owned, is ipsa Ratio form His, the Very Spirit and Principle of the Pope
and [unr]ntichrist; It hath been the dam of that white-Denill called Ecclesiasticall
Politic, or Nationall Vuiformiry, a device subservient to that invererated
Project of Nationll Churches which is in a word the Interest, not of
Christ, but the Clergy; for, these Errors depend upon on another, as Links
of the sam[unr]chain of d[unr]kness which hitherto hath shackled Truth in its progress,
bound up all the Christian world in ignorance, and hinder'd the
propagation of the Gospel, in it's more glorious degrees and discoveries
of Light, [unr] and Power.
This unreasonable Position was it which set on the Edg of Popall Fury
and persecusion against that light which breake out among the Albingenses
and Waldenses in France; against that also which was professed by the
Hussies, the Wicklevists, the Lutherans and Protestauts in Germany and
England who all Successively received the Brands of Hereticks and schismaticks,
being deliver'd up to fire and destruction, becaus they held
forth grea[unr]er measures of Trueth, than would fit the size of that state Religion
which was established in their respecitve Countries. And when all
other Forms had fulfill'd their Periods of Dominatio, and laid down,
then at last the Presbytery came in Play, and took up the Cudgels, laying
about them with as much Fury as any of their Predecessors; so that
you see this Papall Spirit and Principll hath run down through all these
Times and Forms, since the very first dawnings of Reformation, to the great
Impediment of the Gospel. And truly it were to be wished, this Spirit
might be at a stand in this last Form of Presbytery, and not wind it self into
any other more refined. For, as a Godly Preacher faith an Epistle to a
Printed sermon of his, which he preached to the Parliament, on Novemb.
5 1651. I have desired in my Prayers to work with God, even for the opening of
the eies of men to see; that the same spirit which lay in the polluted Bed of Papacy,
may meet them in the perfumed Bed of Presbytery; that the Fornications
and sor[unr]eries of this whore are then greatest when they are most Mysterious; that
she is able by her Sorceries to bewitch those that have aneined to a great degree
of spirituality, as the Galatians. To this purpose have I represented the same
spi it, which dwells in the Papacy when it enters into the purer Form of Presbytery,
as fuller of mystery, so fuller of Despight, of danger, not to make the
Form or Persons, but that Principle, that Spirit unfit to be cherish't by any Person
in any Form The highest Godlinesses, and the highest wickednesses, are those
which are most Spirituall.
In his sermon he proceeds thus, most excellently. I profess not at all
to speak against the Form of Presbytery, if consider's in it's simplicity, as
a way, and order, in which saints have Communion with God, and each
with other, according to their present light; as it kisses the golden scepter
of the spirit, submitting, and subordinating it self to the Rule of that spirit,
being desirous of no more, no other power, authority, or esteem, than
what the spirit shall put forth upon it, by putting forth it self in it. Much
less would I grieve or cast contempt upon any little one, that walks in that