Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
doctrine_n church_n england_n popery_n 4,865 5 10.4033 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A93958 Ad clerum. A sermon preached at a visitation holden at Grantham in the county and diocess of Lincolne, 8. Octob. 1641. By a late learned prelate. Now published by his own copy. Sanderson, Robert, 1587-1663. 1670 (1670) Wing S580; ESTC R228093 21,750 45

There are 5 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

customs in matters wholly or in part Ecclesiastical partly concerning the use of sundry pastimes and recreations partly concerning sundry usages and customs in vita communi in things meerly Civil and not sacred or Ecclesiastical the particulars whereof would amount to many scores if not hundreds I shall present unto your view a dozen onely which I have selected from the rest of those that I have observed to have been most urged of late in Sermons and Pamphlets by which you may in part judge of the rest And they are these 1. First that the appointing of a set forme of Prayer or Liturgy to be used in the service of God is unlawful or Antichristian or that it is a straitning or limiting of the Holy Spirit of God 2. That it is not in the power of the Church to ordain any Rites or Ceremonies in the service of God which the people are bound to observe other than such as God hath commanded in his Word 3. That Rites and usages devised or abused either by Heathens or Idolaters may not be lawfully used by Christians in the service of God 4. That it is unlawful or superstitious to kneel at the holy Communion in the act of receiving the Sacrament 5. That Instrumental Musick may not be used in the service of God as well as Vocal 6. That Episcopacy is Antichristian or repugnant to the Word of God 7. That the Presbyterian discipline is the very Scepter of Christs Kingdom or the order appointed by Christ himself for the perpetual Government of his Church which ought of all particular Congregations to be inviolably observed unto the Worlds end 8. That it is simply unlawful for a Minister to be possessed of two Benefices 9. That Ecclesiastical persons may not meddle in secular affairs nor can with a good conscience exercise any Civil office or Jurisdiction although by humane authority Law or custome allowed them 10. That it is not lawful in preaching Gods word to recite sentences out of the Fathers much lesse from the writings of Heathen Writers 11. That the Election or consent of the people is of necessity required either to the ordeining of Ministers or to the appointing of them to their particular charges 12. Lastly which though I find not positively delivered in terminis nor is the danger thereof so generally observed as of sundry of the former yet for that I find it often touched upon in these late Treatises and conceive it to be an Errour of no lesse dangerous consequence than many of the former I thought meet not to omit it That the Examples of Christ and of his Apostles ought to be observed of all Christians as a perpetual Rule binding them to Conformity even as their Precepts doe unto Obedience 23. Concerning which Positions I do here in the face of this Congregation take God to witness who shall judge us all at the last day that I do verily believe and in my conscience am perswaded that all and every of them are the vaine and superstitious inventions of men wholy destitute of all sound warrant from the Written Word of God rightly understood and applied and till they shall be better proved ought to be so esteemed of every man that desireth to make Gods Holy Word the rule of his opinions and actions Many and great are the mischiefs otherwise that come to the Church and people of God by the teaching of these and other like groundless Positions As amongst others these three following First great scandal is hereby given to Atheists Papists Separatists and other the enimies of our Religion especially to the Papists who will not onely take occasion thence to speak evil of us and of the way of truth and holiness which wee profess but will be themselves also the more confirmed in their own wicked errors by objecting to us that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay Secondly many sober and godly men both Ministers and others who cheerfully submit to the established Lawes and Government as they take themselves by the Law of God bound to doe in things which they believe not to be repugnant to his Word are by this means unworthily exposed to contempt and miscensure as if they were time-servers or inclined to Popery or Superstition at the least But if they shall farther endeavour in their Sermons or otherwise to shew their just dislike and to hinder the growth of these unlawful impositions and to hold the people in their good beliefe by instructing them better they shall be sure to be forthwith branded as opposers of the Gospel As if there were such a spirit of Infallibility annexed to some mens Pulpits as some have said there is to the Popes Chaire that whatsoever they shall deliver thence must needs be Gospel Thirdly hereby many an honest-hearted and well-meaning Christian is wonderfully abused by being mis-led into Error Superstition and Disobedience by having his conscience brought into bondage in those things whereunto it was the good pleasure of God to leave him free and by being disposed to much uncharitablenesse in judging evil of his brother that hath given him no just cause so to doe Besides these and sundry other mischiefs of dangerous consequence too long now to repeat the thing that I am presently to affirme concerning all and every of the positions aforesaid and other like them pertinently to the Text and business in hand is this That whosoever shall doctrinally and positively teath any of the same doth ipso facto become guilty of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour and so farre forth symbolizeth with the Pharisees in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men And I doubt not but there are in the Church of England sundry learned iudicious and Orthodox Divines no way suspected of favouring Popery or Popish Innovations that by Gods help and the advantage of Truth will be ready to maintaine what I now affirme in a fair Christian and Scholar-like trial against whosoever are otherwise minded whensoever by authority they shall be thereunto required I have now finished what I had to say from this Scripture by way of Application From the whole premisses would arise sundry Inferences as Corollaries and by way of Use In the prosecution whereof had we time for it I should have occasion to fall upon some things that might be of right good use for the setling of mens judgments and consciences in a way of Truth and Peace And truely my aime lay chiefly here when my thoughts fixt upon this Text. But having enlarged my self so far beyond my first purpose allready I shall onely give you a short touch of each of them and it may be hereafter as I shall see cause and as God shall dispose I may take some other occasion here or elswhere to enlarge them further The first should be an earnest request to such of my Brethren as through inconsideration zeale against Popery or profanenesse or any other cause have been a little
that rightly understandeth the Tenets of the Romish Church but will easily grant if he shall duly consider what a masse of humane Traditions both in point of belief and worship are imposed upon the judgments and consciences of all that may be suffered to live in the visible Communion of that Church and that with opinion of necessity and under paine of damnation The Popes Supremacy Worshipping of Images Invocation of Saints and Angels the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass Purgatory the seven Sacraments Transubstantiation Adoration of the host Communion under one kind Private Masses forbidaing Priests Mariage Monastical Vowes Prayer in an unknown tongue Auricular Confession All these and I know not how many more are such as even by the confession of their own learned Writers depend upon unwritten Traditions more than upon the Scriptures True it is that for most of these they pretend to Scripture also but with so little colour at the best and with so little confidence at the last that when they are hard put to it they are forced to fly from that hold and to shelter themselves under their great Diana Tradition Take away that it is confessed that many of the chiefe Arcicles of their Faith nutare vacillare videbuntur will seem even to totter and reel and have much adoe to keep up For what else could we imagine should make them strive so much to debase the Scripture all they can denying it to be a Rule of Faith and charging it with imperfection obscurity uncertainty and many other defects and on the otherside to magnifie Traditions as every way more absolute but meerly their consciousness that sundry of their doctrines if they should be examined to the bottome would apeare to have no sound foundation in the Written Word And then must needs wee conclude from what hath been allready delivered that they ought to be received or rather not to be received but rejected as the Doctrines and Commandments of men Nor will their flying to Tradition help them in this case or free them from Pharisaisme but rather make the more against them For to omit that it hath been the usual course of false teachers when their Doctrines were found not to be Scripture-proofe to fly to Tradition do but enquire a little into the Original and growth of Pharisaical Traditions and you shall find that one egge is not more like another than the Papists and the Pharisees are alike in this matter When Saduc or whosoever els was the first Author of the Sect of the Sadduces and his followers began to vent their pestilent and Atheistical Doctrines against the immortality of the Soule the resurrection of the Body and other like the best Learned among the Jewes the Pharisees especially opposed against them by arguments and collections drawn from the Scriptures The Saduces finding themselves unable to hold argument with them as having two shrewd disadvantages but a little Learning and a bad cause had no other means to avoid the force of all their arguments than to hold them precisely to the letter of the Text without admitting any exposition thereof or collection therefrom Unlesse they could bring clear Text that should affirme totidem verbis what they denied they would not yeild The Pharisees on the contrary refused as they had good cause to be tyed to such unreasonable conditions but stood upon the meaning of the Scriptures as the Sadduces did upon the letter confirming the truth of their interpretations partly from Reason and partly from Tradition Not meaning by Tradition as yet any doctrine other than what was allready sufficiently conteined in the Scriptures but meerly the Doctrine which had been in all ages constantly taught and received with an Vniversal consent among the People of God as consonant to the holy Scriptures and grounded thereon By this means though they could not satisfie the Sadduces as Heretikes and Sectaries commonly are obstinate yet so farre they satisfied the generality of the people that they grew into very great esteem with them and within a while carryed all before them the detestation of the Sadduces and of their loose errors also conducing not a little thereunto And who now but the Pharisees and what now but Tradition in every mans eye and mouth Things being at this passe any wise man may judge how easy a matter it was for men so reverenced as the Pharisees were to abuse the credulity of the people and the interess they had in their good opinion to their own advantage to make themselves Lords of the peoples faith and by little and little to bring into the VVorship whatsoever doctrines and observances they pleased and all under the acceptable name of the Traditions of the Elders And so they did winning continually upon the people by their cunning and shewes of Religion and proceeding still more and more till the Jewish Worship by their means was grown to that height of superstition and formality as we see it was in our Saviours dayes Such was the beginning and such the rise of these Pharisaical Traditions Popish Traditions also both came in and grew up just after the same manner The Orthodox Bishops and Doctors in the antient Church being to maintain the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Consubstantiality of the Sonne with the Father the Hypostatical Union of the two Natures in the person of Christ the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and other like Articles of the Catholike Religion against the Arians Eunomians Macedonians and other Heretikes for that the words Trinity Homoüsion Hypostasis Procession c. which for the better expressing of the Catholike sense they were forced to use were not expressely to be found in the holy Scriptures had recourse therefore very often in their writings against the Heretikes of their times to the Tradition of the Church Whereby they meant not as the Papists would now wrest their words any unwritten doctrine not conteined in the Scriptures but the very doctrine of the Scriptures themselves as they had been constantly understood and believed by all faithfull Christians in the Catholike Church down from the Apostles times till the several present ages wherein they lived This course of theirs of so serviceable and necessary use in those times gave the first occasion and after-rise to that heap of Errors and Superstitions which in processe of time by the power and policy of the Bishop of Rome especially were introduced into the Christian Church under the specious name and colour of Catholike Traditions Thus have they troden in the steps of their forefathers the Pharisees and stand guilty even as they of the Superstition here condemned by our Saviour in teaching for doctrines mens Precepts But if the Church of Rome be cast how shall the Church of England be quit That symbolizeth so much with her in many of hir Ceremonies and otherwise What are all our crossings and kneelings and duckings What Surplice and Ring and all
those other Rites and Accoutrements that are used in or about the publike Worship but so many Commandments of men For it cannot be made appear nor truly do I think was it ever endeavoured that God hath any where commanded them Indeed these things have been objected heretofore with clamour enough and the cry is of late revived again with more noise and malice than ever in a world of base and unworthy Pamphlets that like the frogs of Aegypt croake in every corner of the Land And I pray God the suffering of them to multiply into such heaps do not cause the whole Land so to stink in his nos-thrills that he grow weary of it and forsake us But I undertook to justifie the Church of England and hir regular and obedient children in this behalf and it will be expected I should do it If any of the Children of this Church in their too much hast have over-runne their Mother that is have busied themselves and troubled others with putting forward new Rites and Ceremonies with scandal and without Law or by using hir name without hir leave for the serving of their own purposes have causelessely brought an evil suspicion upon her as some are blamed let them answer it as well as they can it is not my businesse now to plead for them but to vindicate the Church of England against another sort of men who have accused her of Superstition unjustly Set both these aside and hir defense is made in a word if we do but remember what hath been allready delivered in the Explication of the Text to wit that it is not the commandments of men either Materially or Formally taken but the Opinion that we have of them and the teaching of them for Doctrines wherein Superstition properly consisteth Materially first There is no Superstition either in wearing or in not wearing a Surplice in kneeling or in not kneeling at the Communion in crossing or in not crossing an infant newly baptized even as there is no superstition in washing or in not washing the hands before meat So long as neither the one is done with an opinion of necessity nor the other forborn out of the opinion of unlawfulness For so long the conscience standeth free The Apostle hath so resolved in the very like case That neither that eateth is the worse for it nor he that eatethnot the better for it A man may eat and do it with a good conscience and he may not eat and do that with a good Conscience too As in the present case at this time it is certain Christs disciples did eat and washed not it cannot be doubted but at some time or other they washed before they ate Not for conscience sake towards God either but even as they saw it fit and as the present occasion required and they might do both without superstition But if any man shall wear or kneel or crosse with an opinion of necessity and for conscience sake towards God as if those parts of Gods service wherein those Ceremonies are used in our Church could not be rightly performed without them yea although the Church had not appointed them doubtlesse the use of those Ceremonies by reason of such his opinion should be Superstition to him Because a man cannot be of that Opinion but he must believe it to be true doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves necessary parts of Gods worship As on the contrary if any body should refuse to weare or kneel or crosse out of an opinion of their unlawfulnes as if those Ceremonies did vitiate the whole act of that worship whereunto they are applied I cannot see but upon the same ground and by reason of such his opinion the refusal of those Ceremonies should be to him also Superstition Because a man cannot be of that opinion but he must believe this to be true doctrine that such and such Ceremonies are of themselves unlawful to be used in the Worship of God But the obedient children of the Church of England having no such opinion either of the necessity or unlawfulnes of the said Ceremonies but holding them to be as indeed they are things in their own nature indifferent are even therefore free from Superstition in both the kinds aforesaid So then in the things commanded taken materially that is to say considered in themselves without respect to the Churches command there is no Superstition because there is nothing concerning them doctrinally taught either the one way or the other Now if we can as well clear these things taken also formally that is to say considered not in themselves but as they stand commanded by publick authority of the Church the whole businesse is done as to this point Nor is there in truth any great difficulty in it if we will but apprehend things aright For although the very commanding them do seem to bring with it a kind of necessity and to lay a tye upon the Conscience as that of St. Paul implieth both you must needs be subject and that for conscience sake yet is not that any tye brought upon the Conscience de novo by such command of the Church onely that tye that lay upon the Conscience before by virtue of that general Commandment of God of obeying the higher powers in all their lawful Commands is by that Commandment of the Church applied to that particular matter Even as it is in all Civil Constitutions and humane positive Laws whatsoever And the Necessity also is but an Obediential not a Doctrinal necessity But the Text requireth a Doctrinal necessity to make the thing done a vain and superstitious worship Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men Which the Church of England in prescribing the aforesaid Ceremonies hath not done nor by her own grounds could do For look as the case standeth with private men for doing or refusing even so standeth the case with publick Governours for commanding or forbidding As therefore with private men it is not the bare doing or refusing of a thing as in discretion they shall see cause but the doing of it with an opinion of Necessity or the refusing of it with the opinion of Unlawfulness that maketh the Action superstitious as hath been already shewed So with publick Governours it is not the commanding or forbidding of a mutable Ceremony as for the present they shall deem it fit for order decency or uniformities sake or such other like respect but the commanding of it with an opinion as if it were of perpetual necessity or the forbidding it with the like opinion as if it were simply unlawful that maketh the Constitution superstitious Now I appeal to any man that hath not run on madly with the cry for company but endeavoured with the spirit of Charity and Sobriety to satisfie his own understanding herein if the Church of England both in the Preface before the Book of Common Prayer and in the Articles of her Confession and in sundry
passages in the Homilies occasionally and these Books are acknowledged her most Authentick writings the two former especially and the just standard whereby to measure her whole Doctrine if I say she have not in them all and that in as plain and expresse terms as can be desired disclaimed all humane Traditions that are imposed upon the consciences of Gods people either in point of Faith or Manners and declared to the world that she challenged no power to her self to order any thing by her own authority but onely in things indiffenent and such as are not repugnant to the word of God and that her Constitutions are but for order comelinesse and uniformity sake and not for conscience sake towards God and that therefore any of those her Orders and Constitutions may be reteined abolished or altered from time to time and at all times as the Governours for the time being shall judg to serve best unto Edification What should I say more If men list to be contentious and will not be satisfied who can help it yet thus much I dare say more Let any Papist or Precisiian in the world give instance but in any one single thing doctrinally maintained by the Church of England which he can with any colour of truth except against as a Commandment of men if we do not either shew good warrant for it from the written word of God which we doubt not but to be able to do and is most adrem or else which is enough ad hominem for every single instance they shall bring return them ten of their own teaching every whit as liable to the same exception as that we will yield the Bucklers and confesse her guilty But now what will you say if after all this clamouring against English-Popish Ceremonies as of late they have blasoned them they that keep all this adoe prove in the end the guilty persons themselves I am much deceived if it do not clearly prove so if we either compare her doctrine and theirs together or take a view of some of theirs by themselves First compare them a litle which will also adde some confirmation to the former point for the farther justifying of the Church of England in this behalf And for example and perspicuity sake let the instance be kneeling at the Communion there being the like reason of all the rest I pray you consider well the evidence weigh the grounds and observe the course held on both sides and then give sentence accordingly If as God hath given those our Church Governours power to determine of indifferent mutable circumstances and they using the liberty of the Power given them have appointed kneeling rather than sitting or standing as judging it a gesture of greater reverence and well becoming our unworthinesse but without any opinion either of the necessity of that gesture or of the unlawfulness of the other two so God had given the like Power to these our Brethren and they using the liberty of that Power had appointed sitting or standing rather than kneeling as judging either of them a more proper Table gesture than it yet without any opinion of their necessity or of the unlawfulnesse of kneeling the case had then been alike of both These had been as free as they neither of them had been guilty of Superstition in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men because there was no doctrinal necessity whereby to bind the conscience of Gods people on either side Again if as these say to their Proselytes peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in conscience not to kneel it is an unlawful gesture a superstitious relique of Popery and carrieth with it a shrewd appearance of their idolatrous Bread-worship and therefore we charge you upon your consciences not to kneel so our Church-governors should say to the people peremptorily in effect thus you are bound in conscience to kneel or else you profane the holy Sacrament not discerning the Lords Body and therefore we charge you upon your consciences to kneel the case of both had here also been alike Both alike guilty of Superstition in teaching for doctrines the commandments of men because by that doctrinal necessity as well the one sort as the other had laid a perpetual obligation upon the Consciences of men in a matter which God having not any where either commanded or forbidden hath therefore left free and indifferent But now taking the case as de facto it is without Ifs and And 's set the one against the other and make the comparison right and here it is Our Brethren having no publick authority given them to order what shall be done or not done in matters of external government do yet bind the consciences of Gods people by teaching that which they thus forbid to be simply and in it self unlawful Our Governors on the contrary though having publick authority to prescribe in such matters do yet leave the consciences of men at liberty without teaching that which they appoint to be of absolute necessity in it self This being species facti as the Civilians speak the even true state of the case say now I beseeeh you in good sooth and be not partial Quid Juris At whose door lieth the Superstition The one side teaching no such doctrine but having authority do by virtue of that authority appoint the people to kneel The other side having no such authority but teaching a doctrine do by virtue of that doctrine charge the people not to kneel Whether of both sides may rightlier be said to teach for doctrines the Commandments of men Tu quum sis quod ego fortassis nequior Their guilt herein will yet farther appear if leaving comparisons we take a view of some of their doctrines by themselves I say but some of them for how many hours would serve to reckon them all or who indeed even of themselves knoweth them all There are so many Covies of new doctrines sprung up ever and anon especially in these late times of connivence and licentiousness which by that they are well hatcht presently fly abroad the Countrey and are entertained by some or other for as good Divinity as if they were the undoubted Oracles of the Holy Ghost I dare not affirme it because I will not put my self to the trouble to prove it and because I heartily desire and wish I be deceived in it yet I cannot dissemble my fear that it is but too true by the proportion of what we almost daily hear or see that within little more than this one twelvemonth last past there have been more false and superstitious doctrines vented in the Pulpits and Presses in England than have been in so open and daring a manner in the whole space of almost fourscore years before I mean since the first of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory And to make good the former charge omitting sundry other their unwarrantable positions partly concerning Church-Government Orders and Ceremonies established by Law partly concerning sundry received
too forward and faulty this way That they would in the fear of God review their own dictates and all partiality and self-seeking laid aside bestow a little paines to examine throughly the soundness of those principles from which they draw their conclusions whether they be the very true word of God indeed or but the fansies and devices of the wit of man I know how loathly men are induced to suspect themselves to be in an Errour and that it is with our brethren herein as with other men may sufficiently appeare in this that few of them will so much as bestow the reading of those books that might give them satisfaction But beloved better try your own work your selves and if it prove but hay or stubble burn it your selves by acknowledging your errour and retracting it that you may build better than let it lye on still till a sorer fire catch it Better for any of us all whether in respect of our errours or sins to prevent the Lords judging of us by timely judging our selves than to slack the time till his judgment overtake us The second use should be an Admonition to all my Brethren of the Ministery for the time to come and that in the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3. 10. Let every man take heed what he buildeth S t Paul himself was very careful this way not to deliver any thing to the people but what he had received from the Lord. The Prophets of the Lord still delivered their Messages with this Preface Haec dicit Dominus Yea that wretch Balaam though a false Prophet and covetous enough professed yet that if Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold he neither durst nor would goe beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more There is a great proneness in us all to idolize our own inventions Besides much Ignorance Hypocrisie and Partiality any of which may byas us awry Our Educations may lay such early anticipations upon our judgments or our teachers or the bookes we read or the society we converse withall may leave such impressions therein as may fill them with prejudice not easily to be removed The golden meane is a hard thing to hit upon almost in any thing without some warping toward one of the extremes either on the right hand or on the left and without a great deal of wisdome and care seldome shall we seek to shun one extreme and not run a little too farre towards the other if not quite into it In all which and sundry other respects we may soon fall into gross mistakes and errours if we do not take the more heed whilst we suspect no such thing by our selves but verily believe that all we do is out of pure zeale for Gods Glorie and the love of his truth We had need of all the piety and learning and discretion and paines and prayers we have and all little enough without Gods blessing too ey and our own greater care too to keep us from running into Errours and from teaching for doctrines the commandments of men The Third use should be for Admonition also to all the people of God that they be not hasty to believe every spirit but to try the Spirits especially when they see the spirits to disagree and clash one with another or find otherwise just cause of suspicion and that as the Beraeans did by the Scriptures Using withall all good subsidiary helps for the better understanding thereof especially those two as the principal the Rule of Right Reason and the known constant judgment and practice of the Universal Church That so they may fanne away the chaffe from the wheat and letting goe the refuse hold falt that which is good To this end every man should especially beware that he do not suffer himself to be carried away with names nor to have any mans person either in hatred or admiration but embrace what is consonant to truth and reason though Judas himself should preach it and reject what even an Angel from heaven should teach if he have no other reason to induce him to believe it than that he teacheth it 29. The Fourth Use should be for Exhortation to the learneder sort of my Brethren to shew their faithfulness duty and true hearty affection to God and his Truth and Church by mainteining the simplicity of the Christian Faith and asserting the doctrine of Christian Liberty against all corrupt mixtures of mens inventions and against all unlawful impositions of mens commandments in any kind whatsoever If other men be zealous to set up their own errors shall we be remiss to hold up Gods Truth God having deposited it with us and committed it to our special trust how shall we be able to answer it to God and the World if we suffer it to be stolen out of the hearts of our people by our silence or neglect Like enough you shall incurre blame and censure enough for so doing as if you sought but yourselves in it by seeking to please those that are in authority in hope to get preferment thereby But let none of these things discourage you if you shall not be able by the grace of God in some measure to despice the censures of rash and uncharitable men so long as you can approve your hearts and actions in the sight of God and to break through if need be far greater tryals and discouragements than these you are not worthy to be called the servants of Christ The last use should be an humble Supplication to those that have in their hands the ordering of the great affairs of Church and State That they would in their goodnesse and wisdomes make some speedy and effectual provision to represse the exorbitant licentiousnesse of these times in printing and preaching every man what he list to the great dishonour of God scandal of the Reformed Religion fomenting of Superstition and Errour and disturbance of the peace both of Church and Commonwealth Lest if way be still given thereunto those evill spirits that this late connivence hath raised grow so fiecre within a while that it will trouble all the power and wisdom of the Kingdom to conjure them handsomly down again But certainly since we find by late experience what wildnesse in some of the Lay-people what petulancy in some of the inferior Clergy what insolency in some both of the Laity and Clergy our Land is grown into since the reines of the Ecclesiastical Government have layn a litle slack we cannot but see what need we have to desire and pray that the Ecclesiastical Government and power may be timely setled in some such moderate and effectual way as that it may not be either too much abused by them that are to exercise it nor too much despised by those that must live under it In the mean time so long as things hang thus loose and unsetled I know not better how to represent unto you the present