The second reply of Thomas CartwrightThe second replie of Thomas Cartwright

You understand not you say what I mean, when I say that the choice off the Minister by the church is such, as the examples off the scripture ⟨p. XXXVI⟩do show to have been before the Eldership and government off the church be established. I know in deed these things before have been unheard off by you / whose ignorance the church must rue. And now when you are told it in so plain words / as I nothing doubt but a child off nine years old doth understand it: you can not yet comprehend it. It was the practise off the Pharisees against our Saviour Christ / when they ¹had nothing to answer / to charge him that he spake not plainly / but propounded things doubtfully that men could not tell where to have him. For they come unto him and say / how long doest thou hold us in suspense? If thou be Christ tell us plainly: as though he had not told them plainly before. This Pharisaical practise the D. useth against me diverse times / groping at noon days / and complaining that I am not plain and open enough / and going about to make men believe / that I have some thing that I would not have men understand. And although he confess he understand it not / yet he reprehendeth it / and so it cometh to him which S. Jude chargeth the false teachers with in his time / that he ²speaketh evil off that he knoweth not. He asketh here for examples / and they stick still in his throat unswallowed and undigested / which the admonition gave him: when he hath overcome those / then let him ask for more examples. And whereas he ascribeth as a great absurdity to us / that we make the order off choosing the minister before the eldership and government be established, somewhat diverse from that which is before, putting this flourish upon it: that we allow off all things out off order though against our own order, so it be against common order: I will not goo about to confute that here / or to show what good cause there is off this diversity (it being sufficiently declared in that book / which together with the right form off government commanded out off the word off god / noteth the disorders off our church) only I will ask M. D. whether the consecration (as it is called) off the Archbishops and Bishops at the first entry off the Queens majesty / was the same altogether with that which hath been sithens.