcopacy was to be "not only turned out of the
House of Lords, but cast off utterly." Yea, he even recommends
and defends episcopacy itself by means of the same reasons
and proofs which in that earlier volume of his he had
25 forcibly confuted—namely that "the bishops are necessary"
forsooth, "and by all means to be kept, lest a thousand plaguy
sects and heresies should burgeon out in England." Sly turncoat,
are you not ashamed even in matters of religion to play