cause they were ashamed to take away the revenues, and preserve the order, or out of a blind zeal, they have given an account to God: they owe none to me. Should I condemn all these as schismatics for want of Episcopacy, who want it out of invincible necessity?
Thirdly, there are others who have neither the same desires, nor the same esteem of Episcopacy, but condemn it as an Antichristian innovation, and a rag of Popery. I conceive this to be most gross schism materially. It is ten times more schismatical to desert, nay, to take away (so much as lies in them) the whole order of Bishops, than to subtract obedience from one lawful Bishop. All that can be said to mitigate this fault is, that they do it ignorantly, as they have been mistaught and misinformed. And I hope that many of them are free from obstinacy, and hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds, being ready to receive it, when God shall reveal it to them. How far this may excuse (not the crime but) their persons from formal schism, either a toto or a tanto, I determine not, but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master.
But though these Protestants were worthy of this contumely, yet surely the Romanists are no fit persons to object it, whose opiniastrety did hinder an uniform reformation of the Western Church. Who did invest Presbyters with Episcopal jurisdiction, and the power of ordaining and confirming, but the Court of Rome, by their commissions and delegations, for avaricious ends? And could they think that the world would believe, that necessity is not as strong and effectual a dispensation, as their mercenary Bulls? It is not at all material, whether Episcopacy and Priesthood be two distinct orders, or distinct degrees of the same orders, the one subordinate to the other; whether Episcopal ordination do introduce a new character, or extend the old. For it is generally confessed by both parties, Protestants and Roman Catholics, that the same power and authority is necessary to the extension of a character, or grace given by ordination, which is required to the Institution of a Sacrament, that is not human but divine. These avaricious practices of that Court (though it be not commonly observed) were the first source of
