TRAVERS. 323 forego their ministry, rather than subscribe to the allowance of it. Leicester. It is a pity that so many of the best ministers, and those who are the most painful preachers, have stood to be deprived for these things. T. My lord, we acknowledge that the peace of the church ought to be dearer to us than our lives. But with your lordship's favour, I must say, in conscience towards God, and in the duty I owe to her excellent majesty, to your good lordships, and to the whole church and state, that the ministers, in so doing, have acted well. The things to which they were required to subscribe being so grievous, they ought not to have yielded, though they were deprived of their ministry. A. From the letter of Dr. Ridley, now read to you, you ee that he approved of the habits. S. Mr. Fox, in his " Book of Martyrs," reporteth that Ridley, at his degradation, scorned the habits, saying, " They are foolish and abominable, and too fond for a vice in a play.". A. You will call in question the authority and jurisdic- tion of the bishops, as well as many other things. T. We object against the Prayer Book, because it allows and attempts to justify an insufficient ministry, directly contrary to the word of God. This appearsfrom 1 Tim. and Titus i. Treasurer. What scripture is there to prove that he who administers the sacramentsshould also preach ? T. " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them," &c. And Jesus Christ having joined these things together, it is not lawful for men to put them asunder. .This is not our opinion only, I3ut the opinion and practice ofall the foreign reformed churches. A. The apostolic rule which you have alleged, is an idea of a minister. T. To make it merely an idea would overturn the re- ligion of God's word; because, for the same reason, the duties of magistrates, churches, parents, children, and all others, might be made duties merely in idea. Treasurer. That is impossible. T. If the churches, even in times of bloody persecution, have observed this order, that theywho minister the sacra. ments shall also preach; it cannot be difficult for us in a * See Fox's Acts and Monuments of Martyrs, vol. iii, p. 427.
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