take what fallâ—… at his perill But that I may not denye truth to an Adâ—… versary I grant three truths in this Answer First that the Person and Office of a King atâ—… distinguishable a good man may be a bad King anâ—… a bad man a good King Alexander the great haâ—… his two friends Ephestion and Craterus the one waâ—… Alexanders Friend the other was the Kings Friend the one honoured his person the other his Office But yet he that loved Alexander did not hate thâ—… King and he that loved the King was no enemy tâ—… Alexander Secondly I grant in active Obedience if thâ—… King command any thing which is repugnant to the Law of God or Nature we ought rather to obeâ—… God then Men. The Guard of Saul refused justlâ—… to slay the Priests of the Lord and Hananiaâ—… Mishael and Azariah to worship Nebuchadnezarâ—… golden Image it is better to dye then to doe thaâ—… which is worse then Death Da veniam Imperatoâ—… pardon me O Soveraigne thou threatnest me witâ—… prison but God with Hell In this case it is not lawfull to yeeld active obedience to the King Again if the King command any thing which is contrary to the known Laws of the Land if it be by an injury to a third Person we may not doe it as for a Judge to deliver an unjust sentence for every Judge ought to take an Oath at his admission that he will doe right to every person notwithstanding the Kings letters or any other persons there is danger from others as well as from the King And generally we owe service to the King but innocency to Christ. But if this command intrench onely upon our own private Interest we may either forbear active Obedience or in discretion remit of our own right for avoiding further evill So said Saint Ambrose If the Emperour demand our fields let him take them if he please I doe not give them but withall I doe not deny them Provided alwayes that this is to be understood in plain cases onely where the Law of God of Nature or the Land is evident to every mans capacity otherwise if it be doubtfull it is a Rule in Case Divinity Subditi tenentur in favorem Regis Legis judicare It is better to obey God then Man but to disobey the King upon Surmises or probable pretence or an implicit dependence upon other Mens judgements is to disobey both God and Man and this duty as the Protesters say truely is not tyed to a Kings Christianity but his Crown Tiberius was no Saint when Christ bid give unto Caesar that which was Caesars Thus for active obedience now for passive If a Soveraigne shall persecute his Subjects for not doing his unjust Commands yet it is not lawfull to resist by raising Arms against him They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation But they aske iâ—… there no limitation I answer ubi lex non distinguiâ—… nec nos distinguere debemus how shall we limit where God hath not limited or distinguish where he hath not distinguished But is there no remedy for 〈◊〉 Christian in this case yes three remedies The first is to cease from sinne Rex bonus est dextra malus sinistra Dei a good King is Gods right hand a bad his left hand a scourge for our sinnes as we suffer with patience an unfruitfull yeare so we must doe an evill Prince as sent by God Tollatuâ—… culpa ut cesset Tyrannorum plaga said Aquinas remove our sinne and God will take away his rod. The second remedy is prayers and tears In that day you shall cry unto the Lord because of your King Saint Nazianzen lived under five persecutions and never knew other Remedy he ascribed the death of Iulian to the prayers and teares of the Christians Ieremy armed the Iews with prayers for Nebuchadnezar not with daggs and daggers against Nebuchadnezar Saint Paul commands to make prayers and supplications for Kings not to give poison to them Saint Peter could have taken vengeance with a word as well on Herod as Ananias but that he knew that God reserves Kings for his own Tribunall For this cause Saint Ambrose a Man of known courage refused to make use of the forwardnesse of the People against Valenâ—…ian the Emperour And when Saul had slayne the Priests of God and persecuted David yet saith David who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltlesse It was Duty and not a singular desire of perfection that held Davids hands who can stretch out his Hand No Man can doe it The third remedy is flight this is the uttermost which our Master hath allowed when they persecute you in one City fly to another But a whole Kingdome cannot fly neither was a whole Kingdome ever persecuted by a lawfull Prince private men tasted of Domitians cruelty but the Provinces were well governed The raging desires of one Man cannot possibly extend to the ruine of all Nor is this condition so hard for Subjects This is thankworthy if a man for Conscience towards God indure grief and if a man suffer as a Christian let him glorifie God on this behalfe This way hath ever proved successefull to Christian Religion the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church caedebantur torquebantur nrebantur tamen multiplicabantur But all these Remedies are not sufficient they are nothing and they that thinke otherwise are stupid fellowes in the judgement of the Observer unlesse the People have right to preserve themselves by force of Arms yea notwithstanding any contracts that they have made to the contrary for every private man may desend himselfe by force if assaulted though by the force of a Magistrate or his own Father c. First I observe how the Observer enterferes in his Discourse for in the forty fourth page he telleth us quite contrary that the King as to his own Person is not forcibly to be repelled in any ill doing But passing by this contradiction I aske two questions of him by his good leave The first is if a Father should goe about onely to correct his Child and not to kill him or maime him whether he might in such a case cry Murther Murther and trie Mâ—steries with his Father and allege his own judgement against his Fathers to prove his innocency My second question is if an inraged Father should offer extreme violence to his Sonne how far he might resist his Father in this case whether to give blow for blow and stabbe for stabbe or onely to hold his Fathers hands For if it be a meere resistence without any further active violence which is allowable if it be onely in extream perills where the life is indâ—ngered and against manifest rage and fury what the Observer gets by this he may put in his eye and see never the worse But to give his remedy and his instance for it a positive answer I say further that this
maligned Episcopacy whilest Bishops stood they could not fill all the Pulpits of the Kingdome with their Seditious Oratours who might incite the people that their zeal to God may not be interrupted by their Duty to the King that by the Christian Labours of their painfull Preachers they may not want hands to bring their wishes to passe they are their own words Is this the reason we have not a word of Peace and Charity from that Party but all Incentives to Warr and to joyn in making that great Sacrifice to the Lord. Yet whilest they are so busy in in getting hands too many of them perjured hands let them remember Rodolphus the Duke of Sweveland his hand in Cuspinian who being drawn into a rebellious Warre against the Emperour and in the Battell having his right Hand cut off held out the Stump to those that were about him saying I have a just reward of my Perjury with this same Hand I swore Allegiance to my Soveraigne Lord. Yet the good Emperour buried him Honourably which being disliked by some of his Friends he replied utinam omnes mei Adversarit eo ornatu sepulti jacerent We have sworn Allegiance as well ashe and God is the same he was a severe Avenger of Perjury Onely Zedekiaâ—… of all the Kings of Iudah a perjured Person to Nebuchadnezzar had his eyes put out because saith one he had not that God by whom he sware before his eyes Another instance of Perjury we have in Uladislaus when Huniades had made Truce with Amurath for ten yeares the King by the incitement of Cardinali Iulian did break it the Turk in distresse spreads the Articles towards Heaven saying O Iesus if thou be a God be avenged of these false Christians presently the Battell turned Uladislaus was slaine in the Fight the Cardinall in flight When God had justly punished Corah and his rebellious Company the Common People murmured against Moses and Aaron saying Ye have killed the Lords People Numb 16. 49. What was the Issue the Lord sent a Plague which swept away fourteen thousand and seven hundred of them So dangerous a thing it is onely to justify Traytors Dost thou desire to serve God purely according to his word So thou mayest without being a Traytour to thy Prince if our practise were but conformable to the truth of our Profession we might challenge all the Churches in the World God Almighty lighten the eyes of all those that mean well that we may no longer shed one anothers blood to effect the frantick Designes of Fanaticall Persons and by our contentions pull down what we all desire to build up even the Protestant Religion the Law of the Land and the Liberty of the Subject Treason never yet wanted a cloake we are not to judge of Rebells by their Words but by their deeds their voice is Iacobs voice but their hands are the hands of Esau. The Adulterous woman eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith what have I done yet sometimes God suffers the contrivers of these Distractions unwittingly to discover themselves that unlesse we doe willfully hoodwinke our eyes we cannot but see their aimes Among others that Speech which exhorts us to subdue the pride of Kings to purchase a Parity in the Church with a parity in the State to shed the blood of the ungodly that sleights all former Oaths and Obligations and vilifies the Laws of the Land as the inventions of men may be a sufficient Warning-Piece to all Loyall Subjects and good Christians And so may the late Petition be though from meaner Hands to a Common Councell wherein they doe nakedly and professedly fall upon His Majesties Person without any Mask and sawcily and traytorously propose the alteration of the Civill Government which every true-hearted English Man will detest Say not these are poor vulgar Fellowes These have been the Intelligences that have of late turned the Orbe of our State about or at least the visible Actors And who sees not that this is cast abroad thus by the cunning of their sublimated and Mercuriall Prompters to try how it will rellish with the palate of the People as an Introduction to their actuall Designe that when it comes to passe the World may not wonder at it as a Prodigie So was it given out among the People by Richard the third that his Wife was dead when she was in good health but she wisely concluded what was intended by her kind Husband to be her next part Where are our English Hearts why doe we not at last all joyn together to take a severe account of them who have blemished our Parliament subjected our Persons and Estates to their arbitrary Power who have sought to de-throne our Soveraigne and to robbe us of our Religion Laws and Liberties But now to the Observator Observer IN this Contestation between Regall and Parliamentary power for method sake it is requisite to consider first of Regall then of Parliamentary Power and in both to consider the efficient and finall Causes and the meanes by which they are supported Answer Stay Sir before we enter into these Consideratitions let us remember the Rule in Rhetorick cui bono what advantage will this inquiry bring us Doe you desire to be one of the Tribunes or Ephori of England to controule your King or would you have the great Oâ—…ke cut down that you might gather some sticks for your selfe Thus we are told lately the wisest men will not thinke thems elves uncapable of future Fortunes if they use their uttermost power to reduce him that is the King to a necessity of granting Or would you have us play the Guelphes and Gibellines to cut one anothers throats for your pastime Pardon us Sir we cannot thinke it seasonable now when poore Ireland is at the last gaspe and England it selfe lies a bleeding when mens minds are exasperated by such Trumpeters of Sedition to plunge our selves yet deepeâ—… in these Domestick Contestations what could the Irish Rebells desire more Comparisons are alwayes odious but Contestations are worse and this between a King and His Parliament worst of all This dismall question did never yet appeare in this Kingdom but like a fatall Screech-owle portending blood Death and publique Ruine This was the Subject of the Barons Warre the consequent of this in the wrong offered to a lawfull Prince was the fountain of those horrid Dissentions between the red Rose and the White which purpled all our English Soile with native Blood we have had too much of this already Halfe of that Money which of late hath been spent of that blood which hath been shed about this accursed Controversie would have regained Ireland and disingaged England whereas now the sore festers dayly more and more under the Chirurgeons Hands Our Fore fathers have setled this question for us we desire to see what they have done before we goe to blind-mans buffet one with another If it hath been composed well or but indifferently it is better then Civill Warr And
did not fight more nâ—…bly for their free Customes and Laws of which the Conquerer and his Successors had in part disinherited them by violence and perjury then they which put them to such conflicts for it seems unnaturall to me that any Nation should be bound to contribute its own inherent puissance meerely to abet Tyranny and support Slavery and to make that which is more excellent a prey to that which is of lesse worth And questionlesse a native Prince if meere force be right may disfranchise His Subject as well as a Stranger if he can frame a sufficient party and yet we see that this was the foolish Sinne of Rehoboam who having deserted and rejected out of an intollerable Insolence the Strength of ten Tribes ridiculously soughâ—… to reduce them againe with the Strength of two Answer This Author intends not to halt on one side onely in this Discourse qui sâ—…mel verecundiae limites transiverit guavitâ—… 〈◊〉 esse oportet First That just Conquest in a lawfull Warr acquireth good right of Dominion as well as Possession is so consonant to the universall Opinion and Practise of all Nations yea to â—…he infallible and undoubted Testimony of holy Scriptures that he that denyes it may as well affirme Nil intra est â—…leam nil extra est in nuâ—…e durum Force is not meere Force where Justice goes hand in hand â—…ith it Omnia dat qui justa negat Neither is this to alter the course of Nature or frustrate the â—…enour of Law but it selfe is the Law of Nature and of Nations Secondly Thaâ—… Subjects who have not the power of the Sword committed to them after a long time of Obedience and lawfull Succession after Oaths of Allegiance may use force to recover their former Liberty or raise Aâ—…ms to change the Laws established is without all â—…ontradiction boâ—…h false and Rebelliouâ—… They tâ—…at are overcome saith Iosephus most truely and have long obeyed if they seek to shake off the yoke they doâ—… the part of desperate Men not of Lovers of Liberty Surely if any Liberty might warrant such Foâ—…ce it is the Liberty of Religion but Christ never planted his Religion in blood He cooled his Discâ—…ples heat with a sharpe Redargution yee know not of what spirit yee are of It is better â—…o dye innocent then live nocent as the Thebaean Legion all Christans of approved valour answered the bloody Emperour Maximian Cognosce Imperator know O Emperour that we are all Christians we submit our Bodies to thy Power but our free Soules fly to our Saviour neither our known Courage nor Desperation it selfe hath armed us against thee because we had rather dye innâ—…cent then live guilty thou shalt find our Hands empty of Weapons but our Brests aâ—…med with the Catholick Faith So having power to resist yet they suffered themselves to be cut all in pieces The Observer is still harping upon Tyranny and slavery to little purpose he is not presently a Tyrant who hath more Power then Nature did commâ—… to him nor he a Slâ—…ve who hath subjected himselfe to the Dominion of another That which is done to gain Protection or Sustenance or to avoide the evills of Sedition or to performe a lawfull Ingagement is not meerely done to abet Tyranny and support Slavery Thirdly to the Observers instance of our Ancestours in the Barons Warrs I know not whether Warrs he intends the former or the latter or both This is certain no party gained by them They pâ—…oved fatall and destructive sometimes to the King sometimes to the Barons sometimes to both and evermore to the People And howsoever the name of free Customs and Laws was mae use of as a plausible pretence yet it is evident that Envy Reâ—…enge Coveteousnesse Ambition Lust Jealousie did all act their severall parts in them And if there were any as I doubt not there were many who did solely and sincerely aime at the publicke good yet it cannot be denyed there was too much stiffenesse and animosity on both sideâ—… a little yielding and bending is better then breaking outright and more especially Conscience requires it of them who are Subjects and of them who contend for an alteration Pliny relates a Story of two Goats that met in the midst of a narrow planke over a swift current there was no room for one to pâ—…sse by another neither could turn backward they could not fight it ouâ—… for the way but with certain perill of droâ—…ning them both that which onely remained was that the one couching on the planke made a Bridge for the other to goe over and so both were saved But the Subject is so direfull and tragicall and the remembrance of those times so odious to all good Men that I passe by it as â—…ot much materiall to the Question in hand Both Parties are dead and have made their accounts to God and know long since whether they did well or ill neither can their example either justifie or condemne our actions It is probable there were some Shebahs Trumpetters of Sedition in those dayes as this Author proves himselfe now yet none so apt as these Catalines to cry out against Incendiarâ—…es It is a good wish of Saraviah that such seditious Authors might ever be placed in the front of the battle Yet thus farre the Authors ingenuity doth lead him to distinguish the Barons then from His Majesties Opposites now The Barons then fought for their Laws not to change the Laws and alter the Government both in Church and Common-wealth which was the very case of the Lincolnshire Yorkeshire and Northren Rebells in the Dayes of Henry the eight and Queene Elizabeth I wish none of His Majesties Subjects were involved in it at this present Fourthly whereas he urgeth that a native Prince may disfranchise His Subjects by Force if He can make a Party as well as Strangers either he intends that he may doe it de facto that is true so may a Thiefe take away an honest mans purse or else that he may doe it de jure lawfully and conscionably that is most untrue There is a vast difference betwixt a just Warre and an unjust Oppression His instance of Rehoboam is quite beside the Cushion his error was threatning and indiscretion the fault they found was with Solomon thy Father hath made our yoke grievous And yet it is most certain they never had so gracious so happy a Reigne as Solomons was for Peace Plenty who made Silver as plentifull as stones and Cedars as Sicamores in Ierusalem So unthankfull we are naturally so soone troubled with triviall matters as Haman was and like flyes feed upon sores leaving the whole Body which is â—…ound This is sure that against Rehoboam was a meditated Rebellion witnesse the place chosen Shechem in the midst of the Faction witnesse their Prolocutor Ieroboam a seditious Fugitive and ungratefull Servant of Solomons by whom he had been preferred they sent for him out of AEgipt And howsoever the
in the blood and slaughter of his Subjects To what end to exhaust his Treasure lose his Revenues weaken his Friends deprive himselfe of the certain assistence of his Subjects at a time when he conceives it to be so usefull for his affaires They had need be strong proofes indeed that can incline the judgement of any rationall Man to such a senselesse Paradox Let us view them First The Rebells said so They pleaded the Kings Authority They called themselves the Queenes Army Is not this a doughty Argument By the same reason we may accuse Christ as the Patron of all Schismaticall Conventicles because they say here is Christ and there is Christ some out of a credulous simplicity others out of a deep subtlety or ascribe the Primitive Haeresies to the Apostles because the false Teachers did use their names to make their Haeresies more current So Sir Iohn Hotham and Serjeant Major Skippon doe pretend the Authority of King and Parliament the King disclaimes both the one and the other many who are now in Arms against the King do verily beleeve they fight for the King against some bad Counsellers whom they cannot name The same Rebells sometimes pleaded an Ordinance of Parliament Nothing is more usuall with Pirates then to hang out a counterfeit Flagge A second reason is Sundry Commanders of note were passed over into Ireland by his Majestyes warrant who were seen presently after in the head of the Rebells His Majesty hath long since answered this and demanded reparation of such a groundlesse Calumny I onely adde two things The one how ignorant our intelligencers are of the State of Ireland to fein such a devise of a Brother of Sir George Hamletons yet Sir George hath no Brother there but Sir Fredericke who was then and long after in Manour Hamleton as opposite to the Irish Rebells as the Observer himselfe The other is if this were true yet it were but a poor collection There are many who have had not onely Warrants under the Kings hand but Letters Patents under his Broad Seale who owe their very subsistence to His Majestyes bounty yet have made a shift to creepe from his bosome out at his sleeve If such a thing had been as it is an impudent Fiction yet these are neither the first nor the last that have betrayed the trust of a Gracious King The third and last reason is because His Majesty was not so active to represse this insurrection nor so ready to proclaime them Traytours so the Observer He that will not accuse the King of zeal against the Irish Rebells yet he may truely say there is not the same zeal expressed that was against the Scots c. The proffered supplyes of the English and Scottish Nation are retarded opportunityes neglected nice exceptions framed This plea is pertinent to make the King though not the Contriver yet the Conserver of that Rebellion but is as false as the Father of Lyes from whom it proceeds Hear His Majesty himselfe The Irish Rebells practise such unhumane and unheard of outrages upon our miserable People that no Christian care can hear without horrour nor Story paralell And as we looke upon this as the greatest affliction it hath pleased God to lay upon us so our unhappinesse is increased in that by the distempers at home so early remedyes have not beene applyed to those growing evills as the necessity there requires And we acknowledge it a high Crime against Almighty God and inexcusable to our good Subjects if we did not to the utmost imploy all our powers and faculties to the speediest and most effectuall assistence and protection of that distressed People He conjures all His loving Subjects to joyne with him in that Worke He offers to hazard his sacred Person in that Warre To ingâ—…ge the revenues of his Crowne what can the Observer desire more perhaps he may say these Offers came late and unseasonably Then let us looke backward to His Majestyes Proclamation of the first of Ianuary 1641 soon after his return from Scotland in a time of so great Distractions here at home when that Remonstrance which ushered in all our Feares and Troubles was ready to be published Let them shew that any Course was presented to His Majesty before this either by his great Councell to whom he had committed the care of it or by his Lords Justices and Councell of Ireland who were upon the place We abhorring the wicked Disloyalty and horrible Acts committed by those Persons do hereby not onely declare our just indignation thereof but also do declare them and their Adherents and Abetters and all those who shall hereafter joyne with them or commit the like acts on any of our good Subjects in that Kingdome to be Rebells and Traytours against our Royall Person and Enemyes to our Royall Crown of England and Ireland c. Commanding them to lay down Arms without delay or otherwise authorizing and requiring his Lord Iustices there and the Generall of His Majesties Army to prosecute them as Traytours and Rebells with fire and sword But if we look further still when the first tydings of this cursed Rebellion came to His Majesty in Scotland he did not sleep upon it but presently acquainted both His Parliaments with it required their assistence recommended it to their care promised to joyn in any course that should be thought fit Neither did His Majestyes care rest there but at the same time he named six or seven â—…olonels in the North of Ireland to raise Forces instantly to suppresse that insurrection which was done accordingly and they say if some had been as active then as they were made powerfull by the confluence of that part of the Kingdome in all probability that Cockatrice egge had been broken sooner then hatched before that ever any of the old English and many of the meer Natives had declared themselves In pursuance of these premises when the Act for Undertakers was tendered to His Majesty he condiscended freely to give away all his Escheats to this Worke an Act not to be paralelled among all his Predecessors yea though some clauses in that Statute especially for the limitation of His Majestyes Grace might seem to require a further discussion The wants of Ireland and the present condition of England doe speak abundantly whether those great Summes of Mony or those great Forces raised for that end have been imployed to the use for which they were solely designed yet Rabshekeh will not want a pretext to raile aâ—… good Hezekiah though Spider like he suck poison out of the sweetest Flowers Surely there must be some fire whence all this smoake hath risen Perhaps they conceive that His Majesty was not willing without good advise upon the first motion to put all his strong Forts in the North of Ireland into the hands of the Scotch Army can you blame him considering the present State of Affaires there I dare referre it to any mans judgement that is not wholy prepossessed with
abuses yet late and deare experience hath taught us that much of that rigour which we complained of was in some sort necessary If the Independents should prevail who are now so busy breaking down the Walls of the Church to bring in the Trojan Horse of their Democracy or rather Anarchy doe but imagine what a confused mixture of Religions we should have Affricke never produced such store of diversified Monsters But to passe by them as unworthy of our stay and to insist onely in that Forme of Church Regiment which of all new Forms is most received I intend not accidentall abuses which from ignorant and unexperienced Governours must needs be many but some of those many Grievances which flow essentially from the Doctrin it selfe First for one High Commission we shall have a Presbytery or younge High Commission in every Parish Our Bishops are bound to proceed according to Law but this new Government is meerely Arbitrary bounded by no Law but their own Consciences If the Bishops did us wrong we had our Remedy by way of appeale or prohibition but they admit no appeale except to a Synod which in a short Session cannot heare the twentieth part of just grievances Our Law allowes not a Judge to ride a Circuit in his own Country least Kindred or Hatred or Favour might draw him to injustice what may we then expect from so many Domesticall Judges whose affections are so much stronger then their reasons but siding and Partiality yet they blush not to tell us that this is the Tribunall of Christ Châ—…st hath but one Tribunall in Heaven his Kingdom is not of this World That these are the Laws of Christ the Laws of Christ are immutable They alter theirs every Synod That their Sentence is the Sentence of Christ alas there is too much Faction and Passion and Ignorance Heretofore we accused the Pope for saying that he had one Consistory with Christ doe we now goe about to set up Petty Popes in every Parish and are they also become infallible in their Consistoryes at least in their conclusion not onely in matters of Faith but also of Fact These are generall Grievances In particular His Majesty shall lose His Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiasticall His Patronages His first Fruits Hâ—…s Tenths and worse then all these the dependence of His Subjects He shall be subjected to Excommunication by which Engine the Popes advanced themselves above Emperours The Nobility and Gentry shall be subjected to the censures of a raw rude Cato and and a few Artificers They shall lose their Advowsons the People must elect their own Ministers They shall hazard their impropriations The two eyes of the Kingdome the Universities shall be put out The Clergy shall have their straw taken away and the number of their bricks doubled The People shall groane under the Decrees of a Multitude of ignorant unexperienced Governours be divided into Factions about the choise of their Pastors be subject to censure in sundry Courts for the same offence be burthened with Lay-Elders who if they please may expect according to the Apostolicall institution upon their grounds double â—…onour that is maintenance If there arise a private â—…arre between the Parent and the Child the Husband and the Wife they must know it and censure it Scire volunt secreta domus atque inde timeri All men must undergoe the danger of contrary Commands from coordinate Judges then which nothing can be more pernicious to the Consciences or Estates of Men Nulla hic arcana revelo These are a part of the Fruits of their most received Government who oppose Bishops if they doe not all shew themselves in all places remember the Observers Caution They wanted power to introduce them as yet As some Plants thrive best in the shade so if this Form of Regiment shall agree best with the constitution of some lesser Commonwealths much good may it doe them so they will let us injoy the like favour Petimus damusque vicissim Eightly those Arguments which they urge out of Scripture against Episcopacy are meere mistakes confounding the power of Superiority itselfe with the vitious affectation or Tyrannicall abuse of it and are none of them to the purpose As those two Texts that are most hotly urged The Kings of the Gentiles excercise Dominion over them but ye shall not be so and that of Saint Peter Neither as being Lords over Gods Heritage but being Ensamples to the Flock do admit as many Answers almost as there are words in each of them but they are not needfull For no man that ever I read of did say that Bishops had any such Despoticall or Lordly Dominion annexed to their Office but onely a Fatherly power And if these Places be to be understood in that sense which they would have them they doe as much overthrow all their new Presidents and Moderators and Visiters and their whole Presbytery as they would have them to doe Episcopacy Neither Christ nor Saint Peter did ever distinguish between temporary and perpetuall Governours between the Regiment of a single Person and a Society or Corporation They like not the name of Lord but that of Master they love dearely yet that is forbidden as much as the other Neither be ye called Master for one is your Master even Christ. And whilest they reject the Government of a President or chief Pastour yet they stile their own new devised Elders Ruling Elders and understand them still in the Scripture by name of Governours Ninthly waving all these and all other advantages of Scriptures Fathers Councells Historyes Schoolemen because it is alledged that all other Protestant Churches are against Episcopacy I am contented to joyn the issue whether Bishops or no Bishops have the major number of Protestant Votes First the practise of all the Protestant Churches in the Dominions of the King of Sweden and Denwarke and the most of them in High Germany doe plainly prove it each of which three singly is almost as much as all the Protestant Churches which want Bishops hut together to say nothing of His Majesties Dominions all these have their Bishops or Superintendents which is all one But for the point of practise heare Reverend Zanchy a Favourer of the Disciplinarian way In Ecclesiis Protestantium non desunt reipsa Episcopi c. In the Churches of the Protestants Bishops and Arch-Bishops are not really wanting whom changing the good Greek Names into bad Latine Names they call Superintendents and generall Superintendents Where neither the good Greek names nor bad Latine names take place yet there also there use to be some principall Persons in whose hands almost all the authority doth rest Neither is their practise disagreeing from their Doctrin To begin with those who first were honoured with the name of Protestants who subscribed the Augustane Confession among whom were two Dukes of Saxony two Dukes of Luneburge the Marquesse of Brandburge the Prince of Anhalt and many other Princes Republicks and Divines Thus