The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…

22. Wicked, Covetous, carnal, proud men admitted into Bishoprics and Ministry have been the woeful plague of the Church, especially for thirteen hundred years: For bad men will so teach and so live, that the Best of the flock will most dislike them, and then they will turn enemies to the Best for disliking them, and will Preach against them and make them as odious as they can: and this will rejoice the profane part of the flock which naturally hate holiness: and so the wicked Pastor, and wicked People will become a Party against the Best, and keep them under reproach and persecution: Whereupon the sufferers will be tempted not only to greater dislike, but to undue ⟨p. 144⟩passions and separations; and if the Magistrates take part with the wicked party, they also will partake of the dislike; and so wicked Pastors are the floodgates of confusion, and happy are those Rulers that curb them, and help the Churches to faithful men.

22. Wicked, Covetous, carnal, proud men admitted into Bishopricks and Ministry have been the woful plague of the Church, especially for thirteen hundred years: For bad men will so teach and so live, that the Best of the flock will most dislike them, and then they will turn enemies to the Best for disliking them, and will Preach against them and make them as odious as they can: and this will rejoyce the prophane part of the flock which naturally hate holiness: and so the wicked Pastor, and wicked People will become a Party against the Best, and keep them under reproach and persecution: Whereupon the sufferers will be tempted not only to greater dislike, but to undue ⟨p. 144⟩passions and separations; and if the Magistrates take part with the wicked party, they also will partake of the dislike; and so wicked Pastors are the floodgates of confusion, and happy are those Rulers that curb them, and help the Churches to faithful men.

It grieveth some of us to read so much undeniable truth in the foresaid Infidel's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, as the reason of the wicked lives of Christians, Praesat. p. 4. [Hujus mali causam quaerens, &c. Seeking the cause of this mischief, I doubted not but hence it sprang, that Vulgarly it was a piece of Religion to esteem the Ministries of the Church as Dignities, and its Offices as Benefices, and to gave the Pastors the highest honour: and as soon as this abuse cr[…]pt in, presently all the worst men were invaded with a greater desire of sacred administrations, and the Love of propagating divine Religion, degenerated into sordid Avarice; and so the Temple it self into a Theatre, where were heard, not Church Teachers, but Orators; of whom none thirsted to teach the people, but to draw them into admiration of themselves, and publicly to carp at dissenters, and to teach things […] and unusual, and such as the vulgar most admire: whence great contentions, envy and hatred, which no antiquity could appease, must needs arise. No wonder therefore that of the old Religion nothing doth remain but the outward worship (by which God is rather flattered than adored) and that faith is become nothing but credulity and prejudice, &c.] As to the greatest part of the Churches, puet haec opprobria nobis, &c.