The second reply of Thomas CartwrightThe second replie of Thomas Cartwright

Some off his accusations / touch the cause: but the most part / touch it not. Off this later kind one sort are off my manner of living▪ albeit he count it a childish kind off confuting, that one should leave the cause, and take him self to the person. Here / my ministry is diversly ¹accused: as that I did not seek for the order off priesthood as it is called: for that is that he meaneth I should have done by oath or else departed the College. The answer hereto is longer / then this ²treatise may embrace: which I am ready to exhibit before him / to whom it belongeth: because I am provoked / I humbly desire him to receive the cause. But in a word: it is a mere cavil. For the meaning off the statute off the house / is to provide that men should not turn their studies / to other professions off law &c: but that there should be to furnish the College off a number ⟨image 7⟩off preachers / off which I was one / as soon as I entered. Nether was there any duty of ministry / which the College could require off me; that I was not enabled to do according to the laws of the church off England / by virtue off that ministry / which I had received. So that the law it self (as that whose meaning was fulfilled even with my entry) did not require it. Also the corruption off the law / or at the least off his interpretation (binding men to beg a ministry and thereby after a sort to testify off them selves that they befit for it) might after knowledge that I ought not to beg it / justly keep me back. By how much more / I were worthy to be condemned / if (as he accuseth) I had ambitiously desired to be the Queens majesties divinity reader: for which / I never ³opened lip. If I had / how knoweth he / I did it ambitiously: who maketh it lawful, to ask it. So that onles / he know my hart: my labouring ⁴for it (if any had been) is justified by his divinity. The life / I answer to an other not unlike: that I earnestly desired, the degree ⁵