VI. FUGITIVES OVERTAKEN.

THE city of Geneva is seated in the marches of several dominions, France, Savoy, Switzerland; now it is a fundamental law in that signiory, to give free access to all offenders, yet so as to punish their offence according to the custom of that place wherein the fault was committed. This necessary severity doth sweep their state from being the sink of sinners, the rendezvous of rogues, and headquarters of all malefactors, which otherwise would fly thither in hope of indemnity. Herein I highly approve the discipline of Geneva.

If we should live to see churches of several governments permitted in England, it is more than probable that many offenders, not out of conscience, but to escape censures, would fly from one congregation to another. What Nabal said sullenly and spitefully, [1 Sam. xxv. 10.] one may sadly foresee and foresay of this land, Many servants now-a-days will break every man from his master; 129many guilty persons, abandoning that discipline under which they were bred and brought up, will shift and shelter themselves under some new model of government. Well were it then if every man, before he be admitted a member of a new congregation, do therein first make satisfaction for such scandalous sins whereof he stands justly charged in that church which he deserted. This would conduce to the advancing of virtue and the retrenching of notorious licentiousness.