CERTAINE ARGVMENTS AND MOTIVES Of speciall moment propounded to the consideration of our most noble KING and State Tending to perswade them to abolish that unhappy and unhallowed government of our Church by Bishops and in stead thereof to set up the government of the Lord Iesus Christ and his holy Ordinances in their purity and power Isaiah 26.13 O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us Lamenta 5.8 Servants have ruled over us there is none that doeth deliver us out of their hand Math. 15.13 Every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall bee rooted up Math. 5.13 If the salt have lost his savour wherewith shall it bee salted It is thenceforth good for nothing but to bee cast out to bee troden under foote of men ANNO M. D.C.XXXIV CERTAINE ARGVMENTS and Motives of special moment propounded to the consideration of our most noble King and State Tending to perswade them to abolish that unhappy and unhallowed government of our Church by Bishops instead thereof to set up the government of the Lord Iesus Christ and his holy Ordinances in their purity and power THe Archbishops Lord Bishops of England are the maine hinderers of the free passage of the Gospel of the growth of godlines in that famous flourishing Realme 1 They stop the mouthes of the faithfullest fruitfullest Ministers in the land some one of which hath by his labours in the Church done God more good service gained more soules to Christ by his Ministery then al the Bishops have done that either now are or ever have beene in the kingdome since the Gospel beganne last to be preached published amongst us What a woful havock did they make in our Church in the beginning of King Iames his raigne when they turned out at a clap foure hundred of the ablest most conscionable Ministers in the land for not yeelding to such things as some of themselves then openly confessed to bee trifles nifles gewgawes gamboles fitter for children then for men of discretion Howsoever the King caried the name of it yet these wicked Prelats put him upon it and did egregiously abuse both him and his authority to countenance their owne cruelty His commaundement commission was that they should first convince mens consciences before they proceeded against them But they fall pell-mell upon them and turned them out leaving them to the wide world to seeke for satisfaction where they could finde it they knowing that they were able to give them none How have they gone on ever since though not altogether so boisterously and with so much violence yet weeding out by degrees one after another the most painefull and profitable workmen in the Lords harvest such as did him the best the faithfullest service in this vineyard of his And to what exigents and extremities are both the Ministers members of our churches at this day exposed who as it is wel knowne do dailie in troupes and great multitudes not without much griefe quitt the kingdome to shelter themselves in forraine countries from the unjust usurpation and merciles and matchles tyranny of these Antichristian Prelats the tenderest of whose mercies are cruell Prov. 12.10 2 They beeing either all or the most of them corrupt and unsound in their iudgments do favour none of their clergy as they call them but such as go on in a plaine and direct way to Popery or looke terribly a-squint towards Arminianisme Pelagianisme either of which whosoever opposeth especially if hee do it professedly and in good earnest they will bee sure to crush him if they can though he bee never so conformable according to their owne hellish Canons and though he bee so painefull in the worke of his Ministery so vnblamable in the course of his life that they have nothing to lay to his charge How then is it possible that the Gospel should thrive and prosper amongst us and how can it bee expected that it should run and bee glorified when these Tyrants who sitt at the sterne affect the Title of Fathers of the Church countenance none but men of corrupt mindes like themselves and cry downe with might and maine all such as do but looke towards syncerity In their devillish Canons of which Hell it selfe would bee ashamed if there were any shame there they anathematize and curse with Bell Booke and Candle all such as mislike and professe against their Romish Hierarchy they pronounce them excommunicate ipso facto O monstrous wretches that dare give such uniust sentence and thunder out such a direfull and dreadfull censure against those faithfull servants of Christ which beare witnes to the truth of his which wil stand when all they that oppose it shal melt away like snow before the sunne Some of them have growne to such a height of impudency and impiety that they have not stuck to say that if S. Paul himselfe were a Preacher in the land or any other man as richly stored and furnihed with the graces of Gods Spirit for that great worke of the Ministery as S. Paul was unlesse hee would conforme himselfe to the orders of the Church now established they would suspend and deprive and degrade him and cast him out of their Synagogue so little regard have they of any mans abilities and indowments It is wonder that they do not expunge out of the Canon of holy Scripture sundry of S. Paules epistles which make so directly against them and their government Most certaine it is that if that blessed Apostle were now upon any complaint made against him to give an account of his life and doctrine before them he should finde lesse favour at their hands then hee did at the hands of Felix Act. 23.35 they would not stay till his accusers came but they would force him by their cursed oth ex officio which was hatched in hell to accuse himselfe or else to prison hee must there to ly long enough without baile or maineprise What pity is it that such ungracious wretches should bee put into any place of eminency which know no better how to use it When the righteous are in authority the people reioyce but when the wicked beareth rule the people sigh Prov. 29 2. 3 Their poysoning of the fountaines and those violent courses which they take against Ministers discourage Parents from sending their children to the Vniversities How well would our Naioths and our Bethels our schooles of the Prophets be furnished with yong Students which would bee ready upon all occasions to bee called forth to serve God both in the Church and in the common wealth if these wretched miscreants did not nip in the bud and crush in the shel strangle in the birth the very beginnings of grace in those young plants which would otherwise increase with the increasings of God and would grow vp like Cedars in Lebanon There is an evil eye cast vpon them if once they
do but beginne to walke in the waies of God and run not with others to the same excesse of riot And of what straine or garbe so ever they bee there is a very strict order taken that vnlesse they will both subscribe and take a most shamefull Oth they shal take no degree in schooles to testify their progresse and proceeding in humane learning Nor is there any preferment to bee had or to bee held except men will yeeld to the corruptions of the times which are now growne so great that they are not to bee endured Which maketh Parents many times to put the best and most towardly of their children upon other imployments and if they send any to the Vniversities they bee such for the most part as are good for litle but to serve the times Wherein these Adversaries of the grace of God bring such a damage and detriment to our King and State as they will never bee able to recompense as that good Queene Hester speaketh in another case concerning their brother Haman Hest 7.4 4 They disharten young Schollers from applying themselves to the study of Divinity by their denying admittance and enterance into the Ministery to all men though never so singularly and extraordinarily qualified except their consciences bee made of cheveril and will like Kids leather stretch every way and vnlesse they will by their practise of conformity iustify a great number of things which they know to bee grossely and palpably evill And when men are in possession of Pastorall charges they are put to so much drudgery in the execution of their Ministeriall fuction that they were better to rub horse heeles then as the case now stands to bee Ministers in the church of England and to live in such base servitude and slavery vnder those Antichristian accursed Prelats No attire must serve their turne when they come to discharge their duty in the Lords Sanctuary but the habit of the whore of Rome and the very massing garment it selfe of that filthy trumpet They must crosse and crouch and cringe at the command of those their Lords and Masters They must admitt to the Sacramēt of the Lords supper whomsoever these Catercaps allow of though never so unworthy and they must reject and repell from that holy Communion and company all such as wil not kneele in the act of receiving though they know right well that they do refuse it onely out of the tendernes of their consciences because they dare not synne against their God in so doing and albeit they are perswaded in their very soules that they bee in all other respects the fittest Persons in their Congregations to come to the Lords Table They must at their beck cast out of the church by the fearfull sentence of Excommunication many times the best Christians in their Parishes for very triviall businesses as for not appearing in one of their Courts when haply they had no warning or for non-payment of a fee of foure pence to a paltry Apparitour They must reade in their churches as Canonicall Scripture those Apocrypha-bookes which are full of fables fictions of lies and of leasings They must baptise if they bee required in a house meerely private which nourisheth a superstitious opinion of the necessity of Baptisme and they must use conditional Baptisme in the publike Congregation after the childe hath beene privately baptised They must housle the sick mary with the Ring Church women and do a thousand such things any one of which a man that maketh conscience of his waies dare not adventure upon for a world And yet all these things must a poore Minister do if hee will hold his place and enjoy his Ministery Which maketh many of our best and finest wits to betake themselves to the study of the law or physicke and to abandon put out of their minds all thoughts of entering into the Ministery which as things are now caried they hold to bee a calling not fitt for an honest man What a heavy and dolefull account shall these Vermine one day give to our God for devouring his pleasant plants And what shall become of these Foxes which thus destroy the Lords vines Cant. 2.15 5 They have had an intention a long while if not wholly to put downe yet at least to diminish and lessen preaching Which though they durst not assaile with open violence for feare of the people amongst whom it would have made them more odious then they are already yet have they these many yeeres beene secretly undermining it About the beginning of King Iames his raigne or the later end of Queene Elisabeths of blessed memory the Prelate of London called before him all the Ministers of the City and gave them expresse charge that they should preach but once upon the Lords day and if any of them would do any thing in the afternoone which hee neither required nor did greatly approve of hee told them that hee would have them Catechise No Catechisme hee permitted them to use but the ordinary What is your name c. for so hee expressed himselfe And if any amongst them would needes explane and open the same hee told them that the lesse paines they tooke for that which they delivered it were the better for saith hee it is not needfull that the people should know too much O horrible treachery and cruelty against the pretious soules of Gods people Who would ever have looked for such words out of the mouth of a very rakeshame in times of so great light Since that they have had a project to suppresse Lecturers which in some countries they did desperately set upon and proceede in with a rage that reached to heaven In other places they have likewise attempted it but somewhat moreley surely and insensibly And doubtles they had prevailed in this plott had not the Lord himselfe extraordinarily stirred up the hart of a noble man who heard of it to go to our gracious King and to acquaint him with the vilenes and odiousnes of the designe of theirs and by that meanes they were disappointed of their purpose when they made no question but they should have gott it ratified by his Maiesties royall authority If they had prevailed in that it is to bee thought that their next attempt would have beene to have taken the Bible out of mens handes and so to have brought the people of this land back againe to that Cymmerian and Egyptian darknes in which our forefathers for many yeeres together did heretofore ly buried One of that cursed crew lieth entombed in Paules church with one booke at his head and another at his feete That at his feete is thought to bee the Bible which these godles Prelats tread under foote That at his head is supposed to bee the booke of common praier which hee caried with him as a Crowne to the place whither hee is gone But whither these monsters which are neither Ministers nor members of any of our Congregations I professe I
know not unlesse it bee to the place whither their fellow traitour Iudas is gone before Act. 2.25 there to remaine among such as the Apostle speaketh of Phil. 3.19 For it can not bee imagined that there should bee any place in heaven for these wretches but as they hate Gods people here upon earth with a perfect hatred so it is to bee thought that the Lord will set a great gulfe and make an eternall separation between them the vessels of his mercy Luke 16.26 2. Thess 1.7.8.9.10 6 They have suppressed that famous worthy worke of buying in and restoring to the church Impropriations which was a most charitable and usefull hopefull busines and likely to have brought more advantage to the Ministery of England then any one thing of that nature which hath beene undertaken in any mans memory Divers were brought in brought back againe to the Church by those men which were trusted with that busines who caried themselves very faithfully in it many great summes lay ready which would have beene frankly and freely given for the buying in of moe if that worke had gone on as it began whereby much glory would have redounded to God as much comfort to thousands of poore soules which now are like to want it In many places where the maintenance of the Minister was short and scant the feoffees did out of those Impropriations which they had in their hands make a supply and addition to make the living competent for an able and an honest man In other places where there was most want of preaching they set up Lectures and put in men of good abilities and such as would teach the people to bee obedient to God and loyall to their Soveraigne And where there were Lectures before which had not a competency of meanes allotted to them they increased their allowance that so he Ministers might go on the more confortably in the worke of their Minstery But this made our Bishops sick of the splene They cried out that this would bee the ruine of the Church of England The truth is they feared but without cause that this would in time have clipped their wings have abridged their authority whereof they are much more jelous then of Gods glory and that caused them to set the matter so much to hart It is true that the fatall blow was given to that worke in another Court but these ungratious Prelats kindled the coles and blew that fire which hath consumed and brought it to nothing Wherein they have shewed themselves to bee like to their father the Devill who as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom hee may devoure 1. Pet. 5.8 They have put downe the meetings of the men of several shires counties now dwellers in London which were wont to assemble together once a yeere did a great deale of good to those countries where they were borne There they set up and do to this day maintaine at their owne charge Lectures in Market townes and other places of greatest resort where they supposed they might do most good and where there was greatest want of preaching which was a great ease and comfort to the Christians in those parts and more they would have done every yeere for the good of those places if these meetings of theirs had not beene thus unseasonably interrupted and broken off by these men which beare ill will to Sion But the name of a Lecture is ynough to crush quash any such pious good worke I know well that the places where they used to meete were denied them by another authority but the Prelats were the plotters and contrivers of this mischiefe out of that inveterate malice and hatred which they beare against preaching Wherein they resemble their Predecessours the Scribes and Pharises which shut up the kingdome of heaven against men will neither go in themselves nor suffer them that are entering to go in Mat. 23.13 8 They urge and presse upon Ministers a Subscription not onely against reason but directly against Law The statute of the 13. Elizabeth requireth of Ministers no subscription but to the Articles of religion and that also no further then they concerne faith and Sacraments onely But these troublers of Israel and disturbers of the peace of our church wil have them subscribe not onely to that whole booke but to foure other bookes also namely the booke of common prayer the booke of Ordination and two bookes Homilies in some one of which said bookes it is well knowne that there bee many hundreds of foule and grosse corruptions And if a man have subscribed in his younger yeeres when hee knew no better and was unable and it may bee unwilling also to examine and try things by the true touchstone and to weigh them in the ballance of the Sanctuary if afterwards hee renounce or do but revolt from his subscription and shall refuse to justify by his practise that to which ignorantly and unadvisedly hee did formerly subscribe with his hand though hee have done God faithfull service in his Church for the space of many yeeres and have taken more then ordinary paines in his ministery they turne him out with a great deale of wrath and indignation and expose him his wife children to misery beggery And if in these cases men bee content to leave their native soyle shall seeke to secure and safegard themselves in other nations from the fury of these Tigers yet thither will their malice follow them and their armes are now growne so long that even there also they can reach them But there will a time come when these wretches shall know to their cost and by miserable and wofull experience when it will bee to late that it is the Lord Iesus himselfe whom they persecute and that they kick against pricks Act. 9.5 And hee that hath those starrs in his right hand Revel 1.16 and accounteth of them as his Iewels will one day render into the bosome of their Persecutours and that with more then ordinary severity all the wrongs which they have done to those poore servants of his will then bee throughly avenged of all his and their malicious and despitefull enemies 9 They thrust Christ out of his chaire of Estate and will not suffer him to rule raigne amongst us according to his owne holy will revealed in his word by Pastours Teachers and Elders which hee hath ordained and appointed for the governing of his Churches and for the perfecting of the Saints c. till wee all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the soone of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnes of Christ Rom. 12.7.8 and 1. Tim. 5.17 Ephes 4.12.13 Wherein they plainely professe and proclaime openly to the whole world that they are fighters against God himselfe and maine opposers of his grace and goodnes How would the Gospel flourish in our land what glorious successe and
to those which set their faces that way What a rent have they lately made in our church by their strict pressing of people to come to their owne Congregations when there is no preaching and by their urging of crouching and cringing at the name of Iesus before their Altars and other such like trumpery What a number of our best and most judicious Christians do they daily drive out of the land by their harsh and base and uncivill usage of them Sith therefore the Gospel is so much opposed and oppugned troden downe by these Antichristian Prelats what a blessed and worthy worke would it bee and how acceptable a service to God if it would please our most gratious King to depose thrust our these proud usurpers who have too too long domineered and tyrannised over Gods heritage and to set the Lord Iesus Christ upon his Throne and to take order that hee may rule his churches according to his owne will revealed in his word Which glorious and happy enterprise if his Maiestie would seriously set upon and go through with I dare be bold to say that the Lord would make good to him and this state as much as hee once promised and did accordingly performe to the people of the Iewes upon their onset and first beginning to sett forward the building of his Temple Hag. 2.18.19 Hee would from that very day remove all those heavy judgments which have these many yeeres waited upon that cursed government of Bishops and in stead of them hee would shower downe such abundance and variety of his choysest mercies and blessings upon our King and his kingdomes as would make all the world to wonder and to stand amazed at it Oh that his Maiestie would but try what the Lord would do in that case England would then bee as Ierusalem sometime was the praise of the world the perfection of beauty and the ioy of the whole earth Then would the Lord dwel amongst us and bee a father unto us and hee would rejoyce over us and delight in us to do us good Then would our exiles returne the poore despised and dispersed and distressed servants of God would sing for joy of hart and the voice of weeping would bee no more heard amongst us nor the voice of crying for these Wolves and Leopards Lions beeing throwne out of those places wherein they do daily such a world of mischiefe there would bee none to hurt or destroy in Gods holy Mountaine our land would then bee full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea 4 Whereas his Maiestie hath at this time much use and many imployments for mony if hee would bee pleased to turne these brute creatures a-grazing and seize upon their Bishopricks and take into his hands the Cathedrall Churches as King Henry the eighth sometimes did the Abbies and those irreligious houses hee might to his owne harts content bee plentifully supplied at the present for all his occasions and have a large yeerly Revenue comming in sufficient to maintaine an Army in the field to suppresse subdue all the enemies of his Crownes and Kingdomes and to helpe downe with that man of synne who is drunke with the bloud of Gods Saints And why will our renowned Soveraigne suffer such a happy and golden opportunity to slip out of his hands It is thought by some that if King Iames had lived hee would have done it and would have tasted their flesh And why should not our noble and religious King who in other things is an imitatour of his fathers vertues effect that which his father so much affected had a good minde to do if time had served for it What should hinder him I confesse freely I know not These Lordly Prelats never did any good in the Church of God nor do they any at this time nor will they ever hereafter do any but a great deale of mischiefe Idle they are above measure and many of them grossely and palpably ignorant and they are growne to such an extreme height of pride and ambition and tyranny that it is a great wonder how the State can thus long beare them Most odious they are both to God and man and the very name of a Bishop beginneth now to stinke in the nosethrils of all the people of the Land that savour the things of God or have any relish of Religion though they looke not towards syncerity nor beare any love to it And for their Collegiate Churches what bee they for the most part but dennes of theeves and cages of uncleane Birds There is a great deale of superstitious and false worship nourished and maintained in them to the dishonour of Almightie God to the scandall of that holy Religion which is professed amongst us and to the reioycing encouraging of Papists who laugh in their sleeves and are in good hope to have their Ronish religion one day sett up againe in this Kingdome seeing wee retaine such monuments of their Idolatry and superstition still in the midst of us and do re-edify repaire them with such zeale as if therein wee did God good service What pitty is it that such an infinite masse of mony as is raised yeerely out of these Bishopricks and the livings belonging to those Cloysters should bee so vainely and basely and irreligiously consumed and devoured by such useles and worthies persons as are good for nothing but to cleave wood with their heads when as in the meane while our deare and dread Soveraigne wanteth it for better purposes What an advantage would it bee to our King and what an advancement of the revenue of the Crowne if the increase and profit which ariseth issueth out of these large and ample possessions which is now meerely and wholly to no purpose wasted might bee brought into his Maiesties Treasury there to bee preserved to his use and to bee alwaies in a readines to bee disposed of by him according to his godly wisdome to the glory of God and in the service of the State and might bee there carefully stored up as a meanes of supply and as a stock of provision for the accommodating of his Maiesty when and as often as hee shall have use of it and for the fitting and furnishing of those many necessary and just occasions which hee hath to imploy and expend the same upon 5 It would bee a marvellous ease for this Kingdome if by the mercifull goodnes of our God it might once bee freed from these Antichristian Prelats their Courts which robbe his Maiesties subjects of an exceeding great summe of mony every yeere One would not imagine how much they extort from Ministers Churchwardens and the rest of the people of the land for fees and by meanes of those unjust vexations which they put them continually unto Many men are perswaded that they and their Chauncellours Commissaries Officials Doctours roctours Registers Pursivants Apparitours and others of that cursed crew do rake and scrape from the
have indevoured to make a hotch-potch and a Gallimawfrie of both religions mixed and blended together to the utter subverting and rooting out of that glorious Gospel of our blessed Lord and Saviour which hath beene heretofore for many yeeres most couragiously constantly professed and maintained amongst us against all adversaries whatsoever If the Lord bee not the more merciful to us they will bring us back againe into Egypt before we are aware for it appeareth plainely now to all the world that that is the thing which they ayme mainely at it seemeth that they care not who knoweth it Nor is it any new or strange thing that Bishops should looke towards Popery for so have their Predecessours done before them An Archpriest many yeeres agoe being prisoner in the Clinke where divers Ministers of the Gospel were also prisoners at the same time said to one of them that hee marvelled of what religion the Bishops of England were Vs saith hee they committ because wee are Papists as they terme us and you they commit because you will not bee Papists That they persecute us saith hee it is not much to bee marvelled at because there is some seeming difference betweene them and us though it bee not much but that one Minister of the Gospel should persecute another that one Protestant should pursue another to bonds and imprisonment for religions sake that is a strange thing But of the two saith hee they love us the better A Papist they like well ynough if they durst shewit but Puritanes they hate with their hart and that all the world may see Surely hee spake the truth For Papists they love and like hug in their bosomes in secret but Puritanes as they nickname them all purity syncerity they do utterly abhorre Are these wolves then fitt to have the government of the sheepe of Christ Nay is it not more then time that they should bee unhorsed and throwne violently out of their places before they ruine and spoyle all which they will do very speedily if they bee let alone They have already brought this Kingdome into a most lamentable condition if they bee not looked to the sooner it is to bee feared that they will put all into a confusion combustion for they are desperately set upon mischiefe 7 It is a matter worthy to bee considered of how our State can quitt it selfe of guilt and sinne against God in that it tolerateth and hath not in all this time with indignation cast out these Antichristian usurpers which are so pernicious prejudiciall both to our church and commonwealth The Magistrate by the ordinance appointment of God is to take care that both the Tables of Gods law bee duely kept Now these proud Prelats are delinquents against both of them they transgresse with a high hand As their places are accursed so their demeanour and deportment in them is most tyrannous and cruel They robbe God of his glory and the Church of a great deale of comfort and the commonwealth they pill pole above measure And yet these sacrilegious traiterous Time-servers are not onely tolerated but countenanced also and upheld amongst us the more is the pity For most sure certaine it is that when sinne in a state is not duely punished the land is defiled and Gods wrath is provoked which will not bee pacified but by inflicting due and deserved punishment upon Transgressours Numb 35.33 In which regard there if good hope conceived that our King State will take this matter into serious consideration and will now at last execute the just vengeance of our God upon these enormous and agregious Malefactours who have so long so despitefully troden under foote the holy and blessed Ordinances of Christ and in stead of them have advanced and set up the fond foolish devises of their owne giddy braines which is such a high dishonour to our Lord Iesus Christ and such a horrible indignity offered to him as wee have good cause to hope that this Christian State will no longer endure especially when all these things above-mentioned shall bee laid together and well weighed in the ballance of Gods Sanctuary FINIS †B. Vaghan * B. Bancroft * B. Bancroft * B. Ravis * B. Whitgift * Sr. Francis Hastings †B. Vaghan * B. Morton * B. Mountague Blackwel