CERTAIN ARGUMENTS AND MOTIVES, Of special moment, propounded to the consideration of our most noble KING and State: Tending to persuade them to abolish that unhappy and unhallowed government of our Church by Bishops; and in stead thereof to set up the government of the Lord jesus Christ, and his holy Ordinances, in their purity and power. Isaiah. 26.13. O Lord our God, other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us. Lamenta. 5.8. Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand. Math. 15.13. Every plant, which my heavenly father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Math. 5.13. If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, & to be trodden under foot of men. ANNO M. D.C.XXXIV. CERTAIN ARGUMENTS and Motives, of special moment, propounded to the consideration of our most noble King and State: Tending to persuade them to abolish that unhappy and unhallowed government of our Church by Bishops; & instead thereof to set up the government of the Lord jesus Christ, and his holy Ordinances, in their purity and power. THe Archbishops & Lord Bishops of England are the main hinderers of the free passage of the Gospel, & of the growth of godliness in that famous & flourishing Realm. 1 They stop the mouths of the faithfullest & fruitfullest Ministers in the land; some one of which hath (by his labours in the Church) done God more good service, & gained more souls to Christ by his Ministry, than all the Bishops have done, that either now are, or ever have been in the kingdom, since the Gospel began last to be preached & published amongst us. What a woeful havoc did they make in our Church, in the beginning of King james his reign; when they turned out at a clap four hundred of the ablest & most conscionable Ministers in the land, for not yielding to such things as † B. Vaughan some of themselves then openly confessed to be trifles & nifles, gewgaws & gambols, fitter for children then for men of discretion? Howsoever the King carried the name of it, yet these wicked Prelates put him upon it, and did egregiously abuse both him and his authority to countenance their own cruelty. His commandment & commission was, that they should first convince men's consciences, before they proceeded against them. But they fall pellmell upon them, and turned them out, leaving them to the wide world, to seek for satisfaction where they could find it; they knowing that they were able to give them none. How have they gone on ever since, though not altogether so boisterously, and with so much violence, yet weeding out by degrees, one after another, the most painful and profitable workmen in the Lord's harvest, & such as did him the best & the faithfullest service in this vineyard of his? And to what exigents and extremities are both the Ministers & members of our churches at this day exposed; who, as it is well known, do daily in troops and great multitudes, not without much grief, quit the kingdom, to shelter themselves in foreign countries from the unjust usurpation, and merciless and matchless tyranny of these Antichristian Prelates, the tenderest of whose mercies are cruel? Prov. 12.10. 2 They being, either all, or the most of them, corrupt and unsound in their judgements, do favour none of their clergy, as they call them, but such as go on in a plain and direct way to Popery, or look terribly asquint towards Arminianism, & Pelagianism; either of which whosoever opposeth (especially if he do it professedly and in good earnest) they will be sure to crush him, if they can, though he be never so conformable, according to their own hellish Canons, and though he be so painful in the work of his Ministry, & so unblamable in the course of his life, that they have nothing to lay to his charge. How then is it possible that the Gospel should thrive and prosper amongst us, and how can it be expected that it should run and be glorified, when these Tyrants, who sit at the stern, & affect the Title of Fathers of the Church, countenance none but men of corrupt minds, like themselves, and cry down, with might and main, all such as do but look towards sincerity? In their devilish Canons (of which Hell itself would be ashamed if there were any shame there) they anathematise, and curse with Bell, Book, and Candle, all such as mislike and profess against their Romish Hierarchy; they pronounce them excommunicate ipso facto. O monstrous wretches, that dare give such unjust sentence, and thunder out such a direful and dreadful censure against those faithful servants of Christ, which bear witness to the truth of his, which will stand, when all they that oppose it shall melt away like snow before the sun: * B. Bancroft. Some of them have grown to such a height of impudence and impiety, that they have not stuck to say, that if S. Paul himself were a Preacher in the land, or any other man as richly stored and furnihed with the graces of God's Spirit, for that great work of the Ministry, as S. Paul was, unless he would conform himself to the orders of the Church now established, they would suspend, and deprive, and degrade him, and cast him out of their Synagogue; so little regard have they of any man's abilities and endowments! It is wonder that they do not expunge out of the Canon of holy Scripture sundry of S. Paul's epistles, which make so directly against them and their government. Most certain it is that if that blessed Apostle were now, upon any complaint made against him, to give an account of his life and doctrine before them, he should find less favour at their hands, than he did at the hands of Felix, Act. 23.35. they would not stay till his accusers came, but they would force him by their cursed oath ex officio (which was hatched in hell) to accuse himself, or else to prison he must, there to lie long enough, without bail or maineprise. What pity is it that such ungracious wretches should be put into any place of eminency, which know no better how to use it? When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked beareth rule, the people sigh, Prov. 29: 2. 3 Their poisoning of the fountains, and those violent courses which they take against Ministers, discourage Parents from sending their children to the Universities. How well would our Naioths and our Bethels, our schools of the Prophets, be furnished with young Students, which would be ready upon all occasions to be called forth to serve God both in the Church and in the common wealth, if these wretched miscreants did not nip in the bud, and crush in the shell, & strangle in the birth the very beginnings of grace in those young plants, which would otherwise increase with the increasings of God, and would grow up like Cedars in Lebanon? There is an evil eye cast upon them, if once they do but begin to walk in the ways of God, and run not with others to the same excess of riot. And of what strain or garb so ever they be, there is a very strict order taken, that unless they will both subscribe, and take a most shameful Oath, they shall take no degree in schools, to testify their progress and proceeding in humane learning. Nor is there any preferment to be had, or to be held, except men will yield to the corruptions of the times; which are now grown so great, that they are not to be endured. Which maketh Parents many times to put the best and most towardly of their children upon other employments; and if they send any to the Universities; they be such, for the most part, as are good for little but to serve the times. Wherein these Adversaries of the grace of God bring such a damage and detriment to our King and State, as they will never be able to recompense, as that good Queen Hester speaketh in another case concerning their brother Haman, Hest. 7.4. 4 They dishearten young Scholars from applying themselves to the study of Divinity, by their denying admittance and entrance into the Ministry to all men, though never so singularly and extraordinarily qualified, except their consciences be made of cheveril, and will (like Kid's leather) stretch every way; and unless they will by their practice of conformity justify a great number of things, which they know to be grossly and palpably evil. And when men are in possession of Pastoral charges, they are put to so much drudgery in the execution of their Ministerial fuction, that they were better to rub horse heels, then, as the case now stands, to be Ministers in the church of England, and to live in such base servitude and slavery under those Antichristian & accursed Prelates. No attire must serve their turn, when they come to discharge their duty in the Lord's Sanctuary, but the habit of the whore of Rome, and the very massing garment itself of that filthy trumpet. They must cross, and crouch, and cringe at the command of those their Lords and Masters. They must admit to the Sacrament of the Lords supper whomsoever these Catercaps allow of, though never so unworthy; and they must reject and repel from that holy Communion and company all such as will not kneel in the act of receiving, though they know right well that they do refuse it only out of the tenderness of their consciences, because they dare not sin against their God in so doing; and albeit they are persuaded in their very souls, that they be in all other respects the fittest Persons in their Congregations to come to the Lords Table. They must at their beck cast out of the church, by the fearful sentence of Excommunication, many times the best Christians in their Parishes for very trivial businesses: as for not appearing in one of their Courts, when haply they had no warning; or for nonpayment of a fee of four pence to a paltry Apparitor. They must read in their churches, as Canonical Scripture, those Apocrypha-bookes, which are full of fables & fictions, of lies and of leasings. They must baptise, if they be required, in a house merely private, which nourisheth a superstitious opinion of the necessity of Baptism; and they must use conditional Baptism in the public Congregation, after the child hath been privately baptised. They must housle the sick, marry with the Ring, Church women, and do a thousand such things, any one of which a man that maketh conscience of his ways dare not adventure upon for a world. And yet all these things must a poor Minister do, if he will hold his place, and enjoy his Ministry. Which maketh many of our best and finest wits to betake themselves to the study of the law, or physic, and to abandon & put out of their minds all thoughts of entering into the Ministry; which, as things are now carried, they hold to be a calling not fit for an honest man. What a heavy and doleful account shall these Vermin one day give to our God for devouring his pleasant plants? And what shall become of these Foxes, which thus destroy the Lords vines? Cant. 2.15. 5 They have had an intention a long while, if not wholly to put down, yet at least to diminish and lessen preaching. Which though they durst not assail with open violence, for fear of the people, amongst whom it would have made them more odious than they are already; yet have they these many years been secretly undermining it. About the beginning of King james his reign, or the later end of Queen Elisabeths' of blessed memory, * B. Bancroft. the Prelate of London called before him all the Ministers of the City, and gave them express charge that they should preach but once upon the Lord's day: and if any of them would do any thing in the afternoon (which he neither required, nor did greatly approve of) he told them, that he would have them Catechise. No Catechism he permitted them to use, but the ordinary, What is your name, etc. for so he expressed himself. And if any amongst them would needs explain and open the same, he told them, that the less pains they took for that which they delivered, it were the better: for, saith he, it is not needful that the people should know too much. O horrible treachery and cruelty against the precious souls of God's people! Who would ever have looked for such words out of the mouth of a very rakeshame in times of so great light? Since that, they have had a project to suppress Lecturers; which in some countries they did desperately set upon, and proceed in with a rage that reached to heaven. In other places they have likewise attempted it, but somewhat moreley surely and insensibly. And doubtless they had prevailed in this plot had not the Lord himself extraordinarily stirred up the hart of a noble man, who heard of it, to go to our gracious King, and to acquaint him with the vileness and odiousness of the design of theirs; and by that means they were disappointed of their purpose, when they made no question but they should have got it ratified by his Majesty's royal authority. If they had prevailed in that, it is to be thought that their next attempt would have been, to have taken the Bible out of men's hands, and so to have brought the people of this land back again to that Cymmerian and Egyptian darkness, in which our forefathers for many years together did heretofore lie buried. * B. Ravis. One of that cursed crew lieth entombed in Paul's church, with one book at his head, and another at his feet. That at his feet is thought to be the Bible, which these godless Prelates tread under foot. That at his head is supposed to be the book of common prayer, which he carried with him as a Crown to the place whither he is gone. But whither these monsters (which are neither Ministers, nor members of any of our Congregations) I profess I know not; unless it be to the place whither their fellow traitor judas is gone before, Act. 2.25. there to remain among such as the Apostle speaketh of, Phil. 3.19. For it can not be imagined that there should be any place in heaven for these wretches: but as they hate God's people here upon earth with a perfect hatred so it is to be thought that the Lord will set a great gulf, and make an eternal separation between them, & the vessels of his mercy, Luke 16.26. 2. Thess. 1.7.8.9.10. 6 They have suppressed that famous & worthy work of buying in, and restoring to the church Impropriations; which was a most charitable, and useful & hopeful business, and likely to have brought more advantage to the Ministry of England, than any one thing of that nature, which hath been undertaken in any man's memory. Divers were brought in, & brought back again to the Church, by those men which were trusted with that business; who carried themselves very faithfully in it; & many great sums lay ready, which would have been frankly and freely given for the buying in of more, if that work had gone on as it began: whereby much glory would have redounded to God, as much comfort to thousands of poor souls, which now are like to want it. In many places where the maintenance of the Minister was short and scant, the feoffees did, out of those Impropriations which they had in their hands, make a supply and addition, to make the living competent for an able and an honest man. In other places, where there was most want of preaching, they set up Lectures, and put in men of good abilities, and such as would teach the people to be obedient to God, and loyal to their Sovereign. And where there were Lectures before, which had not a competency of means allotted to them, they increased their allowance, that so he Ministers might go on the more confortably in the work of their Minstery. But this made our Bishop's sick of the spleen. They cried out that this would be the ruin of the Church of England. The truth is they feared, but without cause, that this would in time have clipped their wings, & have abridged their authority, whereof they are much more jealous then of God's glory; and that caused them to set the matter so much to hart. It is true that the fatal blow was given to that work in another Court: but these ungracious Prelates kindled the coals, and blew that fire, which hath consumed and brought it to nothing. Wherein they have showed themselves to be like to their father the Devil, who, as a roaring Lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, 1. Pet. 5.8. They have put down the meetings of the men of several shires & counties, now dwellers in London, which were wont to assemble together once a year, & did a great deal of good to those countries where they were borne. There they set up, and do to this day maintain at their own charge, Lectures in Market towns, and other places of greatest resort, where they supposed they might do most good, and where there was greatest want of preaching; which was a great ease and comfort to the Christians in those parts: and more they would have done every year for the good of those places, if these meetings of theirs had not been thus unseasonably interrupted and broken off by these men which bear ill will to Zion. But the name of a Lecture is enough to crush & quash any such pious & good work. I know well that the places, where they used to meet, were denied them by another authority: but the Prelates were the plotters and contrivers of this mischief, out of that inveterate malice and hatred which they bear against preaching. Wherein they resemble their Predecessors, the Scribes and pharisees, which shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, & will neither go in themselves, nor suffer them that are entering to go in, Mat. 23.13. 8 They urge and press upon Ministers a Subscription not only against reason, but directly against Law. The statute of the 13. Elizabeth requireth of Ministers no subscription but to the Articles of religion, and that also no further than they concern faith and Sacraments only. But these troublers of Israel, and disturbers of the peace of our church, will have them subscribe not only to that whole book, but to four other books also, namely the book of common prayer, the book of Ordination, and two books Homilies; in some one of which said books it is well known that there be many hundreds of foul and gross corruptions. And if a man have subscribed in his younger years, when he knew no better, and was unable, and it may be unwilling also to examine, and try things by the true touchstone, and to weigh them in the balance of the Sanctuary; if afterwards he renounce, or do but revolt from his subscription, and shall refuse to justify by his practice that to which ignorantly and unadvisedly he did formerly subscribe with his hand; though he have done God faithful service in his Church for the space of many years, and have taken more than ordinary pains in his ministry, they turn him out with a great deal of wrath and indignation, and expose him, his wife & children, to misery & beggary. And if in these cases men be content to leave their native soil, & shall seek to secure and safeguard themselves in other nations from the fury of these Tigers, yet thither will their malice follow them, and their arms are now grown so long, that even there also they can reach them. But there will a time come, when these wretches shall know to their cost, and by miserable and woeful experience, when it will be to late, that it is the Lord jesus himself whom they persecute, and that they kick against pricks, Act. 9.5. And he that hath those stars in his right hand, Revel. 1.16. and accounteth of them as his jewels, will one day render into the bosom of their Persecutors, and that with more than ordinary severity, all the wrongs which they have done to those poor servants of his, & will then be throughly avenged of all his and their malicious and despiteful enemies. 9 They thrust Christ out of his chair of Estate, and will not suffer him to rule & reign amongst us, according to his own holy will revealed in his word, by Pastors, Teachers, and Elders; which he hath ordained and appointed for the governing of his Churches, and for the perfecting of the Saints, etc. till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the soon of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, Rom. 12.7.8. and 1. Tim. 5.17. Ephes. 4.12.13. Wherein they plainly profess, and proclaim openly to the whole world, that they are fighters against God himself, and main opposers of his grace and goodness. How would the Gospel flourish in our land, & what glorious success and entertainment would it find in the hearts of men, if the Lord jesus might once be permitted to rule in our Congregations, by his own Officers & ordinances; and if that holy government of his might be set up amongst us in perfect beauty? What a goodly sight would it be to see every Congregation of Christians in this kingdom to be a complete & entire spiritual body within itself, without having any dependence upon these Romish Prelates, and their Popish Canons? It is that which the great God of heaven looketh for at the hands of our State, to which he hath vouchsafed so many and so great mercies. The Lord jesus Christ, who is a great King, and the Lord and Lawgiver of his Church, hath fitted & furnished men extraordinarily for this great work & service. And the hearts of all the people of the land, which are any whitt well affected, took that way; as appear by their continual labouring for it ever since the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth of pious and happy memory. Only these wicked Bishops oppose it, which never did good nor ever will do. They can not endure the name of Discipline, but have always set themselves with tooth and nail, and with might and main, against the kingdom of our blessed Saviour, and his sacred sovereignty. But let them look to it, and remember what is like to be their doom, if they mend not their manners: Those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me, Luke 19.27. 10 They hinder, as much as in them lieth, the publishing of all books, though never so modestly written, in the defence of Christ's holy cause, and that unalterable government, which he in his last will and Testament hath prescribed to his Churches. And if by their scouts, which they have in every corner, they can discover & find out the Printer of any such Treatises, they deal very rigorously and roughly with him. Himself they commit close enough to Prison, and there they let him lie as long as they please, even till they have ruined him, his wife, and children; they seize upon his Press and letters, and sell them away before his face for a song; they rifle and ransack his house, and carry away, by those hellhounds their Pursivants, as much of his goods as they list, without ever making any restitution of that which they do so wrongfully & and feloniously take from him; when as in the mean while they suffer the Printers of popish Pamphlets to go on in their way with out interruption. Nay when such notorious Offenders are brought to them, and put into their hands, they send them away, if not with a reward, yet certainly without any check or punishment; so well do many of these lazy lubbers and idle drones like of those Romish varlets and their Religion. Yea, whereas printing by the blessing of God hath been a special means of spreading and divulging the Gospel in the Christian world in these later times; it is verily believed by many, that these wretches have a purpose, if they can handsomely and cleanly accomplish it, wholly to suppress that rare mystery, and most noble and famous Art. Divers Printers complain (and I suppose not without cause) that they can get nothing licenced, They, who are authorised and appointed for that purpose, do not simply and absolutely deny to do it; but they delay them extraordinarily, and beyond all measure. When they have attended them, and called upon them, month after month, and one year after another, their answer in conclusion is, that they are not at leisure to read over their treatises. Nay, it is reported by some, but how true that is time will show, that they shall not be suffered to print their old copies, which they have formerly printed with privilege, till the Licenser do certify anew, under his hand, that he hath carefully read over every passage both in the body of those books, and in the Epistles prefixed before them, and that there is nothing in them repugnant to those tenants, which these grand Clergy-masters do now hold. Which if it be true, it is high time both for Printers and Bookesellers to go and learn some new Trade; for they will not be able to live of the old. By this means these vipers do closely eat out the bowels of our church, and they run a course directly and pointblanck contrary to that of the holy Apostle, 2. Thess. 3.1. whose desire was, that the word of God might have free passage & be glorified. It were to be wished therefore that our King and State would turn out these Abby-lubbers, & pluck those fat morsels out of their mouths, and cause them to get their living by the sweat of their brows, as other poor Ministers do, which labour in the word and doctrine. And it will manifestly appear to be a work most fit & necessary to be done, if these things following be well weighed, and rightly and duly considered of. 1 Their places and callings are abominable, & accursed, and Antichristian. God's Bishops, out of all question, they are not. He knoweth no Lord Bishops, nor will he ever acknowledge and own them for his. Man's Bishops they themselves confidently affirm they are not; though the * B. Whitgift. discreetest and moderatest of theirs Predecessors have heretofore ingenuously confessed, that their callings are of humane institution, and that it in the power of the Magistrate to turn them all out at his will and pleasure; & that he may do it without sin against God: But this our Prelates nowadays disclaim, and will not endure to hear of it. Being then neither God's Bishops, nor man's, they must of necessity be ordained and set up by the Devil, whose eldest son is the Pope of Rome, and these petty Popes, our Bishops, are all younger brethren to him; there going but a pair of sheets between them. Their Lordly authority hath certainly no foundation nor footing in the Scripture, but is directly contrary to the institution of Christ, & his blessed will and Testament; and it hath been the ground of that Antichristian Hierarchy of the man of sin, whom God will consume with the spirit of his mouth, 2. Thess. 2.8. Their civil power deserveth rather to be exploded then refuted. Christ expressly forbiddeth his disciples such Lordly dominion, Luke 22.25. He himself refused to be made a King, john 6.15. professing that his kingdom was not of this world, john 18.36. He refused to part an heritage betwixt brethren, Luke 12.14. He would not give sentence against the woman taken in adultery, john 8.11. What intolerable presumption is it then for our Prelates to exercise such authority, as our blessed Saviour neither practised himself, nor permitted to his disciples. Nor is the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which they usurp over the Ministers of the Gospel, any whitt better, but is Antichristian and naught, as well as the other. Christ jesus took upon him the form of a servant, Phil, 2.7. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, Math. 20.28. (and the servant is not above his Lord, Math. 10.24.) He forbiddeth his disciples all such dominion & sovereignty, Math. 20.25. Mark 10.43. His Apostles receive equal power and authority from him, Math. 18.18. john 20.23. They claim no superiority or primacy one above another, but style themselves servants, 2. Cor. 4.5. Ministers & dispensers. 1. Cor. 4.1. and Ambassadors, 2. Cor. 5.20. They send Peter and john as their messengers to Samaria, Acts 8.14. which argueth equality. Peter disclaiming all such superiority equalleth himself with the Ministers and Elders of the Church, calling himself their fellow elder, 1. Pet. 5.1. and forbiddeth Ministers to usurp any Lordship over God's heritage, ver. 3. S. john rebuketh Diotrephes for affecting pre-eminence, Epist. 3.9. Nor did ever any man take upon him to be a Pastor of Pastors, but that man of sin, and Lord Bishops, which are his genuine offspring, & are lineally descended from him. As therefore their offices and functions were hatched in hell, so it would be a very happy thing for this state of ours, if it would please God and our King, that they might be returned and sent back again thither; that our church, which these many years hath borne them as a heavy burden, may be no longer cumbered with them. 2 No man living upon the face of the earth may presume to prescribe a pattern according to which the Churches of Christ should be form; nor may any creature in heaven or earth, without a commission from the son of God, appoint laws for the guilding and governing of his house: that being a glory which the Lord jesus Christ hath reserved in his own hands, and will communicate neither with man nor Angel; it belonging as properly to him to rule his church according to the good pleasure of his own will, as it belongeth to him to save it by the merit of his sufferings. He by the appointment of his father is the only head, King, Lord, Lawgiver, & supreme Governor of his Church, which he hath washed and made white with his blond, Ephes. 1.22. james. 4.12. Revel. 7.14. He hath not left his Church, which is his body, maimed or imperfect, destitute of laws and Offices needful for the governing of the same, but hath appointed a Ministry for it, with a calling thereunto, and with laws limiting their function and governments, leaving nothing therein to the will of man, Col. 2.18. This government, with all the offices & functions thereto appertaining, are set down in the written word of God (the only rule both of doctrine & discipline in the church) which is able to make the man of God perfect to every good work. 2. Tim. 3.17. The offices appointed by Christ for the ruling of his churches are those of Pastors, Teachers, and Elders; whose several gifts, properties, and qualifications are distinctly and at large set down in the Scripture. These offices and ministeries, and the laws concerning the same, are sufficient for the ruling of Christ his Church here on earth; and that form and frame of government, prescribed and left by our Saviour for the ordering of his house, is every way complete of itself, and needeth no help of man to make it perfect. Else Christ can not be honoured as a perfect governor of his Church; and otherwise both the Scripture and Christ's body are imperfect. And if these be not perfect, then may man erect new offices, and add new Ministeries, and he may also take away, and alter any of these at his own pleasure. Then also is the Church of the new Testament inferior to that of the old, which received all the laws & ordinances from God himself. But to affirm all or any one of these it is impious and absurd. And as this government appointed by Christ is sufficient and most perfect, so is it perpetual, and may not be altered by men or Angeles. Timothy is commanded to keep this platform, and all the ordinances concerning it, to the glorious coming of the Lord jesus, 1. Tim. 5.21. and 6.13.14. All the offices of this church mentioned Rom. 12.6.7.8. are called members of the body of the church, ver. 5. and 1. Cor. 12.27.28: which is the body of Christ, Eph. 1.22.23. If therefore the church of Christ, which is his body, must continue perfect till his coming, these offices and ministeries must also continue; for if any one of them be taken away, his body is maimed and mangled. And if Christ shall continue to be governor of his churches, he must continue to rule and govern in them by his own Officers, and by those laws and ordinances which he himself hath prescribed in his word; otherwise he is not the governor of them. If his Officers be refused, he is rejected; and if the order of government appointed by him be thrust out, & another substituted in the room of it, then is he, upon the point, deposed from his regency, & the sceptre is taken out of his hands. 3 If this holy government instituted and ordained by the son of God himself might be erected and set up in our churches, there would be such a confluence & concurrence of all good things, contributing jointly to the happiness of this kingdom, as our eyes have never yet seen. God's blessing doth ever accompany his own ordinance. But if that be either slighted or neglected; though men take the wisest and the most politic courses, that their silly and shallow brains can devise, for the attaining of the same ends which God aimeth at the Lord bloweth upon them, and blasteth them, & bringeth them all to nothing, that they do no good; as might easily be exemplified in many other particulars, as well as in this of Church government, if need required. For he destroyeth the wisdom of the wise, & bringeth to nothing the understanding of the prudent, 1. Cor. 1.19. the foolishness of God being wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men, ver. 25. But to keep to the point in hand. This government of the church by Archbishops and Lord Bishops was first brought in, and hath been very unhappily continued in our land under a pretence of preserving the peace & unity of the Church, & for the preventing of schisms and divisions in the same. But the woeful experience of many years showeth, that these strange Lords, who by their places should be fathers and fosterers of the church, have been, and are to this day, cruel and cursed Stepfathers to it, and in stead of preventing distractions and dissensions among us, they have been from time to time the sole cause and original of all those most lamentable divisions, and of those heavy pressures, which our poor churches have groaned under, ever since the Gospel came into this kingdom. What error and heresies have they of late brought in & countenanced by their authority, to the heart's grief of many of the best affected people of the land? How do Arminianism and Bellarminianisme prevail by reason of that favour which these linsey-woolsey lukewarm Laodiceans show to those which set their faces that way? What a rent have they lately made in our church by their strict pressing of people to come to their own Congregations when there is no preaching, and by their urging of crouching and cringing at the name of jesus, & before their Altars, and other such like trumpery? What a number of our best and most judicious Christians do they daily drive out of the land by their harsh, and base, and uncivil usage of them? Sith therefore the Gospel is so much opposed, and oppugned, & trodden down by these Antichristian Prelates, what a blessed and worthy work would it be, and how acceptable a service to God, if it would please our most gracious King to depose & thrust our these proud usurpers, who have too too long domineered and tyrannised over God's heritage, and to set the Lord jesus Christ upon his Throne and to take order that he may rule his churches according to his own will revealed in his word? Which glorious and happy enterprise, if his Majesty would seriously set upon, and go through with, I dare be bold to say, that the Lord would make good to him, and this state, as much as he once promised and did accordingly perform to the people of the jews, upon their onset and first beginning to set forward the building of his Temple, Hag. 2.18.19. He would from that very day remove all those heavy judgements which have these many years waited upon that cursed government of Bishops, and in stead of them he would shower down such abundance and variety of his choicest mercies and blessings upon our King and his kingdoms, as would make all the world to wonder, and to stand amazed at it. Oh, that his Majesty would but try what the Lord would do in that case! England would then be as jerusalem sometime was, the praise of the world, the perfection of beauty, and the joy of the whole earth. Then would the Lord dwell amongst us, and be a father unto us, and he would rejoice over us and delight in us to do us good. Then would our exiles return, & the poor despised, and dispersed, and distressed servants of God would sing for joy of hart, and the voice of weeping would be no more heard amongst us, nor the voice of crying, for these Wolves, and Leopards, & Lions being thrown out of those places wherein they do daily such a world of mischief, there would be none to hurt or destroy in Gods holy Mountain: our land would then be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 4 Whereas his Majesty hath at this time much use and many employments for money; if he would be pleased to turn these brute creatures a-grazing, and seize upon their Bishoprics, and take into his hands the Cathedral Churches (as King Henry the eighth sometimes did the Abbeys, and those irreligious houses) he might, to his own hearts content, be plentifully supplied at the present for all his occasions, and have a large yearly Revenue coming in, sufficient to maintain an Army in the field to suppress & subdue all the enemies of his Crowns and Kingdoms, and to help down with that man of sin, who is drunk with the blood of God's Saints. And why will our renowned Sovereign suffer such a happy and golden opportunity to slip out of his hands? It is thought by some, that if King james had lived, he would have done it, and would have tasted their flesh. And why should not our noble and religious King (who in other things is an imitator of his father's virtues) effect that which his father so much affected, & had a good mind to do, if time had served for it? What should hinder him? I confess freely, I know not. These Lordly Prelates never did any good in the Church of God; nor do they any at this time; nor will they ever hereafter do any, but a great deal of mischief. Idle they are above measure, and many of them grossly and palpably ignorant: and they are grown to such an extreme height of pride, and ambition, and tyranny, that it is a great wonder how the State can thus long bear them. Most odious they are both to God and man; and the very name of a Bishop beginneth now to stink in the nostrils of all the people of the Land, that savour the things of God, or have any relish of Religion, though they look not towards sincerity, nor bear any love to it: And for their Collegiate Churches, what be they, for the most part, but dens of thiefs, and cages of unclean Birds? There is a great deal of superstitious and false worship nourished and maintained in them, to the dishonour of Almighty God, to the scandal of that holy Religion which is professed amongst us, and to the rejoicing & encouraging of Papists, who laugh in their sleeves, and are in good hope to have their Ronish religion one day set up again in this Kingdom, seeing we retain such monuments of their Idolatry and superstition still in the midst of us, and do re-edify & repair them with such zeal, as if therein we did God good service. What pity is it that such an infinite mass of money, as is raised yearly out of these Bishoprics, and the livings belonging to those Cloisters, should be so vainly, and basely, and irreligiously consumed and devoured by such useless, and worthies persons, as are good for nothing but to cleave wood with their heads, when as in the mean while our dear and dread Sovereign wanteth it for better purposes? What an advantage would it be to our King, and what an advancement of the revenue of the Crown, if the increase and profit which ariseth & issueth out of these large and ample possessions (which is now merely and wholly to no purpose wasted) might be brought into his Majesty's Treasury, there to be preserved to his use and to be always in a readiness to be disposed of by him according to his godly wisdom, to the glory of God, and in the service of the State; and might be there carefully stored up, as a means of supply, and as a stock of provision, for the accommodating of his Majesty, when, and as often as he shall have use of it, and for the fitting and furnishing of those many necessary and just occasions which he hath to employ and expend the same upon? 5 It would be a marvellous ease for this Kingdom, if by the merciful goodness of our God it might once be freed from these Antichristian Prelates, & their Courts, which rob his Majesty's subjects of an exceeding great sum of money every year. One would not imagine how much they extort from Ministers, Churchwardens, and the rest of the people of the land, for fees, and by means of those unjust vexations which they put them continually unto. Many men are persuaded that they, and their Chancellors, Commissaries, Officials, Doctors, roctours, Registers, Pursivants, Apparitours, and others of that cursed crew, do rake and scrape from the Subject more than would suffice to pay to our King two or three Subsidies every year. And what becometh of all this? It maintaineth a company of idle Belly-gods, and a number of ungodly and ungracious persons, which are unprofitable burdens of the earth, and are only whips in God's hand to scourge and chastise his people withal: whose service when the Lord hath used a while for that purpose, he will then most certainly throw his Rods into the fire, Esay. 10.5.12: And if in the mean season our most wise and judicious King would be pleased to sqeaze them, and to take from them that thick clay wherewith they are overladen; he should do a work acceptable to God, and such as wherein his soul might take a great deal of comfort here, and which would much further his reckoning in the day of the Lord jesus, when he shall come with power & great glory to judge both the quick & the dead. 6 His Majesty shall do a work of singular charity and mercy to the souls of these Bloodsuckers, if he will be pleased, in compassion and commiseration of their deplored and desperate condition, to pluck them out of those pestilential places, which they do unjustly usurp, and most tyrannously abuse, to the provocation of the wrath & displeasure of the great God of heaven, & to the opening of the mouths of the enemies of the Gospel; who by the exorbitancies and insolences of these proud men take occasion to blaspheme and speak evil of that sacred truth which we profess, and to traduce and malign our government, to the dishonour of our nation, and the disgrace of our King and country, both at home and in foreign parts. Most certain it is, that if they be let alone in their course, they go on desperately in a way that leadeth to death, the issue whereof will be hell, and eternal woe and misery in another world: whereas if their prefermets', with which they are even fatted and glutted above measure, might be taken from them, and they put upon the work of the Ministry, which they were bred and brought up to, it might please God that that might be a means to pluck them out of the fire, and to save the souls of some of them, if amongst that cursed company there be any that belong to the election of grace; whereof I confess there is a great deal of question to be made. For the most of them do maliciously and despitefully oppose the truth, and do with a high hand set themselves against the good ways of God, & do most furiously and fiercely persecute all those poor Christians that set their faces towards Zion, and endeavour to walk with their God in the truth & uprightness of their hearts, & will not be drawn for fear or favour to conform themselves to those shameful corruptions in doctrine and discipline, which they multiply daily, & press hotly upon men, without either fear or wit, to the ruin of our Church, and the supplanting and undermining of our most holy & heavenly Religion, the bringing in of which not many years since cost a great deal of blood. And as for those few of them in whom there is any spark of goodness, the eye of whose understanding is not yet quite put out, that which they in the course of their government do against the truth, and servants, and cause of God, they do it against the persuasion of their own hearts, and against the checks of their consciences, which pursue them so close, and do so terrify & affright them, that without all boubt they can have little or no peace at all, having such an adversary within them, as will never suffer them to be quiet, but is still accusing & tormenting them whether they sleep or wake. Which made * Sr. Francis Hastings. one say wittily long ago, that of our Bishops the best were the worst; because that which they did, they did clean against the hair, and knew right well that they sinned against God in the doing of it; which is a fearful aggravation of their iniquity. He that was † B. Vaughan. Bishop of London when that lamentable havoc and spoil was made amongst our Ministers about the beginning of King james his reign, after that he had in the Consistory suspended and deprived some of the Ministers of London, was the whole night following in such a heat and sweat (it being then a cold season of the year, about the beginning of February) that although there was a good fire in his chamber, & they which attended him plied him with hot clothes, as fast as they could possibly warm them at the fire, & bring them to him lying then in his bed, yet could they not all that night, with all that they could do, cool him, and dry up his sweat; as some yet alive can testify, who then waited upon him in his chamber: He was so perplexed and terrified with the thoughts of that which he had done, that he could take no rest; nor did he ever claw it off, but died very quickly after it. Within a few days after (for he lived not many) he said openly at his table, that the Persecutions of those times were worse than those in Queen Mary's days. * B. Morton. One who sat at the table with him, than a Dean now a Bishop, hearing him say so, spoke to him in latin, & prayed him to forbear such speeches, telling him that if they came to the King's ear, they would be ill taken. For answer whereunto he said again in english, with a great deal of vehemency and earnestness, that the present Persecutions were greater and far more grievous than those in Queen Mary's dates were; & he gave his reasons for it. For then, saith he, men were quickly dispatched out of the way, whereas now they are forced to live in misery; and a languishing life every man knoweth to be a linger death. Then men were permitted to speak freely for themselves; whereas now at the first dash, saith he, the Oath is tendered to them, which if they refuse, to prison they go without any mercy or pity; no bail will serve the turn. What would this man have said if he had lived to see these times? A strange kind of creatures these Bishops be: they are neither fish nor flesh, nor yet good red herring, as the old Proverb is. A man cannot tell what to make of them. Papists they would not be thought to be, & yet many of them are little better. Good Protestants surely very few of them be. Those amongst them, which be not downright Papists, look shrewdly that way, & maintain many of their gross and absurd opinions, and make no bones to affirm openly, that there is not such a distance between them and us, but that we may meet them in the midway; nor such a discrepance & difference betwixt their religion and ours, but that they may be easily reconciled, if men were peaceably minded. And accordingly * B. Montague some of them have mediated most shamefully both in Pulpit and in Print for a Pacification. & have endeavoured to make a hotchpotch and a Gallimawfrie of both religions mixed and blended together, to the utter subverting and rooting out of that glorious Gospel of our blessed Lord and Saviour, which hath been heretofore for many years most courageously & constantly professed and maintained amongst us against all adversaries whatsoever. If the Lord be not the more merciful to us, they will bring us back again into Egypt before we are aware; for it appeareth plainly now to all the world, that that is the thing which they aim mainly at; & it seemeth that they care not who knoweth it. Nor is it any new or strange thing that Bishops should look towards Popery; for so have their Predecessors done before them: An Blackwel. Archpriest many years ago being prisoner in the Clinke, where diverse Ministers of the Gospel were also prisoners at the same time, said to one of them, that he marvelled of what religion the Bishops of England were. Us, saith he, they commit because we are Papists, as they term us; and you they commit, because you will not be Papists. That they persecute us, saith he, it is not much to be marvelled at, because there is some seeming difference between them and us, though it be not much: but that one Minister of the Gospel should persecute another, & that one Protestant should pursue another to bonds and imprisonment for religions sake that is a strange thing. But of the two, saith he, they love us the better. A Papist they like well enough, if they durst shewit, but Puritans they hate with their hart; and that all the world may see. Surely he spoke the truth. For Papists they love, and like, & hug in their bosoms in secret: but Puritans, as they nickname them, & all purity & sincerity they do utterly abhor. Are these wolves then fit to have the government of the sheep of Christ? Nay is it not more than time that they should be unhorsed, and thrown violently out of their places, before they ruin and spoil all, which they will do very speedily if they be let alone? They have already brought this Kingdom into a most lamentable condition; & if they be not looked to the sooner, it is to be feared that they will put all into a confusion & combustion; for they are desperately set upon mischief. 7 It is a matter worthy to be considered of, how our State can quit itself of guilt and sin against God, in that it tolerateth, and hath not in all this time with indignation cast out these Antichristian usurpers, which are so pernicious & prejudicial both to our church and commonwealth. The Magistrate, by the ordinance & appointment of God, is to take care that both the Tables of God's law be duly kept. Now, these proud Prelates are delinquents against both of them; & they transgress with a high hand. As their places are accursed, so their demeanour and deportment in them is most tyrannous and cruel. They rob God of his glory, and the Church of a great deal of comfort; and the commonwealth they pill & pole above measure. And yet these sacrilegious & traitorous Time-servers are not only tolerated, but countenanced also, and upheld amongst us; the more is the pity. For most sure & certain it is; that when sin in a state is not duly punished, the land is defiled, and God's wrath is provoked; which will not be pacified but by inflicting due and deserved punishment upon Transgressors. Numb. 35.33. In which regard there if good hope conceived, that our King & State will take this matter into serious consideration, and will now at last execute the just vengeance of our God upon these enormous and agregious Malefactors, who have so long & so despitefully trodden under foot the holy and blessed Ordinances of Christ, and in stead of them have advanced and set up the fond & foolish devises of their own giddy brains; which is such a high dishonour to our Lord jesus Christ, and such a horrible indignity offered to him, as we have good cause to hope that this Christian State will no longer endure; especially when all these things abovementioned shall be laid together, and well weighed in the balance of God's Sanctuary; FINIS.