to such places where indulged ministers were settled, there to be confined with allowance to preach as the indulged should employ them; thinking by this means to incapacitate many to hold meetings there or elsewhere: And to these also they give injunctions and restrictions to regulate them in the exercise of their ministry. And to the end that all the outed ministers might be brought under restraint, and the word of God be kept under bonds, by another act of council they command, that all other ministers (not disposed of as is said) were either to repair to the parish churches where they were, or to some other parishes where they may be ordinary hearers, and to declare and condescend upon the parishes where they intend to have their residence. After this they assumed a power, to dispose of these their curates as they pleased, and transport them from place to place; whereof the only ground was a simple act of council, the instructions always going along with them, as the constant companion of the indulgence. By all which it is apparent; whatever these ministers alledge, in vindication of it to cover its deformity, in their balms to take away its stink, and in their surveys to gather plaisters to scurf over its scurviness, viz. that it was but the removal of the civil restraint, and that they entered into their places by the call of the people (a mere mock pretence for a prelimited imposition, whereby that ordinance of Christ was basely prostituted and abused) and that their testimony and protestation was a salvo for their conscience (a mere Utopian fancy, that the indulgers with whom they bargained never heard of, otherwise, as they did with some who were faithful in testifying against their encroachments, they would soon have given them a bill of ease). It cannot be denied, that that doleful indulgence, both in its rise, contrivance, conveyance, grant, and acceptance, end and effects, was a grievous encroachment upon the princely prerogative of Jesus Christ the only head of the church; whereby the usurper's supremacy was homologated, bowed to, complied with, strengthened and established, the cause and kingdom of Christ betrayed, his church's privileges surrendered, his enemies hardened, his friends stumbled, and the remnant rent and ruined; in that it was granted and deduced from the king's supremacy, and conveyed by the council; in that, according to his pleasure, he gave and they received a licence and warrant, to such as he nominated and elected, and judged fit and qualified for it, and fixed them in what particular parish he pleased to assign, under the notion of a confinement, in that he imposed and they submitted to restrictions in the exercise of their ministry, in these particular parishes, inhibiting to preach elsewhere in the church; and with these restrictions, he gave and they received instructions to regulate and direct them in their functions: all which was done without