The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…

Are not these doleful Narratives and Characters of those Primitive Bishops (even in those ⟨p. 270⟩happy days of good Theodosius? But all this is yet little to what the same man saith of Bishops in his last Oration de Episcopis, Vol. 2. too sharp and large to recite. Perhaps it will be said, that it was the Macedonian or Arian Bishops that he meant: So one Papist was not ashamed to answer me, when the whole scope of his writing speaketh the contrary, that he spake of the Council at Constantinople, and other such, and expressly saith in his Epist. 59. to Sophronius, pag. 816. si eos inveneritis non ob sidei doctrinam, sed ob privatas simultates inter se distractos & divulsos, quod quidem ipse observavi. But some will say that he was wrongfully cast out by that Council of Constantinople, and he speaketh but of that, or that injury made him satirical by exasperation. But 1. The places cited show that he speaketh not of that Council only: And Epist. 55. Procopio pag. 814. he saith (refusing to come to a Council) ego si vera scribere oportet hoc apimo sum, ut Omnem Episcoporum Conventum sugiam: quoniam nullius concilii sinem laetum & faustum vidi, nec quod depulsionem malorum potius quam accessionem & incrementum habuerit: pertinaces enim contentiones & dominandi capiditates (ne me quaeso gravem & molestum existimes haec scribentem) ne ullis quidem verbis explicari queant, citiusque aliquis improbitatem arcessetur, dumb aliis judicem se praebet, quam ut aliorum improbitatem comprimat.] And that injury made Gregory injurious is an injurious conjecture, seeing all his endeavours in these businesses were for piety and peace: And it was partly for his speaking for the Peace of the Church of Antioch, (which had long had two Bishops, Paulinus and Meletius, and Flavianus, who had taken an oath ⟨p. 271⟩not to be their Bishop while either of them lived, intruded by Perjuries and the Bishops wills) that this Council turned against Gregory; (and because they chose him not.) And for peace he quit his place; and many and earnest Epistles he wrote after to the Civil Magistrates, to keep the Bishops in peace at the next Councils, lest Religion should be quite shamed and weakened by them. And was not the contention at the two Councils of Ephesus more stigmatized by Historians than this that Gregory so lamenteth? when they seemed rather to fight, than peaceably to seek for Truth;

Are not these doleful Narratives and Characters of those Primitive Bishops (even in those