less it were at the flock of Christ; so they learned of
their masters, both to bark and bite too) greedy dogs that could never
have enough, that did tear out the loins and bowels of their own people
for gain, heap living upon living, preferment upon preferment; swearing,
drunken, unclean priests, that taught nothing but rebellion in Israel,
and caused people to abhor the sacrifice of the Lord: Arminian, popish,
idolatrous, vile wretches, such as, had Job been alive, he would not
have set with the dogs of his flock; who, I say, brought in these? Did
not prelacy? What hath hindered the reformation of religion all this
while in doctrine, government, and worship? Prelacy, a generation of men
they were, that never had a vote for Jesus Christ; yea, what hath
poisoned and adulterated religion in all these branches, and hath let in
popery and profaneness upon the kingdom like a flood, for the raising of
their own pomp and greatness, but prelacy? In a word, prelacy it is,
that hath set its impure and imperious feet, one upon the church, the
other upon the state, and hath made both serve as Pharaoh did the
Israelites, with rigour. Surely, their government hath been a yoke which
neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.

Now, that which hath done this, and a thousand times more violence and
mischief to Christ and His people, than the tongue or pen of man is able
to express; can that be the way of or to Zion? Can that be the
government of Christ and His Church?

_Object._ Aye, but there be that will tell us, these have been the
faults of the persons, and not of the calling?

_Answ._ 1. So cry some indeed, that ye like the men, as well as their
calling, and would justify the persons as well as the office, but that
their wickedness is made so manifest that impudency itself cannot deny
it. But is it indeed only the fault of the men, not of the calling? What
meant then that saying of queen Elizabeth, "That when she had made a
bishop, she had spoiled a preacher?" Was it only a jest? 2. And I wish
we had not too just cause to add, the man too. Surely of the most of
them we may say, as once Arnobius spake of the Gentiles, _apud vos
optimi censentur quos comparatio pessimorum sic facit_. Give me leave to
vary it a little: he was a good bishop, that was not the worst man; but
if there were some of a better complexion, who yet, _apparent rari
nantes in gurgite vasto_, were very rarely discovered in their episcopal
see; yet, 3. Look int