A word in season

Furthermore St. Peter calleth it peculiarly the Flock of Christ, as tho' he should say, Think not that the Flock is any of your own, ye are but only Servants and Ministers to look unto it, ye are no Lords nor Masters over it. Contrary to the bold practice and customable dealing of many Bishops, which account and call every one within their Diocese and Jurisdiction, their Sheep. We are the Sheep of Christ, for he said afore, Ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls. Bishops are the Ministers of Christ, to keep his Sheep, and to give them meat and pasture. And therefore to Feed, is nothing else then to preach the Gospel, wherewith their Souls may be fed, fatted and fructified, that so the Sheep may be nourished with the Gospel. This is the only and proper Office of a Bishop.

Furthermore St. Peter calleth it peculiarly the Flock of Christ, as tho' he should say, Think not that the Flock is any of your own, ye are but only Servants and Ministers to look unto it, ye are no Lords nor Masters over it. Contrary to the bold practice and customable dealing of many Bishops, which account and call every one within their Diocess and Jurisdiction, their Sheep. We are the Sheep of Christ, for he said afore, Ye are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls. Bishops are the Ministers of Christ, to keep his Sheep, and to give them meat and pasture. And therefore to Feed, is nothing else then to preach the Gospel, wherewith their Souls may be fed, fatted and fructified, that so the Sheep may be nourished with the Gospel. This is the only and proper Office of a Bishop.

So said Christ unto Peter; Feed my Sheep, Joh. 21. that is, the Sheep which I commit unto thee to feed, are not thine but mine. Howbeit these words have been so canvassed and wrested by my Lord the Pope, that he thereby usurpeth and exerciseth an external Domination and Lordship over the Church of Christ, whereas neither he, nor any of his sacrilegious Chaplains, preacheth so much as one word of the Gospel. They brag that they have their Succession from St. Peter. If it were so, yet sear I, that it could scarcely be proved that any Pope ever preached the Gospel; for none of them hath left any thing behind him, that is written and extant, wherein a man may read the Gospel. St. Gregory the Pope was surely an holy man; and yet the things which he preached, are not to be esteemed worth a straw; whereby it may appear, that the same See of Rome is peculiarly and specially accursed of God. I deny not, but sundry of the Popes suffered Martyrdom under cruel Tyrants, for the Gospels-sake, but yet there is nothing extant that was written by any of them, which is Evangelical. And yet they still brag and crack, that it is their charge to feed, whereas indeed they do nothing else but entangle, and clog mens Consciences with Laws of their own, and