all offices of government and burthening them with heavie taxes and payments he robbed the Church and spoyled Spirituall Persons of their Revenues and tooke away their mayntenance Whereas other Tyrants persecuted Presbyterors the Presbyters or Ministers Iulian persecuted Praesbyterium the whole Order of Ministers or Priesthood by which meanes none would apply themselves to the studie of Divinitie when after long painfull and costly study they should have nothing to live upon Such Reformations before-named may rather be called Persecutions than Reformations of a Church Is this a Reformation to dispoyle their Bishâ—ps of their Livings which they enioyed from the very beginning of Christianity amongst them and to root out the very name of Bishops from among them Is this a Reformation to appropriate to themselves or convert to prophane uses the Livings of their learned Pastors set apart by their fore-fathers for their maintenance and put them to poure Stipends and oft pay them as the Souldiers are paid in some places with Flemmish cheese Is this a Reformation to pilfer and pill Churches of their Plate and rich Ornaments which many a devout Saint had offered to the service of Almightie God and to convert them to profane uses which the very Goths and Vandals durst not touch no not in their Enemies Churches for feare of Gods heavy indignation upon them Is it a Reformation to pluck down Churches built to the honour of God with great labour and cost I have heard one tell me that he saw the great Church at Redding overthrowne with a Myne God be mercifull to us and deliver all them that beare the name of Christ from such Reformations But whom should I exclaime upon for this exercrable wickednesse upon the Reformers God forbid they I hope had no such intent or upon the Ministers who had delivered their Magistrates from their slavery to the Pope alas by this meanes they were brought to misery and slavery But upon some covetous persons men void of all Religion who under colour of Religion and Pietie ioyning with the Reformers made a prey of the Church and brought it to this misery How can these men expect an inheritance with Christ in Heaven who have defrauded him here in earth But what do I telling them of Heaven If Almighty God did punish Ananias and Saphyra with suddaine death who gave much to the Church and kept back only some part dedicated to God and that of their owne how shall these men stand in iudgement that never gave any thing of their owne but have seized upon those livings which not they but their Pious Forefathers with many Execrations had given and dedicated for the Service of Almightie God In this their execrable dealing they have given great offence not only to the Romanists but to them who are displeased with the Roman Superstitions and Doctrines and would willingly make a separation from them but they see in these Reformations not a secession from their enormities but rather a defection from all Antiquitie In my poore opinion to overthrow the Policie and Government instituted by Christ in his Church and continued to this our age and used in all Churches else cannot be a Reformation but rather a Deformation All this I write not that I blame that which is reformed but for the amendment of that which is deformed which Almighty God grant in his good time Queene Elizabeth of blessed memory was wont to say That it is in a manner all one to have no Clergie at all as a beggerly or base one In America THere are some Christians both Roman Catholicks and Protestants The King of Spaine is said to have in America foure Regions or at least the Maritine parts of the said Regions The Regions are New Spaine Castella Neuva Peru and Brasile The Hollanders have surprised a great part of Brasile Some write that the Indians had some knowledge of Christ before the Spaniards arriued there For the Estate of Religion in West India under the Spaniard most of the Inhabitants of the Inland Countries and wilder parts continue in their Paganisme Thomas a Iesu writeth Although saith he the Indians have long enioyed the Husbandry of Ministers so that all are baptized yet very many of them worship Idols who taking offence at the covetousnesse of their Parish Priests blaspheme the Christian Faith In America also are divers Plantations of Protestants English and Dutch not onely in the Ilands but also in the continent And thus much I have related of the Christians in the World but whereas many places of the World are unknowne to us so also are the sheepe of our great Shepheard who cannot all be counted wee being ignorant of the Pastures in which they feed The Spaniards have in West India some Bishops 2 What manner of Christians AS I have in the first place reckoned up these severall sorts of Christians before named So in the Second place my purpose is to set downe what manner of Christians these be both for soundnesse of Faith and holinesse of life For the first these Christians are all Baptized in the Name of the Father of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost They receive the Holy Eucharist in both kinds according to our Lord and Saviours institution They Believe the Creed retaine the Canonical Scriptures yea from some of these Churches both we and the Roman Catholicks have received the Sacraments and holy Scriptures Seeing then that these Christians use the same Sacraments as wee doe Seeing they believe in Iesus Christ and professe to fight under the Banner of Christ Crucified and reioyce in their suffering for his sake farre be it from us ever to thinke these Christians to bee cast away and reiected from being of the houshold of Faith Of these Christians Brocard the Monke testifieth Moreover those whom wee iudge to be damned Hereticks as the Nestorians Iacobits Maronites and Georgians and such like are found to bee for the most part honest and simple men living uprightly towards God and Man But to answer some particular obiections made by some Roman Catholicke against these Churches And first for the Greeke Christians whom some Roman Catholicks account erronious in their opinion concerning the proceeding of the Holy Ghost whom they affirme to proceed from the Father by the Sonne Now they doe acknowledge the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of the Sonne as well as of the Father because the Apostle saith He is the Spirit of the Sonne and in the Gospell he is called the Spirit of Truth Now seeing it is no other thing to be the Spirit of the Father and the Sonne then to proceede from the Father and the Sonne They agree with us in Iudgement though they differ in Words so saith Lombard Thomas a Iesu and also Cardinall Tolet affirmeth the understanding Greeke saying That the Holy Ghost proceedeth by the Sonne signifieth thereby nothing but that which wee our selves professe But for full satisfaction in this poynt Read the Booke lately
excepting the Romanists doe all genegenerally as I find deny the Popes Supremacy viz. First That every soule must bee subiect to him upon necessity of salvation Secondly they affirme the Roman Bishops to be subiect to Error as other Bishops are Thirdly they deny that he hath power to depose Kings and to dispose of their Kingdomes Fourthly they teach not works of Supererogation Fiftly they admit not of Purgatory Sixtly nor pray for deliverances of soules from any temporall punishment after this life Seventhly they reiect the Romish Doctrine of Pardons and Indulgences Eightly they allow not private Masses Ninthly they administer the Communion in both kinds daring not to keep the Cup the symbol of our Lord Iesus Christs Blood from the Laity Tenthly they believe not the Romish Transubstantiation Eleventhly nor the now reall sacrificing of our Lord Iesus Christ to quit soules out of Purgatory Twefthly they have married Priests Thirteenthly they make no Image of God Foureteenthly they have most of them their Service in their owne or a knowne Language And these are some of the causes of the bitter contentions between the Roman Catholicks and these other Churches And as the Roman Church excommunicateth these Churches so doe they excommunicate the Roman Church For example the Patriarch of Constantinople doth yearely excommunicate the Pope and his Church for Schismaticks The Moscovites doe the same as counting the Pope an Hereticke The Patriarchs of Ierusalem Antioch have done likewise The Christians under the Patriarch of Mozul call the Pope the Reprobate Bishop other call him Antichrist The Copts account the Roman Church Hereticall and avoid the communion and conversation of the Latines no lesse then of the Iewes Thus some of the Popes of Rome have beene like Ismael whose hand was against every man and every mans hand against him The Turkes in their Mahumetan Worship The Pagans in their adoration of the Sun and Moon The Aegyptians in the service of Isis and Osyris use diversity of worships and Rites and yet still retaine the ill-tied knot of Friendship in their Idol-worship But Christians differing thunder calumnies bolt out excommunications one against another after their excommunications usually follow eradications of Kingdoms people estates by Conspiracies rebellions and hostile machinations by generall Massacres and particular torments As how many Kings and great persons have beene murthered by their desperate Assassins The said Massacre in France is not to be paralelled by any ancient cruelty The Acharonticall Powder treason for the heinousnesse thereof will seeme incredible in the Ages to come Examples are infinite yea so great is the uncharitablenesse and cruelty of the Roman Catholicks to the Christians of the Reformed Churches that if any of them dye among them they setting themselves as if it were upon Gods Tribunall in whose secret Cabinet is blessing and cursing give sentence of damnation against them sending their soules packing to hell and denying their bodies Christian Buriall Barbarous cruelty voyd of Charity As a tree is knowne by his Fruit so is the true Church by Charity By this saith our Lord all men shall know that yee are my Disciples if yee love one another Zaga-Zabo an Aethiopian Bishop and sent Embassadour from the Emperor of Aethiopia to the K. of Portugall complaineth his words are these The Romish Doctors I know not how piously forbad me the communion of our Lords Body all the time I was in Portugall even the space of seven yeare and which I cannot relate without grief and tears I was reputed among the Romanists as a Heathen and Anathema upon which their doings let him that governeth all things looke to whose iudgement I commit these their doings This their uncharitablenesse doth not onely offend other Christians but also it maketh the very Mahumetans to loath our Profession to condemne our Faith and to persecute our Persons Good Iesus when shall these iarrings have an end when shall the Church Catholicke live in union of faith and communion of Charity O miserable Christians returne unto the Lord and he will cure you Earnest Prayer endlesse Devotion volumnes of penitentials Ninives fastings Peters weeping Pauls conversion is the Metredate and true Alexipharmacon to cure this Vlcer to heale this never enough to be lamented Schisme Alas who shall furnish my eies with floods of water who shall make my head a living Spring that I might water my Couch with sorrowfull teares As for us Clergy men let us not so much endeavour to make the Christians our adversaries odious to our people as to move them to commiserate their estates and so to make our ioynt prayers to Almighty God not for their confusion but for their Conversion Oh would to God the Potentates and Monarches of Christendome would ioyne hand in hand to make up the breaches of Zyon and to build up the wals of Ierusalem Oh sweet Iesus that cleansed thy Church by thy most precious blood Prince of Peace and author of love grant us thy peace To conclude my most humble prayer to Almighty God is that he would vouchsafe us most unworthy to enioy that Legacy which our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ left unto us viz. My Peace I give unto you my Peace I leave with you And for this cause I humbly supplicate his Divine Maiesty that he would incline the great Bishop of Rome Pope Urban whom he hath endued with many gifts and graces with the hearts of the Lord Cardinalls and Prelates of the Church of Rome that they would submit themselves to retrograde from some of their new Canons to the ancient Primative Canons of their Church viz. That they would restore to the Church of God of which they have cure in the Sacrament of the Eucharist The Cup the symboll of our Lord Iesus Christs blood according to our Lords holy institution and practise of the ancient Roman Church and of all the other Christian Churches in the World That they would suffer our Lord Iesus Christs sheepe to drinke of the Waters of Life viz. to have the use of the Holy Scriptures in the Vulgar tongue from which they are now restrained with their Service in their own tongue That they would permit Marriage to all men and represse Stewes and Brothel-houses permitted by them scandelous not onely to all the Christians in the VVorld but also to them which are without with some other like things which may admit of reformation And also whereas some other Churches pretend to abhorre Idolls I wish from the bottome of my heart that they would also abstaine from committing of Sacriledge And whereas they cry out of permitting of Stewes and Brothel-houses in the Roman Church that they would be as zealous in not permitting oppressing Usury among them both which are alike abhominable in the eyes of Almighty God Sweete Iesus what should not a man doe yea what should he not suffer to quench the fire of Contention in the Christian world There was a time when the Roman Church did
the Spanish Bishops are very great As the Archbishop of Toledo hath 250000 Ducats per annum more than some Kingdomes Italie being as some write 900 miles in length and in breadth from the Adriatick Sea to the Ligurian shoare 240 miles growing narrower in breadth untill it shut itselfe into two hornes either of which are not above 14 miles in bredth Of this Country the King of Spaine hath a part as the Kingdome of Naples and the Dutchie of Millaine In it also the Venetians The Duke of Florence and other Princes and Common-wealths have severall Dominions In Italie also resideth the Bishop of Rome who as hee hath many Cardinals Metropolitans Archbishops and Bishops under him so also many temporall Dukedomes and Principalities of which he is absolute Prince and Lord. The Bishops of Rome for the first 300 yeeres were most of them Martyrs as Clement who was tied to an Anchor and cast into the Sea Fabian who did prohibit the Emperour Philip to enter the Church without some shew of penitence Cornelius who was banished revoked whipt and beheaded c. Paul and Barnabas preached Christ first in Rome and afterward was the first Bishop of Millaine where Saint Ambrose also sate France mingled with Protestants as before being about 200 leagues square in which is reckoned Loraine Saboie and Avignion belonging to the Pope and Geneva with foure Territories not subiect to the French King The Church Gallican is best priviledged of all the Churches in Christendome that are under the Pope It is more free from payments to the Pope than the Church of Spaine as also to the King they pay only the Disme whereas in Spaine the King hath his Tertias Subsidio Pila Escusado in all a moitie of the Church-livings In France are reckoned 12 Archbishopricks 104 Bishopricks 540 Archpriories 1450 Abbeyes 12322 Priories 567 Nunneries 130000 Parish Priests 700 Convents of Friers 259 Commendants of the Order of the Knights of Malta six of the French Bishops are Peeres of France who are to aid the King with their Councell Poland mingled with Protestants and Greeks as before there are in Poland two Archbishopricks and many Bishopricks The Archbishop of Guesne is Primate and in the vacancy hath regal Authoritie precedeth in Councell proclaimeth the new King c. Some part of Germany in which Country are reckoned seven Archbishops and about 47 Bishops Three of their Archbishops are Princes Electours Halfe the Netherlands in which there are two Archbishopricks and many Bishopricks One third part of Switzerland and the Grisons Country Austria Hungaria Bohemia and some other Countries mingled with Protestants as before The third sort of Christians in Europe are the Moscovites VNder the great Emperour of Moscovia whose Dominions in Europe and Asia extend from Narve to Siberia West and East about 4400 Verstes and from Cola to Astracan North and South 4226 or thereabouts A Verst is about three quarters of a mile They received the Christian Faith from Saint Andrew the Apostle as their Histories report They have the holy Scriptures in their owne tongue translated by St. Ierome they use the service of St. Chrysostome translated into the vulgar neither is their Clergy mean base or beggarly The now Emperour Michael honoured his father Theodore with the Patriarkship of Mosco their Patriarke Metropolitanes Arch-Bishops under him are men of great dignity and honour what their Clergy want in learning they have and make good in devotion and holinesse of life Some of their Bishops have 2000 some 3000 Rubbles per annum The fourth sort of Christians are the Greekes VNder the Patriarke of Constantinople who live mingled with the Turks and make two thirds and more of the Inhabitants in many places of the Turkes Dominions The Grand Signior alloweth the Christians the liberty of their Religion they paying a tribute and the Bishops their Ecclesiasticall Government The Patriarkship of Constantinople being voyd Sultan Mahumet the Emperour that subdued Constantinople invested Gennadius into it with great solemnity giving to him his Pastorall staffe and many gifts This Patriarke had 28 Provinces under his iurisdiction and yet hath at this day many Metropolitans Arch-Bishops and Bishops under him Stachis was their first Bishop placed there by St. Andrew and now Cyril governeth the Patriarchall See in a continued succession from Stachis before named In this Church the holy Apostles constituted many Bishops As St. Paul placed Timothy in Ephesus Titus in Crete Silas in Corinth Silvanus in Thessalonica with others As St. Andrew constituted Stachis before named Bishop of Bizantium now called Constantinople Philologus Bishop in Sinope Calistus Bishop in Nice Polycarp Disciple to St. Iohn was Bishop of Smyrna In time following this Church had many holy Patriarchs as St. Chrysostome Gregory Nazianzen Paul the Patriarch whom the Arrians banished and strangled with others who governed this Church whose memories shall remaine for ever The Patriarchs of Constantinople before the Turkes Conquest were men of great dignity and estate as Theophylact about the yeare 936 kept 2000 Horse and Alexander An. 1043 died worth 800000 Crownes The Patriarch now hath as Chytraeus writeth about 20000 Dollers yearely for his maintenance He hath also out of Moscovia some pension which was in time past under his iurisdiction The Greekes of Corcira Candy and other Islands are subiect to the Venetians who have Arch-Bishops and Bishops under them In Asia are the Christians 1 VNder the Patriarch of Ierusalem who absolutely moderateth in Iudea and over all professors of the Greek Religion throughout Syria This Patriarch hath had 101 Bishops under him St. Iames called the Iust and the Brother of our Lord was the first Bishop there and now Theophanes sitteth in that See Simon Cleophas succeeded Iames among these Bishops Cyrillus was famous a man greatly hated by the Arrians and deposed by them This Church is most ancient The Law went out of Syon and the Word of God from Ierusalem This City was Emporium The mart of the Christian Faith and the Mother of all Churches as Theodoret saith 2 Vnder the Patriarch of Antioch Who had 141 Bishops under him Their first Bishop was St. Peter and now Athanasius The Disciples were first called Christians there Ignatius the holy Martyr was Bishop of this Church and Cyril who was slaine for denying Numerian the Emperour sonne of Charus to enter his Church because he had sacrificed to Idolls Charus was slaine by Thunder and Numerian by Aper 3 The Georgians in Iberia who have 18 Bishops under their Metropolitane or Patriarch 4 The Circassians who inhabite a Country about 500 miles long and 200 miles broad 5 The Mengrellians who live as the Circassians doe by themselves not mingled with the Mahumetans 6 The Christians in Asia the lesse who except the Cilitians and Isaurians are subiect to the Patriarch of Constantinople