Idolatry and superstition, you may go about to abridge them. And under the late domineering Prelacy and tyranny, Judges wrested laws to take away the Sub∣jects birth-right and liberty, and to maintain oppression, and they made (you know whose) will and lust, law. And Lawyers soothed them, and you know when, not one (in all the bunch) could be found, nor hired to plead in the just cause of an innocent. And even then many Presbyters and Ecclesiasticall persons stood out couragiously, and feared no persecutions, bonds or losses, in the cause both of reli∣gion and justice. Why then will you not take away all power also of judging from Judges, and of pleading and expounding the Law from Lawyers, and leave all ci∣vil government in the hands of the common people? Take heed, Sir, you be not partiall and unequall to one side more then another. Aretius hath given you a very good caveat, not to strive so earnestly against this point of Christian discipline, in those words of his by you cited (impossibile praesentibus moribus colla submitte∣re ejusmodi disciplinae) which words tell us, That the corrupt manners and pro∣fane lives of men desperately bent, in these evil times, to continue in their lewd and scandalous courses, make it impossible to bring them to submit their stiff necks to this discipline of Excommunication, and Suspension from the holy Communion, which is Christs light yoke to tractable Christians. If you proceed to take part with such refractory opposers (which, I hope, your religious heart will not permit you to do) and spend your strength in so unworthy a cause, in hope by justifying these Questions, to prevail against the votes of your best friends, and most faithfull lo∣ver which you have in this world, who truly honour you, and wish all good to you: I trust in God, you shall fail of your hopes, as Aretius did in his judgement, where speaking of this discipline set up by some in the Churches of Germany, he seems to deride it in those words by you rehearsed, Cecidit in spongiam ridicu∣lus mus; For now this despised mouse is become an high mountain in all the best reformed Churches of Germany.4. As for your addresse to the Assembly, whom you charge unjustly with fal∣ling into extreams, and indeed calumniate them, as if they seemed to affect a great lording power over the consciences and priviledges of their Christian bre∣thren, which of right belongs not unto them, usurping that to themselves, which they vehemently declaimed against, and caused to be taken quite away from the Pope and Prelates.To this I answer, that you utterly mistake the matter. For they abhorre all af∣fectation and usurpation of lording power over the consciences of any Christians, but have condemned it in the Pope and Prelates; and their humble Petition to the Houses of Parliament is; That none may usurp lordly power, as the proud Prelates did, over them, and the people of their flock, compelling them either against their consciences, and with great offence and scandall to the godly, to ad∣mit scandalous sinners to the Lords table, and to profane the Sacrament of Christs body and blood, by giving the seals thereof to them, or else to decline the administration of that holy ordinance, and their Ministerie, chusing affliction ra∣ther then iniquity. In plain truth, this is the lordly tyrannicall power o∣ver their consciences, and the iron yoke which you in your Question seek to lay on them.0