you and the blind ignorant wilfulnesse of such as you I doe here charge the sad account of the losse of such a glorious Reformation as being the revived image of the best and purest ages would with its Beauty and Piety have drawn the eye and heart of all Christendome unto us The Horse-leaches daughters doe cry Give give And you that might have had enough doe still cry more more The greedy Vulture of an insatiate appetite is incurable To reform Episcopacy it is in your esteem too faint too cold a work it is labour ill bestowed and unthankfully accepted nay one of you said in my hearing it is a sinne to labour in the dressing and proining of that plant which say you is not of God and must be digged up And with Episcopacy away with the burden of our Liturgy a If you take not off this burden also it will be girded upon us closer and stronger then ever Away with the thought of a Nationall Church also b It hath no pattern in the Scripture c It is impossible for a Nationall Church to be the true Church of Christ Let us have no Church but Congregations d and let them be without all superintendency as much to say as let every family be a Church and have Religion as they please A way with all e distinction of Clergy and Laity it is popish and Antichristian Let us then banish from us such popish names and send them home to Rome f The Church is a body of parity whose members are all Kings and Priests g And every man must exercise his gifts in common So also the learned but herein absurd and grosse h Walo Messalinus Omnes olim Presbyterierant Latci and againe Waldensis Lutherus crediderunt tustos ac fideles Laicos posse omnes quae in Ecclesiâ Dei agi necesse est agere omnibus muneribus Ecclesiasticis defungi These things thus pressed and pursued I doe not see but on that rise of the Kingship and Priestship of every particular man the wicked sweetnesse of a popular parity may hereafter labour to bring the Kingdown to be but as the first among the Lords and then if as a Gentleman of the House professed his desire to me we can but bring the Lords down into our House among us again {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} All 's done No rather all 's undone by breaking asunder that well ordered chain of government which from the chair of Jupiter reacheth down by severall golden links even to the protection of the poorest creature that now lives among us What will the issue be when hopes grow still on hopes and one aime still riseth upon another as one wave follows another I cannot divine In the mean time you of that party have made the work of Reformation farre more difficult then it was at the day of our meeting and the vulgar mind now fond with imaginary hopes is more greedy of new atchievements then thankfull for what they have received Satisfaction will not now be satisfactory They and you are just in a Seneca's description Non patitur aviditas quenquam esse gratum Nunquam enim improbae spei quod datur satis est Eo maiora cupimus quo maiora venerunt Aequè ambitio non patitur quenquam in eâ mensurâ conquiescere quae quondam fuit ejus impudens votum Vltra se cupiditas porrigit foelicitatem suam non intelligit Learn moderation Mr. C. unlesse as b some of you Rooters doe seem to hold you doe think moderation it self a vice The Stoick was in that point more pious then such Christians his Motto was and your lesson is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} FINIS Iosh. 5. 13 Mr. F. T. C. S A. H. Dr. W. Sir Ben. Rudyer My L. G. D. Parker Polit. B. Bancroft 2 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. Mr. D. of C. Hos. 8. 4. a Ioh. 18. 36. b Joh. 19. 12. c Mat. 27. 37. a Joh. 13. 13. b B. Hall Episcop part 2. p. 106. c Luk. 22 24. a Mat. 20 20. b Act. 1. 6 c Mat. 20 22. d Act. 12. 2. a Mat. 20. 24. b Mar. 10 41. c Mat. 20 25. d Mar. 10. 24. e Luke 22 25. f Mat. 20 28. Mark 10 45. g Luke 22. 22. h Mark 10. 24. i Joh. 13. 15 16. a Luc. 22 29. b Luc. 22. 26. c Luc. 22. 27. d Mat. 20 27. Mark 10 44. e Mat. 20 26. Gal. de usu partium a Ethi l. 6 b Apoc. 1. 10. c 1 Cor. 11. 21. d Ro. 1. 7 e Rom. 14. 9. e Rom. 14. 9. f Part 2. p. 104. a Gen. 1. 31. a 1 Cor. 1. 24. a Gal. 2. 9 b Mat. 5. 5. c Mat. 11. 29. d Mat. 20 22. a 2 Cor. 1. 2 4. b 1 Pet. 5. c Luke 9. 62. P. 347. Ep. 57. This was so at first though afterward it was resolved that no Clergy man but onely Lay men should be Commissioners Mat. 18. 2. Mar. 9. 26 Luk. 9. 27 If Simon Zelotes were the last as some affirme Ps. 137. 3. 4. â— Psa. 38. 1. a Acts 4. 12. b Phil. 2. 9. c Cantic. 1. 3 1 Kin. 19 12. Deut. 4. 12. M. S. S. Mr. Reading Mr. Abbot S. R. H. This charge upon this occasion was afterward expunged the Declaration Jo. 3. 34. Mat. 26. 44. Acts 1. Acts 6. Acts 15. Seneca Sen. Protestation protested denies the Church of England to have the 3. marks of a true Church The Ministers in their Remonstrance doe complaine that the Creed is often rehearsed but they blotted out what they had put in that it is over-short and in one place dangerously obscure Polycar Arist. a As for them who admit a forme to be lawfull yet do declaime against authority for commanding and imposing the use of it it is to me a wonder and absurdity that a just authority may not bind that to be done by a law which is as they confesse lawfull in it selfe both to have and use b In the false copy abroad instead of may hereafter the silly Transcriber put in Nay hâ—r offerture which hath been some displeasure to me Judg. 5. 15. 10 Novemb 1640. Lo. Viscount Falkland D. Morton D. Williams D. Hall D. Iuxton D. Curle D. Bridgman D. Potter D. Duppa Tit. 1. 9. 1 Tit. 9. 10. Vers 11. As Mr. Reading M. Abbot 1 Sam. 2. Ep. l. 4. c. 92. Psa. 105. 15. 1 Pet. 2. 13. Vers 28. 1 Pet. 5. 2 Ep. ad Tâ—al 1 Pet. 2. 25. Epist. ad Tral Epist. ad Magnes Epist. ad Tral Sir Tho Aston review of Episcopacy p. 1 Phil. 4. 3. Act. 1. 20 1 Tim. 3. 1. 1 Pet. 5. 1. Act. 1. 20. 25 Act. 9. 27 2 Cor. 5. 16. Acts 14. 14. Rom. 16 7. Phi. 2. 25 Acts 20. 24. Eph. 3. 7. Col. 1. 23 a Ro. 15. 8. b Esa. 41. 27. c Heb. 3. 1. d 1 Pet. 2 25. 3 Jo. 9. Sen. Jer. 6. Mal. 4. 1. Cant. 1. 4 Zach. 11. Zach. 11. 2. Col. 2. 3. Esay 9. 6 Mat. 28. 20. a Lu. 6. 13 b Luk. 10 1. c Acts â— d Act. 6. 6 e Phil. 3. 17. f 1 Tim. 3. 1. g 1 Thes. 5. 12. 1 Tim. 5. 17. h 1 Cor. 3. 10. i Rom. 16 3. 21. Phi. 2. 25 Philem. 24. k 2 Tim. 2. 3. l Phil. 2. 25. Philem. 1. 2. m Heb. 13 17 24. n 1 Tim. 5. 17. o Rom. 12. 8. p ad Tral a As may be collected by Spensers wretched Pamphlet There was then but one Arch-Bishop and he impeached for his life Coloss. 2. 21. Dr. Hacket Rom. 2. 22. Prov. 8. 18. 1 A. G. 2 W. P. 3 S. W. B. 4 M. S. 5 W. C. 6 Mr. S. S 7 Dr. B. from others 8 Dr. W. 9 R. L. B. 10 Mr. F. 11 S. A. H. 12 T. W. 13 G. H. 14 S. E. P. 15 Mr. K. 16 I. K. 17 Civis ignoÌ„tus 18 T. C. Pro. 30. 15. Mr. F. a S. M. b Protestation protested p. 20. c Mich. Qnintin p. 4. d Eatons sermon vouched by Sir Th. Aston p. 4. e Assertion of Scottish government p. 3. 5. f Quintin p. 9. g Spâ—nâ—â—rs Pamphlet h thought to be Salmasius against Petavius p. 397. 398. a De Benef. l. 2. c. 27. b J. H. H. M. Epictetus
fert scelus facit suum Shall I be bold to give you a very few instances one for a hundred wherewith our Pulpits and our Presses do groan M. Speaker There is a certaine new-born un-seen ignorant dangerous desperate way of Independency Are we Sir for this independent way Nay Sir are we for the elder brother of it the Presbyteriall form I have not yet heard any one Gentleman within these walls stand up and assert his thoughts here for either of these waies and yet Sir we are made the Patrons and Protectors of these so different so repugnant Innovations witnesse the severall dedications to us Nay both these waies together with the Episcopall come all rushing in upon us every one pretending a fore-head of Divinity 1. Episcopacy says it is by divine right and certainly Sir it comes much neerer to its claym then any other 2. Presbytery that says it is by Divine right 3. Nay this illegitimate thing this new-born Independency that dares to say it is by Divine right also Thus the Church of England not long since the glory of the Reformed Religion is miserably torne and distracted You can hardly now say which is the Church of England Whither shall we turn for cure Another instance If I would deale with a Papist to reduce him He answers I have been answered so already To what Religion would you perswade me what is the Religion you professe Your nine and thirty Articles they are contested against your publique solemne Liturgy that is detested And which is more then both these the three essentiall proper and onely Markes of a true Church they are protested against what Religion would you perswade me to where may I find and know and see and read the Religion you professe I beseech you Sir helpe me an answer to the Papist Nay Sir the Papist herein hath assistance even among ourselves doth get the tongue of some men whose hearts are farre from him For at one of your Committées I heard it publiquely asserted by one of that Committée that some of our Articles do containe some things contrary to holy Scripture M. Speaker Sunday is a Sabbath Sunday is no Sabbath Both true both untrue in severall acceptation and the knot I think too hard for our Teeth Shall I give you an easier instance Some say it is lawfull to kneele at receiving the Elements of our holy Communion others plead it as expedient Some do presse it as necessary and there want not others who abhorre it as Idolatrous And Sir I am confident you cannot so state this easie question to passe among us but that there will be many contradicentes The second Epistle of S. Peter is now newly denied to be the Apostles Our Creed the holy Apostles Creed is now disputed denyed inverted and exploded by some who would be thought the best Christian among us I started with wonder and with anger to heare a bold Mechanike tell me that my Creed is not my Creed He wondred at my wonder and said I hope your worship is too wise to beleeve that which you call your Creed O Deus bone in quae tempora reservasti nos Thus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} One absurdity leads in a thousand and when you are down the Hill of errour there is no bottom but in Hell and that is bottomlesse too Shall I be bold to give you one and but one instance more much clamor now there is against our publike Liturgy though hallowed with the blood of some of the first composers thereof And surely Sir some parts of it may be very well corrected But the clamors now go very high Impudence or ignorance is now grown so frontlesse that it is loudly expected by many that you should utterly abrogate all formes of publique worship a and at least if you have a short form yet not to impose the use of it Extirpation of Episcopacy that hope is already swallowed and now the same men are as greedy for abolition of the Liturgy that so the Church of England in her publique prayers b may hereafter turne a babler at all adventure A brainlesse stupid and an ignorant conceit of some M. Speaker The wisdome of this House will I am confident never sinke so low never fall into such a deliquium of judgment and of piety When you do I shall humbly submit my selfe unto the stake and fagot I mean for certainly Sir I shall then be a Parliament heretick Thus much for a taste of that whereof there is too much abroad For the divisions of Ruben there are great thoughts of heart abroad Sir Thus are we engaged into sad points of Divinity and with the favour of that Gentleman who did last time disgust it I must againe propound my doubtfull quaere to be resolved by the wisdome of this House whether we be Idonei competentes judices in doctrinall resolutions In my opinion we are not Let us maintaine the Doctrine established in the Church of England it will be neither safety nor wisdome for us to determine new Sir I do againe repeat and avow my former words And do confidently affirme that it was never seene nor knowne in any age in any Nation throughout the whole world that a set of Laymen Gentlemen Souldiers Lawyers of both gownes Physitians Merchants Citizens all professions admitted or at least admittable but the professors of Religion alone excluded that we should determine upon doctrines in Divinity Shall the Clergy hold different doctrines from us or shall our determinations binde them also They are a considerable body in this Kingdome they are herein surely concerned as much as we and ought not to be bound up unheard and unpartied Farther Sir if Clergy men among us be thought fit for no other then for spirituall imployment How shall we answer it to God and to a good conscience if we shut them out from that which we our selves pretend to bee their only and their proper work Mr. Speaker We cannot brag of an unerring spirit infallibility is no more tyed to your Chaire then it is unto the Popes And if I may speake Truth as I love truth with clearnesse and with plainnesse I do here ingenuously professe unto you that I shall not acquiesse and sit downe upon the doctrinall resolutions of this House unlesse it be where my own Genius doth leade and prompt me to the same conclusions Mr. Speaker We are here convened by his Majesties Writ to treat Super arduis negotiis regni Ecclesiae I beseech you let us not turn negotia Ecclesiae into dogmata fidei There is a great difference in objecto betweene the Agends and the Credends of a Christian Let us so take care to settle the government that we do not unsettle the doctrines The Short close of all with a motion is but this we are poisoned in many points of doctrine And I know no Antidote no Recipe for cure but one a
triple Crown answerable thereunto and to support that he pretends to have a threefold Law The first is jus divinum Episcopacy by divine right and this he would have you thinke to be the Coronet next his head that which doth circle and secure his power Our Bishops have in an unlucky time entred their plea and pretended title to this Crown Episcopacy by Divine right The second is Jus huntanum Constantins donation the gift of indulgent Princes temporall power This Law belongs to his second or his middle Crown already also pleaded for by our Prelates in print These two Crowns being obtained he the Pope doth frame and make his third Crowne himselfe and sets that upmost upon the top This Crown also hath its Law and that is Jus canonicum the Canon law of more use unto his Popeship then both the other Just so our Prelates from the pretended divinity of their Episcopacy and from the temporall power granted by our Princes they would now obtrude a new Canon Law upon us They have charged their Canons at us to the full and never fearing that ever they would recoyle back into a Parliament they have rammed a prodigious ungodly oath into them The illegality and invalidity of these Canons as I conceive is easily discoverable by one short question viz. what do you call the meeting wherein they were made give it a name to know it by who can frame his argument aright unlesse he can first tell against what he is to argue would you confute the Convocation they were a holy Synod would you argue against the Synod why they were Commissioners would you dispute the Commission they will mingle all powers together and answer that they were some fourth thing that we neither know nor imagine Quo teneam nodo mutantem Protea unlesse they will unriddle themselves and owne what they were we may prosecute but hardly with concludent arguments Yet I venture I have conferred with some of the founders of these new Canons but I professe clearly that I could never yet meet with any one of that assembly who could in behalfe of their meeting well answer me the first question in the Catechisme what is your name Alas they are parted before they know what they were when they were together The sum of the severall answers that I have received doth amount to this They were a Convocationall Synodicall Assembly of Commissioners indeed a threefold Chimaera a monster to our Lawes a Cerberus to our Religion A strange Commission wherein no one Commissioners name is to be found A strange Convocation that lived when the Parliament was dead A strange Holy Synod where one part never saw never conferred with the other But indeed what use or need of conference if that be true of these Canons which I read of the former ones Notum est Canones formari Lambethae priusquà m in Synodo ventilentur Thus far preparatory I proceed to my argument whereby to manifest the invalidity of these Canons not borrowing but avoyding what hath formerly been instanded by others I will neither inveigh upon them as unnamed Commissioners nor infirme them as the work of a dead Convocation But will take them in the capacity of their own affected title of a Synod Such they bragged themselves to be whilest they sate such they stile themselves in the Title-page of these never to be Canonized Canons The words are Canons treated upon in Convocation agreed upon in Synod This treating in one capacity and agreeing in another is a new mould to cast Canons in never used before Canons bred in a Convocation born in a Synod Thus although we find not one good father here are yet two mothers to one illfavoured child never known before nor imagined but of Bacchus whom the Poets cals among other attributes Solúmque bimatrem I proceed if their meeting be a Synod either it is so by Donation by Election or only by Vsurpation Donation from the King is this title and authority indulged to them by his Majesty Look through all his Highnesse Letters Patent and they are not once saluted with the ambitious title of a Synod Yet in the Canons they have assumed it seventeen times it is their own pride their own presumption The King hath not done it pardon me no Prince ever did it or can do it no power Regall Imperiall or Papall did ever attempt it to ordaine that William and Richard Matthew and Iohn c. and I know not who more being met and assembled upon other summons shall by a Commission be on a sudden translated from what they were into an unthought-of Nationall Synod without voyce or choise of any man to be concerned this never was done this never can be well done As for due election for such meetings this indeed is or ought to be of the true esse to a Legitimate Synod But due election made up by voyces is so much a stranger to this Synod that their fatherhoods will confesse that they were never trusted to this Synod as a Synod by any either of the Clergie or of the Laity Concerning the choise of a few of them and but a few about 50. as I guesse chosen to the Convocation house that choice wil never render them a lawfull Synod untill they can prove metamorphosis and Transubstantiation For the votes of all their choosers upon expiration of the Convocation house returned backe home to every mans bosome from whence they breathed So that if you will en-live the same men to be now Synodall who were before but Convocationall you must renew the old Pythagorean Transmigration for they want the breath and life of an election A new one you have not and the old one is not to be had but by {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Besides I do affirm and shall approve that the electors to a Convocation and to a Synod are not all one The Clergy only do and of right onely ought to choose unto the Convocation house The reason we of the Laity so they will call us have our House of Commons where our Trustees by vertue of our voyces do sit at the same time But in the choice unto a Synod we who must be bound by the determinations of the Synod ought also to be interested in the parties determining This is clear enough in reason and will be better oleared presently Of Synods I find five severall sorts first a generall or universall Synod secondly Patriarchicall thirdly Nationall fourthly Provinciall fiftly a Diocesan Synod I passe by the two first and last as not pertinent to this time and affaire Concerning Provinciall and Nationall Synods a word or two if I know which to call their late meeting They run on riddles and I want an Oedipus at every turn These Canons were they forged in one Synod Nationall or in two Provinciall were they two Provinciall Synods how then come their Acts and Canons to be imbodyed together how comes it to passe that all
in way of pursuit for this one argument that no Canons can bind the Laity where we have no voyce of our own nor choyce of the Clergy persons who do found them nor assent in the susception of them after they are framed Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet M. Speaker It remaines as a wish that every member of that meeting who voted these exorbitant Canons should come severally to the Bar of the Parliament House with a Canon book in his hand and there unlesse he can answer his Catechisme as I called it shew what is the name of their meeting and unlesse he can manifest that the Laity are no part of the Church Conceptis verbis in such expresse terms as that House should think fit to abjure his own ill-begotten issue or else be commanded to give fire to his own Canons Section VI UPon my motion November 23. it pleased the grand Committee for Religion to appoint a Subcommittee to receive complaints from oppressed Ministers which Subcommittee was shortly after made a Committee by order of the House It pleased the Gentlemen of this Committee to put the honour and the burden of the chaire upon me from hence severall Reports have been delivered in I shall only trouble the Reader with the first of them 18 Decemb. 1640. Mr. White This grand Committee for Religion did authorize a Sub-committee among other things to take into consideration the unjust sufferings of good Ministers oppressed by the cruell-used authority of Hierarchicall Rulers In this and in other points we have entred upon many particulars we have matured and perfected but one If we had lesse worke you should before this time have had more but complaints crowd in so fast upon us that the very plenty of them retards their issue The present Report which I am to make unto you is concerning M. Wilkinson a Batchellor in Divinity and a man in whose character do concur Learning Piety Industry Modesty Two hardships have been put upon him one at the time when he presented himselfe to receive Orders and that was thus The Bishop of Oxfords Chaplen M Fulham being the examiner for Bishops now do scorne to do Bishops work it belongs to himselfe he propoundeth foure questions to M. Wilkinson not taken out of the depth of Divinity but fitly chosen to discover how affections do stand to be novellized by the mutability of the present times The questions were these 1. Whether hath the Church authority in matters of faith 2. May the Kings booke of sports so some impious Bishops have abused our pious King to call their contrivance His Majesties book may this be read in the Church without offence 3. Is bowing to or before the Altar lawfull 4. Is bowing at the Name of Jesus lawfull The doctrine of the first affirmed will bring a dangerous influence upon our beliefe by subjecting our faith to humane resolutions The other three are disciplinarian in the present way of Novellisme As soon as M. Wilkinson heard these questions Lupum auribus he had a Wolfe by the eares And because unto these captious interrogatories he could not make a peremptory answer M. Fulham would not present your petitioner to the Bishop for ordination Thus you see Mr. White a new way of Simony Imposition of hands is to be sold if not for money yet to make a side a party a faction They will not confer Orders but upon such as will come in and make party with them in their new practices as is evident by these questions Take this in this kind as a leading case a first complaint more are comming and M. Wilkinson shall have the poore common comfort Solamen miseris socios habuisse I proceed to his second sufferance which was by the Vice-chancellor of Oxford for a Sermon preached in his course at S. Marys in Oxford Short to make he preached better then they were willing to heare the Sermon fell into the eares of a captious Auditour For this Sermon he stands now suspended by the Vice-chancellor from all the spirituall promotion that he had which was only the reading of a Divinity lecture in Magdalen-hall The Committee required the Vice-chancellor to send unto us the Sermon with his exceptions in writing They were brought and being received they are three in number great and weighty in the accusation none at all in proof Nay M. White there is nothing presented unto us wherein to finde a colour or a shadow whereby to make the accusation semblable and consequently the suspension just Ecquis innocens erit si accusare suffecerit The particulars insisted upon pickt and chosen out of that Sermon by the Vice-chancellor are three every one a hainous charge and the first sounding little lesse then treason Give me leave to read them as Mr. Vicechancellor hath sent them in writing 1. Our religious Soveraigne and his pious government is seditiously defamed as if his Majesty were little better then the old pagan persecutors or then Queen Mary 2. The government of the Church and Vniversity is unjustly traduced 3. Men of learning and piety conformable to the publicke government are uncharitably slandered The least of these being duly proved will make him worthy of suspension but if M. Wilkinson be guilty of the first he is not worthy to live The truth is the Vice-chancellor hath learned audacter criminare and fayling in proofe hath only fowled himselfe Your Subcommittee upon due consideration of the cause and circumstance have hereupon unanimously voted that M. Wilkinson is free from all and every of these exceptions made against his Sermon by the Vice-chancellor We are all of opinion that there is nothing therein that deserves Notam censoris nedum lituram judicis If M. White there be in a Sermon as there ought to be aliquid mordacis veritatis shall the Preacher be for this suspended His mouth shut up for preaching truth boldly It is contrary to their commission for Sir they have a great charter to speak freely it is warranted unto them Jure divino Saint Paul doth own it in his instruction of Timothy The words are I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine Here is our case exactly Here was reproofe here was exhortation here was preaching out of season to unwilling or to unprepared hearers and yet in season the Theame was necessary and fitted to their want of zeale But the only fault was that the time is come when sound doctrine will not be endured Thus the Committee found it thus have I faithfully but imperfectly reported it and do now subjoyn the opinion and request of your trustees to this grand Committee Mr. Wilkinson is innocent and free from this accusation He had just cause to petition The Vice-chancellor hath been without cause nay against cause rigid and oppressive The Sermon deserved
without a too meane demission I may say debasing of many other of the same order Nay this Bishop not content with Ecclesiastick pride alone will swell also with ambition and Offices secular Truly Sir you have done exceeding well to Vote away this Bishop for of this Bishop and of this alone I must understand the Vote you have passed untill I be better instructed for your Vote is against the present Episcopacy and for the present you can hardly finde any other Episcopacy but this an authority how ever by some of them better exercised yet too solely entrusted to them all Away then with this Lordly domineerer who plays the Monarch perhaps the Tyrant in a Diocesse of him it is of whom I read Episcopalis dignitas papalem fastum redolet This kind of Episcopacy it smels ranke of the Papacy nor shall you ever be able utterly and absolutely to extirpate Popery unlesse you root out this soleship of Episcopacy To conclude in short and plaine English I am for abolishing of our present Episcopacy Both Diocesses and Diocesan as now they are But I am withall at the same time for restauration of the pure Primitive Episcopall Presidency Cut off the usurped adjuncts of our present Episcopacy reduce the ancient Episcopacy such as it was in puris spiritualibus Both may be done with the same hand and I thinke in a shorter Bill then is offered now by way of addition Downe then with our Prelaticall Hierarchy or Hierarchicall Prelacy such as now we have most of it consisting in temporall adjuncts onely the Diana and the Idoll of proud and lazy Church-men This doe but eâ lege on this condition that with the same hand in the same Bill we doe gently raise againe even from under the ruines of that Babel such an Episcopacy such a Presidency as is venerable in its antiquity and purity and most behoovefull for the peace of our Christendome This is the way of Reforming and thus by yeelding to the present storme and throwing that over-board which is adventitious borrowed and undue Peace may be brought home unto our Church againe the best of that building and the truth of ancient Episcopacy may be preserved otherwise we hazard all This would be glorious for us and for our Religion and the glory thereof will be the greater because it redounds unto the God of glory My motion is that those sheets last presented to you may be laid by and that we may proceed to reduce againe the old originall Episcopacy This being thus delivered and upon report being mis-resented abroad a stranger came to me the next day and with much shew of love and sorrow told me that I had lost by this speech the prayers of thousands in the City Very many others have since beene with me to try my temper but I have found in them all all that are absolutely Anti-Episcopall so much more of entreaty then of argument that indeed they have proved themselves as Bishops unto me for I have received Confirmation from them Section X. SInce the late Recesse some endeavours of mine have beene reported more distastive then before insomuch as that a lying generation gave it forth some that I was expelled the house others that I was in the Tower for what I had spoken The first passage was next morning after our meeting upon occasion then offered by way of complaint for not obeying the late Order of the 8 of September The complaint came from some Parishioners of Criplegate And thus I did on the sudden then deliver my selfe which presently I reduced into writing 21 Octob. 1641. M. Speaker It is very true as is instanced unto you that your late order and declaration of the 8 and 9 of September are much debated and disputed abroad perhaps it may be a good occasion for us to re-dispute them here The intent of your Order to me seemes doubtfull and therfore I am bold for my owne instruction humbly to propound two quaeres 1. How farre an Order of this House is binding 2. Whether this particular Order be continuant or expired Your Orders I am out of doubt are powerfull if they be grounded upon the lawes of the Land Upon that warranty we may by an Order enforce any thing that is undoubtedly so grounded and by the same rule we may abrogate whatsoever is introduced contrary to the undoubted foundation of our Lawes But Sir this Order is of another nature another temper especially in one part of it Of which in particular at some other time Sir There want not some abroad men of birth quality and Fortunes such as know the strength of our Votes here as well as some of us I speake my owne infirmities men of the best worth and of good affyance in us and no way obnoxious to us They know they sent us hither as their Trustees to make and unmake Lawes They know they did not send us hither to rule and governe them by arbitrary revocable and disputable Orders especially in Religion No time is fit for that and this time as unfit as any I desire to be instructed herein M. Speaker in the second place there is a question whether this Order whereupon your present complaint is grounded be permanent and binding or else expired and by our selves deserted I observe that your Order being made 8. September in hope then of concurrence therein by the Lords that fayling you did issue forth your last resolution by way of declaration9 September wherein thus you expresse your selfe That it may well be hoped when both Houses shall meet againe that the good propositions and preparations in the House of Commons for preventing the like grievances and reforming the disorders and abuses in matter of Religion may be brought to perfection wherefore you doe expect that the commons of this Realme doe in the meane time what obey and performe your Order made the day before no such thing but in the meane time quietly attend the Reformation intended These are your words and this my doubt upon them whether by these words you have not superseded your owne Order Sure I am the words doe beare this sence and good men may thinke and hope it was your meaning My humble motion therfore is this I beseech you to declare that upon this our Re-convention your order of the eighth of September is out of date And that the Cōmons of England must as you say quietly attend the Reformation intended which certainly is intended to be perfected up into Acts of Parliament And in the meane time that they must patiently endure the present Lawes untill you can make new or mend the old Section XI THe promise made in my last hath not beene performed in the House nor is now like to be The reason is there is now no probability that we shall debate the validity of our order of the eighth of September A day indeed Saterday the sixth of November was by order fixed for that theame but other affaires diverted
been a continuall spring a perpetuall growth of learning ever since it pleased God first to light Luthers Candle I might have said Wicklifes and justly so I do for even from that time unto this day and night and houre this light hath increased and all this while our better cause hath gained by this light which doth convince our Miso-musists and doth evict that Learning and Religion by their mutuall support are like Hippocrates twins they laugh and mourn together But Sir notwithstanding all this so long encrease 〈◊〉 learning there is a Terra incognita a great Land of learning not yet discovered our adversaries are daily trading and we must not sit down and give over but must encourage and maintain and encrease the number of our painfull adventurers for the Golden fleece and except the fleece be of Gold you shall have no adventurers Sir we all do look that our cause should be defended if the fee be poore the plea will be but faint Our cause is good our defence is just let us take care that it be strong which for my part I do clearly and ingenuously professe I cannot expect should be performed by the Parish Minister no not so well as hitherto it hath been For from whom the more you do now expect of the Pulpit the lesse I am sure you must look for of the Pen How shall he with one hundred pound perhaps two hundred pound per annum with a family and with constant preaching be able either in purse for charge or in leisure for time or in Art for skill to this so chargeable so different so difficult a work I speak it M. Speaker and pardon my want of modesty if I say I speak it not unknowingly Six hundred pound is but a mean expence in books and will advance but a moderate Library Paines and learning must have a reward of Hoâ—â—â— and Profit proportionall and so long as our adversaries will contend we must maintain the charge or else lay down the cause In conclusion I do beseech you all with the fervor of an earnest heart a heart almost divided between hopes and feares never to suffer diversion or diminution of the rents we have for Learning and Religion but beside the Pulpit let us be sure to maintain {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an universall Militia of Theology whereby we may be alway ready and able even by strength of our own within our own happy Island at home {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to stop the mouth of all errors and heresies that can arise Never Sir never let it be said that sacred Learning for such is that I plead for shall in one essentiall halfe thereof be quite unprovided for in England Sir I have reason to be earnest in this I see I know great designes drawing another way and my feares are increased not cured by this declaration Thus I have done and because I shall want champions for true Religion Because I neither look for cure of our complaints from the common people nor do desire to be cured by them Because this house as under favour I conceive hath not recommended all the heads of this Remonstrance to the Committee which brought it in Because it is not true that the Bishops have commanded Idolatry Because I do not know any necessary good end use of this declaration but do feare a bad one And because we passe his Majesty and do Remonstrate to the People I do here discharge my Vote with a cleare conscience and must say NO to this strange Remonstrance Section XVI THus far I go cleare the same man unchanged and that I may fully expose my selfe unto a right Character and a true esteem beside the laying open how I have already expressed my selfe in matter of Religion I shall now be bold to give you a composure fitted and framed for the House on the same subject and ready to have been presented above halfe a yeere since The Bill for Root and Branch commonly called the Bishops Bill having long been agitated and in the Commitment grown from two sheets to above forty I did think it would at least have been brought to question for the engrossing This that follows was ready to have been interposed upon that question The Bill is since laid down I hope to its perpetuall rest This was prepared as an endeavour to lay that asleepe And because it doth most fully represent my utmost end and aime for Reformation I am willing to subjoyne it here unto the rest {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Mr. Speaker THis Bill is now in question for its further progresse I must give a vote unto it one way or other The inward dictate of my conscience will not suffer me to be affirmative We may now debate this Bill super totam materiam and I will then with your leave and patience give you some account why I am so fixed negative This I shall doe as briefly as this cause can beare You had from my hand a very short Bill Non hos quaesitum munus in usus I am willing with many more to abrogate that which is provided that I may at that very time in the same Bill know and constitute what shall be such an addition to this Bill I did at first expect Such an addition I shall anon be bold to present but it will not now suit this Bil as it is now mistemper'd to that purpose This Bill when it was but a short one it did containe a great summe An Act for the utter abolishing of all Arch-bishops Bishops Deanes Deanes and Chapters Archdeacons Prebendaries Chaunters Chanons and all other their under-officers These may be Legion for ought I know they are so many and many of them instruments and officers of vexation only Pope Gregory the first gave a true prediction when he said that Antichrist should come Cum exercitu Sacerdotum with an army of Priests it hath proved so True on the other side where the numberlesse numbers of Monks Fryers and Secular Priests with his Janizary Jesuits doe match the greatest army that ever the Grand Signior hath led True in proportion with us if the under-officers among us do reach neere the thousands they have been of late computed at But letting passe the army of all their under officers the substance and body of our present worke is reducible to two heads 1 Episcopall Governement 2 Cathedrall Societies All the rest are unto these but Phaleratae nugae their idle trappings and additionall impertinencies In the discussion and resolution of all this I am confident if we be but candid temperate and respectfull hearers of one another we shall finde that all this while we are farther of in words in language and expressions then we are in matter in truth and in purposes In the first place therefore lest we should beat the aire in a mistaken sence of words I will be bold in a word or two to give you the
to stand up and to shew me teach me how I may prove that ever there was an Alexander of Macedon or a Julius Caesar or a William the Conqueror in the world For Sir to me as playn as evident it is that Bishops President have been the constant permanent and perpetuall governors and moderators of the Church of God in all ages And this being matter of fact I do hope that historicall proofe will be sufficient adequate proofe in that which in its fact is matter of History But proofes herein are so manifold and so cleare that I borrow the free and true assertion of a worthy and a learned Gentleman It may be thought want of will rather then want of light which makes men deny the antiquity of Bishops in the Primitive times Therefore answer not me but answer Ignatius answer Clemens Tertullian and Irenaeus Nay answer the whole indisputed concurrence of the Asian the Europaean and the African Churches All ages All places All persons Answer I say all these or do as I do yeild to the sufficient evidence of a truth Deque fide certâ sit tibi certa fides But do not think to bring me into a dream of a new born or new to be born Church-government never known never seen in Christendome before this Age As for them who say that all Episcopacy is Antichristian Truly Sir they may if they please with as sound reason and with as much knowledge say that all Church-government is Antichristian and I doubt there are some abroad ripe for such a sence Sir Let us be wiser than to cosen our selves with words and through a mistaken Logomachy run our selves into a Church Anarchy If you talke with a Papist in point of Religion presently he is up with the word Catholike Catholike he tels you he is of the Catholike Roman Church This go's off Ore rotundo but require him to speak playn English The Vniversall Roman Church and then you may laugh him into silence Just so some cry away with Bishops no Bishops no not of any kind I desire one of that sence to stand up and tell me sadly would you have an Overseer in the Church or not Ancient S. Clement whom S. Paul calleth his Fellow-workman in his undoubted Epistle to the Corinthians doth foretell that a time should come when there would be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Contention about the very name of Bishop I think the time is now For my part I will not make that my contention But for the government by an Episcopall presidency shew me any thing more agreeable to the holy word Shew me any thing more honoured by the holy Martyrs of the first and the latter times Shew me any more rationall and prudentiall way of government and I yeild unto you Some against all Episcopacy do plead unto us the fresh example and late practice of our neighbour Churches But I beseech you Sir are not we herein as fit to give them our as to take their example I am ashamed to heare yesterdays example pressed as an argument by some and the all-seeing providence through all ages to the contrary turned aside by the same men as not worth an answer Or if an answer you get it is but this dead one wherein as in a mare mortuum they would drown all reply Oh say they the mystery of Iniquity began to work in the Apostles time Ergo what Therefore say they this Episcopacy is that mystery of iniquity And so they do desperately conclude with themselves that Christ did never support his Church with a good government till Farell and Frumentius did drive their Bishop out of Geneva or since then untill Presbytery begat independency But their Syllogisme is as true Logick and as Consequentiall as our Kentish Proverb that Tenterden Steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands Both Arguments are in one and the same mood and figure But I return and proceed I have not asserted this kind of Episcopacy as Divine yet I professe that it soares aloft Et caput inter nubila condit It hath been strongly received that Presbyters succeed to the seventy Disciples and Bishops to the Apostles S. Peter honours Episcopacy by entitling the holy Apostles thereunto for Matthias is chosen to take a Bishoprick the very word there which Judas lost by going to his owne place S. Paul tels you This is a faythfull saying {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} If any man desire a Bishopricke he desireth a good worke And this S. Paul writes not at large in an Epistle to the body of a whole Church as to Rome or Corinth but this is in directed unto Timothy then designed to be the particular Bishop that is the President and Overseer of Ephesus Two things are or may be here objected First that neither of these Texts nor any other can be found expresly mandatory requiring the Office of Episcopacy in the Church Next that the name of Bishop is in some places plainly given unto Presbyters I answer If you put me upon this that you will not yeild unto Episcopacy untill you have a Text expresly positive therein consider if by the same rule you do not let loose many other points as well as this Shew me an expresse for the Lords day to be weekly celebrated It will be hard to find divers Articles of our Creed in the holy Scripture terminis terminantibus What have you there for Paedo-baptisme What precept or example have you frō our Saviour that women shal receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper Why should women be baptised since the covenant to wch baptisme doth succeed Circumcision was a seale between God and men onely what have you there expresse why I may not beleeve the Trinity to be three Almighties as well as three persons but one Almighty But Sir the golden rule of Vincentius Lirinensis is an unfailing guide Quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus look what among Christians hath been every where at all times by all men universally received Atque id quidem verè est Catholicum and there you may rest secured So I say that for right sence of these Texts and for warrant of this Episcopacy the universall practice of the whole Church of God especially in the Apostles times and immediately succeeding the Apostles is a most undeniable cōmentary to cleare unto us that this kind of Episcopacy is and was of Apostolicall allowance if not of Apostolicall institution And thus in other points doth Tertullian argue against Marcion and S. Augustine against the Donatists The second exception is thus These Bishops may well be thought to be but Presbyters for say they the name of Bishop is given to Presbyters also in holy writ Ergo Episcopacy is not a severall degree from Presbytery Surely Sir if this argument be a sound one then Apostleship it selfe was not a severall order and degree from the 70. Disciples and from Presbyters and then it had been a
present possessours thereof No nor the future successours thereunto Our Deans and Prebends as now they stand or rather as they have of late abused themselves are both burdensome and scandalous to us and to our Religion Yet I must looke upon their revenue as the great reward and powerfull encouragement of Religion and of Learning Some would alter and amend these cloysters others would root them out some would transferre their wealth but doe not tell me whether Some would annexe all to the Crown to enlarge the royall revenue Some reputing them incendiaries would out of their forfeited estates pay our debt of promise to the Scots Some would distribute all that wealth among Parish Ministers onely Others have mixt and different designes And there want not some who upon all these Lands doe write Touch not tast not handle not you know it was urged by a worthy learned Dr. at the barre that of Saint Paul Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou sacriledge This theame I shall decline and whatsoever my opinion be whether man can give unto God a speciall property in a peece of Land or not yet am I fully resolved never to alienate any of these revenues but to mend the uses in the way of pietie so that this supposed danger of being sacrilegious shall be certainly out of my doores In the next place my humble and my earnest desire is that you will maintain the Pen as well as the Pulpit Polemie as well as persuasive learning If our Cathedrals were rightly temper'd wee might hope for admirable fruit of their revenues Yong Students in Divinity wander for want of manuduction Poore Christians among us want a godly sober plain and pithy english Paraphrase upon the whole Bible Our Nation our Religion and all Christendome want the just volumns of a large Latine Commentary The body of Divinity should be reduced into a solid Catechisme Every heresie might be choked in its first breath All the Fathers might be revised and briefly animadversed I cannot think of half the happinesse we might hope for so long as the rewards of Wisedome are held forth to invite and encourage Industry Riches and honour are with me saith Wisdome that knew how to invite Take then none of the reward away either of Profit or of Honour So much reward as you abate so much industry you loose Who ever went unto the Hesperides onely to fight with the Dragon onely for that for victory and for nothing else No Sir but there was the fruit of Gold Profit as well as Honour to be gained to be atchieved and for that the Dragon shall be fought withall Quis enim doctrinam amplectitur ipsam Praemia si tollas The Lawyer the Physician the Merchant through cheaper pains do usually arrive at richer fortunes And but that it pleaseth God to worke inwardly I should wonder that so many able heads ingenious spirits and industrious souls should joy in the continuall life long pains and care of a Parish cure about 100. l. per annum stipend for life when with easier brows fewer watchings and lesser charge they might in another profession as every day we see it done fasten a steady inheritance to them and their Children of a farre larger income In this place there was composure of that which was on a like occasion spoken 22. Novemb. and is entred pag. And this place is half imperfect for want of those lines here Let me here by way of anticipation prevent that which will else come in objectively upon me The Vniversities it will be said are amply furnished with able disputants what need other care other provision Truly Mr. Speaker excepting some of our publike Professours there and some few of the heads of our houses there who hath descended into this Areopagus There is indeed good training good preparatory exercisings of raw souldiers there and much valour in counterfeit skirmishes among them But for perfect Polemy in letters you may guesse what our Vniversities can yeeld by observing our trayned bands at common musters Your graduate in the schoole of warre will tell you that good Artillery men though quick at a dry muster and nimble with false fires are not immediately compleated into true and full souldiers So every Syllogizer is not presently a match to cope with Bellarmine Baronius Stapleton c. Mr. Speaker you see my heart I move not I plead not for the Deans nor for the Prebends If they will not prove if they cannot be turned to be champions in this holy warfare then the rich revenue detur digniori Let it be given to them that will bring forth better fruit But if there may be had such a reduction of them such a retrenching of them nay such a new forming of them that we may be alway sure in all Polemicke learning to have some men of valour to goe in and out before us Surely Sir let them be so reduced so retrenched so new formed if not if this cannot bee then let others have the wealth that will doe the worke After all this I beseech you let me not bee misconstrued as if I intended an Apologie for these Cathedrall societies it is neither in my wish nor power These Covents are still the same with me they ever were and the short character of a Cathedrall Corporation as now it stands abused is still the same it was A nest of non-residents An Epicurean Colledge of riot and voluptuousnesse A schoole for complements in Religion but a scourge upon the life and practise thereof They have been the Asylum for superstition but the Scalae Gemoniae for true Piety Of late they have been the shame of our Clergy and are now almost become the scorne of our Laity Yet Sir for all this all this so bad so true I am still where I was Though the Channell be foule and muddy where these waters I meane their wealth doth run yet I cannot wish it dried up but rather purged and cleansed or else a new channel cut wherein the current of all their wealth may run on pure and clean to the holy uses of Religion and of Learning Sir many great and excellent uses all for Pietie and Learning may be presented to you I beseech you let us consider sadly on it For if this wealth be but once like water powred abroad no time no age to come will ever give us such a stock againe And thus I end the second of my two generall heads To summe up all you see I am for the old originall Episcopacie with Presbyteries subjoyned thereunto and I am for an explicite disposall of all manner of Church revenues your bill denies me both It denies me my strong wishes and forceth upon me the terror of confusion This Bill indeed doth seem to me an uncouth wildernesse a dismall vastnesse and a solitude wherein to wander and to loose our selves and our Church never to be found againe me thinks we are come to the brink of a fatall praecipice and
time of extirpation and abolition of any more then his Archiepiscopacy our professed rooters themselves many of them at that houre had I perswade my selfe more moderate hopes then since are entertained A severe reformation was a sweet song then I am and ever was for that and for no more It is objected that I goe counter to what I have publikly asserted in the House have patience and take a copy of what I have spoken in matter of Religion Section II. Novemb. 10. 1640. Mr. Speaker YEsterday the great affaires of this House did borrow all the time allotted to the great Committee for Religion I am sorry that having but halfe a day in a whole week we have lost that Mr. Speaker It hath pleased God to put into the heart of his Majesty for the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord once more to asseble us into a Senate to consult upon the unhappy distractions the sad dangers and the much feared ruins of this late flourishing Church and Kingdome God be praised both for his goodnesse and for his severity whereby he hath impelled this meeting and humble thanks unto his Majesty whose parentall care of us his Subjects is willing to relieve us The sufferances that we have undergone are reducible to two heads The first concerning the Church the second belonging to the Common-wealth The first of these must have the first fruits of this Parliament as being the first in weight and worth and more immediate to the honour of God and his glory every dramme whereof is worth the whole weight of a Kingdome The Common-wealth it is true is full of apparent dangers The sword is come home unto us and the two twin-Nations united together under one royall head brethren together in the bowels and the bosome of the same Island and which is above all imbanded together with the same Religion I say the same Religion by a devillish machination like to be fatally imbrued in each others blood ready to dig each others grave Quantillum abâ—uit For other grievances also the poore disheartned subject sadly groanes not able to distinguish betwixt Power and Law And with a weeping heart no question hath prayed for this hower in hope to be relieved and to know hereafter whether any thing he hath besides his poore part and portion of the Common ayre he breathes may be truly called his own These Mr. Speaker and many other doe deserve and must shortly have our deep regard but Suo gradu not in the first place There is a unum necessarium above all our worldly sufferances and dangers Religion the immediate service due unto the honour of Almighty God And herein let us all be confident that all our consultations will prove unprosperous if we put any determination before that of Religion For my part Let the Sword reach from the North to the South and a generall perdition of all our remaining right and safety threaten us in open view it shall be so farre from making me to decline the first setling of Religion that I shall ever argue and rather conclude it thus The more great the more imminent our perils of this world are the stronger and quicker ought our care to be for the glory of God and the pure Law of our soules If then M. Speaker it may passe with full allowance that all our cares may give way unto the treaty of Religion I will reduce that also to be considered under two heads first of Ecclesiasticke persons then of Ecclesiasticke causes Let no man start or be affrighted at the imagined length of this consultation it will not it cannot take up so much time as it is worth This it is God and the King this is God and the Kingdom nay this is God and the two Kingdomes cause And therefore M. Speaker my humble motion is that we may all of us seriously speedily and heartily enter upon this the best the greatest the most important cause we can treat of Now M. Speaker in pursuit of my own motion and to make a little enterance into this great affaire I will present unto you the petition of a poore oppressed Minister in the County of Kent A man Orthodox in his doctrine conformable in his life laborious in the Ministery as any we have or I doe know He is now a sufferer as all good men are under the generall obloquy of a Puritan as with other things was excellently delivered by that silver trumpet at the Barre The Pursivant watches his doore and divides him and his Cure asunder to both their griefes For it is not with him as perhaps with some that set the Pursivant at worke gladded of an excuse to be out of their pulpit It is his delight to Preach About a week since I went over to Lambeth to move that great Bishop too great indeed to take this danger off from this Minister and to recall the Pursivant And withall I did undertake for Master Wilson for so your Petitioner is called that he should answer his accusers in any of the Kings Courts at Westminster The Bishop made me answer as neere as I can remember in haec verba I am sure that he wil not be absent from his Cure a twelve-moneth together and then I doubt not but once in a yeere we shall have him This was all I could obtaine but I hope by the help of this house before this yeere of threats run round His Grace will either have more Grace or no Grace at all For our manifold griefes doe fill a mighty and a vast circumference yet so that from every part our lines of sorrow doe lead unto him and point at him the Center from whence our miseries in this Church and many of them in the Common-wealth do flow Let the Petition be read and let us enter upon the worke WHat is here for Root and Branch I can not find a line that I can wish unsaid nor do I read a letter that I would go lesse in It is replied that the petitioner M. Wilson is a man for Root and Branch if he be that was no part of his petition nor indeed any part of my knowledge then I am no more obliged to answer herein then I am bound to own and defend M. Wilson if he should hereafter cast aside the coÌ„mon prayer what were that to me or to what I then did say sure I am that I was well assured that he did not allow of separation then and that he had been a powerfull perswader of others not to withdraw from our publike Service And I thinke so well of his goodnesse temper and conscience that he will not easily be led away to these mistaking excesses Section III. THE next is that which I spake in the grand Committee of the whole House for Religion M. White holding that Chaire whereof this is a copy 23. Novem. 1640. M. White YOu have many private Petitions give me leave by word of mouth to interpose one more
generall which thus you may receive Gods true Religion is violently invaded by two seeming enemies but indeed they are like Herod and Pilate fast friends for the destruction of truth I meane the Papists for one party and our Prelating faction for the other Betweene these two in their severall progresse I observe the concurrence of some few Parallels fit as I conceive to be represented to this Honourable House First with the Papists there is a severe Inquisition and with us as it is used there is a bitter high Commission both these contra fas jus are Judges in their own cause yet herein their Inquisitors are better then our High Commissioners They for ought I ever heard do not saevire in suos punish for delinquents and offenders such as professe and practice according to the Religion established by the Lawes of the Land where they live But with us how many poore distressed Ministers nay how many scores of them in a few yeeres past have been suspended degraded deprived excommunicated not guilty of the breach of any our established Lawes The petitions of many are here with us more are comming all their prayers are in Heaven for redresse Secondly with the Papists there is a Mysterious artifice I mean their Index expurgatorius whereby they clip the tongues of such witnesses whose evidence they do not like To this I parallell our late Imprimatur's Licences for the Presse so handled that Truth is supprest and popish pamphlets fly abroad cum privilegio witnesse the audacious and Libelling Pamphlets against true Religion written by Pocklington Heylin Dow Cosins Shelford Swan Reeves Yates Hausted Studley Sparow Brown Roberts Many more I name no Bishops but I adde c. Nay they are already grown so bold in this new trade that the most learned labours of our ancient and best Divines must be now corrected and defaced with a Deleatur by the supercilious pen of my Lords yong Chaplain fit perhaps for the technicall arts but unfit to hold the Chaire for Divinity But herein the Roman Index is better then are our English Licences They thereby do preserve the current of their own established doctrine a point of wisdome But with us our Innovators by this artifice do alter our setled Doctrines Nay they do subinduce points repugnant and contrariant And this I dare assume upon my selfe to prove One Parallel more I have and that is this Among the Papists there is one acknowledged supreme Pope supreme in honour in order and in power from whose judgement there is no appeale I confesse M. Speaker I cannot altogether match a Pope with a Pope yet one of the ancient titles of our English Primate was Alterius orbis Papa But thus far I can go Ex ore suo It is in Print He pleads faire for a Patriarchate And for such an one whose judgement he before-hand professeth ought to be finall and then I am sure it ought to be un-erring Put these together and you shall find that the finall determination of a Patriarch will want very little of a Pope and then we may say Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur He pleads Popeship under the name of a Patriarch And I much feare least the end and top of his Patriarchall plea may be as that of Cardinall Pole his predecessor who would have two heads one Caput Regale another Caput Sacerdotale a proud parallell to set up the Miter as high as the Crown But herein I shall be free and cleare if one there must be be it a Pope be it a Patriarch this I resolve upon for my owne choyce Procul a Iove procul a fulnime I had rather serve one as far off as Tyber then to have him come so neere me as the Thames A Pope at Rome will do me lesse hurt then a Patriarch may do at Lambeth I have done and for this third Parallel I submit it to the wisdome and consideration of this grand Committee for Religion in the mean time I do ground my motion upon the former two and it is this in brief That you would please to select a subcommittee of a few and to impower them for the discovery of the numbers of oppresse Ministers under the Bishops tyranny for these ten yeers last past We have the complaint of some but more are silent some are patient and will not complaine others are fearefull and dare not many are beyond Sea and cannot complaine And in the second place that the sub-Committee may examine the Printers what books by bad Licences have been corruptly issued forth and what good books have been like good Ministers silenced clipped or cropped The worke I conceive will not be difficult but will quickly returne into your hand full of weight And this is my motion What is here for Root and Branch But I must search farther although for that which I am sure cannot be found Section IV. I Come now the likeliest tryall wherein to find my self guilty A petition was brought unto me out of Kent in terminis terminantibus as that from many Citizens of London which is in print This indeed if it were not the Spawne of the London petition yet finding it a Parrat taught to speake the syllables of that and by roate calling for Root and Branch I dealt with the presenters thereof and with other parties thereunto untill with their consents I reduced it to lesse then a quarter of it former length and taught it a new and more modest language Upon delivery of this petition thus I prefaced January 13. 1640. M. Speaker YEsterday we did regulate the most important businesse before us and gave them motion so that our weighty affaires are now on their feet in their progresse journying on towards their severall periods where some I hope will shortly find their latest home Yet among all these I observe one a very main one to sleep sine die give me leave to awaken it It is a businesse of an immense weight and worth such as deserves our best care and most severe circumspection I mean the Grand Petition long since given in by many thousand Citizens against the domineering of the Cleargy Wherein for my part although I cannot approve of all that is presented unto you yet I do clearely professe that a great part of it nay the greatest part thereof is so well grounded that my heart goes cheerfully along therewith It seems that my Country for which I have the honour to serve is of the same mind and least that you should think that all faults are included within the walls of Troy they will shew you Iliacos intra muros peccatur extra The same grievances which the City groans under are provincial unto us and I much feare they are nationall among us all The Pride the Avarice the Ambition and oppression by our ill ruling Clergy is Epidemicall it hath infected them all There is not any or scarce any of them who is not practicall in their
Idolatry till then this argument will be too sublime for my understanding God was neither in the strong and mighty Wind nor in the Earthquake yet these hardly if possibly can be figured but a still small voyce this certainly is beyond the curious Art of man to expresse and consequently free from all possible perill of Idolatry And therefore thus in Deuteronomy God doth character himselfe Yee heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude onely ye heard a voyce As if he should say I know you prone unto Idolatry but now commit Idolatry to a voyce to a sound to a name if you can I am grieved to see that wretched unlearned and ungodly Pamphlet ascribed to Master Burton with that daring impious title Jesu-worship confuted where by way of a Scornfull Sarcasme he is not afraid as with a nick-name to call Christians Jesu-worshippers I returne M. Speaker this as I said is a sad point in Divinity to forbid exterior worship unto God Was it ever heard before that any men of any Religion in any age did ever cut short and abridge any worship upon any occasion to their God Take heed sir and let us all take heed whither we are going If Christ be JESUS if JESUS be God all reverence exterior as well as interior is too little for him I hope we are not going up the back-staires to Socinianisme In a word certainly sir I shall never obey your Order so long as I have a hand to lift up to Heaven so long as I have an eye to lift up to Heaven For these are corporall bowings and my Saviour shall have them at his Name JESUS Yet sir before I end give me leave I beseech you to take off that which by mistake may else sticke still upon me I never liked the Bishoply injuctions in the late novell practices nor the severe Inquisition upon the bare omission of this posture The Bishops did rigorously exact it upon their owne heads the crime of that enforcement lies But I beseech you let not us be guilty in the other extream Truly to my sence it will savour lesse of Piety and more of Tyranny In the last place consider I pray that it is a point dogmaticall not yet fully resolved by Divines let us then be wary in it And let this with many other points be referred to a National Synod For one we must have or else we shall breake our Religion into a thousand pieces For this present my motion is as formerly that this Order be superseded by declaring to the Commons as your words in the Order are that they doe quietly attend the Reformation intended and that in the meane time they doe as they ought obey the Lawes that are Section XII ON Friday the 22 Octob. some debate there was upon a new short Bill for taking away the Bishops Votes in Parliament It was languaged that they ought not to intromit themselves into secular jurisdictions which I received willingly For if it be found inexpedient certainely they ought not if it be made unlawfull de futuro they ought not if it be inconsistent with their Function still they ought not as was then argued by a worthy member of the House But when it was presently urged by a Gentleman my neighbour there that unto the words ought not should be subjoyned and that it is inconsistent with their function which was pressed and urged by a generall voucher of Scripture Fathers and Councels Yet I know that Gentleman will not in matter of opinion scarce in an Historicall point allow me proofe of what I can prove out of the two latter Occasionally then I thus expressed my selfe M. Speaker HOwever I am resolved in my private opinion of the inexpediency and unlawfulnesse for Clergy men to hold secular jurisdiction Duo gladii non sunt in unum conflandi conferruminandi yet sir my inward resolution doth not presently make me a Judge in a Dogmaticall point nor doe I know that this place doth enable me with that capacity if it be my private opinion yet I desire not to bind the judgement of the Land herein by an act of Parliament although determining to my own sence Certainely sir this point of inconsistency will lead this house much more that of the Lords where the Bishops are into a debate which may more safely and more prudently be avoyded I have formerly and againe I pray you that we may not engage our selves into the determination of doctrinall points in Divinity perhaps it is not proper for us and for my part I doe think we are not herein Idonei competâ—ntes judices Was it ever heard or seen that a set of Lay-men Gentlemen Souldiers Lawyers Merchants all professions admitted but the profession of professions for this worke Divines alone excluded that we should determine upon doctrinall points in Divinity Theology is not so low so facile a trade Let us maintaine the doctrines that are established to declare new is not fit for our assembly And for my part I do think I have found daily cause to wish these resolutions recommended unto other resolvers M. Speaker Divines are herein in dogmatick resolutions of Religion concerned as much as well as we They are a considerable party and ought not to be bound up un-heard It was a prevailing argument with me against the late Canons that they could not bind us of the Laity being a distinct severall body no way involved in their Votes Our plea was that we neither had a decisive voyce to determine with them not a deliberative voyce to consult with them nor an elective voyce in choyce of their persons to make them our Trustees to determine for us Nor lastly as at least we should have a susceptive voyce in a body of our own to receive their resolutions and of our selves to submit unto them These things are of a nature fit to be discussed by grave Divines in a free Synod of Divines to be chosen by Divines In the mean time let not us be guilty of the same which we have condemned in them we ought not to pay injury with wrong They cannot be bound where they are no way parties For it is a rule in Nature Reason and Religion Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet I am so good a friend to your Bill that for the better expediting thereof I desire the word Inconsistant may not stand therein Section XIII HAvind before professed that we are incompetent resolvers of doubtfull points in doctrine and finding how much of our pretious time every motion petition and occasionall passage in Religion did take up I thought it not inconvenient next day to renew my motion for a Synod Saturday 23 October Mr. Speaker YOu have entred an Order that nothing be treated of but affaires of generall concernement I will present you one as generall as universall as any can be The sad miseries of our distracted Church and consequently the hazard of Gods true
Religion with us doth even cut my very heart with griefe and feare If we let forth the government into a loose liberty for all religions we shall have none Libertinisme will beget Atheisme And truly Sir at present betweene Papisme on the one hand and Brownisme on the other Narrow is the way and few there be do finde it to right good Protestantisme Many mournfull sad complaints I have of late received from Ministers the ablest and every way the worthiest that I know I could willingly name you two one at Dover the other at Cranebroke in Kent Men upon whose merit let my credit stand or fall in this house He that hath preached least of these hath preached severall thousands of excellent Sermons to his people These are in no better condition then many other deserving men who doe generally complaine with griefe of hearts to see their now infected sheepe after long pastorall vigilancy and faithfull ministery to runne and straggle from them more in these last ten moneths then in twenty yeares before Give us I beseech you give us a remedy a speedy remedy to this growing evill or else our schollers are like to turne Papist Arminian or Socinian and all the ignorant party will either turne Atheist or else which is the next degree make to themselves a Religion of their own as themselves best please Sir we may sit here for ought I see and debate our selves and the world abroad into more and more distances of opinion we are not likely to worke our selves much lesse others into unity What is then to be thought on Sir the usuall ancient the best and I think the only way of cure is by a Councell A free learned grave religious Synod There is in some hand of this House and long hath beene a Bill for a Nationall Synod ready drawne With it we are curable without it I look for no peace My humble motion is this in a word If you love the peace of our Ierusalem command forth that Bill to be forthwith read or if that Bill be not to be had appoint a Committee to draw up another This is my motion and it is founded in a hope of piety and peace Section XIV UPon occasion of a Remonstrance 19 Novemb wherein divers passages then were concerning Religion and the Church-government and some in particular as I conceived very aspersive to our Religion in the solemne practice of it by our publick Liturgy charging it in hypothesi with vaine repetition and with savour of Superstition I did humbly move that some of that Committee who framed up that Remonstrance for us would please to assigne what those vaine Repetitions are in our Liturgy and what passages of Superstition Nothing was at all said as I remember to that point of Superstition But at length a Gentleman did adventure to name that which he seemed to think to be vaine Repetition He said that the Lords Prayer is eight nine or tenne times repeated I did with leave of the House reply that such repetition toties quoties how oft soever was if heart and words did go together farre from vaine That in my book the Lords Prayer was but twice in the whole morning Service unlesse the additionals of Baptisme Churching Communion Buriall c. did occurre That then in every severall act of Divine Service it was once and but once repeated as the high compleature of all devout expressions That this repetition in it selfe was warrantable as by our Saviours example who although he had not the Spirit by measure yet in the Garden he prayed three times using the same words The further debate of this was ofted to the next day and then it did grow toward a question whether all exceptions against the Liturgy should be totally laid by or further debated I did not hold our selves the proper determinators of this point I did thinke that from hence occasion might againe be taken inductive to renew my motion for a free Nationall Synod which I desired to enforce the best I could especially there being now obtained a generall promise of a Synod in this very part of that Declaration or Remonstrance Hereupon thus I adventured A coppy whereof being stolne from me issued lately forth both unknown to me and misprinted also which hath beene entertained abroad both with Applause and Exception Saturday Novemb. 20. M. Speaker THe question is whether these clauses concerning some pretended erroneous passages in our Liturgy shall be laid by or not I am of opinion to decline them here but not to bury them in a perpetuall silence In this very period you give us in generall tearmes a promise of a Nationall Synod I doe still wish the presency thereof it being to my understanding the onely proper cure and remedy for all our Church-distractions and may be proved if proofe be needfull to have been practised in the booke of God This promised Synod is too farre off let me have better assurance then a promise which that I may obtaine I will be bold to give you some reasons to induce that assembly and to speed it also M. Speaker Much hath been said and something attempted to be done to regulate the exteriour part of our Religion but Sir we bleed inwardly Much endeavour hath been to amend the deformed forms we were in and to new govern the government Yet Sir this is but the Leaves of good Religion fit I confesse notwithstanding to be taken care of for beauty and for ornament Nay some Leaves are fit and necessary to be preserved for shadow and for shelter to the blossomes and the fruit The fruit of all is good life which you must never expect to see unlesse the blossomes be pure and good that is unlesse your doctrines be sound and true Sir sir I speake it with full griefe of heart whilst we are thus long proyning and composing of the leaves or rather whilst some would pluck all leaves away our blossomes are blasted And whilst we sit here in cure of government and ceremonials we are poysoned in our doctrinals And at whose doore will the guilt and sin of all this lie Qui non vetat peccare cùm potest jubet It is true that this mischiefe growes not by our consent and yet I know not by what unhappy fate there is at present such an all-daring liberty such a leud licentiousnesse for all mens venting their severall sences sencelesse sences in matter of Religion as never was in any age in any Nation untill this Parliament was met together Sir It belongs to us to take heed that our countenance the countenance of this honourable House be not prostituted to sinister ends by bold offenders If it be in our power to give a remedy a timely and a seasonable remedy to these great and growing evils and that we being also put in mind shall neglect to do it we then doe pluck then sins upon our own heads Alienum qui