inquiry,
whether the plea of a legal establishment of this prelacy, sworn against
in this covenant, be not rather a tradition, than any certain or
confessed truth. Sure I am, we have it from the hands of persons of
worth and honour; the ablest secretaries of laws and antiquities in our
kingdom, that there is no such law or statute to be found upon the file,
among our records. Which assertion, if it cannot find faith, we will
once more join issue with the patrons or followers of this prelacy, upon
this point, that when they produce that law or statute which doth enact
and establish prelacy, as it is here branched in the article, we will
then give them a fuller answer, or yield the question.

To conclude therefore, since this prelacy in the article, this many
headed monster of archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and
commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other
ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy, is the beast,
wherewith we fight in this covenant, which hath been found so
destructive to church and state; let us not fear to take this sword of
the covenant of God into our hands, and say to this enemy of Christ, as
Samuel said once to Agag, (at what time he said within himself, "surely
the bitterness of death is past") "As thy sword hath made women
childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." So hath
prelacy flattered itself, finding such a party to stand up on its side
among the rotten lords and commons, the debauched gentry, and abased
people of the kingdom: "Surely the bitterness of death is past." "I sit
as a queen, and shall not know widow-hood, or loss of children." In the
midst of this security and pride, the infallible forerunners of her
downfall, let us call her forth, and say, as thy sword, prelacy, hath
made many women childless, many a faithful minister peopleless,
houseless and libertyless, their wives husbandless, their children and
their congregations fatherless, and pastorless, and guideless; so thy
mother, papacy, shall be made childless among harlots, your diocese
bishopless, and your sees lordless, and your places shall know you no
more. Come, my brethren, I say, and fear not to take this Agag,
(prelacy, I mean, not the prelates) and hew it in pieces before the
Lord.

_Object._ 4. A fourth and main objection that troubles many, is, that in
the following article there are divers things of another nature that
should fall within the compass of such a c