minister Math. 20.28 and the servant is not above his Lord Math. 10.24 Hee forbiddeth his disciples all such dominion soveraignty Math. 20.25 Marke 10.43 His Apostles receive equall power and authority from him Math. 18.18 Iohn 20.23 They clayme no superiority or primacy one above another but stile themselves servants 2. Cor. 4.5 Ministers dispensers 1. Cor. 4.1 and Ambassadours 2. Cor. 5.20 They send Peter and Iohn as their messengers to Samaria Acts 8.14 which argueth equality Peter disclaiming all such superiority equalleth himselfe with the Ministers and Elders of the Church calling himselfe their fellow elder 1. Pet. 5.1 and forbiddeth Ministers to usurpe any Lordship over Gods heritage ver 3. S. Iohn rebuketh Diotrephes for affecting preheminence Epist 3.9 Nor did ever any man take upon him to bee a Pastour of Pastours but that man of sinne and Lord Bishops which are his genuine ofspring are lineally descended from him As therefore their offices and functions were hatched in hell so it would bee a very happy thing for this state of ours if it would please God and our King that they might bee returned and sent back againe thither that our church which these many yeeres hath borne them as a heavy burden may bee no longer cumbred with them 2 No man living upon the face of the earth may presume to prescribe a paterne according to which the Churches of Christ should bee formed nor may any creature in heaven or earth without a commission from the sonne of God appoint lawes for the guilding and governing of his house that beeing a glory which the Lord Iesus Christ hath reserved in his owne hands and wil communicate neither with man nor Angel it belonging as properly to him to rule his church according to the good pleasure of his owne will as it belongeth to him to save it by the merit of his sufferings Hee by the appointment of his father is the onely head King Lord Lawgiver supreme Governour of his Church which hee hath washed and made white with his blond Ephes 1.22 Iames. 4.12 Revel 7.14 Hee hath not left his Church which is his body maimed or imperfect destitute of lawes and Offices needfull for the governing of the same but hath appointed a Ministery for it with a calling thereunto and with lawes limiting their function and governments leaving nothing therein to the will of man Col. 2.18 This government with ail the offices functions thereto appertaining are set downe in the written word of God the onely rule both of doctrine discipline in the church which is able to make the man of God perfect to every good worke 2. Tim. 3.17 The offices appointed by Christ for the ruling of his churches are those of Pastours Teachers and Elders whose severall gifts properties and qualifications are distinctly and at large set downe in the Scripture These offices and ministeries and the lawes concerning the same are sufficient for the ruling of Christ his Church here on earth and that forme and frame of government prescribed and left by our Saviour for the ordering of his house is every way complete of it selfe and needeth no helpe of man to make it perfect Else Christ can not bee honoured as a perfect governour of his Church and otherwise both the Scripture and Christs body are imperfect And if these bee not perfect then may man erect new offices and adde new Ministeries and hee may also take away and alter any of these at his owne pleasure Then also is the Church of the new Testament inferiour to that of the old which received all the lawes ordinances from God himselfe But to affirme 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 perpetuall and may not bee altered by men or Angeles Timothie is commaunded to keepe this platforme and all the ordinances concerning it to the glorious comming of the Lord Iesus 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 comming these offices and ministeries must also continue for if any one of them bee taken away his body is maimed and mangled And if Christ shall continue to bee governour of his churches hee must continue to rule and governe in them by his owne Officers and by those lawes and ordinances which hee himselfe hath prescribed in his word otherwise hee is not the governour of them If his Officers bee refused hee is rejected and if the order of government appointed by him bee thrust out another substituted in the roome of it then is hee upon the point deposed from his regency the scepter is taken out of his hands 3 If this holy government instituted and ordained by the sonne of God himselfe might bee erected and set up in our churches there would bee such a confluence concurrence of all good things contributing joyntly to the happines of this kingdome as our eyes have never yet seene Gods blessing doth ever accompany his owne ordinance But if that bee either sleighted or neglected though men take the wisest and the most politike courses that their silly and shallow braines 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 bee exemplified in many other particulars as well as in this of Church government if neede required For hee destroyeth the wisdome of the wise bringeth to nothing the understanding of the prudent 1. Cor. 1.19 the foolishnes of God beeing wiser then men and the weakenes of God stronger then men ver 25. But to keepe to the point in hand This government of the church by Archbishops and Lord Bishops was first brought in and hath beene very unhappily continued in our land under a pretence of preserving the peace unity of the Church for the preventing of schismes and divisions in the same But the wofull experience of many yeeres sheweth that these strange Lords who by their places should bee fathers and fosterers of the church have beene and are to this day cruell and cursed Stepfathers to it and in stead of preventing distractions and dissensions among us they have beene from time to time the sole cause and originall of all those most lamentable divisions and of those heavy pressures which our poore churches have groned under ever since the Gospel came into this kingdome What errour and heresies have they of late brought in countenanced by their authority to the harts griefe of many of the best affected people of the land How do Arminianisme and Bellarminianisme prevaile by reason of that favour which these linsey-woolsey luke-warme Laodiceans shew
intertainement would it finde in the harts of men if the Lord Iesus might once bee permitted to rule in our Congregations by his owne Officers ordinances and if that holy governement of his might bee set up amongst us in perfect beauty What a goodly sight would it bee to see every Congregation of Christians in this kingdome to bee a complete entire spirituall body within it selfe without having any dependance upon these Romish Prelats and their Popish Canons It is that which the great God of heaven looketh for at the hands of our State to which hee hath vouchsafed so many and so great mercies The Lord Iesus Christ who is a great King and the Lord and Lawgiver of his Church hath fitted furnished men extraordinarily for this great worke service And the harts of all the people of the land which are any whitt well affected tooke that way as appeareth by their continuall labouring for it ever since the beginning of the raigne of Queene Elizabeth of pious and happy memory Onely these wicked Bishops oppose it which never did good nor ever will do They can not endure the name of Discipline but have alwaies set themselves with tooth and naile and with might and maine against the kingdome of our blessed Saviour and his sacred soveraignety But let them looke to it and remember what is like to bee their doome if they mend not their maners Those mine enemies which would not that I should raigne over them bring hither and slay them before mee Luke 19.27 10 They hinder as much as in them lieth the publishing of all bookes though never so modestly written in the defence of Christs holy cause and that unalterable government which hee in his last will and Testament hath prescribed to his Churches And if by their scoutes which they have in every corner they can discover finde out the Printer of any such Treatises they deale very rigorously and roughly with him Himselfe they commit close enough to Prison and there they let him ly as long as they please even till they have ruined him his wife and children they seize upon his Presse and letters and sell them away before his face for a song they rifle and ransack his house and cary away by those helhounds 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 meane 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 certainely 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 beene a speciall meanes of spreading and divulging the Gospel in the Christian world in these later times it is verily beleeved by many that these wretches have a purpose if they can handsomely and cleanly accomplish it wholly to suppresse that rare mystery and most noble and famous Art Divers Printers complaine and I suppose not without cause that they can get nothing licensed 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 moneth after moneth and one yeere after another their answere in conclusion is that they are not at leisure to reade over their treatises Nay it is reported by some but how true that is time will shew that they shall not bee suffered to print their old copies which they have formerly printed with priviledge till the Licenser do certify a-new under his hand that hee hath carefully read over every passage both in the body of those bookes and in the Epistles prefixed before them and that there is nothing in them repugnant to those tenents which these grand Clergy-masters do now hold Which if it bee true it is high time both for Printers and Bookesellers to go and learne some new Trade for they will not bee able to live of the old By this meanes these vipers do closely eate 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 bee glorified It were to bee wished therefore that our King and State would turne out these Abby-lubbers pluck those fat morsels out of their mouthes and cause them to get their living by the sweate of their browes as other poore Ministers do which labour in the word and doctrine And it will manifestly appeare to bee a worke most fitt necessary to be done if these things following bee well weighed and rightly and duely considered of 1 Their places and callings are abominable accursed and Antichristian Gods Bishops out of all question they are not Hee knoweth no Lord Bishops nor will hee ever acknowledge and owne them for his Mans Bishops they themselves confidently affirme they are not though the discreetest and moderatest of theirs Predecessours have heretofore ingenuously confessed that their callings are of humane institution and that it in the power of the Magistrate to turne them all out at his will and pleasure that hee may do it without sinne against God But this our Prelats now-a-daies disclaime and will not indure to heare of it Beeing then neither Gods Bishops nor mans they must of necessity bee ordained and set up by the Devill whose eldest sonne is the Pope of Rome and these pety Popes our Bishops are all younger brethren to him there going but a paire of sheetes betweene them Their Lordly authority hath certainely no foundation nor footing in the Scripture but is directly contrary to the institution of Christ his blessed will and Testament and it hath beene the ground of that Antichristian Hierarchy of the man of sinne whom God will consume with the spirit of his mouth 2. Thess 2.8 Their civill power deserveth rather to bee exploded then refuted Christ expressely forbiddeth his disciples such Lordly dominion Luke 22.25 Hee himselfe refused to bee made a King Iohn 6.15 professing that his kingdome was not of this world Iohn 18.36 Hee refused to part an heritage betwixt brethrē Luke 12.14 Hee would not give sentence against the woman taken in adultery Iohn 8.11 What intolerable presumption is it then for our Prelats to exercise such authority as our blessed Saviour neither practised himselfe nor permitted to his disciples Nor is the ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction which they usurpe over the Ministers of the Gospel any whitt better but is Antichristian and naught as well as the other Christ Iesus tooke upon him the forme of a servant Phil 2.7 Hee came not to bee ministred unto but to
do but beginne to walke in the waies of God and run not with others to the same excesse of riot And of what straine or garbe so ever they bee there is a very strict order taken that vnlesse they will both subscribe and take a most shamefull Oth they shal take no degree in schooles to testify their progresse and proceeding in humane learning Nor is there any preferment to bee had or to bee held except men will yeeld to the corruptions of the times which are now growne so great that they are not to bee endured Which maketh Parents many times to put the best and most towardly of their children upon other imployments and if they send any to the Vniversities they bee such for the most part as are good for litle 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 bee able to recompense as that good Queene Hester speaketh in another case concerning their brother Haman Hest 7.4 4 They disharten young Schollers from applying themselves to the study of Divinity by their denying admittance and enterance into the Ministery to all men though never so singularly and extraordinarily qualified except their consciences bee made of cheveril and will like Kids leather stretch every way and vnlesse they will by their practise of conformity iustify a great number of things which they know to bee grossely and palpably evill And when men are in possession of Pastorall charges they are put to so much drudgery in the execution of their Ministeriall fuction that they were better to rub horse heeles then as the case now stands to bee Ministers in the church of England and to live in such base servitude and slavery vnder those Antichristian accursed Prelats No attire must serve their turne when they come to discharge their duty in the Lords Sanctuary but the habit of the whore of Rome and the very massing garment it selfe of that filthy trumpet They must crosse and crouch and cringe at the command of those their Lords and Masters They must admitt to the Sacramēt of the Lords supper whomsoever these Catercaps allow of though never so unworthy and they must reject and repell from that holy Communion and company all such as wil not kneele in the act of receiving though they know right well that they do refuse it onely out of the tendernes of their consciences because they dare not synne against their God in so doing and albeit they are perswaded in their very soules that they bee 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 fearfull sentence of Excommunication many times the best Christians in their Parishes for very triviall businesses as for not appearing in one of their Courts when haply they had no warning or for non-payment of a fee of foure pence to a paltry Apparitour They must reade in their churches as Canonicall Scripture those Apocrypha-bookes which are full of fables fictions of lies and of leasings They must baptise if they bee required in a house meerely private which nourisheth a superstitious opinion of the necessity of Baptisme and they must use conditional Baptisme in the publike Congregation after the childe hath beene privately baptised They must housle the sick mary with the Ring Church women and do a thousand such things any one of which a man that maketh conscience of his waies dare not adventure upon for a world And yet all these things must a poore Minister do if hee will hold his place and enjoy his Ministery Which maketh many of our best and finest wits to betake themselves to the study of the law or physicke and to abandon put out of their minds all thoughts of entering into the Ministery which as things are now caried they hold to bee a calling not fitt for an honest man What a heavy and dolefull account shall these Vermine 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 downe yet at least to diminish and lessen preaching Which though they durst not assaile with open violence for feare of the people amongst whom it would have made them more odious then they are already yet have they these many yeeres beene secretly undermining it About the beginning of King Iames his raigne or the later end of Queene Elisabeths of blessed memory the Prelate of London called before him all the Ministers of the City and gave them expresse charge that they should preach but once upon the Lords day and if any of them would do any thing in the afternoone which hee neither required nor did greatly approve of hee told them that hee would have them Catechise No Catechisme hee permitted them to use but the ordinary What is your name c. for so hee expressed himselfe And if any amongst them would needes explane and open the same hee told them that the lesse paines they tooke for that which they delivered it were the better for saith hee it is not needfull that the people should know too much O horrible treachery and cruelty against the pretious soules of Gods 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 suppresse Lecturers which in some countries they did desperately set upon and proceede in with a rage that reached to heaven In other places they have likewise attempted it but somewhat moreley surely and insensibly And doubtles they had prevailed in this plott had not the Lord himselfe 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 vilenes and odiousnes of the designe of theirs and by that meanes they were disappointed of their purpose when they made no question but they should have gott it ratified by his Maiesties royall authority If they had prevailed in that it is to bee thought that their next attempt would have beene to have taken the Bible out of mens handes and so to have brought the people of this land back againe to that Cymmerian and Egyptian darknes in which our forefathers for many yeeres together did heretofore ly buried One of that cursed crew lieth entombed in Paules church with one booke at his head and another at his feete That at his feete is thought to bee the Bible which these godles Prelats tread under foote That at his head is supposed to bee the booke of common praier which hee caried with him as a Crowne to the place whither hee is gone But whither these monsters which are neither Ministers nor members of any of our Congregations I professe I
know not unlesse it bee to the place whither their fellow traitour Iudas is gone before Act. 2.25 there to remaine among such as the Apostle speaketh of Phil. 3.19 For it can not bee imagined that there should bee any place in heaven for these wretches but as they hate Gods people here upon earth with a perfect hatred so it is to bee thought that the Lord will set a great gulfe and make an eternall 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 worke of buying in and restoring to the church Impropriations which was a most charitable and usefull hopefull busines and likely to have brought more advantage to the Ministery of England then any one thing of that nature which hath beene undertaken in any mans memory Divers were brought in brought back againe to the Church by those men which were trusted with that busines who caried themselves very faithfully in it many great summes lay ready which would have beene frankly and freely given for the buying in of moe if that worke had gone on as it began whereby much glory would have redounded to God as much comfort to thousands of poore soules 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 bee obedient to God and loyall to their Soveraigne And where there were Lectures before which had not a competency of meanes allotted to them they increased their allowance that so he Ministers might go on the more confortably in the worke of their Minstery But this made our Bishops sick of the splene They cried out that this would bee the ruine 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 jelous then of Gods glory and that caused them to set the matter so much to hart It is true that the fatall blow was given to that worke in another Court but these ungratious Prelats kindled the coles and blew that fire which hath consumed and brought it to nothing Wherein they have shewed themselves to bee like to their father the Devill who as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom hee may devoure 1. Pet. 5.8 They have put downe the meetings of the men of several shires counties now dwellers in London which were wont to assemble together once a yeere did a great deale of good to those countries where they were borne There they set up and do to this day maintaine at their owne charge Lectures in Market townes 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 yeere for the good of those places if these meetings of theirs had not beene thus unseasonably interrupted and broken off by these men which beare ill will to Sion But the name of a Lecture is ynough to crush quash any such pious good worke I know well that the places where they used to meete were denied them by another authority but the Prelats were the plotters and contrivers of this mischiefe out of that inveterate malice and hatred which they beare against preaching Wherein they resemble their Predecessours the Scribes and Pharises which shut up the kingdome 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 presse upon Ministers a Subscription not onely 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 then they concerne faith and Sacraments onely But these troublers of Israel and disturbers of the peace of our church wil have them subscribe not onely to that whole booke but to foure other bookes also namely the booke of common prayer the booke of Ordination and two bookes Homilies in some one of which said bookes it is well knowne that there bee many hundreds of foule and grosse corruptions And if a man have subscribed in his younger yeeres when hee knew no better and was unable and it may bee unwilling also to examine and try things by the true touchstone and to weigh them in the ballance of the Sanctuary if afterwards hee renounce or do but revolt from his subscription and shall refuse to justify by his practise that to which ignorantly and unadvisedly hee did formerly subscribe with his hand though hee have done God faithfull service in his Church for the space of many yeeres and have taken more then ordinary paines in his ministery they turne him out with a great deale of wrath and indignation and expose him his wife children to misery beggery And if in these cases men bee content to leave their native soyle shall seeke to secure and safegard themselves in other nations from the fury of these Tigers yet thither will their malice follow them and their armes are now growne 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 wofull experience when it will bee to late that it is the Lord Iesus himselfe whom they persecute and that they kick against pricks Act. 9.5 And hee that hath those starrs in his right hand Revel 1.16 and accounteth of them as his Iewels will one day render into the bosome of their Persecutours and that with more then ordinary severity all the wrongs which they have done to those poore servants of his will then bee throughly avenged of all his and their malicious and despitefull enemies 9 They thrust Christ out of his chaire of Estate and will not suffer him to rule raigne amongst us according to his owne holy will revealed in his word by Pastours Teachers and Elders which hee hath ordained and appointed for the governing of his Churches and for the perfecting of the Saints c. till wee all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the soone of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulnes of Christ Rom. 12.7.8 and 1. Tim. 5.17 Ephes 4.12.13 Wherein they plainely professe and proclaime openly to the whole world that they are fighters against God himselfe and maine opposers of his grace and goodnes How would the Gospel flourish in our land what glorious successe and