kirk, and a new form of
divine service which God in his word hath not before allowed; because,
that were you to extend your authority farther than the calling ye have
of God doth permit, as namely, if ye should (as God forbid) authorize
the authority of bishops, and their pre eminence above their brethren,
ye should bring into the kirk of God the ordinance of man, and that
thing which the experience of preceding ages hath testified to be the
ground of great idleness, palpable ignorance, insufferable pride,
pitiless tyranny, and shameless ambition in the kirk of God. And
finally, to have been the ground of that antichristian hierarchy, which
mounteth up on the steps of pre eminence of bishops, until that man of
sin came forth, as the ripe fruit of man's wisdom, whom God shall
consume with the breath of his own mouth. Let the sword of God pierce
that belly which brought forth such a monster; and let the staff of God
crush that egg which hath hatched such a cockatrice; and let not only
that Roman antichrist be thrown down from the high bench of his usurped
authority, but also let all the steps, whereby he mounted up to that
unlawful pre eminence, be cut down, and utterly abolished in this land.

Above all things, my lords, beware to strive against God, with an open
and displayed banner, by building up again the walls of Jericho, which
the Lord hath not only cast down, but hath also laid them under a
horrible interdiction and execration; so that the building of them again
must needs stand to greater charges to the builders, than the
re-edifying of Jericho to Hiel the Bethelite, in the days of Achab; For
he had nothing but the interdiction of Joshua, and the curse pronounced
by him, to stay him from building again of Jericho; but the noblemen and
estates of this realm, have the reverence of the oath of God, made by
themselves, and subscribed with their own hands, in the confession of
faith, called the king's majesty's published oftener than once or twice,
subscribed and sworn by his most excellent majesty, and by his highness,
the nobility, estates, and whole subjects of this realm, to hold them
back from setting up the dominion of bishops. Because, it is of verity,
that they subscribed and swore the said confession, containing not only
the maintenance of the true doctrine, but also of the discipline
protested within the realm of Scotland.

Consider also, that this work cannot be set forward, without the great
slander of t