AS for the Originals of Bishops and their antiquity, that is suffi­ciently cleered aud proved by many and sundry learned Divines both Bishops and Doctors, and others, and may goe for currant till encountred with better rea­son, and confuted with stronger Arguments.

But as they now stand incorporated into the supe­rior part of the body of our Common-wealth, they are represented to every Ordinary apprehension, so impregnably fortified on all sides, as that they may securely endure, like Iron Pillars or Rocks of Mar­ble, all the battery of any eloquence or Sophistry whatsoever.

For although their opposers advance their noti­ons towards the borders of Divinity, in imitation of the old Heretiques, who in a blush to be sole and bare in themselves and their single inventions, brag­ged out their absurdities for a while with Scripture flourishes, and as Vincentius Lyrenensis said of them that they did divinae legis sententiis quasi quibus­dam vellerebus sese obvolvere, so they tyred in them­selves [Page 4] with their owne self-conceited presumptions and preapprehending the dangers they are in to be censured as Sacrilegious, or inforced to flee to the Scriptures, and from thence to extort succour with a wrest of violence for the better boulstering out their home-bred exceptions against Bishops, that savour something of ignorance and malig­nity, of whom J may say as Athanasius said of the Arrians in his Oration contra Arrianos; That Christum simulant & contra Christum pugnant, so they pretend the authority of Christ speaking in the Scriptures, when in very deed they strive though insensibly they perceive it not, and contend and ar­gue against Christ and almost against all his Ordi­nances, & so fulfill not only the predictions of pre­ferment wherewith blindnesse and ignorance should out-strip the cleere sunshine of manifest light and truth, but also accomplish the Prophecies of the wild degeneration of Charity into new and strange heats and fits of zeale without knowledge, & so ren­der themselves obnoxious to the wrathfull displea­sure of the Almighty; for as St. Gregory saith, Consi­lium divinū dum devitatur impletur, humana autem sapientia du reluctatur comprehenditur, so whiles man goes about to defeat and avoyd the authority of his commanding Word by any act of disobedience, he falls within the compasse of another branch of his word of Prophecie, which is thereby fulfilled and accomplished, and so whiles humane wisedome like the builders of Babell soares towards heaven in a pride, to vie and contest with the wisdome of the Almighty that is infinite and incomprehensible, it is taken in the snares of its owne impotencies, and [Page 3] have its vaine imaginations like Achitophels turned round into folly and simplicity.

1. As first, because it is against Christ and his will revealed in his word, whereby hee ever main­taines the beauty of honour, and the dignity of au­thority, and the strength and sinewes of Revenues, wheresoever he finds them rightly fixed by humane Lawes, whether on Iew or Turke, or Infidell, or upon Christians, but especially i [...] on his houshold servants and high stewards of his chiefest treasures, and most mysterious secrets, such as the Bishops are, who are graced in our Common-wealth with titles of Honours, and with the dignity of authority by the favour of Princes, and are indowed with great Re­venues by the franck donation of many famous Founders and Benefactors, and have ever been con­firmed in all by the Lawes of the Kingdome, which are as neere as may be regulated by his will, so farre as hath been possible to make discovery of it, either by the dictates of nature, or his expresse cōmands set forth in the Scriptures. And all this he seconds by surrounding them for the glory of his generall pro­vidence, with a guard of a double perfection not onely of strict Injunctions to honour and obey, to assist and support them in all. But also with direfull menaces of punishment proportionable to their transgression, denounced against all (that prevent it not in time with a due repentance) that should dare to derogate from their honors, or disobey their au­thority, or disturb the peace they injoy in their pos­sessions, and turnes of all violations of his Law com­mitted on them, but against himselfe from any the least termination upon them onely, and strikes in as a party, and makes himselfe the Center of the in­jury, [Page 4] and reflects back again like a Rock upon the Authors, the offences offered to his Messengers, as if he himselfe had suffered, saying not they, but I, not you, but me, which is the same with his lan­guage to Saul before he was St. Paul; saying, when he appeared to him as he was travelling to Damas­cus breathing out slaughter and threatnings against the Disciples of the Lord, Saul, Saul, why perse­cutest thou me, who, in all probability, were not Disciples of the Ecclesiasticke, but the Civill state, and that too in the time of his ignorance, and while hee was yet in unbeliefe, but here CHRIST is persecuted in his chiefe Ecclesiastick Disciples, and that by knowing and beleeving Ministers, which is like the Contention between the Sunne and the Moone, which is an allusion the Poet tooke to expresse the insolencies wherewith the male contents of Rome seditiously did venture to outbrave their Superiours and Governours; saying,

In English thus:

[Page 5]Oh, let not the reddition be told in Gath, or spoken of in the tents of Ascalon.

Secondly, ‘It is against the light of nature, that prescribes a rule for every man to measure anothers good by the estimate and affection they hold and beare to any thing they can, or doe call theirs;’

Which is this,

Manifested thus: if there be any that can intitle themselves either to honour or office, or inheritance that hath beene conferred upon them, either by the favour of Princes, or by the donation of Ancestors, and that confirmed by the Sanctions and Constitu­tions of humane lawes and judicatures, and that con­firmation re-established by ancient prescription of long possession, and nothing to the contrary: It would be thought a thing very grievous and intole­rable for a title so cleare and strong, and so impreg­nable to be unhinged and abrogated, and not to al­low like Justice to the Bishops in all they are, wher­in like correspondence in every respect is obvious to every ordinary eye, will prove a Paradox too too pregnant with mysterious absurdities both in ordi­nary Divinity and naturall Logique and vulgar Iu­stice and Moralty.

Secondly, it is against the King his sole Deputy and Vice-gerent upon Earth, and that in a three­fold respect.

As first, It is against his Royall Prerogative, [Page 6] which above all other glorious beames of Divine Majesty that shine upon him, and abundantly shew themselves in him, not onely in his power, but in his parts, both of sanctity and intelligence, proves him the only expresse Image & lively representati­on both of the ample and free liberty, & also of the communicative goodnesse of the Almighty, where­in it is free and loose from the mixtures of hu­mane limitations and restrictions, which like Sea-bankes bounds it up and circumscribes it in many particulars, but in this left free and absolute, and ma­naged as it is according to the prescript rule of the word of God for the setting forth of his glory, by promoting of his peoples good, w^ch is the supreame end of all his Majesties; for Salus pupuli especially spiritualis & eterna is suprema lex, as his Majesty hath ever done to his eternall renowne by counte­nancing, and continuing, and confirming according to the Royall patterne of his famous progenitors, the honours and authority, and bountifull mainte­nance of the Bishops as hee found them at his first comming to the Crowne.

Wherin he approacheth by imitation as neere as is possible to the nature of the Almighty, and that in a double respect.

1. First thus: as God when he sent his Angels as nuntioes on his arrand to Mankind, he formed them with lineaments suitable to humane nature, to con­ciliate with their seeming germane affinity to their kind, some reciprocall welcome to be spent in a willing and favourable attention, and waiting on the delivery of their message, and so to steale upon [Page 7] both their apprehensions, and faith, and beliefe, all together by the prefaces of humane insinuations: so his Majesty takes his naked spirituall creatures, of the poore Ministers of the Gospell, and lest they should be too much estranged, and abstracted, like Angels in respect of secular and politicall out sides from all familiar association, with common and vulgar expectations; he cloathes them with the Court Wardrope of honour and authority, and of the plentifull affluence of means, and so sends them forth, to charme the senses of his Subjects, with the pleasing shyne of greatnesse, into a happy and holy treason to their soules, for the betraying of their darling ignorance, and misleading darkenesse, into the sweet captivity of a farre better guide of light from above, which is usually as odious to them, as a candle or day-light is to a Thiefe and a Robber.

2. And secondly, as God made Kings, Prophets, as Melchisedeck, and King David, and after him Sa­lomon his Sonne: so his Majestie vouchsafes to all the chiefe Evangelicall Prophets that have been found famous for their parts, and piety, to participate in some measure of some of the branches of honour and authority, and of the ample Revenewes deri­ved at the first from Kings. And that not so much to gratifie those Reverend and holy Fathers, with a Paradise of temporall happinesse, in their present preferments, which is nothing to them, in compari­son of those, fortes laetitias & solida gaudia, they have in their studies and performances of their duties; as to winne upon the affections of carnall and secular minded men, to comply with [Page 8] him unawares in a point of state, policy, whilest they persue their owne covetous and ambitious thirsts and [...]ymes at profit and promotion for thē ­selves or theirs, and that in his Royall providence and designes to perpetuate an eternall propagation of a learned and Orthodox, and of an vnblamable and unblemished Ministry to the worlds end.

2. Secondly, it is against his Royall title of de­fender of the faith, which is not to be conceived to be ment of faith in abstracto in any sence, but in concreto as it is incorporated (blessed be God for it) into the hearts of all or the greater part in some measure of his Christian people, the chiefe Champions and propugnators whereof, un­der his Majestie, were as ever the Bishops, who have incoumptred and subdued almost all the powers of darkenesse, with all their antihcristian impostures, and diabolicall, machinations wherewith they have ever endeavoured either to darken or eclipse, or to­tally to abolish the light of the Gospell.

3. Thirdly, it is against his Oath by which he in­gaged himselfe at his Coronation to embossome the Church into his dearest and most intimate em­braces, and to proove his Patronage thereof (ac­cording as hath beene prophecied of him) by his care and zeale of its fraile and tender safety and prosperity, subject to all the stormes of envy and malignity, which being duely observed as hitherto by his Majesty is the Pillar and basis that beares up all other fundamentalls both in Church and State, and that by reflecting back upon his Majesty a strength and an assurance compleate and eternall [Page 9] both of all Temporall and Spirituall happinesse, and to his Royall Consort and all his Royall issue, and to derive to all his loving Subjects throughout all his Dominions a confident security of the safe fruition of all the sundry objects of their chiefest and dearest delights the shaking and unloosing whereof upon any pretences, how spetious and ad­vantagious soever will be little credit to their duty of loyalty that shall attempt it, and scarce thanke worthy at his Majesties hands whensoever it shall be presented unto him.

Thirdly, it is against the Lawes of the Kingdome, and that in a double respect.

1. As first, it is against the grand Fundamen­tall Law of Magna Charta, so often confirmed by many sundry Acts of Parliament in sundry Kings Reignes, which allowes the Church and Church­men wherein no doubt Bishops were imployed be­cause it was a Bishop that first begun and co [...]arived, and continued, and occasioned the free enjoying of all their endowements and immunities and Priviled­ges to the strict observation wherof all that oppose the good of the Church, are or should be sworne.

2. Secondly, it is against the Law of proprie­ty of late so much stood upon and revived a new to the great good and comfort of the meanest and the lowest of the Civill state. And if the Heads and fathers of the Church should be condemned as aliens and politicall illegitimates to an incapability of common Rights, and interesses with their infe­riors, it would amount to be a greater Monster in government then ever nature did produce.

For seeing they are free-borne Subjects [Page 10] as well as others, and capable with them like free denisens of all Rights, and enlarge­ments, either by honour, or authority, or by any additions of Reverewes they shall be thought worthy of, and can fairely arrive at, and being fully possessed of all by law accordingly, and that posses­sion ratified by long prescription, they ought not neither can they be justly disseased of any, or all, but by order and course of Law, usually observed in all proceedings in every Court against any, eyther for disroabing, or dismounting of any from their ho­nours, or for the deposing of any from their autho­rity, or for the deprivation of any man of his means.

And that too for some offence proportionable in waight to such a punishment, and that againe not meerely morall, as pride or covetousnesse, or neglect either of their Episcopall or Ministeriall duties, for which or the like, or greater, as meerely morall, never man was yet ever knowne to be questioned in any Court, nor legally can be: But politicall, and that not in generals onely, for Dolosus versatur in u­niversalibus (particulars are expected to be produ­ced and proved, and they again to be tryed, and exa­mined, whether hainous and enormious enough to undoe & destroy any one of the presēt Bishops) for their personall delinquences; for so the learned and the innocent, the pious and religious might save themselves with credit, and fairely escape; or whe­ther so capitall and outragious, as like the sinne of Adam, or a talent of Lead, it should unmercifully drowne them all at once in one common confused deluge of an utter universall sweeping exstirpation, [Page 11] and finall abolition of all, the learned with the ig­norant, the innocent with the delinquent, the per­son, place, and Office, with all the concomitances, dependances, consequences, and influences for e­ver: Or whether according to the tenour of one or more leading precedents, practised in like case, by the sages of former times, which is the Cynosura, by which the whole Nation of Lawyers, both Judges and Pleaders for the most part usually steere and move in all their proceedings, who never had nor made precedents by the punishments of Commu­nities, especially such as the Hierarchy of the Bi­shops is; for speculative, imaginary universalities of impieties.

And in the meane time it ought maturely to be considered of; whether such a suddaine violent re­dresse of the supposed enormious crimes of the Bi­shops, would not become to them or some of them an irresistable rentation to greater and more intolerable, and unpardonable extravagant exorbi­tances, as of dejected and heartlesse, male­contentednesse, and of impious and blasphemous murmuring against Gods providence, & of seditious quarrelling with, and repyning against the Wis­dome and the justice of the present government, or of busie studying out, and of subtile contriving of pernitious wayes of revenge for the unexpected losses of those pretious pledges of many former Princes favours, and, as may be supposed by them, for the undeserved deprivation of the antient inhe­ritance of their famous predecessours, and so [...] a course of more avocations and of greater in erru­ptions [Page 12] of their studies then as yet can possible be conjectured: But the consequences thereof may ea­sily be discerned by any that is but weake sighted in future contingences, as blindnesse and ignorance which is sayed to be mater errorum & vitiorum [...]utrix, the fountaine and nurce of all impieties both Speculative and Practicall, for as the Psalmist saith; Thou makest darkenesse wherein all the Beasts of the Forrest move; so the night of blindnesse and ignorance is the only opportunity for all the works and fruits of darkenesse to advance and display, and to shew themselves in their colours, such as are He­resies, Scismes, Factions, Dissentions, Seditions, Rebellions, Treasons of all kinds, Jesuiticall pow­der plots, Regicydes state underminings, and God knowes what Chaos of disturbance and confusion of the whole frame of Church and State of and all, for as Acosta very well observed of old, that Heresenan surores regnorum conturbationes secutae sunt, so it may be found true with us if not timely prevented. And as Varro said of Plautus;

Change but the Sceane into the Church and the Seminaries, and Suborbes, and all the branches of it, and a man may see the like truth spring up faster and spreading already further then can be sooue or easily remedied.

Fistly, and Lastly, it is against the Lawes of ci­vility and common humanity, and that in a double respect.

[Page 13]1. As first, thus to deprive the deceased founders of their proper inheritances who still survive them­selves in their devices and donations which they did forbeare whilest they lived to wast and consume on their owne lusts and pleasures, and without respect had to their neerest and dearest friends and acquain­tance diverted at their deaths ever their beneficence from them, and turned it into a Sacrifice to be offe­red up to the Almighty, and to be spent by the Bi­shops, for the setting forth of his glory, and that by promoting the publique and spirituall good, both of King, and Church and State, and of all both at home and abroad, wheresoever the Gospell is professed, as is sufficiently manifested by the famous Monu­ments of Learning and Piety, which they have con­tinually set forth and published to the world, of which as Horace said of his works;

So may they say and more, and trulier of their workes, but they are no boasters.

And now to defeate the aymes of those deceased founders, and to contend with them in a vye of bet­ter wisdome and larger liberty, and greater power then ever they had, or exercises over their owne e­states, is like cum mortuo Protogene bellum gerere was enough heretofore to make the victorious and cou­ragious Warriour Demetrius to retreat and shrinke [Page 14] with shame and feare from his siege of the City Rhodus, where the Picture of Iasylus made by the famous Painter Protogenes was kept, for when he was remembred to consider how foule a thing it was to warre with the dead, it is said that forthwith oppugnatione desita & imagini & civitati pepercit: so if it might be but deliberately thought on, what an unworthy and uncomely thing it is, that those an­cient Monuments and lively ravishing pictures of charity and piety, and beneficence, of the famous foundations and endowements of Bishops, that have thus long subsisted & flourished; should now be the objects of envy and hostility, they would spare their owne trouble, and forbeare their further prosecuti­on of all the siege they have begirt them with, and of whatsoever they have attempted and enterprised gainst them.

But to flye upon the Bs. their donees and adopted children, and to out them of their Legacies, as well or rather because they are Bishops, then for any Mo­rall or politicall offence, as yet either alleged, or suf­ficiently proved, notwithstanding all the worthy services wherewith they or some of them, or some of their famous predecessours have enlarged and ad­vanced the felicity both of Church and State, can­not be warranted from the gests and acts of former times, and will prevent a Parallel in after ages.

For as Tertullus the Oratour said to Foelix the go­vernour, seeing we have injoyed great quietnesse by thee, and many worthy things have beene done un­to our Nation by thy providence, we acknowledge it wholly, and in all places most noble Faelix, with [Page 15] all thankes, so they might understand, if they plea­sed, and confesse and acknowledge, that they and their Fore-fathers have injoyed great quietnesse by their meanes; For as the Apostle saith of the Israe­lites, that to them appertaine the adoption, and the glory, and the giving of the Law, and of the ser­vice of God, and of whom are the Fathers: so to them appertaine, the adoption and the glory of the chiefe Ambassadours, and Messengers of Christ, of the high Stewards of the great and manifold myste­ries of Salvation, of the Master-builders of the great City and Temple of the Church, and body of our head Christ; of the faithfull dispensers of the Co­venant of Grace, and of the Ministeriall givers both of the Law and Gospell, and of the constant preservers, with their utmost care and diligence, of the sincere service of God, and of whom came all the Fathers, in both the famous Universities, and in all the Cathedrall and parochiall Churches, through­out the whole Kingdome, who did baptize, and teach, and marry, and blesse from God, all their Fore-fa­thers, and were to them in stead of Christ their first and sole Deputy redeemers, who recovered them out of worse then Aegytian darkenesse & bondage: and so have hitherto preserved them, and, with their burning and shining rayes of light from above, did enlighten and mollify, and reduce the old, blind, and hard-hearted world, into bright day-light, and Dove­like mildnesse and gentlenesse, to combine, and knit, and grow up together by the bands of charity into one man and one mind.

And from those Halcyon dayes of love, and peace, and joy, and delight, they deriving all their happi­nesse [Page 16] [...] for their Fore-fa­thers debts and their owne, for former and present benefits all conce [...] them and theirs, with some thankefull requitalls of acknowledgement at the least.

But in stead thereof, to affront the merits of their Piety, and constancy, and learning, and charity, with affections high and rough, and grimme in frownes, and threats of their utter ruine and destruction, makes the Gospell little better in event, then Sene­caes institution of his great Scholler Nero in his Heathenish morality, of whom it is said, that he see­med non tam erudi [...]sse ingenium Neronis, quam ar­masse saevitiam.

And that by decreeing it incongruous and dange­rous for them, as Bishops, to taste of the pleasures of any little parcell of secular and temporall great­nesse, that at the best, have but stillam gaudii in ul­tima te parvitatis constituam, which is not onely to prejudicate their generous education of their conti­nuall exercise of their best parts in the sublimest cō ­tēplations, in y^e most abstruse mysteries in Divinity, as unfruitful to refine the temper they are of by na­ture, and as altogether vnusefull & unprofitable to renue their infirm frame with sufficient supplies of grace, to be as pious and as religious amid the smiles of their great fortunes, as Ioseph was in the Court of Pharoah King of Aegypt, and as the Evangelicall Saints were in the Roman tyrant Neroes houfe: But to found and ground from thence a greater de­gree of Popery then ever yet was discovered in the [Page 17] late Bishops, or aymed at, or attempted by any of them; namely, the single life of the Clergy, which the Apostle calls the Doctrine of Devils.

For if honours and intermedling with secular affayres, and great possessions be inconsistant with holy orders, then must the Clergie be interdicted and excommunicated altogether from the honoura­ble estate of Matrimony, as too too various and te­dious, with many more vnavoidable changes of di­stractions and interruptions from their studies, which is by this meanes pointed at as the next intolerable burthen and grievous captivi­ty they must of necessity expect to be enthralled unto.

And so from thence to derive restraints to the ho­nourable, and to the rich and married, and to the great Commanders in the Civill state to forbeare their darling pleasures, and not to be like Polyphe­mus Evangeliophorus whom Erasmus brings in his Dialogue between him and Cannius, dreaming that the Gospell hanging at his girdle, might reach an influence to his heart and head, and corporally worke a spirituall change upon his intellectualls, as if the meere carrying of the Gospell about a man, or the sometimes vouchsafing to a Preacher, an averse eare that is charmed from within, with swarmes of a thousand curbes of sundry fancies, and that too but in case of distresse, of necessita­ted respite, and leasure from their other occasi­ons, and in a just dread of Court-censures, and the punishments prescribed by humane Lawes: And as the streame & swinge of custome and com­pany, [Page 18] heaves and drives them, were enough to maintaine the credit of a Christian profession, and in the meane time to ingrosse and impropriate to themsel [...]es all the guerdions and garlands due to the greatest endowments and best deservings; and con­fine the Clergy only to their Intellectuall and Spiri­tuall delights and hopes of their future happinesse and inheritance in the Kingdome of Heaven; as Iu­lian the Apostata, did the Christians, when he spoy­led them of their goods and estates, jeering them with their Masters Doctrine, saying to them, blessed are yee poore, for yours is the Kingdome of Heaven.

As if our blessed Saviour had suffered death one­ly to redeeme them from the bookish and leane drudgery of the Clergy, and had come to crowne them, like a Temporall King (as the Iewes expected) with the Rose buds of all the delights, or more then ever Salomon provided for his lusts, in the dayes of his vanity, and to content himselfe onely with some few younger brother Parsons to be conformable to his poverty; and to side with him in the fellowship of his sufferings, but rather they are to be like Epi­phanius, of whom it is said, that Pingebat actibus paginam quam legisset; So they are to expresse, in their lives and conversations, all their Lectures they have heard, and read, and received from their learned Ministers.

For as the exemption of them from the busie employments of Magistracy, and the denudation of them from the bewitching splendor of honours, or exonerating them of the cumbersome luggage of riches and great possessions, must be turminated altogether by them in a moonkish Retirement, and [Page 19] that to be worne out and spent in restlesse and in­cessant labours at their studies; the fruits whereof are all to be expended for the enriching of the Laity, with all the precious treasure of Divine Myste­ries: so are they to be correspondent in a mutuall reciprocation of proportion [...]ble offices and duties; and that by incorporating all that knowledge into all their existences, occasions, and occurrences, and as St. Origen said of St. Paul, Sanctificabat propha­na, & fecit ecclesiastica: So they are to sanctifie all their civill and secular conditions; And as one said of the Sacraments, that they were Verba visi­bilia: So they are to rarifie and sublimate all their lowe & terrene temporall employments, into a ma­nifest visibility of the purity of Religion; which will apparantly result not onely out of the exact measuring of the length and the breadth, and of the height and depth of all their endeavors and underta­kings, according to the strict rule of the word of God: But also by pointing all their intentions, with a defixed [...]yme at the high and chiefe end of the glo­ry of God; and by ever rancking all their other infe­riour and secundary ends, with a Methodicall subor­dination and a harmonious coherence, and an orderly and tributary subserviancie to the supreame.

And then, is the Poet said of Isla and her Picture: which the Painter had drawn so to the life-like hir.

So an ordinary Spectator, that is divided, through weakenesse of Iudgement, into a dubious apprehen­sion, might either thinke both Laicke and Ecclesia­sticall persons to be a chosen generation, a royall Priest-hood, an holy Nation, a peculiar people; a [...] St. [Page 20] Peter called the distressed Iewes, writing to them be­ing strangers scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cap­padocia, Asia, and Bithynia, or both of them to be and not to be, like a Picture, that is and is not, what it seemes to signifie and represent; a Nation and no Nation, a people and no people, Christians, and yet no Christians, as they ought to be.

Or else because they are, as they are good Bishops; who for the most part are as good as any sort of men: amid the many infirmities our weake nature is subject unto, and notwithstanding the many ten­tations our best performances are too too frequent­ly blasted and blemished with.

And in some respects doe farre surmount and transcend many thousands of other vocations and conditions, in both unknowne and unvaluable emi­nencies, and that in a double respect.

1. As first, because in their tender yeares, almost as soone as they could see, to discerne of colours and differences, they could be so Eagle-eyed, as to spy out the pretious pearle of the Gospell; to the study whereof they did wholly dedicate themselves without any further consult with nature; and that with a kinde of disdaine of all other professions whatsoever, and singled out its excellencies from all the flatteries of honour, and riches, and renown, that courted their judgement from every corner of the earth, and the knowne world; to be their sole, and secure, and most sincere delight, and as most really and substantially advantagious to themselves, and as most universally and freely profitable to all [Page 21] others in their most spiritualized, and sanctified de­sires and wishes; howsoever slighted and underva­lued by some ignorant Atheist, as the most barren and chargeable, and laborious, and difficult, and despicable vocation in the world.

2. And secondly, for the many weary dayes and, weekes, and moneths, and yeares, and anxious, and vexatious cares and indefatigable and restlesse, paines, whereby they have exhausted and consumed the flower of their strength, and prime time, and all to enrich themselves by Gods blessing, and the assi­stance of his holy Spirit, with heavenly treasures, to be retayled againe, sometime to men of corrupt minds, who for the most part requite them with no other rewards, but heapes of contumelies and heart-breaking reproaches; wherewith they abun­dantly revenge all the great good of grace and glory which they intended them.

And to conclude, when the State did never yet decree by any publique act, eyther riches, or any honourable remuneration, to any of the Bishops, or any of theirs; for any of the best services, and performances; which measured by the strictest exactions of humane Lawes; may well goe for lux­uriant and redundant super-erogations. And now to treat of nothing but degradations and demoliti­ons of those Pillars of earth; contrary to the word of God, and the light of nature; and contrary to the Rights of his Majesty; his Title, Oath, and Prerogative; and contrary to the Lawes of the Kingdome, and of common [Page 22] humanity, and civility, and supra, and praeter, and ultra, all their demerits, and when many poore and beggerly Incorporations, are permitted and allow­ed to tryumph in needlesse, and superfluous Privi­ledges; whose chiefe Magistrates wisdome and poli­cy; is sometimes recorded with his owne handy­work on the roofe, & top of his ruinous habitation: this would make St. Hierome, if he were now alive, to blush, and repent; at what he said in his Epistle, ad Eustochium, quid Cicero cum Apostolis? For the Orators exclamation of ô tempora! ô mores! may well suite for a fit amplification of the Apostles predi­ction of these our perilous times, the Apostle speaks of in his 2. Epistle to Tim. 3. c.

v. 1. This know also, that in the last daies perilous times shall come.

v. 2. For men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, unthankefull, unholy.

v. 3. Without naturall affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good.

v. 4. Traitours, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God.

v. 5. Having a forme of godlinesse, but denying the powers thereof.

He that please may reade, and use it as his Loo­king-glasse, and m [...]ke Discovery of some things a­misse in himselfe, and thence learne to surrender up all the surfets of mistakes, wherewith they have un­dervalued and vilified those reverend Fathers, whom Tertullian calls A postolici semi [...]is frutices & haere­ditarios discipulos Christi, and are procuratores salu­tis [Page 23] generis humani, and the Chariots of Israel, and the horsemen thereof, as Elisha said of Elias, and ought to be honoured with all thankefulnesse; omni loco, actu, habitu, tempore, as Ausonius said to Gra­tian the Emperour, and rather then to abase them any lower, then they are, with any dimiunitions; to study how to adde to them further and ampler en­largements in all; for as St. Hierome said in point of obedience, so may I say in matter of beneficence, quis pudor, quod nonpraestet fides, quod praestitit infi­delitas, so what a shame is it that Our Father should not be as bountifull to the Church as ever was Pa­ter Noster.

But instead thereof, in this cleere and plentifull Sun-shine of the Gospell, to bereave them contrary to the Lawes of grace, & of nature; of those endowe­ments which were confer'd upon them, by such as were contrary to themselves, both in nature and in grace, in respect both of naturall and spirituall affe­ctions: will prove a double aequivocall operation, in the production of contrary effects in both Reli­gions, both theirs, and ours.

For as their blind superstition, became to them like the clay, wherewith our Saviour opered the blind mans eyes in the Gospel, which was likelier quite to put them out, then any way to cleere them or recover them: taught them to worke out new Discoveries of better wayes of serving God, and honouring him with their substance; not onely for the buying out of the Prince of darknesse from his Regencie (if it were possible) wherewith hee ty­rannized over the Children of darknesse: but al­so for the hyring of the light of the world (if it [Page 24] might be) to breake out, and shine upon them, their kindred and Country-men; and with a holy kinde of Symony, to purchase for them the gifts of the holy Ghost.

So the abundant bright Sun-shine of the Gospel, dazles the light of nature in some, into such a stu­por of insensible blindnesse and ignorance; as they can neither see their owne hands; nor yet the sur­plussages of their over-flowing estates, nor the sun­dry formes of wants and miseries, wherein our Sa­viour proclaims and presents his distresses, conti­nually in many thousands of his poore and afflicted members.

But when they come to the Church they seeme to see double, and take all temporall accessions, of ho­nours, of authority, and of revenues, to be a voene­num, and a perditio, and altogether superfluous, bur­some and dangerous. But manum a tabula.

Therefore as the Hills stand about Hierusalem, as the Psal. saith, so let the Lord, and the Lords annoin­ted, and all the minor Lords of the earth; and all that beare good will unto Sion, incompasse, and incampe, like Legions of Angells; round about the reverend Bishops, and all they are, from this time fourth, and for evermore, Amen good Lord, so be it. Amen, Amen.