Five disputations of church-government and worship

§. 27. Answ. 1. But We were not well, because you would not let us alone. The Ministers that were silenced, and imprisoned, and banished, and the thousands of people that were fain to follow them, and all those that were undone by your prosecutions in England, were not well. But this is a small matter: The ignorant ⟨p. 326⟩Congregations that had ignorant and drunken guides, where Piety was scorned as Puritanism, and impiety made a thing of nothing, and where Satan was so commonly served; the many hundred Congregations in England that never knew what true Discipline meant, nor never saw in all their lives, a drunkard, oppressor, railer, blasphemer, either cast out, or penitently confess his sin, before the Church, all these were not well, though you were well. 2. Whether we were well before, I have showed in my first Disputation, and thither I refer you. 3. And whether we have brought in a new Episcopacy, or only cast out a new one, and desire to bring in the Old, we are content to put it to an equal trial. We all concur in offering you this motion. Let the oldest stand, and the newest be cast out.

§. 27. Answ. 1. But We were not well, because you would not let us alone. The Ministers that were silenced, and imprisoned, and banished, and the thousands of people that were fain to follow them, and all those that were undone by your prosecutions in England, were not well. But this is a small matter: The ignorant ⟨p. 326⟩Congregations that had ignorant and drunken guides, where Piety was scorned as Puritanism, and impiety made a thing of nothing, and where Satan was so commonly served; the many hundred Congregations in England that never knew what true Discipline meant, nor never saw in all their lives, a drunkard, oppressor, railer, blasphemer, either cast out, or penitently confess his sin, before the Church, all these were not well, though you were well. 2. Whether we were well before, I have shewed in my first Disputation, and thither I refer you. 3. And whether we have brought in a new Episcopacy, or only cast out a new one, and desire to bring in the Old, we are content to put it to an equal tryall. We all concurr in offering you this motion. Let the oldest stand, and the newest be cast out.