Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	discipline_n	government_n	3,314	5	6.9877	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

THE DISCOVERY OF MYSTERIES OR The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present PARLIAMENT To overthrow the established Religion and the well setled Government of this glorious Church and to introduce a new framed Discipline not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be to set up a new invented Religion patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall Tenents and many other new and old errors And also To subvert the fundamentall Lawes of this famous Kingdome by devesting our King of His just rights and unquestionable Royall prerogatives and depriving the Subjects of the propriety of their goods and the Liberty of their persons and under the name of the Priviledge of Parliament to exchange that excellent Monarchicall government of this Nation into the Tyrannicall Government of a faction prevaling over the major part of their well-meaning brethren to Vote and Order things full of all injustice oppression and cruelty as may appeare out of many by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings By GR. WILLIAMS L. Bishop of Ossory Printed in the Yeare M.DC.XLIII TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE Most Gracious Soveraigne THough the wisest man in all the Kingdome of Persia saith great is the truth and stronger then all things yet the father of lies hath now plaid his part so well that as the Prophet saith truth is fallen in the streete and equity cannot enter in and your Majestie whom the God of truth hath anointed his sole vicegerent to be the supreame protector of them both in all your dominions hath accordingly listed up your standard against their enemies and I may truly say of you as Menevensis saith of that most noble King Alfred Si modò victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modò victus erat ad crastina bella parabat Neither doe I beleive that Lucans verse can be applied to any man better then to your Majestie Non te vidère superbum Prospera satorum nec fractum adversa videbunt As the height of your glory and prosperity never swelled your pious heart so your greatest crosses and adversities never dejected your royall spirit But as the Prophet saith of the Captaine of the hoast of the Lord so I say to you that are his Lieutenant ride on with your honour or ride prosperously because of the word of truth of meekenesse and righteousnesse the people shal be subdued unto you and because the King putteth his trust in the Lord and in the mercy of the most highest he shall not miscarry especially while he fighteth as he doth the battaile of the Lord in defence of the Church of Christ who hath promised to be his shield and buckler which is the daily faithfull prayer of Your Majesties most loyally devoted Subject and most faithfully obliged servant GR. OSSORY To the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of ENGLAND Most deare Christian Brethren and fellow Subjects I Call God for a record upon my soule that I have proceeded in this Discovery of Mysteries to discharge my duty as my conscience directeth me and if I perish Iperish the Lord hath hitherto most mercifully preserved mee I have read of an ingratefull begger that when a pious man seeing his nakednesse and having a full web of cloth did freely give him as much as was requisite to make him a faire garment yet he was no wayes satisfied therewith but would have violently snatched all the web in despite of the right owners teeth and shall we that have so freely received so many acts of grace from our King more then ever any other King hath granted exact so much more as to make him no King In the life of Henry 3. presented to King Iames pag. 29. Choron Santh Albam or a King of no power like Henry the 3. in the Parliament at Oxford where the good King met so many undutifull demands that he was forced to render up to their rebellious will his royall power and when others managed the State he was left a cypher alas who hath bewitched us when men do rent the regall justice they make themselves of so many Subjects whilst they live in duty totidem tyrannos when they have left their loyalty and promises made by men which can not say they are at liberty are weake when force hath no power to make a just interest Therefore let not a faction prevaile to destroy us all I assure my selfe most of our two Houses of Parliament are very noble and very pious and many of them would willingly yeild to His Majesties perswasions for accōmodation but our Saviour saith a little leaven leaveneth the whole lumpe and a small faction may insensibly seduce if it were possible the very elect I will appeale to your owne consciences if we have not a most religious and a most gratious King if he hath not aboundantly granted his favours to all this Kingdome if the faction doth not still demand what he may lawfully and ought justly to deny then I beseech you let me not become your enemy for speaking truth let not the kingdome be made more miserable and the Church more despicable by your assisting of such a faction to the new moulding of them and let it not be thought strange that we beleeve one seditious schismatique in a Parliament may prove a treacherous rebell against his King and this Traytor may possibly seduce many those many not unlikely to prevaile to infect the major part of both Houses and if so * Shall we deeme them a Parliament and thinke it fitter to have them Jvdged by themselves then by the knowne lawes of the land then the first plotters of so great a mischeife having so far transcended the limits of truth and justice to wound their consciences and to confound the State that they know not how to retire and thinke they can not finde grace is it any wonder that such men with Iudas run on from bad to worse from worse to worst of all till at last they come to the highest step that hell can teach them But we being Gods olive though some of the Branches be broken off Rom. 11.17 yet I hope God hath not cast away his people and therefore if you take not pleasure in wickednesse and love not to become more miserable let us all feare God honour the King forsake the rebels and defend the Church so the God of all mercy will yet be mercifull unto us that we shall finde grace both with God and our King which is the hearty prayer of Your most affectionate Christian brother that doth most heartily wish your happinesse GR. OSSORY Christian Reader AS this Treatise was ready for the Presse I lighted upon Os ossorianum wherein I saw neither learning nor truth nor modesty nor honesty nor any one thing worth reply but a most distempered rage and moody choler that transported the silly man beyond his sence for omitting those his rarest passages which some discreete welwiller of the man collected in

in the Earse of Essex his Campt either to take counsell and follow the advice of those secret Sectaries and the masked enemies both of the Church and State that as yet insensible unto him were such in the bosome of his Court and most slily aymed at a further mischiefe then his Majestie could have imagined as now it appeareth by the consequences of this Parliament or else to hazard the dangers that his then open foes were like to bring upon his people And I assure my selfe eyes of flesh that cannot pierce into the mysteries of the hearts and our secret thoughts could see no further nor make any better election then His Majestie did that is to call a Parliament which the hearts of all the Kingdome called and cryed for and which in former times by the wise institution and right prosecution thereof was found to be the Panchreston or as the Weapon-salve an antidote to cure all the diseases and to heale all the bleeding wounds of this Kingdome though of late we have sensibly felt the unhappy ending of some of them which perhaps may be some accidentall cause of some part of this unhappinesse here was His Majesties faire minde and an act of speciall grace for which all His Subjects ought most thankefully to shew themselves loyall unto Him when He preferred their safety before the prosecucuting of his owne resolutions But Decipimur specie recti we are many times deceived by the shadow of truth and betrayed under the vizard of virtue for as God produceth light out of darkenesse and good out of evill so wicked men like the spiders doe sucke poyson from those flowers whence the Bees doe extract honey and these subtle-headed foxes whereof many of them had unduly got themselves elected into the House of Commons and there factiously combined themselves together to doe their great exploit to overthrow the Government both of Church and State and minded to make the Parliament House like Vulcans Forge where they intended to contrive their iron net that should be able to hold fast all sorts of people from him that sitteth upon the Throne to him that walloweth in dust and ashes turned the hopes of our redresses to our extreame miseries when in stead of rectifying our abuses they intended principally to worke our ruine in our just apprehension though perhaps our happinesse in their owne mistaken conception And as the Apostle saith Knowne unto God are all his workes from the beginning and he hath eternally decreed how and by what meanes to bring them all unto perfection so the Devill beings Gods Ape and the wicked treading in his steps doe first mold their designes and intentions in the Idea of their owne braines and conclude the workes they would have done in their owne conceipts and then they frame to themselves the meanes and wayes whereby they are resolved to produce and perfect all those mis-shapen embryoes that they conceived and so these factious men this brood of vipers that would gnaw through the bowels of their mother from the first convention of this Parliament had resolved upon their plot and contrived among themselves what great good worke they would by such and such meanes bring to passe And that was as I hope this subsequent discourse will make it plaine to all The designe plot of the faction of Sectaries that will not be wilfully blinde the subversion of the ancient government both of this Church and Kingdome and to introduce a new Ecclesiasticall Discipline and to frame a new Common wealth much like if not worse then that of our neighbours in the Low-Countries Gratum opus agricolis a brave exploit and a great worke indeed beyond the adventure of Junius Brutus that expelled the Kings but left the Priests alone that purged the corrupti●… on of the royall government but medled not with the religion of their Bishops and Prophets and beyond the undertaking of Martin Luther that pulled downe the pride of the Pope and all that Romish Hierarchie but ventured not to trample upon the Scepter of Kings and the Imperiall government which he held sacred and inviolably to be obeyed for these men perceiving how God had so wisely ordered these governments among his people to assist each other that the one can neither stand nor fall without the other as it is fully and truly shewed in the Grand Rebellion therefore as Caligula wished that the people of Rome had but one necke that so he might dispatch them all unoictu with one stroke so these men would overthrow both governments and destroy both King and Priest both Church and State at one time with one clap with one thunder-bolt And so they should be famous indeed though it were but like the fame of Herostratus that burnt the Temple of Diana or of Raviliac that killed the King of France of Nero that destroyed his mother or Oedipus that murdered his owne father for a man may be as notoriously famous for transcendent villanies and nefarious impieties as another is for his rare vertues and supereminent deeds of piety as in History Thersites is as well knowne for his base cowardice as Achilles for his heroicke valour and in the Scripture Judas for his treachery is as notoriously knowne as Saint Peter for his fidelity therefore these men goe on with this great designe and to effect the same I finde that they aymed at these two speciall things 1. To take away all the lets and impediments that might hinder them They aymed at two things 2. To secure unto themselves all the helpes and furtherances that might advantage them For 1. As a Vineyard that is well hedged 1. To remove the impediments of their designe or a Citie strongly fenced with walls and bulwarkes cannot easily be laid wast and spoyled before these defences be destroyed so the wilde boares cannot devoure the grapes of Gods Church and swallow downe the revenues of her governours and the Rebels cannot pull the Sword out of their Soveraignes hand and lay his Crowne downe in the dust so long as the meanes of their preservations are intire and not removed therefore these men endeavour to eradicate all the impediments of their designe and they saw foure great blockes that were as foure mighty mountaines which their great faith their publique faith being not yet conceived must remove before they could plant their new Church and subvert the old government of this Kingdome and those were 1. The Earle of Straffords head Foure impediments of their designe 2. The free judgement of the Judges 3. The power of dissolving the Parliament 4. The Bishops votes in the House of the Lords For as the heavenly Angels could doe nothing against Sodome while righteous Lot was in it so these earthly Angels the messengers of Abaddon can never effect their ends to overthrow the Church and State to make them as Sodome full of all impurity and villany untill these foure maine stops be taken away and therefore CHAP. II. Sheweth

this new intended Synod Lay-men choosers of the Clergie as if a shepheard did choose pretious stones the Divines are nominated not according to the rules and Canons of the Church and the customes of all Nations since the first Synod or Councell of the Apostles by Divines that can best judge of their own abilities as when the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets but fearing the Clergie would have sent men that were too orthodoxall for their faith they deprived them of their rights and forgetting their Protestation to defend the right of the Subject the choice is made by themselves that are Lay men and young men and many of them perhaps prophane men or at least not so religious nor so judicious as they ought to be for a businesse of this nature of so great concernment as the direction of our soules to their eternall blisse And now they being nominated we know most of them what they are What manner of men they have chosen men not onely justly suspected to be ill disposed to the peace of our Church and too much addicted to innovation to alter the Government to reject and cast away the Book of Common Prayer to oppose Episcopacie and to displace the grave and godly Governours of Gods Church but also apparently fashioned to the humours of these their own Disciples who are to be the onely judges of their determinations that although some jew Canonicall men and most Reverend learned and religious Bishops and others for fashion sake to blinde the world are named amongst them yet when as in a Parliament so in a Synod the most desperate faction if they prove prevalent to be the major part will carry any thing in despite of the better part they shall stand but as cyphers able to do nothing they might abolish our old established Government erect their own new invented Discipline and propagate their well affected Doctrine in all Churches for you may judge of them by their compeeres Goodwin Burrowes Arrow-Smith and the rest of their ignorant factious and schismaticall Ministers that together with those intruding Mechanickes who without any calling either from God or man do step from the Botchers boord or their Horses stable into the Preachers Pulpit are the bellowes which blow up this fire that threateneth the destruction of our Land like Shebah's trumpet to summon the people unto Rebellion and like the red dragon in the Revelation which gave them all his poyson and made them eloquent to disgorge their malice and to cast forth floods of slanders after those that keep loyaltie to their Soveraigne and to belch forth their unsavery reproaches against those that discover their affected ignorance and seditious wickednesse in defence of truth and are the instruments of this faction to seduce the poor people to the desolation of the whole Kingdom if not timely prevented by their repentance and assistance to enable him whom God hath made our Protectour to defend us against all such transcendent wickednesse And these are the maine ends for which they summoned such a new Synod of their furious and fanatique teachers upon whose temper and fidelitie I believe no wise man that knows them would lay the least weight of his soules felicitie What Synod they should have chosen Whereas if they desired a Reformation of things amisse and not rather an alteration of our Religion and the abolition of our now setled Government they would have called for such a Synod as was in Queen Elizabeths time when the 39 Articles of our Religion were composed and such as they needed not to be ashamed to own in future times nor the best refuse to associaet the rest for the illegalitie of their election for if there be any scandalous Governours as we deny not but there may be a Cham in the Arke a Judas amongst the Apost'es and perhaps an unjustifiable Prelate among the Bishops as there was a proud Lucifer among the Angels or if they thinke it necessary to correct qualifie explain or alter some expressions or ceremonies in our Liturgie and Book of Common Prayer we are so farre from giving the least offence to weak consciences that we heartily wish a lawfull Synod which may have a full legall power as well to remove the offences as to punish the offenders and to establish such Lawes and Canons as well against Separatists and Schismatickes Anabaptists and Brownists as against Recusants and Papists and such as may be for the glorie of God and the peace of our Church which was our sole intention in the last Synod But seeing their plot was rather to establish a new Church than to redresse the defects of the old and to countenance and advance those boute-fues that schismatically rent our Church in pieces and most wickedly defile the pure Doctrine of the same by degrading and displacing the grave Governours thereof I will to give you a taste of what fruit you are like to reape from them very briefly set down the sum of these two points 1. Two points hindled 1. What they have already done in the affaires of our Church 1 Cor. 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 1. Opened a gap to all licentiousnesse What they have already done 2. What discipline and doctrine are like to ensue if they should be enabled or permitted to erect their new Church for as you may finde it in the Remonstrance of the Commons of England to the House of Commons 1 Under colour of regulating the Ecclesiasticall Courts Courts that have been founded by the Apostles and had alwayes their Authoritie and reverence among Christians even before the Secular power when the Emperours became Christians had confirmed them they have taken away in respect of the coercive part thereof which is the life of the Law and without which the other part is fruitlesse all the Spirituall jurisdiction of Gods Church they have taken away Aarons rod and would have only Manna left in Gods Ark so that now the crimes inquirable and censurable by those Courts though never so heinous as adulterie incest and the like cannot be punished heresies and schismes which now of late have abounded in all places can no wayes be reformed and the neglect of Gods service can as hardly be repaired when as the Ministers cannot be enforced to attend their Cures the Church-officers cannot be compelled to performe their dutie and the Parishio●ners cannot be brought by our Law to pay their Tythes and other necessarie Duties which things are all so considerable that all Christians ought to fear how lamentable will be the end of these sad beginnings for my selfe have seene the House of God most unchristianly prophaned the Church-yard and the dead bodies of the Saints so rooted and miserably abused by hogges and swine that it would grieve meer men that scarce ever heard of God to see such a barharous usage of any holy place and when the Ministers have given a sevennights warning to prepare for the blessed Eucharist and

and can hardly believe the Christian world in any age no not under the Gothes and Vandales can parallel it with an example of like abominable and atheisticall villanies yet to this day uncensured and I am heartily sorry that it should be told in Gath or Ascalon in any forraigne Nation that our English People should have any such Sect amongst them so void of all humanitie so destitute of all thoughts of a Deitie and so full of all incredible impieties And therefore I must use the words of the Prophet Jeremie Ier. 5.9.29 Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord or shall not my soule be avenged on such a Nation as this or is it any wonder that there are such Warres such bloody Warres such barbarous rapines and that these miseries do still continue amongst us when we not onely proceed to commit but also to defend and justifie these and the like abominable wickednesse Rom. 1.32 Heb. 10.31 and have pleasure in them that doe them for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God 5. 5. Branded the true Protestants and advanced Anabaptists Under the colour of advancing the true Protestant Religion they have branded the best Protestants even those that have most learnedly both preached and written against the Church of Rome and all her erroneous tenets and were not long since registred in the classe of Puritanes and for that cause kept under water for Papists and superstitiously Popish and so Malignants and opposers of the true to be established Religion and they have encouraged and promoted to the Livings and Livelihoods of the most Orthodox and Canonicall men Anabaptists and Brownists and other Sectaries of most desperate opinions that as Saint Bernard saith of the like Multiplicati sunt super numerum as the Caterpillers overspread all the Land of Egypt so these are multiplied in every corner without number and these tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field and do preach most desperate Doctrines destructive both to themselves their proselytes and all the truest Protestants throughout all this Kingdom when as Sedition and rebellion besides their other damnable Doctrines condemned by the Church must ever be at one end of their Sermons and published in their Pamphlets as for instance you may finde in the bloody bookes and firie writings of the darling Secretaries of thered Dragon that warreth against the Saints Stephen Marshall Master Bridges Jo. Goodwin Burroughes and the rest of the Locusts * Qua glomerantur in unum innumera pestes Erebi Claud. that are sent out of the bottomlesse pit to seduce the People of God and to lead them headlong unto perdition But let me advise the Servants of Christ to remember their Saviours words To beware of false Prophets Matth. 7.15 they shall deceive many and many love to be deceived by them those whom God hath given up That they should believe a lye 2 Thess 2.10 Qui infatuati seducuntur seducti judicabuntur but you that desire to escape their snares may know them by their fruits The Authours advice which are Rebellion against their King and rayling against their Governours Perjurie against God by the breaches of those Oathes which in the face of the Church they have taken both to the King and to their Superiours Three notes by which we may know the false Apostles and a wilfull perverting of the sacred Scriptures to the perdition of their Proselytes besides many other bitter fruites that worse than any Aconite are able to poyson any Christian soul that do but taste of their Philtra's or if you will believe these Apples of Sodom to be as sweet as they seem fair then remember by what markes the Prophets and Apostles tell us that we may know them 1. 1. Note Jer. 23.21 Such as run before they be sent as Weavers Tailors and the like that never had any calling or Authoritie to enter upon this sacred Function 2. They went from us but are not of us 2. Note 1 Iohn 2.19 such as were called but then forsook their first love and apostated from the Church and like ungracious children did throw dirt in their mothers face or like the brood of Vipers do labour to gnaw out her bowels and here let the world judge whether we went from them or they from us whether we or they apostated from that Oath and profession which all and every one of us did make when we entered into holy Orders 3. These false Prophets saith the Apostle 3. Note 2 Tim. 3 6 Gen. 3.1.6 do lead simple or silly women captives just as their Master first seduced Eve and she Adam so do these and because they have lesse worth than can attain to the height of their ambition you may see most of them by women raised to great fortunes and their pride disdaineth to be obedient or if they fail of such wives yer are they swelled with envie which is as rebellious in these as pride is in the other 6. Under the pretence of making our Clergie more spirituall and Apostolike 6. Ordered to take away all the revenues of the most worthy Clergie they have voted away most of our temporall estate the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops Deanes and Prebends and the Pluralities of those persons that possessed double Benefices and made their Order that no man should pay any rent or any dues unto any of the fore-named persons And by this taking away the free-hold of the Clergie now in present which they hold with as good right and by the same Law as the best Lord in England holdeth his Inheritance and this discouragement of Learning for the time to come they thought to make our Clergie Angelicall but have proved themselves I will not say diabolicall but most injurious unto the Church of Christ by committing an Act of as great injustice and as prejudiciall to the Common-wealth as can be found among the Pagans for what can be more unjust or more inhumane than to take away my Livelihood which is my very life in mine old age without any offence of mine for which I had laboured all the dayes of my life And what consequence can this produce than that which succeeded in the like case in Jeroboams time Sublatis studiorum praemiu ipsa studia pereunt C. Tacit. 1 R●g 12.31 Matth. 15.14 when he robbed the Priests and Levites of their inheritance ignorance and barbaritie and the basest of the people to be the Preachers of Gods Word whereby the blinde do leade the blinde untill both do fall into the ditch as I can testifie some of our greatest Nobilitie intended to make their sonnes Priests and Bishops while the glorie of Israel and the beautie of our Church remained un-obscured and now contempt and povertie being enacted and ordered to be their portion those resolutions are vanished and the Vniversities can bear me witnesse the lowest Gentrie are not so

well contented to undertake this highest calling These and many other things ejusdem farinae of the same mold they have already done to overwhelme the ship of Christ under the waves of this turbulent faction And these prophanations of Gods divine Service and the violations of the Sepulchers of the dead whose ashes and bones like canes sepulchrales they have disturbed in their graves and those unheard of sacriledges on Gods Priests and portion and are so equally practiced that it is almost hard to judge which are greater either their impietie towards God their inhumanity towards the dead or their injustice towards the living CHAP. VIII Sheweth what discipline or Church-government our factious Schismatickes do like best and twelve principall points of Doctrine which they hold as twelve Articles of their faith and we must all believe the same or suffer if this faction should prevail 2. 2. What discipline and doctrine the new Synod it like to set up FOr the discipline and the doctrine that they would establish they have not yet and I believe they can never fully agree what they shall be their desire is first to overthrow the old and then they will take care and consult how to devise a new but I could wish they would let the old alone till they could agree to produce a better Yet because their blinde zeal is so violent to have their own unjust desires to destroy the vineyard of Christ root and branch I that have served seven yeeres a Lecturer among them in the heart of London and was conversant with the purest of these holy brethren and thereby understood most of their Anabaptisticall and ridiculous tenets and what discipline they best liked will here draw you a modell of their Vtopian or new England Church which they would transport hither to obscure the glorie of old England 1. For their discipline and government 1. Their discipline some would have the Scotish Synods and that forme of Government which old furious Knoxe hath first brought among them and is fully described by that Reverend Archbishop Bancrofte Bancrost in lib. English Scottizinge otherr like better of the Geneva Assemblies instituted by Master Calvin and continued by Theodore Beza two worthy members of that Church or the discipline of the Hugonots in the new French Reformation which differeth but a little from the other but most of them like better of the manner of Amsterdam where every Church is independent and every Pastour is a Pope in his own Parish and to that purpose you may remember how vehemently they have lately most foolishly written * As Smith Best Davenport Canne Robinson and M. Childley and many other anonymi for this independant Government and how the Lord Say and the Lord Brookes two leading Captaines of that faction have often protested they would dispense with all sorts of Religions so they might freely exercise their own Sober Sadnesse p. 22. and that such a toleration ought to be granted to all others because their independencie cannot otherwise consist for he that is accountable to none will use what Religion he pleaseth without controule and therefore they support their own Armie by men of all Nations and Religions not their grand Adversaries the Papists excepted but of fifty or fixty Souldiers that billeted in Adthrop there were no lesse than three or four Papists amongst them But how unsuteable these Governments would prove to stand with our English Nobilitie Now unsutable their government would be to our Genine and Gentrie besides the noveltie of them and how farre dissonant they are to the Apostolike diseipline I will appeal to their own judgement when every undiscreet Parson and poor Vicar shall be able upon every discontent to excommunicate the best man in his Parish and as we have seen some of them debarring whom they pleased from the holy Table because their great anger or little judgement conceived them to be unworthie When as the Church deemed it fitter that none of her children should undergo the least indignitie for any personall distaste but upon due examination of witnesses a full hearing and a just censure in open Court which course if it be neglected should be rather punished in the offenders than the discipline dissolved the Governours removed and a new fantasticall fancie erected 2. 2. The Doctrines of the faction that are like to be setled by the new Sy●od For the Doctrines of these men they are like the poeticall fiction of those sisters forma non omnibus una nec diversa tamen I did once intend while I lived amongst them to collect a whole Volume of them but Satan then prevented me and plotted my destruction for mine intention yet now I will set down these few out of those many which I then observed 1. 1. They search into Gods secrets Deut. 29.29 Though Moses saith The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and our children for ever yet these men are all gnostiques they know very much even of the secrets and counsels of God and they are sure who shall be saved and who shall be damned and as men of the cabinet counsell of God they broach their illusions for divine revelations and perswade the People that what they say or do is all from God and therefore that this War which they prosecute was preordained of God for the destruction of the wicked to whom they formerly preached their damnation and thereby have caused many silly soules most desperately to end the miseries of their wretched life by putting themselves to an untimely death 2. They onely 2. They judge themselves only the elect as the elect of God which shall be the sole heires of heaven are the Lords Proprietories of all this worldly wealth and the reprobates being enemies unto God have no right unto any of Gods creatures and therefore they thinke they may lawfully take away the goods of those reprobates whom now they call Malignants and they have as good warrant for it as ever the Israelites had to spoil the Egyptians for they tell us that Saint Paul which knew right from wrong tels them plainly that whether they be things present 1 Cor. 3.22 23. or things to come even all are yours and ye Christs and Christ Gods That there is a double right to the things of this world Psal 104.28 Matth. 5.45 but they understand not that men have a double right unto these worldly goods 1. As Christians and so God as a mercifull Father hath provided all things for them 2. As the Creatures of God and so God as a faithfull Creatour openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousnesse and maketh his Sun to shine upon the just and upon the unjust and so the wicked have as good an interest in their estates as the godly and besides God hath not given them the power to distinguish who are the elect or who are reprobates And

words of Exodus Put off thy shooes from thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground he doth just like the eldest son of his dear father the devill as Tertullian calleth Hermogenes primogenitum diaboli most falsely and shamelesly charge him with the wearing of consecrated slippers which was never done but is one of those scurrilous invented imputations of this malicious Accuser of his brethren now thrown at him whose shooes either for learning or pietie I am sure this rambling Arguist and railing Rabsheka is not worthy to bear and for the service of God in our Churches Musicke ever used in the Church thogh the holy Prophet which was A man according to Gods own heart praised God in the beautie of holinesse upon all the best instruments of musicke and commanded us as well in the grammaticall sense as in the my sticall sense Psal 147.1.149 3. 150 3 4 5. to sing praises unto our God with Tabret and Harpe to praise him in the sound of the Trumpet in the Cymbals and dances upon the well tuned Cymbals and upon the loud Cymbals yet this zealous Organomastix gives us none other Title than Cathedral Roarers and Squeakers Pag. 14. and good reason it is he should be very angry with roaring and squeaking in Churches for that having been possest of a very competent Living with cure of soules these four or five yeeres together if I am not mistaken in the Authour he never yet either read or preached in that or any other Church so necessary is non residence and so usefull are dumbe dogges when they are willing to snarle and barke against Government and Religion but it is strange to me that such a divine harmonie which hath made others sober Musicke how usefull should make this spawn of the red Dragon mad for we know some Lawgivers commanded children to be taught 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodorie Epist l. 2. Plutarch de Musica after the grave composed tones of the Doricke way ad corda fera demulcenda to soften the fiercenesse of their dispositions and All mentis fervorem temperandum to cool and allay the hear and distempers of their mindes as Achilles was appeased in Homer Niceph. l. 12. c. 43. and Theodosius was drawn to commiseration luctuoso carmine by a sad poëm sung to him at supper when he intended the utter destruction of Antioch and the Scripture testifieth the like effect of Davids harpe in King Saul yet all this sweet and hallowed aire which ravisheth devout soules hath onely filled this envious Malignant with nastie windes and stinking expressions So contrary to the words of God himselfe Exod. 3.5 and against the judgement of all Divines and the practice of all Saints â primordiis ecclesiae from the first birth of Gods Church Pag. 15.18 he most ignorantly denieth any place to be holier than another which makes me affraid that Heaven with this man and his faction is deemed no holier than Hell or the Lords day no holier than monday no more than they hold the Church holier than their barnes or the holiest Priest though he were Aaron himselfe the Saint of the Lord holier than the prophanest worldling for I finde no difference that they make either of persons times or places but such a commixtion of all things as if they intended to reduce and bring the whole world into that confused Chaos which God first created before he disposed the parts thereof into their severall stations But I am loath to spend any more time about this ignorant ' Argument that is as all the rest of their Writings are as full of railing and unsavoury speeches as any mortall pen can diffuse therefore Heave him to do with his heart and mouth as that Morussian Cabares whereof he speaketh did with those Churches which the Gothes and Vandales had defiled Thus you have some and I might adde here abundance more of their absurd impious Doctrines which their ignorant simplicitie produced and their furious zeal published out of mis-interpreted Scriptures not that all these points are taught by every one of their Teachers but that all these many more are taught and maintained by some one or other of them as I could easily expresse it if it were not too tedious for my Reader but the bulke of my Book swels too big and their fancies are but Dreames fit for laughter and I brought these onely as Vineger to be tasted and then to be spit out again CHAP. X. Sheweth the great Bug-beares that affrighted this faction the four speciall meanes they used to secure themselves the manifold lyes they raised against the King and the two speciall questions that are discussed about Papists 5. 5. The setling of the Milit. a. FOr the setling of the Militia and putting the whole Kingdom in a posture of Defence as they termed it 1. They dreamed of a desperate Disease 2. They devised an empericall way to cure it and 1. 1. The disease The Disease was a monstrous fear of Poperie and the re-establishment of abolished superstitions in our Church to invade their consciences and of the Papists with fire and sword to wast their estates and to take away their lives and liberties and through that groundlesse feare they looked on the innocent ceremonies that were established in the Church as dangerous innovations and introductions to idolatrie And in the State they feared the practised wayes and endeavours to produce an arbitrary government by our advancing of a boundlesse prerogative even to the dispoyling of the Subject of his property and robbing him of the benefit of the laws these were their feares And the grounds of these feares were lying fictions and most scandalous detractions and defamations for their invented letters that should come from Holland and from Denmarke and some other places beyond the Seas where we were better believe them then go try whether they were true wh ich informed them sometimes of a fleete of Danes sometimes of another Nation that should come to assist the King for the setting up of Popery and the securing of himselfe in a tyrannicall and arbitrary government over them What terrible things frighted them and every day almost produced a discovery of new treacheries against the Parliament what terrible things frighted them as the stable of Horses under ground for indeed they were invisible Horses such as Elisha's servant saw terrifying their guilty consciences and that of the Taylors in Moore-fields and the like horrid machinations that were to come against them I know not from whom and God knowes from whence which things how false they were time which is the mother of truth hath long agone made manifest and ridiculous to any man that is not bewitched with these lying fancies therefore lest these dreames of their distempered braines should be too soone descryed and so prove defective to produce their intended project they alleadge the Queene is a Papist and I would to God they were