2. This objection long used by Popes and their Prelates hath been sufficiently confuted by themselves: Church history putteth us quite past doubt that it went ill with the Church while the Clergy had all the power of Religion: It hath been Popes and Prelates and Priests that have worse corrupted Religion and disgraced the Church and embroiled the world in religious quarrels and ⟨p. 269⟩Schisms, than ever Emperors and Kings have done. Thirteen hundred years lamentable experience confuteth such thoughts as many have and as I have sometime been tempted to my self, how well it would go with the Church if the disposal of all matters of Religion were rather in the hands of the Bishops and Clergy, than of Kings and Parliaments. Nay rarely are any Magistrates so hot for persecution and religious cruelty as the Bishops and Clergy or those that are stirred up by them, against dissenters or one another. The doleful devastations and Schisms about Nestorianism, Eutychinnism, and such like, were caused more by the Bishops than the Magistrates: And though Constantius and Valens did much against truth and peace, it was by their Clergies instigation. He that will consider the lives of Constantine M. Theodosius Senior, and Theodosius Junior, A•astasius, &c. and of Charles, Otho, the Henrys and others since in the West, will see how much ado the Emperors had to keep the Prelates from Schisms, and confusions: And he that readeth but the Laws of the Spanish, French and English Kings, will see what ado Kings had to keep the Bishops and Priests from filthy fornication and utter corruption of their function.
2. This objection long used by Popes and their Prelates hath been sufficiently confuted by themselves: Church history putteth us quite past doubt that it went ill with the Church while the Clergy had all the power of Religion: It hath been Popes and Prelates and Priests that have worse corrupted Religion and disgraced the Church and embroiled the world in religious quarrels and ⟨p. 269⟩Schisms, than ever Emperors and Kings have done. Thirteen hundred years lamentable experience confuteth such thoughts as many have and as I have sometime been tempted to my self, how well it would go with the Church if the disposal of all matters of Religion were rather in the hands of the Bishops and Clergy, than of Kings and Parliaments. Nay rarely are any Magistrates so hot for persecution and religious cruelty as the Bishops and Clergy or those that are stirr'd up by them, against dissenters or one another. The doleful devastations and Schisms about Nestorianism, Eutychinnism, and such like, were caused more by the Bishops than the Magistrates: And though Constantius and Valens did much against truth and peace, it was by their Clergies instigation. He that will consider the lives of Constantine M. Theodosius Senior, and Theodosius Junior, A•astasius, &c. and of Charles, Otho, the Henries and others since in the West, will see how much ado the Emperors had to keep the Prelates from Schisms, and confusions: And he that readeth but the Laws of the Spanish, French and English Kings, will see what ado Kings had to keep the Bishops and Priests from filthy fornication and utter corruption of their function.
