A85827:67
A discourse apologeticalA discours apologetical
A discourse apologetical; wherein Lilies lewd and loud lies in his Merlin or Pasquil for the year 1654. are clearly laid open; his shameful desertion of his own cause is further discovered; his shameless slanders fully refuted; and his malicious and murderous mind, inciting to a general massacre of Gods ministers, from his own pen, evidently evinced. Together with an advertisement concerning two allegations produced in the close of his postscript. And a postscript concerning an epistle dedicatory of one J. Gadburie. By Tho. Gataker B.D. author [sic] of the annotations on Jer. 10.2 and of the vindication of them.A discours apologetical; wherein Lilies lewd and lowd lies in his Merlin or Pasqil for the yeer 1654. are cleerly laid open; his shameful desertion of his own cause is further discovered; his shameless slanders fullie refuted; and his malicious and murtherous mind, inciting to a general massacre of Gods ministers, from his own pen, evidentlie evinced. Together with an advertisement concerning two allegations produced in the close of his postscript. And a postscript concerning an epistle dedicatorie of one J. Gadburie. By Tho. Gataker B.D. autor [sic] of the annotations on Jer. 10.2 and of the vindication of them.
London: printed by R. Ibbitson for Thomas Newberry, 1654
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
He would, at least, have men believe▪ that I was sometime Prelatical; but have of late turned my coat or my copy, and gaping after some fat gobbets of the Bishops or Deans Lands, pretended ⟨p. 24⟩to be a Presbyterian. A calumny as false as its Father is, or as his former Brat hath been convinced to be: And such as he shall never be able to make good, tho his Master, that sets him on work, join with him in it.
He would, at least, have men believ▪ that I was sometime Prelatical; but have of late turned my coat or my copie, and gaping after some fat gobbets of the Bishops or Deans Lands, pretended ⟨p. 24⟩to be a Presbyterian. A calumnie as fals as its Father is, or as his former Brat hath been convinced to be: And such as he shall never be able to make good, tho his Master, that sets him on work, joyn with him in it.
For my judgment concerning Church-Government, it is the same still that ever it was, since I first began to enquire into matters of that nature. A duly bounded and well regulated Prelacy joined with a Presbytery, wherein one as President, Superintendent or Moderator (term him what you please,) whether annual or occasional, or more constant and continual, either in regard of years, or parts, or both jointly, hath some preeminence above the rest, yet so, as that he doth nothing without joint consent of the rest, (a module or pattern, whereof I am informed to have been sometime represented unto the late King, by two worthy persons, men of eminent parts, and moderate minds, the one a Prelate, the other in some kind Prelatical, which had it been accepted and established, how advantageous it might have proved, it is not for me to define; but as is reported, was then disallowed and rejected by some great Prelates, and others, by whom the King was most swayed.) Such a manner of Prelacy, I say, I never durst, nor yet dare condemn. But such a Prelatical power, as was here constituted and exercised among us, wherein Bishops and Arch-deacons were enabled and ordinarily used by their Chancellors, Officials, and Surrogates, mostly mere Civilians, assuming to them any sorry fellow in Orders to fit by, as a cipher or a shadow, to pass the highest and heaviest of all Church-Censures, besides Civil Penalties in their Purses, on the Persons both of Pastors and People, and for trifles and trivial things, mere matters of Ceremony, oft-times silence, suspend, and deprive, while scandalous, idle, or insufficient ones, were little regarded or looked after; Visitations being by either usually held once only in a year, and then rather of Course and Custom, or to receive Procurations, then to any effectual Reformation of ought. Such a Prelatical power so constituted, and so executed, I never could effect or approve; and truly much less, when I came to see the manner of it, which I had heard too much of before, when living so long in a Pastoral Charge, I never in all my time saw the face of a Bishop personally present in Court, or Arch-deacon but once, (tho both constantly exacting Fees of us.) And