Page:Behemoth 1889.djvu/109

 down their power, and subject them to their synods and classes.

A. For the Lords, very few of them did perceive the intentions of the Presbyterians; and, besides that, they durst not (I believe) oppose the Lower House.

B. But why were the Lower House so earnest against them?

A. Because they meant to make use of their tenets, and with pretended sanctity to make the King and his party odious to the people, by whose help they were to set up democracy, and depose the King, or to let him have the title only so long as he should act for their purposes. But not only the Parliament, but in a manner all the people of England, were their enemies, upon the account of their behaviour, as being (they said) too imperious. *[For indeed the most of them so carried themselves, as if they owed their greatness not to the King’s favour and to his letters patent, which gives them their authority, but to the merit of their (own?) conceived (wit and?) learning (and had?) no less care of the praises of each other, than they showed irritability to defend the dignity of their jurisdiction and of their office, being ever highly offended with those that dissented from their spirit or their ideas; (and consequently?) … they were reputed a little too diligent in making the best of themselves.]* This was all that was colourably laid to their charge. The main cause of pulling them down, was the envy of the Presbyterians, that incensed the people against them, and against episcopacy itself.

B. How would the Presbyterians have the Church to be governed?

A. By national and provincial synods.

B. Is not this to make the national assembly an archbishop, and the provincial assemblies so many bishops?

A. Yes; but every minister shall have the delight of sharing in the government, and consequently of being able to be revenged on those that do not admire their learning and help to fill their purses, and win to their service those that do.