done to your souls they will sell your bodies your wives your children your liberties your Parlaments all these things and if there be ought else dearer then these they will sell at an out-cry in their Pulpits to the arbitrary and illegall dispose of any one that may hereafter be call'd a King whose mind shall serve him to listen to their bargain And by their corrupt and servile doctrines boring our eares to an everlasting slavery as they have done hitherto so will they yet do their best to repeal and erase every line and clause of both our great charterâ— Noâ— is this only what they will doe but what they hold as the mainâ— reason and mystery of their advancement that they must do â— e the Prince never so just and equall to his subjects yet such are their malicious and depraved eyes that they so look on him so understand him as if he requir'd no other gratitude or piece of service siâ— theÌ„ then this And indeed they stand so opportunly for the disturbing or the destroying of a state being a knot of creatures whose dignities means and preferments have no foundation in the Gospel as they themselves acknowledge but only in the Princes favour to continue so long to them as by pleasing him they shall deserve whence it must needs be they should bend all their intentions and services to no other ends but to his that if it should happen that a tyrant God turn such a scourge from us to our enemies should come to grasp the Scepter here were his speare men and his lances here were his firelocks ready he should need no other pretorian band nor pensionry then these if they could once with their perfidious preachments aw the people For although the Prelats in time of popery were sometimes friendly anough to magnacharta it was because they stood upon their own bottom without their main dependance on the royal nod but now being well acquainted that the protestant religion if she will reform her self rightly by the Scriptures must undresse them of all their guilded vanities and reduce them as they were at first to the lowly and equall order of Presbyters they know it concerns them neerly to study the times more then the text and to lift up their eyes to the hils of the Court from whence only comes their help but if their pride grow weary of this crouching and observance as ere long it would and that yet their minds clime still to a higher ascent of worldly honour this only refuge can remain to them that they must of necessity contrive to bring themselves and us back again to the Popes supremacy and this we see they had by fair degrees of late been doing These be the two fair supporters between which the strength of Prelaty is born up either of inducing tyranny or of reducing popery Hence also we may judge that Prelaty is meer falshood For the property of Truth is where she is publickly taught to unyoke set free the minds and spirits of a Nation first from the thraldom of sin and superstition after which all honest and legal freedom of civil life cannot be long absent but Prelaty whom the tyrant custom begot a natural tyrant in religion in state the agent minister of tyranny seems to have had this fatal guift in her nativity like another Midas that whatsoever she should touch or come neâ— r either in ecclesial or political government it should turn not to gold though she for her part could wish it but to the drosse and scum of slavery breeding and setling both in the bodies and the souls of all such as doe not in time with the sovran trâ— le of sound doctrine provide to fortifie their hearts against her Hierarchy The service of God who is Truth her Liturgy confesses to be perfect freedom but her works and her opinions declare that the service of Prelaty is pâ— rfect slavery and by consequence perfect falshood Which makes me wonder much that many of the Gentry studious men as I heare should engage themselves to write and speak 〈◊〉 in her â—fence but that I beleeve their honest and ingenuous natures coming to the Universities to store themselves with good and solid learning and there unfortunately fed with nothing else but the sâ— gged and thorny lectures of monkish and miserable sophistry wâ— re sent home again with such a scholastical burre in their throats as hath stopt and hinderd all true and generous philosophy from entring crackt their voices for ever with metaphysical gargarisms and hath made them admire a sort of formal outside men prelatically addicted whose unchast'nd and unwrought minds never yet initiated or subdu'd under the true lore of religion or moral vertue which two are the best and greatest points of learning but either slightly train'd up in a kind of hypocritical and hackny cours of literature to get their living by and dazle the ignorant or els fondly overstudied in uselesse coÌ„troversies except those which they use with all the specious and delusive suttlety they are able to defend their prelatical Sparta having a Gospel and Church-government set before their eyes as a fair field wherin they might exercise the greatest vertu's and the greatest deeds of Christian autority in mean fortunes and little furniture of this world which even the sage heathen writers and those old Fabritii and Curii well knew to be a manner of working then which nothing could lik'n a mortal man more to God who delights most to worke from within himself and not by the heavy luggage of corporeal instrument they understand it not think no such matter but admire dote upon worldly riches honours with an easie intemperat life to the bane of Christianity yea they and their Seminaries shame not to professe to petition and never lin pealing our eares that unlesse we fat them like boores and cramme them as they list with wealth with Deaneries and pluralities with Baronies and stately preferments all learning and religion will goe underfoot Which is such a shamelesse such a bestial plea and of that odious impudence in Church-men who should be to â— is a pattern of temperance and frugal mediocrity who should teach us to contemn this world and the gaudy things thereof according to the promise which they themselves require from us in baptisme that should the Scripture stand by and be mute there is not that sect of Philosophers among the heathen so dissolute no not Epicurus nor Aristippus with all his Cyrenaick rout but would shut his school dores against such greasy sophisters not any College of Mountebanks but would think scorn to discover in themselves with such a brazen forehead the outrageous desire of filthy lucre Which the Prelats make so little conscience of that they are ready to fight and if it lay in their power to massacre all good Christians under the names of horrible schismaticks for only finding fault with their temporal
was schisme it selfe and the hatefull thirst of Lording in the Church that first bestow'd a being upon Pâ— elaty this was the true cause but the pretence is stil the same The Prelates as they would have it thought are the only mawls of schisme Forsooth if they be put downe a deluge of innumerable sects will follow we shall be all Brownists Familists Anabaptists For the word Pâ— ritan seemes to be quasht and all that heretofore were counted such are now Brownists And thus doe they raise an evill report upon the expected reforming grace that God hath biâ— us hope for like those faithlesse spieâ— whose carcasses shall perish in the wildernesse of their owne confused ignorance and never taste the good of reformation Doe they keep away schisme if to bring a num and chil stupidity of soul an unactive blindnesse of minde upon the people by theiâ— leaden doctrine or no doctrine at all if to persecute all knowing and zealous Christians by the violence of their courts be to keep away schisme they keep away schisme indeed and by this kind of discipline all Italy and Spaine is as pâ— ely and politickly kept from schisme as England hath beene by them With as good a plea might the dead palâ— boast to a man tiâ— I that free you from stitches and paines and the troublesome feeling of cold heat of wounds and strokes if I were gone all these would molest you The Winter might as well vaunt it selfe against the Spring I destroy all noysome and rank weeds I keepe downe all pestilent vapours Yes and all wholesome herbs and all fresh dews by your violent hid â— bound frost but when the gentle west winds shall open the fruitfull bosome of the earth thus over-girdâ— d by your imprisonment then the flowers put forth and spring and then the Sâ— ne shall scatter the mists and the maâ—ing hand of the Tiller shall rooâ— up all that burdens the soile without thank to your bondage But farre worse then any frozen captivity is the bondage of Pâ— elates for that other if it keep down any thing which is good within the earth so doth it likewise that which is ill but these let out freely the ill and keep down the good or else keepe downe the lessâ— r ill and let out the greatest Be asham'd at last to tell the Parlament ye curbe Schismaticks when as they know ye cherish and side with Papists and are now as it were one party with them and t is said they helpe to petition for ye Can we believe that your government strains in good earnest at the petty gâ— at s of schisme when as we see it makes nothing to swallow the Camel heresie of Rome but that indeed your throatâ— are of the righâ— Pharisaical straine Where are those schismaticks with whom the Prelats hold such hot skirmish shew us your acts those glorious annals which your Courts of loathed memory lately deceas'd have left us those schismaticks I doubt me wil be found the most of them such aâ— whose only schisme was to have spoke the truth against your high abominations and cruelties in the Church this is the schisme ye hate most the removall of your criminous Hierarchy A politick government of yours and of a pleasant conceit set up to remove those as a pretended schisme that would remove you as a palpable heresie in government If the schisme would pardon ye that she might go jagg'd in as many cuts and â— lashes as she pleas'd for you As for the rending of the Church we have many reasons to thinke it is not that which ye labour to prevent so much as the rending of your pontificall sleeves that schisme would be the sorest schisme to you that would be Brownisme and Anâ—baptisme indeed If we go downe say you as if Adrians wall were broke a flood of sects will rush in What sects What are their opinions give us the Inventory it will appeare both by your former prosecutions and your present instances that they are only such to speake of as are offended with your lawlesse government your ceremonies your Liturgy an extract of the Masse book translated But that they should be contemners of publick prayer and Churches us'd without superstition I trust God will manifest it ere long to be as false a slâ— nder as your former slanders against the Scots Noise it till ye be hoarse that a rabble of Sects will come in it will be answer'd ye no rabble sir Priest but a unanimous multitude of good Protestants will then joyne to the Church which now because of you stand separated This will be the dreadfull consequence of your removall As for those terrible names of Sectaries and Schismaticks which ye have got together we know your manner of fight when the quiver of your arguments which it ever thin and weakly stor'd after the first brunt is quite empty your course is to be take ye to your other quiver of slander wherein lyes your best archery And whom ye could not move by sophisticall arguing them you thinke to confute by scandalous misnaming Thereby inciting the blinder sort of people to mislike and deride sound doctrine and good christianity under two or three vile â— nd hatefull terms But if we could easily indure and dissolve your doubtiest reasons in argument we shall more easily beare the worst of your unreasonablenesse in calumny and false report Especially being foretold by Christ that if he our Master were by your predecessors call'd Samaritan and Belzebub we must not think it strange if his best Disciples in the reformation as at first by those of your tribe they were call'd Lollards and Hussites so now by you be term'd Puritans and Brownists But my hope is that the people of England will not suffer themselves to be juggl'd thus out of their faith and religion by a mist of names cast before their eyes but will search wisely by the Scriptures and look quite through this fraudulent aspersion of a disgracefull name into the things themselves knowing that the Primitive Christians in their times were accounted such as are now call'd Familists and Adamites or worse And many on the Prelatickside like the Church of Sardis have a name to live and yet are dead to be Protestants and are indeed Papists in most of their principles Thuâ— perswaded this your old fallacy wee shall soone unmask and quickly apprehend how you prevent schisme and who are your schismatickâ— But what if ye prevent and hinder all good means of preventing schisme that way which the Apostles us'd was to call a councell from which by any thing that can be learnt from the fifteenth of the Acts no faithfull Christian was debarr'd to whom knowledge and piety might give entrance Of such a councell as this every parochiall Consistory is a right homogeneous and constituting part being in it selfe as it were a little Synod and towards a generall assembly moving upon her own basis in an even and firme progression as
many worthy Laymen And Cyprian in his Epistles professes he will doe nothing without the advice and assent of his assistant Laicks Neither did the first Nicene councel as great and learned as it was think it any robbery to receive in and require the help and presence of many learned lay brethren as they were then calld Many other autorities to confirm this assertion bot◠〈◊〉 of Scripture and the writings of next antiquity Golartius hath collected in his notes upon Cyprian whereby it will be evident that the Laity not only by Apostolick permission but by consent of many the aucientest Prelates did participat in Church offices as much as is desir'd any lay Elder should now do Sometimes also not the Elders alone but the whole body of the Church is interested in the work of discipline as 〈◊〉 as publick satisfaction is given by those that have given publick scandal Not to speak now of her right in elections But another reason there is in it which though religion did not commend to us yet morall and civil prudence could not but extol It was thought of old in Philosophy that shame or to call it better the reverence of our elders our brethren and friends was the greatest incitement to vertuous deeds and the greatest dissuasion from unworthy attempts that might ◠Word◠Hence we may read in the Iliad where Hector being wisht to retire si ō the battel many of his forces being routed makes answer that he durst not for shame lest the Trojan Knights and Dames should think he did ignobly And certain it is that wheras Terror is thought such a great stickler in a Commonwealth honourable shame is a farre greater and has more reason◠For where shame is there is fear but where fear is there is not presently shame And if any thing may be done to inbreed in us this generous and Christianly reverence one of another the very Nurs and Guardian of piety and vertue it can not sooner be then by such a discipline in the Church as may use us to have in aw the assemblies of the faithful to count it a thing most grievous next to the grieving of Gods Spirit to offend those whom he hath put in autority as a healing superintendence over our lives and behaviours both to our own happines and that we may not give offence to good men who without amends by us made dare not against Gods command hold communion with us in holy things And this will be accompanied with a religious dred of being outcast from the company of Saints and from the fatherly protection of God in his Church to consort with the devil and his angels But there is yet a more ingenuous and noble degree of honest shame or call it if you will an esteem whereby men bear an inward reverence toward their own persons And if the love of God as a fire sent from Heaven to be ever kept alive upon the altar of our hearts be the first principle of all godly and vertuous actions in men this pious and just honouring of our selves is the second and may be thought as the radical moisture and fountain head whence every laudable and worthy enterpri◠issues forth And although I have giv'n it the name of a liquid thing yet is it not incontinent to bound it self as humid things are but hath in it a most restraining and powerfull abstinence to start back and glob it self upward from the mixture of any ungenerous and unbeseeming motion or any soile ◠ewith it may peril to stain it self Something I confesse it is to ◠' d of evil doing in the presence of any and to reverence the opinion and the countenance of a good man rather then a bad fearing most in his ◠ght to offend goes so farre as almost to be vertuous yet this is but still the feare of infamy and many such when they find themselves alone 〈◊〉 their reputation will compound with other scruples and co◠close treaty with their dearer vices in secret But he that holds himself in reverence and due esteem both for the dignity of Gods 〈◊〉 upon him and for the price of his redemption whi◠he thin◠〈◊〉 visibly markt upon his forehead accounts himselfe both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds and much better worth then to deject and defile with such a debasement and such a pollution as sin is himselfe so highly ransom'd and enobl'd to a new friendship and filiall relation with God Nor can he fear so much the offence and reproach of others as he dreads and would 〈◊〉 at the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon him◠if it should see him doing or imagining that which is sinfull though in the deepest secrecy How shall a man know to do himselfe this right how to performe this honourable duty of estimation and respect towards his own soul and body which way will leade 〈◊〉 best to this hill top of sanctity and goodness◠above which there is no higher ascent but to the love of God which from this self-pious regard cannot be assunder no better way doubtlesse then to let him duly understand that as he is call'd by the high calling of God to be holy and pure so is he by the same appointment ordain'd and by the Churches call admitted to such offices of discipline in the Church to which his owne spirituall gifts by the example of Apostolick institution have autoriz'd him For we have learnt that the scornfull terme of Laick the consecrating of Temples carpets and table-clothes ◠he railing in of a repugnant and contradictive Mount Sinai in the Gospell as if the touch of a lay Christian who is never the lesse Gods living temple could profane dead judaisms the exclusion of Christs people from the offices of holy discipline through the pride of a usurping Clergy causes the rest to have an unworthy and object opinion of themselves to approach to holy duties with a slavish fear ◠nd to unholy doings with a familiar ◠ldnesse For seeing such a wide and terrible distance between religious things and themselves and that in respect of a woodden table the perimeter of holy ground about it a flagon pot and 〈◊〉 corporal the Priest 〈◊〉 their lay-ships unhallow'd and ◠Word◠they fear religion with such a fear as loves not and think the purity of the Gospell too pure for them and that any uncleannesse is more sutable to their 〈◊〉 estate But when every good Christian throughly acquainted with all those glorious privileges of sanctification and adoption which render him more sacred then any dedicated altar or element shall be restor'd to his right in the Church and not excluded from such place of spirituall government as his Christian abilities and his approved good life in the eye and testimony of the Church shall preferre him to this and nothing sooner will open his eyes to a wise and true valuation of himselfe which is so requisite and high a