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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81336	A collection of speeches made by Sir Edward Dering Knight and Baronet, in matter of religion. Some formerly printed, and divers more now added: all of them revised, for the vindication of his name, from weake and wilfull calumnie: and by the same Sir Edward Dering now subjected to publike view and censure, upon the urgent importunity of many, both gentlemen and divines.	Dering, Edward, Sir, 1598-1644.	1642 (1642)	Wing D1104; Thomason E197_1; ESTC R212668	73,941	173

be in the nature of an old primitive constant Presbytery among us Thirdly and lastly because all meetings of many must be disorderly and the rule of many cannot be without confusion unlesse there be one to guid and to direct the rest I shall desire that in every shire over every Presbytery we may establish one President A President I say more to satisfie others then my selfe The name of Bishop disturbs not me let him be a Bishop or an Over-seer or a President or a Moderator or a Super-intendent or a Ruling-elder call him what you will so as you provide me one in every shire over every Presbytery to guid and to direct the rest The different sence to be easily observed and I hope not past our strength to be reconciled in this House concerning our present Church-government is two-fold One is for Ruine thereof the other for Reforming both are neerer together in heart I perswade my selfe then we are yet aware of The neerer the better and more easie composure both of our owne selves here and of the Churches peace throughout the Land abroad God send that we may find the way to peace If the right forme of primitive Episcopacy were truly stated forth unto us it would questionlesse take and lead our judgements along therewith This Bishop was not so much a Lord as a Father over his charge ruling with love and tender bowels whosoever did institute this Episcopacy sure I am this Bishop hath and ever had a precedency before and a presidency over others of his owne order He was one man chosen out among the rest and by the rest put into a severall degree not into a distinct superiour Order above the rest {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ad Episcopandum to oversee the rest and this onely in matters spirituall nothing at all in affaires temporall or secular imployments If this Bishop were not of Apostolicall institution yet it is undeniable that he was of Apostolicall permission For of and in the Apostolicall times all stories all Fathers all ages have a greed that such Bishops there were His rule indeed was with consent of his Senate his Presbytery Direction was his Coercion was still their owne He had {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} yea and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} both the first place of sitting and the chiefest part of power I say the chiefest part I doe not say the greatest part of power The power it was more eminent in him but it was virtually residing and domesticant in the plurality of his Assessors These Assessors were the Presbyters the Elders of the Church of whom holy Ignatius a Father so primitive that he was Disciple to Saint John the Apostle and by some thought to be that very child whilst he was a child whom our blessed Saviour tooke and set before his disciples whereof you read in three of the Evangelists This Ignatius I say in his Epistle to the Trallians doth call these Elders {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Counsellors and coassessors of the Bishop Here was in this age and yet this father died a Bishop and a martyr before the last Apostle went to Heaven here was a fellowship yet such a fellowship as destroyed not presidency and in another Epistle that to the Magnesians you have such a presidency as doth admit also of a fellowship The words are {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Bishop being President the very name and office there as in the place of God and the Presbyters as a Senate of Apostles I forbeare to dilate upon this Episcopacy But I will be bold Ponere ab oculos to set him before your eyes I will give him you even by way of demonstration M. Hide your selfe are now in this great Committee M. Speaker is in the house The Bishop of our Congregation You are in your selves but fellow-members of the same house with us returned hither as we also are to sit on these benches with us untill by our election and by common suffrage you are Incathedrated then you have and it is fit and necessary that you should have a precedency before us and a Presidency over us Notwithstanding this you are not diversified into a severall distinct order from us you must not swell with that conceit you are still the same member of the same house you were though raised to a painfull and a carefull degree among us and above us This Bishop had as your selfe have here potestatem directivam but not Correctivam Correction in our house doth dwell in the Generall Vote You know the power you have is limitted and circumscribed by them who gave it you are no Dictator to prescribe us our Lawes but must gather our Votes and then your pronouncing doth fixe our not your own single Orders Neither you here nor Mr. Speaker in the House can Degrade any one of us from these Seates nor can you silence us in the due libertie of our Speech Truly Sir as yet advised I do heartily wish we had in every Shire of England a Bishop such and so regulated for Church-government within that Spheare as Mr. Speaker is bounded in and limitted by the rules and cancels of this House That were indeed a well tempered and a blessed Reformation whereby our times might be approximant and conformant to the Apostolicall and pure primitive Church But this I feare is magis optandum quàm sperandum yet it being the cause of God who can then despaire This happinesse I meane living under Episcopall Presidency not under a domineering Prelacy this is too high above our reach yet strong prayers and hearty endeavours may pull the blessing down upon us In the mean time wo is our Churches portion for our Bishop President is lost and grown a stranger to us and in his roome is crept in and stept up a Lordly Prelate made proud with pomp and ease who neglecting the best part of his office in Gods Vineyard instead of supporting the weake and binding up the broken forrageth the Vines and drives away other labourers The Vines indeed have both Grapes and Leaves and Religious acts both substance and circumstance but the Gardener is much too blame who gives more charge to the workmen of the leaves then of the fruit This rough enforcement of late to that which is not the better part is an Episcopacy that turnes all our melody into a Threnody This makes many poore pious Christian soules to sing the songs of Sion in a strange Land This Bishop will have no Assessors or if any so formally admitted and so awed as good have none no Senate no Consultation no Presbytery or common Suffrage but elates himselfe up into usurped titles and incompatible power and sublimes ti selfe by assuming a soleship both in Orders and in Censures Religion and reason and Primitive example are all loud against this Episcopacy This too elate subliming of one can not stand

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

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 ab●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 cōmon 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

own great cause in hand which they impiously doe mis-call the piety of the times but in truth so wrong a Piety that I am bold to say In facinus jurasse putes Here in this Petition is the Disease represented here is the Cure intreated The number of your Petitioners is considerable being above five and twenty hundred names and would have been foure times as many if that were thought materiall The matter in the Petition is of high import but your Petitioners themselves are all of them quiet and silent at their own houses humbly expecting and praying the resolution of this great Senate upon these their earnest and their hearty desires Here is no noyse no numbers at your door they will be neither your trouble nor your jealousie for I do not know of any one of them this day in the Town So much they do affie in the goodnesse of their petition and in the justice of this House If now you want any of them here to make avowance of their Petition I am their servant I do appeare for them and for my selfe and am ready to avow this petition in their names and in my own Nothing doubting but fully confident that I may justly say of the present usage of the Hierarchy in the Church of England as once the Pope Pope Adrian as I remember said of the Clergy in his time A vertice capitis ad plantam pedis nihil est sanum in toto ordine ecclesiastico I beseech you read the Petition regard us and relieve us The petition it selfe speaks thus To the Honourable the Commons House of Parliament The humble Petition of many the Inhabitants within His Majesties County of Kent MOst humbly shewing That by sad experience we doe daily finde the government in the Church of England by Archbishops Lord-bishops Deanes Archdeacons with their Courts Jurisdictions and Administrations by them and their inferiour Officers to be very dangerous both to Church and Common-wealth and to be the occasion of manifold grievances unto his Majesties Subjects in their consciences liberties and estates And likely to be fatall unto us in the continuance thereof The dangerous effects of which Lordly power in them have appeared in these particulars following 1. They doe with a hard hand over-rule all other Ministers subjecting them to their cruell authority 2. They do suspend punish and deprive many godly religious and painfull Ministers upon slight and upon no grounds whilst in the mean time few of them doe preach the Word of God themselves and that but seldome But they doe restraine the painfull preaching of others both for Lectures and for afternoon Sermons on the Sabbath day 3. They do countenance and have of late encouraged Papists Priests and Arminian both Bookes and persons 4. They hinder good and godly books to be printed yet they do licence to be published many popish Arminian and other dangerous tenents 5. They have deformed our Churches with popish pictures and suited them with Romish Altars 6. They have of late extolled and commended much the Church of Rome denying the Pope to be Antichrist affirming the Church of Rome to be a true Church in fundamentals 7. They have practised and inforced antiquated and obsolete ceremonies as standing at the Hymnes at Gloria patri and turning to the East at severall parts of the Divine Service bowing to the Altar which they tearm the place of Gods residence upon earth the reading of a second service at the Altar and denying the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist to such as have not come up to a new set Rayle before the Altar 8. They have made and contrived illegall Canons and Constitutions and framed a most pernitious and desperate oath an oath of covenant and confederacy for their owne Hierarchicall greatnesse beside many other dangerous and pernicious passages in the said Canons 9. They doe dispence with plurality of Benefices they do both prohibite and grant marriages neither of them by the rule of Law or conscience but do prohibite that they may grant and grant that they may have money 10. They have procured a licencious liberty for the Lords day but have pressed the strict observation of Saints holidaies and do punish suspend degrade deprive godly Ministers for not publishing a Book for liberty of sports on the Sabbath day 11. They doe generally abuse the great ordinance of excommunication making sometimes a gaine of it to the great discomfort of many poore soules who for want of money can get no absolution 12. They claime their Office and jurisdiction to be jure divino and do exercise the same contrary to law in their own names and under their own Seales 13. They receive and take upon them temporall honours dignities places and offices in the Comonwealth as if it were lawfull for them to use both Swords 14. They take cognisance in their Courts and elsewhere of matters determinable at the Common law 15. They put Ministers upon Parishes without the patron and without the peoples consent 16. They do yeerly impose oaths upon Churchwardens to the most apparent danger of filling the Land with perjury 17. They do exercise oathes ex officio in the nature of an Inquisition even into the thoughts of men 18. They have apprehended men by Pursivants without citation or missives first sent they break up mens houses and studies taking away what they please 19. They do awe the Iudges of the Land with their greatnesse to the inhibiting of prohibitions and hindring of habeas Corpus when it is due 20. They are strongly suspected to be confederate with the Roman party in this Land and with them to be authors contrivers or consenters to the present commotions in the North the rather because of a contribution by the Clergy and by the Papists in the last yeer 1639. and because of an ill named benevolence of six Subsidies granted or intended to be granted this present yeare 1640. thereby and with these moneys to engage as much as in them lay the two Nations into blood It is therefore humbly and earnestly prayed that this Hierarchicall power may be totally abrogated if the wisdome of this Honourable House shall find that it cannot be maintained by Gods Word and to his glory And we your Petitioners shall ever pray c. Section V. Upon occasion of what I said of the late Canons I might easily have pressed the abolition of the founders and of the whole order of prelacy And surely if it had been my wish I would as others have so exprest my selfe Here followes my argument against these Canons and that chiefly aymed against the founders of them yet nothing of Root and Branch therein 14. Decemb. 1640. M. Speaker THat the late Canons are invalidous it will easily appeare and that they are so originally in the foundation or rather in the founders of them I will assume upon my selfe to demonstrate having first intimated my sense by way of preparative The Pope as they say hath a

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 Ho●●● 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