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in others, and from others to entertain it, thus much may fatisfie. And in their name I fhall for neither friend nor foe conceal what the generall murmur is; that if it come to inquifitioning again, and licencing, and that we are fo timorous of our felvs, and fo fufpicious of all men, as to fear each book, and the fhaking of every leaf, before we know what the contents are, if föme who but of late were little better then filenc't from preaching, fhall come now to filence us from reading, except what they pleafe, it cannot be gueft what is intended by fom but a fecond tyranny over learning : and will foon put it out of controverfie that Bishops and Presbyters are the fame to us both name and thing. That thofe

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 Paftor of a fmall unlearned Parish, on the fudden fhall be exalted Arch-bifhop 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 these over worthieft and excellenteft 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 Episcopacy, this is but to tranflate the Palace Metropolitan from one kind of dominion into another, this is but an old canonicall flight of comC muting our penance. To startle 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 juftice 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 should be restrain'd by a difcipline imitated from the Prelats, and

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learnt by them from the Inquifition to fhut us up all again into the breft of a licencer, muft needs give caufe 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 Reformation 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: instead of suppreffing fects and fchisms, it raises them and invefts them with a reputation: The punishing of wits enhaunces 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

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