As Cartwright’s performance in the Admonition controversy had shown, the presbyterian case contained within itself both moderate and radical tendencies. These could be accentuated or played down in response to changing political and polemical circumstance, thus lending the presbyterian position a considerable degree of tactical flexibility. The moderate position found its fullest expression in the works produced in response to Whitgift’s campaign for full conformity and subscription to his three articles of 1583/4 and in the polemical exchanges which those books provoked. With the exception of the issue of non-preaching ministers however, the differences between moderate and radical presbyterians were ones of tone and presentation rather than of substance, of tactics rather than of strategy. The bishops’ office was, of course, Antichristian. It was simply unlawful for the magistrate to initiate any sort of church government other than that laid down in scripture.