_Sentiments of English Reformers respecting the government and worship of the Church._――I shall endeavour to compress the body of evidence which can be produced for the conformity between the private sentiments of the English reformers respecting worship and church‑government, and those of Knox, along with the reformers of Switzerland and Geneva. Hooper, in a letter dated Feb. 8, 1550, informs Bullinger that “the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Rochester, Ely, St David’s, Lincoln, and Bath, were sincerely bent on advancing the purity of doctrine, agreeing IN ALL THINGS with the Helvetic churches.” Burnet, iii. 201. Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, in a letter to Gualter, Feb. 4, 1573, fervently exclaims, “O! would to God, would to God, once at last, all the English people would in good earnest propound to themselves to follow the church of Zurich as the most absolute pattern.” Strype’s Annals, ii. 286, 342. Cranmer expressed his opinion formally in writing, that “the bishops and priests were at one time, and were no two things, but both ONE OFFICE in the beginning of Christ’s religion.”――“The bishop of St David’s, my lord elect of Westminster, Dr Cox, Dr Redman, say that at the beginning they were all ONE.” Collier, ii. Records, No. 49. Burnet, i. Append. p. 223‒225. Thirteen bishops, with a great number of other ecclesiastics, subscribed this proposition, “that in the New Testament there is no mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but only deacons or ministers, and of priests or bishops.” Burnet, ut supra, p. 324. Cranmer says, “In the New Testament he that is appointed a bishop or a priest {401} needed not consecration, by the scripture, for election or appointment thereto is sufficient.” And of the same judgment was the bishop of St David’s. Ibid. 228, 230. Latimer and Hooper maintained the identity of bishops and presbyters, by divine institution. Voetii Polit. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 837. This was also the opinion of Pilkington, bishop of Durham. Treatise on the burning of St Paul’s, apud Cald. Altare Damascenum, p. 204. Bishop Jewel assents to it in his Answer to Harding, p. 121. And on the accession of Elizabeth, he expressed his hope, that “the bishops would become pastors, labourers, and watchmen, and that the great riches of bishoprics would be diminished and reduced to mediocrity, that, being delivered from regal and courtly pomp, they might take care of the flock of Christ.” Burnet, iii. 288. In the same year, Dr Aylmer addressed the right reverend bench in these terms: “Come of, you bishops, away with your superfluities, yield up your thousands, be content with hundreds, as they be in other reformed churches, where there be as great learned men as you are. Let your portion be priestlike and not princelike. Let the queen have the rest of your temporalities and other lands to maintain these warres which you procured, and your mistresse left her; and with the reste builde and