Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/88

 The issue between Erastian and Independent was joined again in 1644. William Prynne had sniffed the pamphlet battle between Presbyterian and Independent from afar; and he was soon in the thick of it. His first pamphlet was written in a lofty vein. He had no leisure to debate the unhappy differences on church government, but at the entreaty of some reverend friends, he had proposed Twelve Considerable Serious Questions which apparently he thought would convict the Independents of error and restore peace. Prynne never wrote a book that could not to advantage be condensed, and his comparatively short questions can be reduced to this proposition: Every nation must have the right to settle a form of church government in accord with its institutions, so long as the form is not repugnant to God’s Word—for a complete church government is not to be deduced from Scripture. Therefore, if Parliament and the national synod set up such a government, all are bound to obey it. Defending the Presbyterian model by departing from its pretences to divine right cannot have been vcryvery [sic] pleasing to Presbyterians of the type of Adam Stewart and the Scotch commissioners; but for the moment they could scarcely disavow Prynne. The Independ-