A DECADE OF GRIEVANCES, Preſented and approved to the Right Honourable and High Court of Parliament, againſt the Hierarchy or government of the Lord Biſhops, and their dependant offices, by a multitude of people, Who are ſenſible of the ruine of Religion, the ſinking of the State, and of the plots and inſultations of enemies againſt both.
Printed in the yeare, 1641.
RIght Honourable and high Senatours, you are not unacquainted how the affrighting and turmoyling troubles of the heart ſpeake in the faces of all true hearted ſubjects, expreſſing often by their ſighes and grones, and alſo vented by their patheticall complaints, the moving cauſe whereof is our calamity, partly already ſeized, and partly making haſte (as it is further threatned) to ſeize upon us. But to our ſhame and confuſion of faces, we muſt confeſſe, that of the provoking cauſe of this calamity, (namely ſinne) we are nothing ſo ſenſible as we ſhould be; or if wee complaint of ſinne, yet we finde not out that Aſhteroth or maine nationall ſinne which is the conjunct or immediate working cauſe of all the evill that is upon us. When a body politique is runne all into one feſtered ſore of ſinne, and one benumming bruiſe of judgement, then the univerſall and painfull diſtemper taketh away the diſcerning faculty of the maſter ſore that hath bred and fed all the reſt, which indeed muſt either be ſought out and removed (as the principall cauſe) or it will never prove a cure. Though the wrath of God be revealed againſt all ungodlineſſe and unrighteouſneſſe, yet for ſome one capitall ſin eſpecially, the Lord departeth from a State, and turneth it upſide downe. This might be inſtanced in Iſrael, joyning himſelfe unto his idols, which made the Lord unto him as a moath, and unto the houſe of Iudah as rottenneſſe. This principle Iſrael underſtood, when they ſought againe and againe, and ſought out the cauſe why he fell before Benjamin. The ſame courſe took Ioſua in humbling himſelfe to finde out Achan, and the excommunicate thing. He might have found out, and alſo removed many other ſinnes, yet if he had not found out the thing of the curſe, he might have mourned his heart out, before he had prevailed with the Lord againſt the enemy.
How to finde out Achan, or golden wedge and Babilonian garment, hoc opus, &c. for it is not obvious to every man: Yea this ſpirit is neither found out, nor caſt out, but by faſting, and prayer. Yet wofull experience, the common ſchoolmaſter, hath formerly diſcovered to the Chariots and horſmen of Iſraell, and now doth diſcover this very ſame to be the very cheefe cauſe of our calamitie that wee pitch upon; we do not exclude our own ſinnes, nor others ſins, for many ſins and many enditemens are againſt us; but this is the maſter ſin, as we conceive, and that upon this ground, that the capitall ſin of a nation is not the higeſt ſin abounding in the higheſt meaſure (againſt which there is any lawes eſtabliſhed;) but that is the maine and maſter ſinne, which is eſtabliſhed by a law. And this is that framing of miſchife by a law, that the prophet ſpeaketh of, called in another place, the commandement of man eſtabliſhing ſin.
Now give us leave (Right Honourable) to demand, what ſin is eſtabliſhed by law in this common-wealth, but the hierarchy and their acoutrements? and therefore we verily believing by the grievances following, offer to demonſtate that the hierarchy and their houſholdſtuffe, is the capitall ſinne and maine cauſe why all this evill is come upon us.
Firſt, may it pleaſe your honours to take notice, that the calling of the Hierarchy, their dependants, offices and ceremonies, whereby they ſubſiſt, are all unlawfull and Antichriſtian.
The hierarchicall government cannot conſiſt in a nation with foundneſſe of doctrine, ſincerity of Gods worſhip, holineſſe of life, the glorious power of Chriſts government, nor with the proſperity and ſafety of the commonwealth.
The preſent Hierarchy are not aſhamed, to beare the multitu•e〈◊◊〉, that their calling is Iure divino. Bu•they dare not but confeſſe, when they are put to it, that their ca•ling is a part of the Kings prerogative. So that they put upon God what hee abhorreth, and will hold of the K•ng when they can doe no other.
They abuſe many w••es that power from the King, by changing,•dding, and taking away at their pleaſure, to the greevous vexation of the ſubject, the diſhonouring of his Majeſty, and the making of the laws of none effect.
The priviledges of the laws and the hierarchiall goverment cannot conſiſt together.
The loialty of obedience to the Kings Majeſty and his laws, cannot poſſibly ſtand with the obedience to the hierarchy.
All the unparalleled changes, bloudy troubles, devaſtations, deſolations, perſecutions of the truth, from forraines or domeſticks, ſince the yeare of our Lord 600. ariſing in this Kingdome; and all the good interrupted or hindered, hath had one or more of the hierarchy, as principall cauſes of them.
All the fearfull evills of ſin and judgement, for the preſent reigning amongſt us, and threatning againſt us (to omit the black deſolation of our ſiſter Churches) wee conceive to bee the birth of the womb•, and the nu•ſlings of the breſt of the hierarchy.
If the herarchy be not removed, the ſcepter of Chriſts government, namely diſciplin•, advanced to its place, there can be no healing of our ſore, no taking up of our controverſi•with God; yea our deſolations, by his rareſt Iudgements, are like to be the aſtoniſhment of all Nations.
Laſtly, right Honourab••; I•you ſtrike at the hierarchy, removing that Aſhteroth or grand I•oll, and erect the purity of Chriſts ordinances, we are confident that there ſhall be a ceaſing from exorbitant ſins, a removall of judgement, a recovery of Gods favour, a repairing of the breaches of the Church and Commonwealth, a redeeming of the ſtate, a daſhing Babells brats againſt the ſtones. Yea this ſhall remove the wi•ked from the throne, ſtrike a terrour, and aſtoniſhment to the hearts of all forraigne and domeſticke foes. In a word, God will goe forth with us, and ſmite our enemies. Yea a glorious proſperity ſhall reſt upon Zion, King, State, and Common-wealth.
Thus having laid a Dec•de of evils ariſing as ſo many corroding ulcers out of the body of the hierarchy, wee wiſh your Honours might prevaile with them by faire meanes; to take Hierax for a preſident without exception: who forſook the Prelacy (as Iſidore witneſſeth in his epiſtle 223.) meeerly for the unlawfulneſſe of the calling; which calling was not then come to that height of unlawfulneſſe by many degrees that now it is. A certaine Monke being choſen Biſhop, refuſed the burthen, who after his death (as they ſay, Caeſar. Hiſterb. Illuſtr. miracl. lib. 2. cap. 29.) appeared to his friend, ſpeaking to him thus, Si Epiſcopus fuiſſem peritſſem, If I had beene a Biſhop, ſaith he, I had been damned. To conclude, wee deſire to ſay no more to your Honours, but up and do what the Lord hath bidden you.
(EEBO-TCP ; phase 2, no. A87840)
Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 157057)
Images scanned from microfilm: (Thomason Tracts ; 30:E172[5])
Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.
EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.
EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).
The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.
Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.
Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.
Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.
The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.
Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).
Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.
This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this EEBO-TCP Phase II text, in whole or in part.