their Estates; Povertie and meanness exposing them and their Authority
to the contempt of licentious mindes and manners, which persecuting
Times much restrained.

I would have such men Bishops, as are most worthy of those
encouragements, and best able to use them: if at any time my judgment
of men failed, my good intention made my errour veniall: And some
Bishops, I am sure, I had, whose learning, gravitie, and pietie, no
men of any worth or forehead can deny: But, of all men, I would have
Church-men, especially the Governours, to be redeemed from that vulgar
neglect; (which besides an innate principle of vitious opposition,
which is in all men against those that seem to reprove, or restrain
them) will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian parity, which
makes all Ministers equall; and the Independent inferiority, which
sets their Pastor below the People.

This for My judgment touching Episcopacy, wherein (Gods knows) I doe
not gratifie any design or passion with the least perverting of Truth.

And now I appeal to God above, and all the Christian world, whether
it be just for Subjects, or pious for Christians, by violence, and
infinite indignities, with servile restraints to seek to force Me
their KING and Soveraign, as some men have endevoured to doe, against
all these grounds of my Judgment, to consent to their weak and divided
novelties.

The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I doe, That the
Church should be governed, as Christ hath appointed, in true Reason,
and in Scripture; of which, I could never see any probable shew for
any other waies: who either content themselves with the examples of
some Churches in their infancy and solitude; when one Presbyter might
serve one Congregation, in a City or Countrey; or else they deny
these most evident Truths, That the Apostles were Bishops over Those
Presbyters they ordained, as well as over the Churches they planted;
and that Government being necessary for the Churches wel-being when
multiplied and sociated, must also necessarily descend from the
Apostles to others, after the example of that power and Superiority
they had above others: which could not end with their Persons, since
the use and ends of such Government still continue.

It is most sure, that the purest Primitive and best Churches
flourished under Episcopacy; and may so still, if ignorance,
superstition, avarice, revenge, and other disorderly and disloyal
passions had not so blown up some