so oft'n contrary to the commands of God He would perswade the Scots that thir chief Interest consists in thir fidelity to the Crown But true policy will teach them to find a safer interest in the common friendship of England then in the ruins of one ejected Family XIIII Upon the Covnant VPON this Theme his Discours is long his Matter little but repetition and therfore soon answerd First after an abusive and strange apprehension of Covnants as if Men pawn'd thir souls to them with whom they Covnant he digresses to plead for Bishops first from the antiquity of thir possession heer since the first plantation of Christianity in this Iland next from a universal prescription since the Apostles till this last Centurie But what availes the most Primitive Antiquity against the plain sense of Scripture which if the last Centurie have best follow'd it ought in our esteem to be the first And yet it hath bin oft'n prov'd by Learned Men from the Writings and Epistles of most ancient Christians that Episcopacy crept not up into an order above the Presbyters till many years after that the Apostles were deceas'd He next is unsatisfied with the Covnant not onely for some passages in it referring to himself as he supposes with very dubious and dangerous limitations but for binding men by Oath and Covnant to the Reformation of Church Discipline First those limitations were not more dangerous to him then he to our Libertie and Religion next that which was there vow'd to cast out of the Church an Antichristian Hierarchy which God had not planted but ambition and corruption had brought in and fosterd to the Churches great dammage and oppression was no point of controversie to be argu'd without end but a thing of cleer moral necessity to be forthwith don Neither was the Covnant superfluous though former engagements both religious and legal bound us before But was the practice of all Churches heertofore intending Reformation All Israel though bound anough before by the Law of Moses to all necessary duties yet with Asa thir King enter'd into a new Covnant at the beginning of a Reformation And the Jews after Captivity without consent demanded of that King who was thir Maister took solemn Oath to walk in the Command'ments of God All Protestant Churches have don the like notwithstanding former engagements to thir several duties And although his aime were to sow variance between the Protestation and the Covnant to reconcile them is not difficult The Protestation was but one step extending onely to the Doctrin of the Church of England as it was distinct from Church Discipline the Covnant went furder as it pleas'd God to dispense his light and our encouragement by degrees and comprehended Church Goverment Former with latter steps in the progress of well doing need not reconcilement Nevertheless he breaks through to his conclusion That all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficently bound by former ties of Religion leaving Asa Ezra and the whole Church of God in sundry Ages to shift for honestie and wisdom from som other then his testimony And although after-contracts absolve not till the former be made void yet he first having don that our duty returns back which to him was neither moral nor eternal but conditional Willing to perswade himself that many good men took the Covnant either unwarily or out of fear he seems to have bestow'd som thoughts how these good men following his advice may keep the the Covnant and not keep it The first evasion is presuming that the chief end of Covnanting in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms peace But the Covnant will more truly inform them that purity of Religion and the Kingdoms peace was not then in state to be preservd but to be restor'd and therfore binds them not to a preservation of what was but to a Reformation of what was evil what was Traditional and dangerous whether novelty or antiquity in Church or State To doe this clashes with no former Oath lawfully sworn either to God or the King and rightly understood In general he brands all such confederations by League and Covnant as the common rode us'd in all Factious perturbations of State and Church This kinde of language reflects with the same ignominy upon all the Protestant Reformations that have bin since Luther and so indeed doth his whole Book replenish'd throughout with hardly other words or arguments then Papists and especially Popish Kings have us'd heertofore against thir Protestant Subjects whom he would perswade to be every man his own Pope and to absolve himfelf of those ties by the suggestion of fals or equivocal interpretations too oft repeated to be now answer'd The Parlament he saith made thir Covnant like Manna agreeable to every mans Palat. This is another of his glosses upon the Covnant he is content to let it be Manna but his drift is that men should loath it or at least expound it by thir own relish and latitude of sense wherin least any one of the simpler sort should faile to be his crafts maister he furnishes him with two or three laxative he termes them general clauses which may serve somwhat to releeve them against the Covnant tak'n intimating as if what were lawfull and according to the Word of God were no otherwise so then as every man fansi'd to himself From such learned explications and resolutions as these upon the Covnant what marvel if no Royalist or Malignant refuse to take it as having learnt from these Princely instructions his many Salvo's cautions and reservations how to be a Covnanter and Anticovnanter how at once to be a Scot and an Irish Rebel He returns again to disallow of that Reformation which the Covnant vows as being the partiall advice of a few Divines But matters of this moment as they were not to be decided there by those Divines so neither are they to be determin'd heer by Essays curtal Aphorisms but by solid proofs of Scripture The rest of his discourse he spends highly accusing the Parlament that the main Reformation by them intended was to robb the Church and much applauding himself both for his forwardness to all due Reformation and his aversness from all such kind of Sacrilege All which with his glorious title of the Churches Defender we leave him to make good by Pharaoh's Divinity if he please for to Josephs Pietie it will be a task unsutable As for the parity and poverty of Ministers which he takes to be so sad of consequence the Scripture reck'ns them for two special Legacies left by our Saviour to his Disciples under which two Primitive Nurses for such they were indeed the Church of God more truly flourisht then ever after since the time that imparitie and Church revennue rushing in corrupted and beleper'd all the Clergie with a worse infection then Gehezi's some one of whose Tribe rather then a King I should take to be compiler of that unsalted and
new disguise He layes down his Armes but not his Wiles nor all his Armes for in obstinacy he comes no less arm'd then ever Cap a pè And what were they but wiles continually to move for Treaties and yet to persist the same man and to fortifie his mind before hand still purposing to grant no more then what seem'd good to that violent and lawless Triumvirate within him under the falsifi'd names of his Reason Honour and Conscience the old circulating dance of his shifts and evasions The words of a King as they are full of power in the autority and strength of Law so like Sampson without the strength of that Nazarites lock they have no more power in them then the words of another man He adores Reason as Domitian did Minerva and calls her the Divinest power thereby to intimate as if at reasoning as at his own weapon no man were so able as himself Might we be so happy as to know where these monuments of his Reason may be seen for in his actions his writing they appeare as thinly as could be expected from the meanest parts bredd up in the midst of so many wayes extraordinary to know somthing He who reads his talk would think he had left Oxford not without mature deliberation Yet his Prayer confesses that he knew not what to doe Thus is verifi'd that Psalme He powreth contempt upon Princes and causeth them to wander in the Wilderness where there is no way Psal. 107. XXIII Vpon the Scots delivering the King to the English THat the Scots in England should sell thir King as he himself here affirmes and for a price so much above that which the covetousness of Judas was contented with to sell our Saviour is so foule an infamy and dishonour cast upon them as befitts none to vindicate but themselves And it were but friendly Counsel to wish them beware the Son who comes among them with a firme beleif that they sould his Father The rest of this Chapter he Sacrifices to the Echo of his Conscience out-babling Creeds and Ave's glorying in his resolute obstinacy and as it were triumphing how evident it is now that not evill Counselors but he himself hath been the Author of all our troubles Herein onely we shall disagree to the worlds end while he who sought so manifestly to have annihilated all our Laws and Liberties hath the confidence to perswade us that he hath fought and suffer'd all this while in thir defence But he who neither by his own Letters and Commissions under hand and Seale nor by his own actions held as in a Mirror before his face will be convinc'd to see his faults can much less be won upon by any force of words neither he nor any that take after him who in that respect are no more to be disputed with then they who deny Principles No question then but the Parlament did wisely in thir decree at last to make no more addresses For how unalterable his will was that would have bin our Lord how utterly averse from the Parlament and Reformation during his confinement we may behold in this Chapter But to be ever answering fruitless Repetitions I should become liable to answer for the same my self He borrows Davids Psalmes as he charges the Assembly of Divines in his twentith Discourse To have set forth old Catechisms and confessions of faith new drest Had he borrow'd Davids heart it had bin much the holier theft For such kind of borrowing as this if it be not better'd by the borrower among good Authors is accounted Plagiarie However this was more tolerable then Pammela's Praier stol'n out of Sir Philip. XXIV Vpon the denying him the attendance of his Chaplains A CHAPLAIN is a thing so diminutive and inconsiderable that how he should come heer among matters of so great concernment to take such room up in the Discourses of a Prince if it be not wonderd is to be fmil'd at Certainly by me so mean an argument shall not be writt'n but I shall huddle him as he does Prayers The Scripture ownes no such order no such function in the Church and the Church not owning them they are left for ought I know to such a furder examining as the Sons of Sceva the Jew met with Bishops or Presbyters we know and Deacons we know but what are Chaplains In State perhaps they may be listed among the upper Servingmen of som great houshold and be admitted to som such place as may stile them the Sewers or the Yeomen-Ushers of Devotion where the Maister is too restie or too rich to say his own prayers or to bless his own Table Wherfore should the Parlament then take such implements of the Court Cupbord into thir consideration They knew them to have bin the main corrupters at the kings elbow they knew the king to have bin always thir most attentive Scholar Imitator of a child to have suckt from them thir closet work all his impotent principles of tyranny superstition While therfore they had any hope left of his reclaiming these sowers of Malignant Tares they kept asunder from him and sent to him such of the Ministers and other zealous persons as they thought were best able to instruct him and to convert him What could religion her self have don more to the saving of a soule But when they found him past cure that he to himself was grown the most evil Counseler of all they deny'd him not his Chaplains as many as were fitting and som of them attended him or els were at his call to the very last Yet heer he makes more Lamentationfor the want of his Chaplains then superstitious Micah did to the Danites who had tak'n away his houshold Priest Yee have tak'n away my Gods which I made and the Priest and what have I more And perhaps the whole Story of Micah might square not unfitly to this Argument Now know I saith he that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Micah had as great a care that his Priest should be Mosaical as the King had that his should be Apostolical yet both in an error touching thir Priests Houshold and privat Orisons were not to be officiated by Priests for neither did public Prayer appertain onely to their Office Kings heertofore David Salomon and Jehosaphat who might not touch the Priesthood yet might pray in public yea in the Temple while the Priests themselves stood and heard VVhat aild this King then that he could not chew his own Mattins without the Priests Oretenus Yet is it like he could not pray at home who can heer publish a whole Prayer-book of his own and signifies in some part of this Chapter almost as good a mind to be a Priest himself as Micah had to let his Son be There was doubtless therfore some other matter in it which made him so desirous to have his Chaplaines about him who were not onely the contrivers but very oft the
in himself and doubted not by the weight of his own reason to counterpoyse any Faction it being so easie for him and so frequent to call his obstinacy Reason and other mens reason Faction Wee in the mean while must beleive that wisdom and all reason came to him by Title with his Crown Passion Prejudice and Faction came to others by being Subjects He was sorry to hear with what popular heat Elections were carry'd in many places Sorry rather that Court Letters and intimations prevail'd no more to divert or to deterr the people from thir free Election of those men whom they thought best affected to Religion and thir Countries Libertie both at that time in danger to be lost And such men they were as by the Kingdom were sent to advise him not sent to be cavill'd at because Elected or to be entertaind by him with an undervalue and misprision of thir temper judgment or affection In vain was a Parlament thought fittest by the known Laws of our Nation to advise and regulate unruly Kings if they in stead of hearkning to advice should be permitted to turn it off and refuse it by vilifying and traducing thir advisers or by accusing of a popular heat those that lawfully elected them His own and his Childrens interest oblig'd him to seek and to preserve the love and welfare of his Subjects Who doubts it But the same interest common to all Kings was never yet available to make them all seek that which was indeed best for themselves and thir Posterity All men by thir own and thir Childrens interest are oblig'd to honestie and justice but how little that consideration works in privat men how much less in Kings thir deeds declare best He intended to oblige both Friends and Enemies and to exceed thir desires did they but pretend to any modest and sober sence mistaking the whole business of a Parlament Which mett not to receive from him obligations but Justice nor he to expect from them thir modesty but thir grave advice utter'd with freedom in the public cause His talk of modesty in thir desires of the common welfare argues him not much to have understood what he had to grant who misconceav'd so much the nature of what they had to desire And for sober sence the expresion was too mean and recoiles with as much dishonour upon himself to be a King where sober sense could possibly be so wanting in a Parlament The odium and offences which some mens rigour or remissness iu Church and State had contracted upon his Goverment hee resolved to have expiated with better Laws and regulations And yet the worst of misdemeanors committed by the worst of all his favourites in the hight of thir dominion whether acts of rigor or remissness he hath from time to time continu'd own'd and taken upon himself by public Declarations as oft'n as the Clergy or any other of his Instruments felt themselves over burd'n'd with the peoples hatred And who knows not the superstitious rigor of his Sundays Chappel and the licentious remissness of his Sundays Theater accompanied with that reverend Statute for Dominical Jiggs and May-poles publish'd in his own Name and deriv'd from the example of his Father James Which testifies all that rigor in superstition all that remissness in Religion to have issu'd out originally from his own House and from his own Autority Much rather then may those general miscarriages in State his proper Sphear be imputed to no other person chiefly then to himself And which of all those oppressive Acts or Impositions did he ever disclaim or disavow till the fatal aw of this Parlament hung ominously over him Yet heerh ee smoothly seeks to wipe off all the envie of his evill Goverment upon his Substitutes and under Officers and promises though much too late what wonders he purpos'd to have don in the reforming of Religion a work wherein all his undertakings heretofore declare him to have had little or no judgement Neither could his Breeding or his cours of life acquaint him with a thing so Spiritual Which may well assure us what kind of Reformation we could expect from him either som politic form of an impos'd Religion or els perpetual vexation and persecution to all those that comply'd not with such a form The like amendment hee promises in State not a stepp furder then his Reason and Conscience told him was fitt to be desir'd wishing hee had kept within those bounds and not suffer'd his own judgement to have binover-borne in some things of which things one was the Earl of Straffords execution And what signifies all this but that stil his resolution was the same to set up an arbitrary Goverment of his own and that all Britain was to be ty'd and chain'd to the conscience judgement and reason of one Man as if those gifts had been only his peculiar and Prerogative intal'd upon him with his fortune to be a King When as doubtless no man so obstinate or so much a Tyrant but professes to be guided by that which he calls his Reason and his Judgement though never so corrupted and pretends also his conscience In the mean while for any Parlament or the whole Nation to have either reason judgement or conscience by this rule was altogether in vaine if it thwarted the Kings will which was easie for him to call by any other more plausible name He himself hath many times acknowledg'd to have no right over us but by Law and by the same Law to govern us but Law in a Free Nation hath bin ever public reason the enacted reason of a Parlament which he denying to enact denies to govern us by that which ought to be our Law interposing his own privat reason which to us is no Law And thus we find these faire and specious promises made upon the experience of many hard sufferings and his most mortifi'd retirements being throughly sifted to containe nothing in them much different from his former practices so cross and so averse to all his Parlaments and both the Nations of this Iland What fruits they could in likelyhood have produc'd in his restorement is obvious to any prudent foresight And this is the substance of his first section till wee come to the devout of it model'd into the form of a privat Psalter Which they who so much admire either for the matter or the manner may as well admire the arch-Arch-Bishops late Breviary and many other as good Manuals and Handmaids of Devotion the lip-work of every Prelatical Liturgist clapt together and quilted out of Scripture phrase with as much ease and as little need of Christian diligence or judgement as belongs to the compiling of any ord'nary and salable peece of English Divinity that the Shops value But he who from such a kind of Psalmistry or any other verbal Devotion without the pledge and earnest of sutable deeds can be perswaded of a zeale and true righteousness in the person hath much yet to learn
raines down new expressions into our hearts in stead of being fit to use they will be found like reserv'd Manna rather to breed wormes and stink Wee have the same duties upon us and feele the same wants yet not alwayes the same nor at all times alike but with variety of Circumstances which ask varietie of words Wherof God hath giv'n us plenty not to use so copiously upon all other occasions and so niggardly to him alone in our devotions As if Christians were now in a wors famin of words fitt for praier then was of food at the seige of Jerusalem when perhaps the Priests being to remove the shew bread as was accustom'd were compell'd every Sabbath day for want of other Loaves to bring again still the same If the Lords Prayer had bin the warrant or the pattern of set Liturgies as is heer affirm'd why was neither that Prayer nor any other sett forme ever after us'd or so much as mention'd by the Apostles much less commended to our use Why was thir care wanting in a thing so usefull to the Church So full of danger and contention to be left undon by them to other mens Penning of whose autority we could not be so certain Why was this forgott'n by them who declare that they have reveal'd to us the whole Counsel of God who as he left our affections to be guided by his sanctifying spirit so did he likewise our words to be put into us without our premeditation not onely those cautious words to be us'd before Gentiles and Tyrants but much more those filial words of which we have so frequent use in our access with freedom of speech to the Throne of Grace Which to lay aside for other outward dictates of men were to injure him and his perfet Gift who is the spirit and the giver of our abilitie to pray as if his ministration were incomplete and that to whom he gave affections he did not also afford utterance to make his Gift of prayer a perfet Gift to them especially whose office in the Church is to pray publicly And although the gift were onely natural yet voluntary prayers are less subject to formal and superficial tempers then sett formes For in those at least for words matter he who prays must consult first w th his heart which in likelyhood may stirr up his affections in these having both words and matter readie made to his lips which is anough to make up the outward act of prayer his affections grow lazy and com not up easilie at the call of words not thir own the prayer also having less intercours and sympathy with a heart wherin it was not conceav'd saves it self the labour of so long a journey downward and flying up in hast on the specious wings of formalitie if it fall not back again headlong in stead of a prayer which was expected presents God with a sett of stale and empty words No doubt but ostentation and formalitie may taint the best duties we are not therfore to leave duties for no duties and to turne prayer into a kind of Lurrey Cannot unpremeditated babling be rebuk'd and restraind in whom we find they are but the spirit of God must be forbidd'n in all men But it is the custom of bad men and Hypocrits to take advantage at the least abuse of good things that under that covert they may remove the goodness of those things rather then the abuse And how unknowingly how weakly is the using of sett forms attributed here to constancy as if it were constancie in the Cuckoo to be alwaies in the same liturgie Much less can it be lawfull that an Englisht Mass-Book compos'd for ought we know by men neither lerned nor godly should justle out or at any time deprive us the exercise of that Heav'nly gift which God by special promise powrs out daily upon his Church that is to say the spirit of Prayer Wherof to help those many infirmities which he reck'ns up rudeness impertinencie flatness and the like we have a remedy of Gods finding out which is not Liturgie but his own free spirit Though we know not what to pray as we ought yet he with sighs unutterable by any words much less by a stinted Liturgie dwelling in us makes intercession for us according to the mind and will of God both in privat and in the performance of all Ecclesiastical duties For it is his promise also that where two or three gather'd together in his name shall agree to ask him any thing it shall be granted for he is there in the midst of them If then ancient Churches to remedie the infirmities of prayer or rather the infections of Arian and Pelagian Heresies neglecting that ordain'd and promis'd help of the spirit betook them almost four hundred yeares after Christ to Liturgie thir own invention wee are not to imitate them nor to distrust God in the removal of that Truant help to our Devotion which by him never was appointed And what is said of Liturgie is said also of Directory if it be impos'd although to forbidd the Service Book there be much more reason as being of it self superstitious offensive and indeed though Englisht yet still the Mass-Book and public places ought to be provided of such as need not the help of Liturgies or Directories continually but are supported with Ministerial gifts answerable to thir Calling Lastly that the Common-Prayer Book was rejected because it prayd so oft for him he had no reason to Object for what large and laborious Prayers were made for him in the Pulpits if he never heard t is doubtful they were never heard in Heav'n Wee might now have expected that his own following Prayer should add much credit to sett Forms but on the contrary we find the same imperfections in it as in most before which he lays heer upon Extemporal Nor doth he ask of God to be directed whether Liturgies be lawful but presumes and in a manner would perswade him that they be so praying that the Church and he may never want them What could be prayd wors extempore unless he mean by wanting that they may never need them XVII Of the differences in point of Church-Goverment THE Goverment of Church by Bishops hath bin so fully prov'd from the Scriptures to be vitious and usurp'd that whether out of Piety or Policy maintain'd it is not much material For Pietie grounded upon error can no more justifie King Charles then it did Queen Mary in the sight of God or Man This however must not be let pass without a serious observation God having so dispos'd the Author in this Chapter as to confess and discover more of Mysterie and combination between Tyranny and fals Religion then from any other hand would have bin credible Heer we may see the very dark roots of them both turn'd up and how they twine and interweave one another in the Earth though above ground shooting up in two sever'd Branches We may have learnt both from
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of