evills of Prelaty which before from five or fix and twenty Sees were diftributivly charg'd upon the whole people, will now light wholly upon learning, is not obfcure to us whenas now the Pastor of a fmall unlearned Parish, on the sudden shall be exalted Arch-bishop over a large dioces of books, and yet not remove, but keep his other cure too, a mysticall. pluralift. He who but of late cry'd down the fole ordination of every novice Batchelor of Art, and deny'd fole jurifdiction over the fimpleft Parishioner, fhall now at home in his privat chair affume both thefe over worthieft and excellentest books and ableft authors that write them. This is not, Yee Covnants and Proteftations that we have made,

this is not to put down Prelaty, this is but to chop an Epifcopacy, this is but to tranflate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another, this is but an old canonicall flight of commuting our penance. To ftartle thus betimes at a meer unlicenc't pamphlet will after a while be afraid of every conventicle, and a while after will make a conventicle of every Chriftian meeting. But I am certain that a State govern'd by the rules of justice and fortitude, or a Church built and founded upon the rock. of faith and true knowledge, cannot be fo pufillanimous. While things are yet not conftituted in Religion, that freedom of writing fhould be restrain❜d by a difcipline imitated from the Prelats, and

learnt

learnt by them from the Inquifition to fhut us up all again into the brest of a licencer, muft needs give cause of doubt and discouragement to all learned and religious men. Who cannot but difcern the finenes of this politic drift, and who are the contrivers; that while Bishops were to be baited down, then all Preffes might be open? it was the peoples birthright and priviledge in time of Parlament, it was the breaking forth of light. But now the Bishops abrogated and voided out of the Church, as if our Refor mation fought no more, but to make room for others into their feats under another name, the Epifcopall arts begin to bud again, the crufe of truth must run no more oyle, liberty of Printing

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must be enthrall'd again under a Prelaticall commiffion of twenty, the privilege of the people nullify'd, and which is wors, the freedom of learning muft groan again, and to her old fetters; all this the Parlament yet fitting. Although their own late arguments and defences against the Prelats might remember them that this obftructing violence meets for the most part with an event utterly oppofite to the end which it drives at : inftead of fuppreffing fects and fchifms, it raises them and invests them with a reputation: The punishing of wits en- haunces their autority, faith the Viscount St. Albans, and a forbidd'n writing is thought to be a certainfpark of truth that flies up in the faces of them who feeke to

tread it out.

This order therefore may: prove a nurfing mother to fects, but I fhall eafily fhew how it will be a step-: dame to Truth and firft by difinabling us to the maintenance of what is known already.

Well knows he who uses to confider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compar'd in Scripture to a ftreaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetuall progreffion, they fick'n into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretick in the truth; and if he beleeve things only because his Paftor fayes fo, or the Affembly fo determins, without knowing other reafon, though