just the Reverse is practised and maintained 'T is now only the Priest that preaches in publick in the Assemblies of several thousands And likewise as the extent of the place unto which the Ministry of these at this day is confined is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it was also heretofore that of the Bishop and he most commonly dated his Letters thus ex mea paraecia Which by the way plainly shewes us that the Intendance and Government of the Bishop in the Primitive Church was only over a Town or Villa which they called a Parish or a Suburb for also every Villa and Burrough had their Chorepiscopum Monsieur Larroque without thinking of it makes it clear and evident that it was the Ancient practise for the Bishop alone to have the charge of preaching in the greatest and most numerous Assemblies because the Bishops being aged and sick they called to his help and assistance not the Priests of the Bishop's Presbytry but some neighbour Bishops He tells us of one Nareissus Bishop of Jerusalem who being a hundred and sixteen years old had for his Coadjutor Alexander that had been Bishop of Capadocia and of one Theoctenus Bishop of Caesarea that shared the care of his Episcopacy with Anatolius who in truth was not as yet Bishop but who was then consecrated and called Bishop which plainly shewes was that a Priest could not be his Coadjutor This is also confirmed by the example of Valerius Bishop of Hippo who being old and decayed took not one of those who was to continue in the Presbytry for his Coadjutor but he took Saint Austin who was to be his Successor and who also was called Bishop of Hippo during the life of Valerius AS to those of the Presbytry who were called Deacons as they were the Creatures of the Bishop and wholy at his Devotion so likewise their Ministry was that which is spoken of in the 6. of the Acts which was not that of preaching in publick AS for the Priests or Elders who were not Deacons they did not ordinarily preach in publick assemblies whence it happened that we read of very few Homilies composed and made by the Priests Their Ministry was concluded and bound within the apartment or paraecia of the Bishop and as I have already said it was less fixt and more Itinerant for they went from house to house there was not a day past but that the Priest or Elder visited the good Families went to prayers there expounded the word and administred the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper to them and as for Baptism it was most commonly celebrated by the Deacons in great Assemblies or in great Churches at the entrance of which the Fonts were placed or the Baptisterium 'T IS true the Bishops did frequently oppose those private assemblies and by their Synods and Canons so far as that the Synode of Gangrâ— anatheniatized them called in derision those that frequented them Aâ—â—phales and condemned even those that communicated with them They would do the like also to persons of quality that kept in their houses Priests and Oratories 'T is true also Saint Chrysostome would have the Lords Supper to be as publick as Baptism and that both should be celebrated and performed in the eyes of the whole World BUT because it would scarcely be believed that one Bishop singly as Cyril of Alexandria Cyril of Jerusalem and Saint Chrysostome of Constantinople could preach in publick one Lord's day to above a hundred thousand Auditors that were in each of their Villa's they say that of necessity several of the Presbytry must perform the office of Preachers in those other places of the City where the Bishop did not preach and this appears by the Homilies of Saint Chrysostome ad populum Antiochenum when he was not Bishop That is true but also those Priests had no fixt places no cure nor certain parish over which they were pastors because the Bishop himself was the Curate of the Parish so that the Priests were only the Vicars of the Bishops in the same manner as Nicholas 1. called the Bishop of Germany and of France Suos Episcopos Vicarios Those Priests were as the Deacons at the devotion of the Bishop and were entirely his Creatures and they might rather I am sure better be called the Ministers of the Bishop than of Jesus Christ or of the Church as it appears by the six and twentieth Canon of the Synod of Agde for they were like persons taken upon hire and to whom the Bishop gave Salary for their pains and trouble AFTER all these discoveries and Manifestations there is no doubt but that the Churches in the time of the Apostles and for a long while after were congregational and Independant on Synodes since that even every Family of the most considerable and better sort was a Church or at least they had one among them where the exercizes of Piety were regularly performed every day and where during their repast the holy Scripture was read as we may learn from the first Epistle to Timothy Chapter the IV. verse the fifth For every Creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer And where before they departed or indeed rose from Table they received the Communion as Tertullian tells us in his book de Corona Militis declaring that this practise was agreeing with the institution of Jesus Christ as it was also practised much in the 3. Age in the time of Saint Cyprian as he tells us in one of his Epistles Quotidie communicamus Although several families every Lord's day made very great and Numerous Assemblies where in most solemn manner they attended upon prayer preaching and celebration of the holy Supper yet he who performed the Action was called Primus Presbyter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopus To which it seemes Saint Paul hath respect in his 1. Epistle to Timothy 5. 17. let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour especially they who labour in the word and Doctrine where though in the words he does not speak of two kinds of Pastors or Ministers distinct in rank and dignity nor even in office yet notwithstanding he does insinuate in that place that in the Presbytry and in the Company of the Ministers of Jesus Christ named indifferently Bishops Elders and Presbyters there were some that were Deacons and whose gifts were less for praying and preaching in publick FOR though I believe that the Apostles did not establish diverse degrees of Pastors and that in their time and a long while after they were called indifferently Bishops Priests Elders sacerdotes Ministers and Deacons And that the same Deacons bore a part in the Ministry of the word with the rest as it is seen for Example in Saint Stephen and Phillip and by what Clemens Alexandrinus tells us in the sixth book of his strom it es and Mr. James Capel
Saint Paul to Timothy the 1 Epist 4 Chap. and 5 Verse which I lately mentioned that that good practise of reading the holy Scriptures during their repasts succeeded both a good and an evil custome among the Heathen of quality and condition according to the disposition of persons and according to their manners for the debauchees during theirs had as Pliny the Younger tells us their Moriones and their Cynaedos qui inerrabant Mensis to pass away the time and please the Company But those who were serious and more composed as Cicero Cratippus Seneca Pliny the Elder Euphrates and Spurinna had their Anagnostes who read to them the Golden Sentences of Pythagoras and of the other Sages of Greece It doubtless therefore thus came that the Heathen families which were of the disposition of these latter being come over to Christianity as was that of Cornelius the Centurion Publius the Proconsul Philemon and Lydia took this good custome not only to have a Church in their house but to practise there all the Religious duties as well during their repasts as out of them THIS comes very near to the Idea of the Congregational way which is to be considered in two respects either when their Pastors and their people retire and withdraw from the crowd of the world I mean from the Worldlings to live continually in the contemplation and meditation of the works of Creation of Providence and of Redemption in the devotion and elevation of the Soul to God or else when those same persons do form to themselves Religious assemblies distinct from the national Church and Parochial assemblies in a word when they are distinct from the Ecclesiastical Government which is of the same extent as that of the Civil that is establish'd by Lawes though in this last respect their separation be not an absolute and intire abandoning of the profession of the doctrine and life of those who follow the Religion of their Country but of those who condemn that carriage that doctrine and Discipline which retained the most of the Apostolical 'T is a separating of the good Seed from the Chaff whereof there is but too much in parochial Assemblies where one is as much if not more a Christian by the chance of birth of place and of custome than by any inward principle or design fratned for otherwise the people of the Independant Church and their Pastors are no more backward than the Episcopal men or the Presbyterians to participate with them in the Ministry of the parochial Churches provided they do not force them there to practise such things as they do really believe from their Consciences to be contrary to the word of God and provided also that they permit them to believe that if the Churches reformed from Popery where all sorts of persons are received are the true Churches of Jesus Christ in which Salvation may be had they ought to have no less good and charitable opinion of the Independant Churches which are come out from them FOR these reasons all disinteressed persons that have a zeal for all the true Worshippers of Jesus Christ indifferently in what way of communion soever whither Episcopal or Presbyterian or Congregational may easily be perswaded that this last retains more of the Apostolick because it is not only the Cream and best of the others and a part of that good Seed that has the least of chaff in it but also because it hath more goodness love and Charity in the esteem of those who follow it for the way of communion with others and of those who are of it then the others have for the Congregational way 'T is very rarely seen that any one of the Congregation does not love all good men of what Communion soever they be and that they do not speak of them as of the true Churches of Jesus Christ whereas even the more sober and honester party of the Episcopal men and some of the Presbyterians are so strongly prepossessed with prejudices against those of Congregations that they are in their account no better than Hypocrites Schismaticks and men of strange Enthusiasms A Learned Lawyer having cast his eye upon the matter contained in this Chapter assured me that one Mr. Hubbart a grave Barrester in a Cause between Colt and Glover plaintiffs on the one part and the Bishop of Gloucester defendant on the other makes it out that the Assemblies in the Primitive Church were Congregational He hath also acquainted me with an Ordinance of Canutus KING of England in the year one thousand and sixteen which began thus hae sunt sanctiones for the establishment of peace and Justice where it is clear that beside the Ecclesiastical National Government established according to the Model of the civil the Towns were full of little private Congregations which assembled together voluntarily in the Towns and which the King permitted whilest neither Justice nor the publick peace were interrupted He prest me likewise mightily to insist upon the definition which the Church of England made of the Church in its Confession of Faith made in the year 1562. Article the XIX because it is absolutely conformable to that which the Congregational Churches give of theirs to be as I have already a little touched an Assembly of persons together in one place to attend upon the hearing of the word of God and upon the Administration of the Sacraments CHAP. VIII Of the great Benefits and Advantages that come from the Establishment of the Congregational way in the World THUS you see we are insensibly fallen upon the conformity of the carriage and government of the Congregational assemblies with that of the Primitive Christians for their smalness of number and for the way and manner of gaining souls to Jesus Christ by Prayer by Exhortation and by Preaching which they do to a few persons or a few Families as when their Elders inculcated into them every day and line upon line the necessity of leading holy and exemplary lives so that the Christian people made far greater progress in Sanctification by the means and helps of those Elders than when they assisted at publick assemblies where the severities of discipline and the degrees of penitence through which but very few persons went seem'd to retain more of the affected devotion of pride and of worldly pomp than of sincerity and where the fruit of the Bishop's preaching was like to that of which S. Chrisostome speaks in one of his Homilies which resembles the water that is thrown in Buckets upon a great number of Bottles which have a strait Neck and where there goes in but a few drops whereas the fruit of the exhortations which are made in private to a few is the effect of him who having taken the bottles wil fill them by degrees one after another Beside that it is impossible that a Bishop or other person who shares out all his time between his Chamber-studies and preaching in publick and who hath some thousands of persons under charge it
the illumination of grace and reason so likewise are they most reationally and with great Justice and Piety disengaged not only from a pretended Infallible Tribunal but also from the Tyranny of such dependance or submission to an Authority subject to errour AS to the Assertion of the Synod of Charenton that the Sect of the Independants opens the door to all manner of Irregularities and Extravagances that Assertion I say seems plausible at the first as in truth it is not only plausible but most reasonable in matters purely Civil in which if there were not a last Resort and Refuge and Appeal from Court to Court in the Territories of a Soveraign there would be as many Courts erected Independant one on the other not only as there are Families but as there are private persons Which inconvenience is not one in matters of Religion Faith Doctrine and Divine Worship in which the Conscience of every one is the last resort wherein the business is to be judged without any further Appeal and where none ought to be constrained but exhorted and perswaded A Synod is to perswade a particular Church to embrace such a Faith but it hath neither right nor power to force it Now a particular Church is to do the same as to one of its Members and if it carries any constraint with it it no longer acts as a Church and as an Assembly of Christians and faithfulâ— people but as a Magistrate at least like an Arbiter and Judge to whom Jesus Christ sent the planteth in the eighteenth Chapter of St. Matthew in these words tell it to the Church that is to say tell it to an Assembly which had neither any Court nor any power nor Jurisdiction and where the party intimated mightly decline or refuse the Judgement without damage as it appears by those words of Jesus Christ if he dres not hearken to the Church For by these words let him be unto thee c. Jesus Christ does not command the Church to proceed to an Excommunication of that party that has done the wrong but he advises the offended party to cite the other who has deprived himself of the quality of a Brother before the natural Judges as well of the Publicans as of the Heathens the one being the Ministers of the State and the other being of the Religion of the Emperour In short the Church as such and considered as Christians and honest men hath no more jurisdiction that a Colledge of Philosophers CHAP. IV. That the design of the Congregational Churches is most holy and most reasonable when they labour to retain a Conformity of Faith with the other Reformed Churches but take the liberty to differ from them in matter of Discipline Of the veneraiton they have for Calvin and for the Churches which follow his Doctrine and Discipline THE design of producing their Confession of Faith is to shew that it is the very Masterpiece of an extreamly juditious Government and as it was the work of persons most perfect in the Study of Divinity the principal design they had in the composition of their Confession was to declare and testifie to the World that altho every Church might take the liberty to differ from others in discipline they ought nevertheless to labour above all things to retain and keep the same faith in matters that are essential with all the Reformed Churches This is what the Congregational party have done with great care and circumspection in the making of their Confession for beside that they do but a very little differ from that of the Presbyterians and that they do not at all divide from them but in matter of Discipline they have also indeavoured to have their Faith conformable to the Doctrine of the Church of England and as to their Discipline it is very simple and naked they have no other than that which Saint Paul gives in three words to wit That every thing in the Church should be done Decently and in Order They have especially had an eye to the practice of the Churches under the good Roman Emperors under Constantine Theodosius Martianus and Justinian under whom they kept a strict uniformity in Faith and that correspondence was maintained by letters which they called Literae Testimoniales Circulares Ecclesiasticae Formatae tho otherwise they took the liberty to differ one from another even under one and the same Emperour in Discipline in Customes and in Ceremonies Saint Austin Epist ad Tanuarium 119. Epist 86. ad Casulanum Presbyterum permits any Church to differ from others in Ceremonies and in manner of Government provided that they agree with them in Unity of Faith The Historian Socrates libr. 5. cap. 21. tells us that there was not to be found two Churches in all the Roman Empire which observed one and the same form of Prayers to God The Jesuit Mainbourg how zealous soever he is to the Uniformity of Rome in his Doctrine and discipline yet he ceases not to say and to maintain that the diversity of usages customes and practices is compatible with the unity of Faith One ought not says he never to separate for the diversity and customes which may be different the one from the other without the wounding the Vnity of Faith Pag. 303. of his third book of the Treatise of Schism among the Grecians I have read as much in a great Lawyer it is Godefrey the Son Certissima olim fidei contesseratio erat unà Eucharistiam sâ—mere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicebantur non in eadem disciplina sed fidâ— WE must also do them this justice that there are no Doctors who have a greater Veneration for the Doctrine and memory of Caloin nor who desire with more ardent zeal to have a strict and close Communion with the Churches which follow the Doctrine of that holy man than their Pastors altho they believe that they may have as I have said the liberty to differ from them in matter of discipline without thinking themselves guilty either of separation or schism CHAP. V. That the Congregational Churches do most rationally Establish the Authority of Synods and Pastors and the nature of the Church 'T IS a great wrong and injury done to the Independants to affirm that they condemn Synods since on the contrary they Establish the true use of them as the Bishop of Condom who hath more charity for them than other Synods and our Divines acknowledge The Independants says he do not refuse to embrace and comply with the decisions of Synods when after they have duely examined them they find them not unreasonable that which they refuse to do is to submit their Judgement to that of any Assembly or Society subject to errour THE Independants argue as Mr. Pajon does Though Jesus Christ himself says he should come down from Heaven to dwell on the earth again with all the rayes of Glory that are roand about him to teach us and to guide and direct us yet it would be impossible for us
in his Catechisme yet it is most certain that from the second age they were distinguished in names and offices that the first Priest or Bishop attended more peculiarly upon preaching in publique and the Priests and Deacons upon the functions of lesser consequence as alms-giving c. from whence it is that we read so often of the first Bishops of Rome that such a one created so many Priests so many Deacons and that Hyggen in the year 141. created fifteen Priests fifteen Deacons and six Bishops That Eleutherius in the year 184 ordained 12 Priests 8 Deacons and 15 Bishops not to serve in the Church of Rome but in other places where the Bishop who had ordained them was to attend upon the preaching in publick and the Priests and Deacons upon the other functions of the holy Ministry for their Ministry was less fixt they went to break bread from house to house they instructed they comforted they confirmed Christians and those whom they called Fideles in the profession of the Christian Religion and in the Practise of Piety and drew over Jews and Gentiles to them and they baptized them adding every day some or other to the Church of Jesus Christ to be saved In a word they formed almost as many independant Churches as there were families but which then did not constitute a Communion distinct from that of the same Fideles in the greater and more numerous Assemblies and where they assisted not only at the hâ—aring of the word but also at the participation of the holy supper and all the sacred Ceremonies as Mounsieur le Sueur tells us I must needs make one observation here which will be of no mean consequence as to what I have said about the diversity of the names of Bishop Priest Elder Sacerdote and Deacon in the same Ministry against those who would fain perswade us that not only this Intendance of a Bishop over the Priests but also the prerogative that they attribute to themselves of having alone the Authority and the right to ordain Pastors is of divine right and by the Institution of the Apostles I must needs observe I say that since the words and the Offices have been distinguished Christian Antiquity never thought this Intendance and Prerogative to be of divine right because it was in the liberty of a Bishop to abandon the order or office of Bishop without quitting the office of Priest or of Minister of Jesus Christ and indeed without being able to do it unless he were constrained to it by the sentence of deposition They did deprive themselves then of an humane arbitrary and Mutable order unto which they were called by men but they could not divest themselves of that which they had received from Jesus Christ That was the Judgment of the Councel of Ancyra in the year 314. which having deposed some persons from the Episcopacy lest them in the Presbytry This is what the sixth Oecumenical Councel did Canon twenty which deposed a Bishop but did not take from him the Presbytry so that if there was then an Indelible Caracter it was not that of Bishop but that of Tresbyter and this is the farther confirmed and more strongly by this consideration that as it was an Usurpation or at least a Right purely humane when one of the Members of the Presbytry who was called Bishop attributed to himself alone the right and the office of Preaching in publick and not of communicating it to others but only as far as he pleased The same Judgment ought to be made of this Intendance over Priests and this prerogative to ordain and to conclude that neither Episcopacy nor the power to ordaine nor that to preach in publick which one person reserved peculiarly to himself were of Christ's Institution THIS is if I am not mistaken an observation which has not as yet by any been thought on but which is the unravelling of all the difficulties that those great men Mounsieur Daille the Father Mounsieur Larroque c. On one side and Mounsieur Pearson Bishop of Chester on the other have formed concerning either the Establishment or the overthrow of Episcopacy And here now is the Resolution of the words of Saint Jerome which have put so many people on the rack and have spent both so much pretious time and paper Quid facit Episcopus quod non facit presbyter exceptâ— ordinatione Which words Marsillius de Padoüa understands of the power that the Bishop reserved alone to himself by a right purely humane to regulate the Affairs of the Church because it would be a thing altogether absurd to make Saint Jerome say that Jesus Christ had in all things equalled the Priest to the Bishop except the power to ordain And now also you may see by all these declarations and discoveries a very strong establishment of the Congregational way But I now will return from this digression to pursue the subject I left off for it THE conduct and Government of the Christians under the time of Persecution and before that of Constantine differ'd very much from the manner which was observed when the Emperours were Christians and when they assembled together both more publickly and in greater numbers enjoying their full liberty As a Rigorous discipline under those Christian Emperours could not be practised but upon a small number in great Towns as Rome Antioch Alexandria Canstantinople c. Most of the persons who could not be distinguished one from another in the Crowd and Multitude and on whom they could lay nothing by way of reproach either entred into no discipline and were neither Poenitentes nor Catechumeni or else they passed for those who were called fideles and whom they never so much as question'd whether they were baptized or not For Saint Ambrose who was looked upon as a very good man and one of the fideles that frequented the Religious Assemblies both in publick and private was neither in orders nor baptized when the people of Milan took him and carried him away as a holy body to be a Bishop Will they say that after he was a Bishop he passed through all the degrees of discipline or penitence and that he was a Catechumen and afterwards a fidelis which name was given only to those who were called Lay or Secular persons And the example of Constantine the great who was baptized at the very point and moment of his death and that of Satyrus the brother of Ambrose and of Valentinian whom that Father so highly commends and who died before they were baptized are a very strong proof and argument for that which I here maintain NOW those of the faithful who were so rather in reality than the name did not under those Christian Emperours quit their good custome of converting their houses and their families into so many little Churches they performed there the same exercises of Piety both during their repasts and out of them BUT I must here make one remark by the way upon the passage of
that of Thuanus before his History and the Preface of Casaubon in his Edition of Polybius 'T WILL no doubt be expected that I should add the order which is observed and practised in the Independant Churches to their confession which ought to follow but as they profess a perfect harmony among themselves so likewise they do not believe this same absolute necessity as to that which concerns discipline for excepting some few Apostolical and perpetual Rules which admit no change according to times and places concerning the equality of Pastors that choice that every Church is to make of its Pastor in which Monsieur Mestrezat and Monsieur Claude make the true ordination to consist the solemn benediction of that Pastor by fasting and prayers and the refusal they make of their Ministries and of their Members which some call Excommunication and deposition excepting I say these acts their order is to do all things decently and in order in the Church as Saint Paul requires But they are governed as all other Societies and as they explain themselves in the first Chapter of their confession of faith Article VII in these words There are some circumstances in the Government of the Church and in divine Worship which are common with all the actions of men which are practised in all societies and which might â—o be regulated by natural light and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word of God which are always to be observed THIS is all the discipline which the Independâ—nts practise then Government is that of well order d Râ—publicks that cannot possibly be too exact for the regulating of manners but which have but very few Lawes for that of Polity they are far from that Maxim in pâ—ssima republicà pluri ne leges BUT how â—ise soever their carriage and government be how sound and Orthodox their Doctrine and how exact and scrupulous their â—ives yet they cannot escape the tyrâ—â—ny of those little sincere judgements which the most learned and grave persons have made of them so that it need be no surprize at all if the Doctors of Rome how illuminated soever and sincere they have seem'd to be have had for so many Ages and have still to this day so great an Aversion for our Religion how holy soever it is and have passed judgments so little favourable of it as to draw from our Morals consequences that are as far from purity and truth as they are from our intention This I say need be no surprize at all to us since that Amyrauld Daillé and so many others of their gown have not passed any less sinister judgment of a generation of men as holy as any in the World I mean of the Independants no more than of their carriage government and Doctrine AS to their carriage and Government whether in private or in the Church I do not believe there are any better regulated more Wise more Prudent more Illuminated nor more Religious As to their Doctrine their Confession of Faith shall Witness what it is since that of all those that have appeared in the World of that Nature it is a peice the most Perfect Pure and Orthodox And in which it may well nigh be said the Christian Religion may be found compleat though there should onely be remaining that single piece in all the Booksellers Shops in the World CHAP. X. Of the Wise and Prudent carriage of the Independants and of their way to get further off the Church of Rome than any other and to condemn all the wayes of Reconciliation with it and the Churches that hold any Communion with Rome that the indeavour to come near it is damnable and pernicious as is sufficiently seen in the present posture of the affairs of England THOSE who shall approve of the wise conduct of the Congregational Churches in the composing of a Confession that hath so much conformity with the purest Churches of Jesus Christ will be easily perswaded that neither Wisdome nor Prudence have been wanting to them when with that conformity of Faith that there is between them and the Churches that are at greatest distance from Popery they have preserved to themselves their liberty as to matter of discipline to do their business a part independantly one on the other and on all other Authority beside that of Jesus Christ without making use of that way of Reconciliation which hath been practised in all Ages by the means of conferences and Synods which have rather sharp'ned and exasperated spirits and perpetuated quarrels than any ways appeased and hushed them and whereof all the advantage that can be hoped is at most to make such an accord as it may be dissembles or disguises or else suppresses the truth THIS is no more than what appeared in the Colloquy of Poissy where the greatest defenders of Transubstantiation and those who combated and opposed it as a vile Monster of Rome concurred together upon the Article of the real presence in the Eucharist And this is what appear'd also in the Overture of Reconciliation which was made in the year 1578. in the Synod of Saincte Foy with the Lutherans by the means of a formulary or president of such a profession of Faith as should be general and common with all Churches as they proposed to draw up but that Overture could only tend to a Reconciliation as difficult as that of finding a Medium between Transubstantiation and the Opinion of our Churches which is contrary to it Certainly our Churches were never able to draw back from the purity of our Doctrine nor from the sincerity with which they express it without being at the same time guilty of great prevarication And moreover the Lutherans would never have yielded to go off from their ingagement to Luther and his Consubstantiation If both had complied and met at half way it would have been a most wretched peace quae as Saint Austin speaks fit dispenaio veritatis THE present posture of the Affairs of England is a very clear and convincing proof that the Indeavour of those Reconcilers how good soever their designs were is ruinous both to Church and State There has been an attempt for above this last Age to get into a Neighbourhood and Vicinity with Rome thinking to sweeten the spirits and tempers of those of its communion to draw them over to ours or at at least to make but one Communion of two In the beginning of the Reformation there were several of the Ceremonies retained and fifty years afterwards others of them were introduced they have attempted to bring in Images and so to pass from thence to worshipping of them Every where the Altars are new set up on purpose no doubt to make there the Sacrifice of the Mass to Smoak which is apparent by the bowings and cringings to those Altars or at least to the places where they are set or as some will have it be to the East The Ordination of Romish Pastors is held for good and for that