A treatise of episcopacy confuting by Scripture, reason, and the churches testimony that sort…

Obj. Were not Bishops the means of the Churches concord in all ages?

Obj. Were not Bishops the meanes of the Churches concord in all ages?

Ans. True Bishops such as afore described, did their parts, but when such as our Diocesans sprang up, the Church was presently broken into pieces, and by odious contentions and divisions became a sandal and scorn to unbelievers. To read but the Acts of Counsels and the History of the Church, and there find the horrid contentions of Prelates against each others, the parties which they made, their running up and down the world, to Princes and Rulers, and Synods to bear down one another, it will do as much to grieve and amaze the Soul of a Sober Christian, almost as an History in the world that he can peruse.

Ans. True Bishops such as afore described, did their parts, but when such as our Diocesans sprang up, the Church was presently broken into pieces, and by odious contentions and divisions became a sandal and scorne to unbelievers. To read but the Acts of Counsels and the History of the Church, and there find the horrid contentions of Prelates against each others, the parties which they made, their running up and down the world, to Princes and Rulers, and Synods to bear down one another, it will do as much to grieve and amaze the Soul of a Sober Christan, almost as an History in the world that he can peruse.

Obj But they silenced Heretics and deposed them, and so kept Doctrine sound and safe. Ans. Before they had the Sword of the Magistrate to second them, they silenced none: For how could they do it? They only judged them to be cast out of their Communion, and deposed, which they could no way execute but by avoiding them, and persuading the people to disown them and avoid them: For they neither did nor could hinder them from gathering Churches and Preaching to their followers: And there the rejected ones did reject their Rejecters, and excommunicate their excommunicators, and in the eyes of their followers were the better men, and only Orthodox: So that their silencing was but changing their Congregations. And so numerous were the sects that followed such Teachers, that they sometimes seemed more than the Orthodox: Epiphanius found enow in his time to fill a large Volume. And the Donatists alone were so numerous in Africa as to pretend to be the Catholic Church, and by their numbers and insolency deterred Augustine into a change of his opinion, and to call for that help from the Princes Sword, which before he had denied. Never had the Church in any place, so many Sects and Heresies, as since the times that Prelacy grew up, and in those Countries, and where it was most exercised. And indeed the ignorance and pride of Prelates was not the least cause. For some of them (and no small number) became the Authors of Heresies themselves, such as Paulus, Samosatenus, the Aplinarii, the great Patriarchs, Dioscorus, Nestorius, Macedonius, and alas how great a number more and others of them did by their domineering insolency rise up with so much pride and wrath against those that humoured them not, especially if indeed they erred, as that they forced some into Schisms, and by silencing the dissenters, did but drive them t up for themselves in separated assemblies; And they so disaffected