For these secular Additaments and Ornaments of Authority, Civil Honour and Estate, which my Predecessours and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men; I look upon them but as just rewards of their learning and piety, who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government: also enablements to works of Charitie and Hospitality, meet strengthnings of their Authoritie in point of respect and observance; which in peacefull Times is hardly paid to any Governours by the measure of their Vertues, so much, as by that of 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.