The Reason of Church-governement Urg'd against Prelaty/Book 2 Chapter 3
CHAP. III.
THe third and last consideration remains, whether the Prelats in their function doe work according to the Gospel practizing to subdue the mighty things of this world by things weak: which S. Paul hath set forth to be the power and excellence of the Gospel, or whether in more likelihood they band themselves with the prevalent things of this world to overrun the weak things which Christ hath made chois to work by: and this will soonest be discern'd by the cours of their jurisdiction. But heer again I find my thoughts almost in suspense betwixt yea and no, and am nigh turning mine eye which way I may best retire, and not proceed in this subject, blaming the ardency of my mind that fixt me too attentively to come thus farre. For Truth, I know not how, hath this unhappinesse fatall to her, ere she can come to the triall and inspection of the Understanding, being to passe through many little wards and limits of the severall Affections and Desires, she cannot shift it, but must put on such colours and attire, as those Pathetick handmaids of the soul please to lead her in to their Queen. And if she find so much favour with them, they let her passe in her own likenesse; if not, they bring her into the presence habited and colour'd like a notorious Falshood. And contrary when any Falshood comes that way, if they like the errand she brings, they are so artfull to counterfeit the very shape and visage of Truth, that the Understanding not being able to discern the fucus which these inchantresses with such cunning have laid upon the feature sometimes of Truth, sometimes of Falshood interchangeably, sentences for the most part one for the other at the first blush, according to the suttle imposture of these sensual mistresses that keep the ports and passages between her and the object. So that were it not for leaving imperfect that which is already said, I should goe neer to relinquish that which is to follow. And because I see that most men, as it happens in this world, either weakly, or falsly principl'd, what through ignorance, and what through custom of licence, both in discours and writing, by what hath bin of late written in vulgar, have not seem'd to attain the decision of this point, I shall likewise assay those wily Arbitresses who in most men have, as was heard, the sole ushering of Truth and Falshood between the sense, and the soul, with what loyalty they will use me in convoying this Truth to my understanding; the rather for that by as much acquaintance as I can obtain with them, I doe not find them engag'd either one way or other. Concerning therfore ecclesial jurisdiction, I find still more controversie, who should administer it, then diligent enquiry made to learn what it is, for had the pains bin taken to search out that, it had bin long agoe enroul'd to be nothing els but a pure tyrannical forgery of the Prelats; and that jurisdictive power in the Church there ought to be none at all. It cannot be conceiv'd that what men now call jurisdiction in the Church, should be other thing then a Christian censorship; and therefore is it most commonly and truly ecclesiastical censure. Now if the Roman censor a civil function, to that severe assise of survaying and controuling the privatest, and sliest manners of all men and all degrees had no jurisdiction, no courts of plea, or inditement, no punitive force annext, whether it were that to this manner of correction the intanglement of suits was improper, or that the notice of those upright Inquisitors extended to such the most covert and spiritous vices as would slip easily between the wider and more material grasp of Law; Or that it stood more with the Majesty of that office to have no other Serjeants or maces about them but those invisible ones of Terror and shame: Or lastly, were it their feare, lest the greatnes of this autority and honour arm'd with jurisdiction might step with ease into a tyranny. In all these respects with much more reason undoubtedly ought the censure of the Church be quite devested and disintal'd of all jurisdiction whatsoever. For if the cours of judicature to a political censorship seem either too tedious, or too contentious, much more may it to the discipline of Church whose definitive decrees are to be speedy, but the execution of rigour slow, contrary to what in legal proceedings is most usual, and by how much the lesse contentious it is, by so much will it be the more Christian. And if the censor in his morall episcopy being to judge most in matters not answerable by writ or action could not use an instrument so grosse and bodily as jurisdiction is, how can the minister of Gospel manage the corpulent and secular trial of bill and processe in things meerly spiritual. Or could that Roman office without this juridical sword or saw strike such a reverence of it self into the most undaunted hearts, as with one single dash of ignominy to put all the Senate and Knighthood of Rome into a tremble, surely much rather might the heavenly ministery of the Evangel bind her self about with farre more pearcing beams of Majesty and aw by wanting the beggarly help of halings and amercements in the use of her powerful Keies. For when the Church without temporal support is able to doe her great works upon the unforc't obedience of men, it argues a divinity about her. But when she thinks to credit and better her spirituall efficacy, and to win her self respect and dread by strutting in the fals visard of worldly autority, tis evident that God is not there; but that her apostolick vertu is departed from her, and hath left her Key-cold. Which she perceaving as in a decay'd nature seeks to the outward fomentations and chafings of worldly help, and external flourishes, to fetch, if it be possible, some motion into her extream parts, or to hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and arteficial heat of jurisdiction. But it is observable that so long as the Church in true imitation of Christ can be content to ride upon an Asse carrying her self and her government along in a mean and simple guise, she may be as he is, a Lion of the tribe of Iuda, and in her humility all men with loud Hosanna's will confesse her greatnes. But when despising the mighty operation of the spirit by the weak things of this world she thinks to make her self bigger and more considerable by using the way of civil force and jurisdiction, as she sits upon this Lion she changes into an Asse, and instead of Hosanna's every man pelts her with stones and dirt. Lastly, if the wisdom of the Romans fear'd to commit jurisdiction to an office of so high esteem and dred as was the censors, we may see what a solecism in the art of policy it hath bin all this while through Christendom to give jurisdiction to ecclesiastical Censure. For that strength joyn'd with religion abus'd and pretended to ambitious ends must of necessity breed the heaviest and most quelling tyranny not only upon the necks, but even to the souls of men, which if Christian Rome had bin so cautelous to prevent in her Church, as Pagan Rome was in her state, we had not had such a lamentable experience thereof as now we have from thence upon all Christendom. For although I said before that the Church coveting to ride upon the Lionly form of jurisdiction makes a transformation of her self into an Asse, and becomes despicable, that is to those whom God hath enlight'nd with true knowledge; but where they remain yet in the reliques of superstition, this is the extremity of their bondage, and blindnes, that while they think they doe obeisance to the Lordly visage of a Lion, they doe it to an asse, that through the just judgement of God is permitted to play the dragon among them because of their wilfull stupidity. And let England here well rub her eyes, lest by leaving jurisdiction and Church censure to the same persons, now that God hath bin so long medcining her eyesight, she doe not with her overpolitick fetches marre all, and bring her self back again to worship this Asse bestriding a Lion. Having hitherto explain'd, that to ecclesiasticall censure no jurisdictive power can be added without a childish and dangerous oversight in polity, and a pernicious contradiction in evangelick discipline, as anon more fully; it will be next to declare wherin the true reason and force of Church censure consists, which by then it shall be laid open to the root, so little is it that I fear lest any crookednes, any wrincle or spot should be found in presbyterial government, that if Bodin the famous French writer though a papist, yet affirms that the Commonwelth which maintains this discipline will certainly flourish in vertu and piety, I dare assure my self that every true protestant will admire the integrity, the uprightnes, the divine and gracious purposes therof, and even for the reason of it so coherent with the doctrine of the Gospel, besides the evidence of command in Scripture, will confesse it to be the only true Church-government, and that contrary to the whole end and mistery of Christs comming in the flesh a false appearance of the same is exercis'd by Prelaty. But because some count it rigorous, and that hereby men shall be liable to a double punishment, I will begin somwhat higher and speak of punishment. Which, as it is an evil, I esteem to be of two sorts, or rather two degrees only, a reprobat conscience in this life, and hell in the other world. Whatever else men call punishment, or censure is not properly an evil, so it be not an illegall violence, but a saving med'cin ordaine'd of God both for the publik and privat good of man, who consisting of two parts the inward and the outward, was by the eternall providence left under two sorts of cure, the Church and the Magistrat. The Magistrat hath only to deale with the outward part, I mean not of the body alone, but of the mind in all her outward acts, which in Scripture is call'd the outward man. So that it would be helpfull to us if we might borrow such autority as the Rhetoricians by patent may give us, with a kind of Promethean skill to shape and fashion this outward man into the similitude of a body, and set him visible before us; imagining the inner man only as the soul. Thus then the civill Magistrat looking only upon the outward man (I say as a Magistrat, for what he doth further, he doth it as a member of the Church) if he find in his complexion, skin, or outward temperature the signes and marks, or in his doings the effects of injustice, rapine, lust, cruelty, or the like, sometimes he shuts up as in frenetick, or infectious diseases; or confines within dores, as in every sickly estate. Sometimes he shaves by penalty, or mulct, or els to cool and take down those luxuriant humors which wealth and excesse have caus'd to abound. Otherwhiles he seres, he cauterizes, he scarifies, lets blood, and finally for utmost remedy cuts off. The patients which mostanend are brought into his hospital are such as are farre gon, and beside themselves (unlessee they be falsly accus'd) so that force is necessary to tame and quiet them in their unruly fits, before they can be made capable of a more human cure. His general end is the outward peace and wel-fare of the Commonwealth and civil happines in this life. His particular end in every man is, by the infliction of pain, dammage, and disgrace, that the senses and common perceivance might carry this message to the soul within, that it is neither easefull, profitable, nor praisworthy in this life to doe evill. Which must needs tend to the good of man, whether he be to live or die; and be undoubtedly the first means to a natural man, especially an offender, which might open his eyes to a higher consideration of good and evill, as it is taught in religion. This is seen in the often penitence of those that suffer, who, had they scapt, had gon on sinning to an immeasurable heap, which is one of the extreamest punishments. And this is all that the civil Magistrat, as so being, confers to the healing of mans mind, working only by terrifying plaisters upon the rind & orifice of the sore, and by all outward appliances, as the Logicians say, a posteriori, at the effect, and not from the cause: not once touching the inward bed of corruption, and that hectick disposition to evill, the sourse of all vice, and obliquity against the rule of Law. Which how insufficient it is to cure the soul of man, we cannot better guesse then by the art of bodily phisick. Therefore God to the intent of further healing mans deprav'd mind, to this power of the Magistrat which contents it self with the restraint of evil doing in the external man, added that which we call censure, to purge it and remove it clean out of the inmost soul. In the beginning this autority seems to have bin plac't, as all both civil and religious rites once were, only in each father of family. Afterwards among the heathen, in the wise men and Philosophers of the age; but so as it was a thing voluntary, and no set government. More distinctly among the Jews as being Gods peculiar, where the Priests, Levites, Profets, and at last the Scribes and Pharises took charge of instructing, and overseeing the lives of the people. But in the Gospel, which is the straitest and the dearest cov'nant can be made between God and man, wee being now his adopted sons, and nothing fitter for us to think on, then to be like him, united to him, and as he pleases to expresse it, to have fellowship with him, it is all necessity that we should expect this blest efficacy of healing our inward man to be minister'd to us in a more familiar and effectual method then ever before. God being now no more a judge after the sentence of the Law, nor as it were a schoolmaister of perishable rites, but a most indulgent father governing his Church as a family of sons in their discreet age; and therfore in the sweetest and mildest manner of paternal discipline he hath committed this other office of preserving in healthful constitution the innerman, which may be term'd the spirit of the soul, to his spiritual deputy the minister of each Congregation; who being best acquainted with his own flock, hath best reason to know all the secretest diseases likely to be there. And look by how much the internal man is more excellent and noble then the external, by so much is his cure more exactly, more throughly, and more particularly to be perform'd. For which cause the holy Ghost by the Apostles joyn'd to the minister, as assistant in this great office sometimes a certain number of grave and faithful brethren, (for neither doth the phisitian doe all in restoring his patient, he prescribes, another prepares the med'cin, some tend, some watch, some visit) much more may a minister partly not see all, partly erre as a man: besides that nothing can be more for the mutuall honour and love of the people to their Pastor, and his to them, then when in select numbers and courses they are seen partaking, and doing reverence to the holy duties of discipline by their serviceable, and solemn presence, and receiving honour again from their imployment, not now any more to be separated in the Church by vails and partitions as laicks and unclean, but admitted to wait upon the tabernacle as the rightfull Clergy of Christ, a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice in that meet place to which God and the Congregation shall call and assigne them. And this all Christians ought to know, that the title of Clergy S. Peter gave to all Gods people, till Pope Higinus and the succeeding Prelates took it from them, appropriating that name to themselves and their Priests only; and condemning the rest of Gods inheritance to an injurious and alienat condition of Laity, they separated from them by local partitions in Churches, through their grosse ignorance and pride imitating the old temple: and excluded the members of Christ from the property of being members, the bearing of orderly and fit offices in the ecclesiastical body, as if they had meant to sow up that Jewish vail which Christ by his death on the Crosse rent in sunder. Although these usurpers could not so presently over-maister the liberties and lawfull titles of Gods freeborn Church, but that Origen being yet a lay man expounded the Scriptures publickly, and was therein defended by Alexander of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus of Cæsarea producing in his behalf divers examples that the privilege of teaching was anciently permitted to many worthy Laymen; And Cyprian in his Epistles professes he will doe nothing without the advice and assent of his assistant Laicks. Neither did the first Nicene councel, as great and learned as it was, think it any robbery to receive in, and require the help and presence of many learned lay brethren, as they were then calld. Many other autorities to confirm this assertion both out of Scripture and the writings of next antiquity Golartius hath collected in his notes upon Cyprian; whereby it will be evident that the Laity not only by Apostolick permission, but by consent of many the ancientest Prelates did participat in Church offices as much as is desir'd any lay Elder should now do. Sometimes also not the Elders alone, but the whole body of the Church is interested in the work of discipline, as oft as publick satisfaction is given by those that have given publick scandal. Not to speak now of her right in elections. But another reason there is in it, which though religion did not commend to us, yet morall and civil prudence could not but extol. It was thought of old in Philosophy, that shame or to call it better, the reverence of our elders, our brethren, and friends was the greatest incitement to vertuous deeds and the greatest dissuasion from unworthy attempts that might be. Hence we may read in the Iliad where Hector being wisht to retire from the battel, many of his forces being routed, makes answer that he durst not for shame, lest the Trojan Knights and Dames should think he did ignobly. And certain it is that wheras Terror is thought such a great stickler in a Commonwealth, honourable shame is a farre greater, and has more reason. For where shame is there is fear, but where fear is there is not presently shame. And if any thing may be done to inbreed in us this generous and Christianly reverence one of another, the very Nurs and Guardian of piety and vertue, it can not sooner be then by such a discipline in the Church, as may use us to have in aw the assemblies of the faithful, & to count it a thing most grievous, next to the grieving of Gods Spirit, to offend those whom he hath put in autority, as a healing superintendence over our lives and behaviours, both to our own happines and that we may not give offence to good men, who without amends by us made, dare not against Gods command hold communion with us in holy things. And this will be accompanied with a religious dred of being outcast from the company of Saints, and from the fatherly protection of God in his Church, to consort with the devil and his angels. But there is yet a more ingenuous and noble degree of honest shame, or call it if you will an esteem, whereby men bear an inward reverence toward their own persons. And if the love of God as a fire sent from heaven to be ever kept alive upon the altar of our hearts, be the first principle of all godly and vertuous actions in men, this pious and just honouring of our selves is the second, and may be thought as the radical moisture and fountain head, whence every laudable and worthy enterprize issues forth. And although I have giv'n it the name of a liquid thing, yet is it not incontinent to bound it self, as humid things are, but hath in it a most restraining and powerfull abstinence to start back, and glob it self upward from the mixture of any ungenerous and unbeseeming motion, or any soile wherewith it may peril to stain it self. Something I confesse it is to be asham'd of evil doing in the presence of any, and to reverence the opinion and the countenance of a good man rather then a bad, fearing most in his sight to offend, goes so farre as almost to be vertuous; yet this is but still the feare of infamy, and many such, when they find themselves alone, saving their reputation will compound with other scruples, and come to a close treaty with their dearer vices in secret. But he that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of Gods image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly markt upon his forehead, accounts himselfe both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth then to deject and defile, with such a debasement and such a pollution as sin is, himselfe so highly ransom'd and enobl'd to a new friendship and filiall relation with God. Nor can he fear so much the offence and reproach of others, as he dreads and would blush at the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himselfe, if it should see him doing or imagining that which is sinfull though in the deepest secrecy. How shall a man know to do himselfe this right, how to performe this honourable duty of estimation and respect towards his own soul and body? which way will leade him best to this hill top of sanctity and goodnesse above which there is no higher ascent but to the love of God which from this self-pious regard cannot be assunder? no better way doubtlesse then to let him duly understand that as he is call'd by the high calling of God to be holy and pure, so is he by the same appointment ordain'd, and by the Churches call admitted to such offices of discipline in the Church to which his owne spirituall gifts by the example of Apostolick institution have autoriz'd him. For we have learnt that the scornfull terme of Laick, the consecrating of Temples, carpets, and tableclothes, the railing in of a repugnant and contradictive Mount Sinai in the Gospell, as if the touch of a lay Christian who is never the lesse Gods living temple, could profane dead judaisms, the exclusion of Christs people from the offices of holy discipine through the pride of a usurping Clergy, causes the rest to have an unworthy and abject opinion of themselves; to approach to holy duties with a slavish fear, and to unholy doings with a familiar boldnesse. For seeing such a wide and terrible distance between religious things and themselves, and that in respect of a woodden table & the perimeter of holy ground about it, a flagon pot, and a linnen corporal, the Priest esteems their lay-ships unhallow'd and unclean, they fear religion with such a fear as loves not, and think the purity of the Gospell too pure for them, and that any uncleannesse is more sutable to their unconsecrated estate. But when every good Christian throughly acquainted with all those glorious privileges of sanctification and adoption which render him more sacred then any dedicated altar or element, shall be restor'd to his right in the Church, and not excluded from such place of spirituall government as his Christian abilities and his approved good life in the eye and testimony of the Church shall preferre him to, this and nothing sooner will open his eyes to a wise and true valuation of himselfe, which is so requisite and high a point of Christianity, and will stirre him up to walk worthy the honourable and grave imployment wherewith God and the Church hath dignifi'd him: not fearing lest he should meet with some outward holy thing in religion which his lay touch or presence might profane, but lest something unholy from within his own heart should dishonour and profane in himselfe that Priestly unction and Clergy-right whereto Christ hath entitl'd him. Then would the congregation of the Lord soone recover the true likenesse and visage of what she is indeed, a holy generation, a royall Priesthood, a Saintly communion, the houshold and City of God. And this I hold to be another considerable reason why the functions of Church-government ought to be free and open to any Christian man though never so laick, if his capacity, his faith, and prudent demeanour commend him. And this the Apostles warrant us to do. But the Prelats object that this will bring profanenesse into the Church, to whom may be reply'd, that none have brought that in more then their own irreligious courses; nor more driven holinesse out of living into livelesse things. For whereas God who hath cleans'd every beast and creeping worme, would not suffer S. Peter to call them common or unclean, the Prelat Bishops in their printed orders hung up in Churches have proclaim'd the best of creatures, mankind, so unpurifi'd and contagious, that for him to lay his hat, or his garment upon the Chancell table they have defin'd it no lesse hainous in expresse words then to profane the Table of the Lord. And thus have they by their Canaanitish doctrine (for that which was to the Jew but jewish is to the Christian no better then Canaanitish) thus have they made common and unclean, thus have they made profane that nature which God hath not only cleans'd, but Christ also hath assum'd. And now that the equity and just reason is so perspicuous, why in Ecclesiastick censure the assistance should be added of such, as whom not the vile odour of gaine and fees (forbid it God and blow it with a whirlewinde out of our land) but charity, neighbourhood, and duty to Church-government hath call'd together, where could a wiseman wish a more equall, gratuitous, and meek examination of any offence that he might happen to commit against Christianity then here? would he preferre those proud simoniacall Courts? Thus therefore the Minister assisted attends his heavenly and spirituall, cure. Where we shall see him both in the course of his proceeding, and first in the excellence of his end from the magistrate farre different, and not more different then excelling. His end is to recover all that is of man both soul and body to an ever lasting health: and yet as for worldly happinesse, which is the proper sphere wherein the magistrate cannot but confine his motion without a hideous exorbitancy from law, so little aims the Minister, as his intended scope, to procure the much prosperity of this life, that oft-times he may have cause to wish much of it away, as a diet puffing up the soul with a slimy fleshinesse, and weakning her principall organick parts. Two heads of evill he has to cope with, ignorance and malice. Against the former he provides the daily Manna of incorruptible doctrine, not at those set meales only in publick, but as oft as he shall know that each infirmity, or constitution requires. Against the latter with all the branches thereof, not medling with that restraining and styptick surgery which the law uses, not indeed against the malady but against the eruptions, and outermost effects thereof. He on the contrary beginning at the prime causes and roots of the disease sends in those two divine ingredients of most cleansing power to the soul, Admonition & Reproof, besides which two there is no drug or antidote that can reach to purge the mind, and without which all other experiments are but vain, unlesse by accident. And he that will not let these passe into him, though he be the greatest King, as Plato affirms, must be thought to remaine impure within, and unknowing of those things wherein his purenesse and his knowledge should most appear. As soon therefore as it may be discern'd that the Christian patient by feeding otherwhere on meats not allowable, but of evill juice, hath disorder'd his diet, and spread an ill humour through his vains immediatly disposing to a sicknesse, the minister as being much neerer both in eye and duty, then the magistrate, speeds him betimes to overtake that diffus'd malignance with some gentle potion of admonishment; or if ought be obstructed, puts in his opening and discussive confections. This not succeeding after once or twice or oftner, in the presence of two or three his faithfull brethren appointed thereto he advises him to be more carefull of his dearest health, and what it is that he so rashly hath let down in to the divine vessel of his soul Gods temple. If this obtaine not, he then with the counsell of more assistants who are inform'd of what diligence hath been already us'd, with more speedy remedies layes neerer siege to the entrenched causes of his distemper, not sparing such fervent and well aim'd reproofs as may best give him to see the dangerous estate wherein he is. To this also his brethren and friends intreat, exhort, adjure, and all these endeavours, as there is hope left, are more or lesse repeated. But if, neither the regard of himselfe, nor the reverence of his Elders and friends prevaile with him, to leave his vitious appetite, then as the time urges, such engines of terror God hath given into the hand of his minister as to search the tenderest angles of the heart: one while he shakes his stubbornnesse with racking convulsions nigh dispaire, other whiles with deadly corrosives he gripes the very roots of his faulty liver to bring him to life through the entry of death. Hereto the whole Church beseech him, beg of him, deplore him, pray for him. After all this perform'd with what patience and attendance is possible, and no relenting on his part, having done the utmost of their cure, in the name of God and of the Church they dissolve their fellowship with him, and holding forth the dreadfull sponge of excommunion pronounce him wip't out of the list of Gods inheritance, and in the custody of Satan till he repent. Which horrid sentence though it touch neither life, nor limme, nor any worldly possession, yet has it such a penetrating force, that swifter then any chimicall sulphur, or that lightning which harms not the skin, and rifles the entrals, it scorches the inmost soul. Yet even this terrible denouncement is left to the Church for no other cause but to be as a rough and vehement cleansing medcin, where the malady is obdurat; a mortifying to life, a kind of saving by undoing. And it may be truly said, that as the mercies of wicked men are cruelties, so the cruelties of the Church are mercies. For if repentance sent from heaven meet this lost wanderer, and draw him out of that steep journey wherein he was hasting towards destruction, to come and reconcile to the Church, if he bring with him his bill of health, and that he is now cleare of infection and of no danger to the other sheep, then with incredible expressions of joy all his brethren receive him, and set before him those perfumed bankets of Christian consolation; with pretious ointments bathing and fomenting the old and now to be forgotten stripes which terror and shame had inflicted; and thus with heavenly solaces they cheere up his humble remorse, till he regain his first health and felicity. This is the approved way which the Gospell prescribes, these are the spirituall weapons of holy censure, and ministeriall warfare, Cor. 2. 10.not carnall, but mighty through God to the pulling downe of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth it selfe against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. What could be done more for the healing and reclaming that divine particle of Gods breathing, the soul, and what could be done lesse? he that would hide his faults from such a wholsome curing as this, and count it a two-fold punishment, as some do, is like a man that having foul diseases about him, perishes for shame, and the fear he has of a rigorous incision to come upon his flesh. We shall be able by this time to discern whether Prelaticall jurisdiction be contrary to the Gospell or no. First therefore the government of the Gospell being economicall and paternall, that is, of such a family where there be no servants, but all sons in obedience, not in servility, as cannot be deny'd by him that lives but within the sound of Scripture, how can the Prelates justifie to have turn'd the fatherly orders of Christs houshold, the blessed meeknesse of his lowly roof, those ever open and inviting dores of his dwelling house which delight to be frequented with only filiall accesses, how can they justifie to have turn'd these domestick privileges into the barre of a proud judiciall court where fees and clamours keep shop and drive a trade, where bribery and corruption solicits, paltring the free and monilesse power of discipline with a carnall satisfaction by the purse. Contrition, humiliation, confession, the very sighs of a repentant spirit are there sold by the penny. That undeflour'd and unblemishable simplicity of the Gospell, not she her selfe, for that could never be, but a false-whited, a lawnie resemblance of her, like that aire-born Helena in the fables, made by the sorcery of Prelats, instead of calling her Disciples from the receit of custome, is now turn'd Publican her self; and gives up her body to a mercenary whordome under those fornicated arches[errata 1] which she cals Gods house, and in the sight of those her altars which she hath set up to be ador'd makes merchandize of the bodies and souls of men. Rejecting purgatory for no other reason, as it seems, then because her greedines cannot deferre but had rather use the utmost extortion of redeemed penances in this life. But because these matters could not be thus carri'd without a begg'd and borrow'd force from worldly autority, therefore prelaty slighting the deliberat and chosen counsell of Christ in his spirituall government, whose glory is in the weaknesse of fleshly things to tread upon the crest of the worlds pride and violence by the power of spirituall ordinances, hath on the contrary made these her freinds and champions which are Christs enemies in this his high designe, smothering and extinguishing the spirituall force of his bodily weaknesse in the discipline of his Church with the boistrous and carnall tyranny of an undue, unlawfull and ungospellike jurisdiction. And thus Prelaty both in her fleshly supportments, in her carnall doctrine of ceremonie and tradition, in her violent and secular power going quite counter to the prime end of Christs comming in the flesh, that is to revele his truth, his glory and his might in a clean contrary manner then Prelaty seeks to do, thwarting and defeating the great mistery of God, I do not conclude that Prelaty is Antichristian, for what need I? the things themselves conclude it. Yet if such like practises, and not many worse then these of our Prelats, in that great darknesse of the Roman Church, have not exempted both her and her present members from being judg'd to be Antichristian in all orthodoxall esteeme, I cannot think but that it is the absolute voice of truth and all her children to pronounce this Prelaty, and these her dark deeds in the midst of this great light wherein we live, to be more Antichristian then Antichrist himselfe.
Errata