Parliament since the first entrance upon a Reformation in this Kingdome It is true that in the Reigne of King Henry the eight one Cranmer was active in the cause of God against those sixe bloudy Articles which cost so many their lives But of all the Hierarchie not one was found to joyne with him but all opposed and he alone for three dayes together was faine to stand to it and at length by the malice practice and potency of the Prelates hee was overcome and the cause carryed against him Acts and Monuments par 2. page 1037. edit 1610. This was in the yeare 1540. When about foure or five yeares after Cranmer in two severall Parliaments used his best endeavours to get that bloudy Law repealed and had before hand as he thought drawne over to his side the Bishops of Worcester Chichester and Rochester who promised to assist the cause in Parliament yet when it came to the tryall all the Bishops forsooke him and the cause againe In so much as the King himselfe and the Nobility stood to him so farre as to give way to a moderating of the former Law when the Bishops would not abate the least part of the rigour thereof Antiq. Britanni in Cranmero In King Edward the sixth his Reigne it is true a blessed Reformation was happily begun but by whom By the Bishops No verily Cranmer only excepted For he and the Protector were the men that advised the King and went through with the worke As for the great Bishops Gardiner of Winchester and Tonstall of Duresme Bonner and others they served to fill prisons and diverse ran away And in all Letters of the Lords for more particular Reformation it was onely Canterburie and the Nobilitie that did promote the businesse See Acts and Monuments in King Edward the sixth But in Queene Maries dayes who but Bishops for the Masse and all the grosse body of Popery both in Convocation and Parliament Cranmer and the rest of the Orthodox Bishops were soone persecuted and at length committed to the fire while the Popish Prelates being restored to their places spared no diligence to promote Popish Idolatry throughout the Kingdome and that by their Votes in Parliament whereby they might more plentifully shed bloud by a Law When GOD delivered this Kingdome from those Marian flames and set up blessed Queene Elizabeth it cannot be denyed but that in the Bill for restoring all ancient Jurisdictions to the Crown and for reestablishment of Religion and ejection of Popery the Lords Spirituall are named in the Act because the bill being carryed by the greater number of Votes the dissenting party which was the lesse are included in the rest and it becomes the Act of all in common repute and esteeme of Law But little thankes to the Bishops for any of that Reformation which was then restored We finde the Bishops of Winchester Litchfeild Chester Carlile and Lincolne appearing in open defence of Popery while that Parliament was sitting Act and Monuments par 2. page 1619. edit 1610. But these were not all that stood for that cause Witnesse the deprivation of Heath Arch-Bishop of Yorke Tunstall Bishop of Durham White of Winchester Thyrlby of Ely Watson of Lincolne Baines of Coventry and Litchfeild Bourne of Bath and Wells Christopherson of Chichester Oglethorp of Carlile Scot of Chester Morgan of Saint Davids beside Bonner imprisoned Pates of Worcester Goldwel of Saint Asaph in exile for the same Pseudo-Catholike cause None of all which can with any probability of reason bee imagined to have Voted for the restoring of the Truth they being by vertue of that Statute deprived for opposing the Truth And albeit I know nothing but by heare-say of the generall carriage of Bishops in Parliaments sithence and so doe not charge them yet how often they have with-stood bills against Non-residency * In 31. Elizabeth a Bill against Non-residents passed the House of Commons being in the other House greatly approved of much spoken for by many of the Temporall LORDS yet through the earnest labouring of the Bishops it could have 10 passage there Another Bill for reforming Ecclesiasticall Courts in King James his time passed till it fell among the Bishops and there was stayed Pluralities and other evils and defects in the Reformation of Religion and of their Courts the world hath beene sufficiently informed insomuch as the House of Commons hath already declared and resolved at a Generall Committee of the whole House Iune eleventh 1641. That the Bishops have beene found by long experience to bee great hinderances of a perfect Reformation and of the growth of Religion En majus bonum Ecclesiae produced by the Vote of Bishops in Parliaments And as their voting in Parliament in matters of Religion is ad detrimentum potius quam ad utilitatem Ecclesiae so it cannot bee imagined how their Votes there in Civilibus should conduce more ad majus bonum Ecclesiae Except the wilfull and incorrigible continuing in a course forraine and contrary to their proper Calling and such as being duely performed is a very great hinderance to the exercise of their Ministeriall Function as hath beene before declared can redound to the greater good of the Church which they seldome looke after unlesse to receive the profits of it and to plague those who are profitable in it that themselves may more splendidly and securely in Parliament and every where else Lord it over the whole heritage of God 3. ANSVVER to the first REASON The Apostles unnecessarily put themselves to more hinderances to worke for their livelihood Acts 20.24 1 Thessalo 2.9 2 Thess 3.8 EXAMEN Vnnecessarily Boldly spoken and were I sure that one of my fellowes or equalls had written it I should without breach of good manners pronounce it saucinesse little short of blasphemie Was it not necessary that the Apostles should have a livelihood And was the procuring of it by labouring with their hands although I know none but one after CHRISTS Ascension that was put unto it to avoyd the oppression of poore converts or to prevent scandall among either poore or rich converted or unconverted an unnecessary thing This may bee a straine of Policie passable enough among Spirituall Lords of Parliament but was never knowne to bee good Divinity among such as desire to approve themselves unto GOD. I have bin taught that Necessarium is put sometimes pro utili pro congruo convenienti as well as pro naturali seu debito or pro violento sua coacto And I have learned among the Schoole-men that there is a necessitie not only absolutè simplicite sic dicta but also ex suppositione conditione when a thing not simply necessary in it selfe becomes such in regard either of end meanes circumstances or otherwise When Saint Iohn 1 Epist 2.27 tells the Christians yee need not that any man teach you was his writing to them to instruct them further unnecessary When Saint Pauls abiding in the flesh was more needfull
in regard of the Philippians for their furtherance and joy of faith Philip. 2. Shall any man be so hardy as to avouch his abode in the flesh to be unnecessary which yet was not simply necessary in it selfe or unto him So circumstances of time place and person may make that necessary in some places at some times and among some persons which yet of it selfe is not so Thus was it in some of those particulars which are called these necessary things Acts 15.28 yet were it no small presumption for any man to call those things in reference to that very Text without some distinction expressed unnecessary So it is here When Saint Paul saith these hands have ministred unto my necessities Acts 20.34 shal any man say that ministration was unnecessary If it bee said it was so in regard of his right to maintenance it is true but when it is pronounced without such limitation it is a contradicting and thwarting of the Apostles expression as if hee wanted skill or care to expresse himselfe as became him and a misleading of an uncautious Reader to swallow downe an errour inferred from it For what is hence intended to bee inferred but this That as the Apostles did unnecessarily labour with their hands when they might have avoided it So Bishops may according to that example vote in Parliament although the thing bee found unnecessary to a Bishop Now this is a corrupt-inference from ambiguous premisses and the ambiguity lies in the word unnecessarily for if the word bee spoken absolutely and without all limitation it is absolutely false if a limitation bee intended it ought to have been expressed and then any intelligent Reader would soone have beene led to consider and compare that act of the Apostle with the present unnecessarinesse of Bishops votes in Parliaments and thereby have beene enabled to discover the weaknesse and unsufficiency of this unnecessary impertinent Answere because hee would easily have found great and wide differences betweene those two cases 1. Working for a livelihood is a matter of necessity when it cannot otherwise bee so well obtained without oppression or scandall which was the Apostles case But Bishops voting in Parliament when no necessity at all either of maintenance or scandall can bee feared is a worke of supererrogation and an unnecessary sinfull neglect of their owne Function 2. The Apostles working with his hands might better consist with the exercise of his Ministeriall Office Mat 10.19 20 Ioh. 16.13 14 because hee had his furniture thereunto by divine inspiration Gal. 1.11 12. whereas all men now must continually and industriously apply themselves to their Bookes and Meditations to make them workemen that need not to bee ashamed 1 Tim. 4.13 2 Tim. 2.15 3. The Apostles working with his hands was but for a season while the present necessity lasted but the Bishops would willingly Vote in Parliament to the end of the world although there bee no necessity of it at all but great inconvenience and scandall accruing to the Church thereby and a Bil transmitted by the honourable House of Commons to the Lords against it as many wayes inconvenient and intolerable It were easie to adde more differences but these may suffice So also may that which hath beene already said 1 Thes 2.9 2 Thes 3.8 for the clearing of those other two Texts that remaine 4. ANSVVER to the first REASON What hinderance can it be to their Calling that once in three yeares when they must necessarily attend the Convocation they divide some part of that short time to the attendance of Parliament EXAMEN This is not an Answer but a Question and such as if the first Answer bee true little needed But that which hath beene said in examination of that first Answere may also suffice to satisfie this Interrogation The hinderance lyes not so much in the expence of a short space spent in the Parliament House as in the long time requisite to fit a Bishop for such multiplicity of weighty businesses as are proper for a Parliament except hee thinke it enough to vote Bils by rote according to the impetuousnesse of his friends or the loudnesse of the cryes made for or against them Besides Times and other Circumstances may and often do so alter the State of the same matters that if even the ablest and most vigilant Satesman bee not more aware Bils may be offered which are perhaps most plausible in present appearance and might bee very profitable too at some other season that would prove most pernicious in the issue if now they were suffered to passe Now he that hath not his eyes in his head or his head not constantly at worke even out of Parliament to observe and ponder the severall changes and windings of affairs and seasons can never bee a judicious Peere in Parliament but at his best an Emperick who when his totall is cast up is ever found more hurtfull than profitable yea a very pest to the publike unlesse laying all other businesse aside hee double his industry to make future recompence for his present insufficiency and by his diligence to supply the defects of his former education as to this Calling he having been first intended and moulded for another profession And if Bishops take this course 1 Chro. 12.32 to become like the children of Issachar men that have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to doe and to enable themselves for Parliaments indeed it is easie to conclude what hinderance this not onely may bee but cannot but bee to their Ministeriall Function For if the Levite take upon him Issachars Office and fall to tampering so high in Temporalls Gen. 49.14 hee will soone prove an Issachar in Spirituals and become couchant betweene his two burthens Againe I hope it will very shortly appeare that it will be farre from being necessary for Bishops once in three yeares to attend the Convocation as the frame of both yet standeth among us Our Convocation is but a meere shadow a plaine mockery Synods were ordained for more use and activity than to patter over a latine Let any upon Wednesdays and Fridays and to give so many Subsidies as it pleaseth his Grace to propound to the engaged and enthralled Clergy or to passe a few illegall seditious Anti-parliamentary Canons first cast in the mould of some brain sick Incendiary that would needs be the Dominus fac totum and the head of a pragmaticall Papisticall Atheisticall Sanction And if Synods were as I trust they wil bee restored to their pristine course and extent agreeable to the Word without which better we never saw Convocation more as I hope wee shall not there would be so much worke to doe in them as would even tire out the most indefatigable spirits of the ablest men to consider of errours in doctrine which daily creepe in to corrupt the truth of explanations of Doctrine already established when perverse men make use of the generality or ambiguity of
the terms wherein they bee couched to countenance their fancies and fanaticke opinions of preparing platforme of Discipline agreeable to the will of God and usefull for his people of censuring such as bee too great for lesser Assemblies and of Appeales from inferiour Synods to that higher Judicatorie Then would godly and conscientious Bishops finde so much to doe in Convocations or Synods as would leave them little leasure for attendance in Parliaments where the Peeres doe or should sit every day or they have little reason to Vote in those Bills and Causes there agitated when they have not heard the debates and soone let them see that all the time they could redeeme although they sate every day and sate out the day would bee much too little maturely to discusse and deliberately to determine all businesses of Synods Ergo it must needs bee a very great hinderance to the proper worke of their Calling when once in three yeares they must necessarily attend the Convocation reformed and restored to the truly Primitive nature and use if they divide any part of that short time to the attendance of Parliament Thus farre the Examination of all the Answers to the first Reason which being the Principall I have beene the longer in it aswell for the asserting of the Reason it selfe as for examining the strength of the Answers that would but cannot enervate or abate the vigour of it II. REASON of the House of Commons BEcause they doe vow and undertake it at their Ordination when they enter into holy Orders that they will give themselves wholely to that Vocation I. ANSVVER This Vow and undertaking in Ministers Ordination is quite mistaken The words are in the Bishops Exhortation not in the Ministers Answer To this a three fold Answer is given EXAMEN Mistaken and quite mistaken Why so Because the words are in the Bishops Exhortation not in the Ministers Answer But where hath the House of Commons yet said that the words are in the Ministers Answer Surely not in their second Reason against which this Answer is directed Therefore this branch of the Answer to that Reason might have well beene spared The words are confessed by the Answerer to bee used at the Ministers Ordination This is enough to justifie the House of Commons and their Reason And what though it bee spoken by the Bishop not by the Minister at that time this doth not disprove his Vow Little children utter no words in Baptisme yet doe they not enter into a Vow when the Minister declareth upon what terms they be admitted and the whole action is managed by others The Bishop speakes these words at the Ordination of Ministers We have a good hope that you have well weighed and pondered these things with your selves long before this time and that you have clearely determined by Gods Grace to give your selves wholly to this Vocation whereunto it hath pleased God to call you so that as much as lyeth in you you apply your selves wholly to this one thing and draw all your cares and studies this way and to this end All this the Ministers heare when they enter into holy Orders The Bishop takes it for granted that they have done all this that they have fully resolved and decreed it as the Latine hath it long before and that by invocating of Gods Grace for performance which decree before-hand with invocation supposed and consent at present to bee admitted into Holy Orders upon this condition by their silence witnessed makes it to amount materially if not formally quoad omnia to a Vow that is to such an obligation as engageth them to undertake and make good what in this Reason is affirmed of them For I have learned so much out of Calvin the Civilian that sometimes Votum ponitur pro consensu and no man denies silence in such an action Lexic Incid to bee consent And more than this the House of Commons say not for they speake not of a formall Vow vocally pronounced by the Minister in that action Howbeit if I may utter my private opinion freely of this point without prejudice to the House of Commons and without engaging them further than themselves intended I humbly conceive that the Church of England in her fifth Question propounded by the Bishop in the ordering of Ministers doth fully intend as much as is contained in those words of the Exhortation before rehearsed and to that Question the Minister positively answereth I will endeavour my selfe so to doe the Lord being my helper Ergo hee formally voweth at his Ordination what is contained in the Second Reason of the House of Commons To cleare this I shall first set downe the words of the Question Will you bee diligent in prayers and in reading of the holy Scriptures and in such studies as helpe to the knowledge of the same laying aside the Study of the World and the Flesh To this the party to bee ordained answereth I Will endeavour my selfe so to doe the Lord being my helper Next I must pray the Readers to consider that the surest exposition of these words must needs bee found in that Booke from whence the words were taken and set into the Booke of Ordination more briefly than in the Originall they bee expressed All the learned know that Bucer was the chief man who at the request of Cranmer censured the first Publike Leiturgie of Edward 6. whereupon it was reduced to a better forme In that first Booke there was no forme of Ordination prescribed but in the 5. 6. Edward 6. it was added This Exhortation and the Questions and Answers to them in our present Booke of Ordination were not borrowed as some suggest out of the Romane Pontificall but were Verbatim taken out of that grave and learned Treatise of Bucer entituled De Ordinat Legitima Ministrorum Eccles Cap. ult extant in his Script Anglican Ergo the full meaning and latitude of this Question must bee taken thence Now the Question is there propounded thus Tempus omne quod vobis a sacris Ministeriis publicis privatis ac necessaria frugali corporis cura superfuerit id omne precibus lectione Divinarum Scripturarum iisque studiis quae cognitionem Scripturarum docendi facultatem adjuvant ornant rejectis a vobis cunctis mundi carnis studiis negotiis feriis ludicris impendetis The Answere Impendemus juvante nos Domino So then the full latitude of the Question which is contracted in the booke of Ordination extends to a solemne vow and undertaking on the Ministers part when hee enters into Holy Orders to bestow all his time either in the exercise of his Office or fitting himselfe further for it and to lay aside not onely the vanities and pomps of this wicked world as hee vowed to doe in Baptisme but all secular businesses and imployments necessary provision for himselfe and family which God himselfe imposeth upon all excepted And all this in his solemne Answere made to the Bishop
yet both Church and Kingdome binde them to give themselves in all other particulars wholly to the Calling study and exercise of the Ministery which they have received in the Lord Collos 4 17 that they may fulfill it III. REAS. of the House of Commons BEcause Councels and Canons in severall ages do forbid them to meddle with Secular Affaires I. ANSVVER To this 3. Reason a five fold Answere is directed Councels and Canons against Bishops Votes in Parliament were never in use in this Kingdome and therefore they are abolished by the Statute of 25. Hen. 8. II. ANSVVER So are they by the same Statute because the Lords have declared that the Bishops vote hereby the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm and all Canons that crosse with those are there abolished III. ANSVVER So are they by the same Statute as thwarting the Kings Prerogative to call Bishops by summons to vote in Parliament IV. ANSVVER So are they by the Vote of the House of Commons 21. Maii 1641. because they are not confirmed by the Act of Parliament EXAMEN I put all these Answers together because they will not need distinct Examinations they being much what coincident at least in the maine scope which is to keepe this third Reason out of the Court as being no sufficient evidence in Law to eject the Defendants out of their holds in Parliament against some of their desires It is acknowledged that no Councels or Canons not confirmed by Parliament have here in England any power to bind the subjects either of the Clergie or of the Laitie as hath been clearly Resolved upon the Question this Parliament in both houses But whether the House of Commons referre to any Canons so confirmed I may not take upon mee to affirme or deny because they have beene pleased to forbeare to cite those to which they doe referre Nor can it bee I thinke denyed that any Canons were in use within forty yeares before the Statute of 25. Hen. 8.19 to which I conceive the Answerer hath relation against Bishops votes in Parliament and so Bishops bee shot free from such Canons if urged against them in that capacity as binding Lawes But what neede the Answerer to have taken all this paines of multiplying of Answeres to shew that no Councels or Canons not ratified by Parliaments bee binding to Bishops in this or any case whatsoever For where hath the House of Commons so urged them Surely not here They have not vouched them as Lawes to thrust the Bishops out of the House of Peeres as sitting there against the Lawes already in being but as rationall Arguments and prudentiall Grounds to induce the Parliament to use their Legislative power to abrogate the Lawes if any be for their sitting there seeing that many godly Bishops in former Ages have made divers religious and wholesome Constitutions and Provisions against such exorbitant usurpations of the Clergie For however those Canons bee not formally obligatory here yet are they really worthy the Consideration of those who have a power to reduce Bishops by a binding Law to that which heretofore so many learned and pious men of their owne Coat and Calling have pronounced and decreed to be just and necessarie Further than this the House of Commons bee not engaged And who knows not that the Bishops and their Officers have and still doe urge divers Canons of forraigne Councels and domestique too that never were confirmed by Parliament upon both Clergie and Laitie when such Canons make for the Bishops or their Officers And these must take effect like the Laws of the Medes and Persians And yet now when they see such Canons turned upon themselves although not as Lawes but as rationall arguments only how witty they be in putting off all by the Statute of 25. Hen. 8. which makes nothing at all against the House of Commons or this Reason produced by them And what offence or incongruity was it in the House of Commons to urge Canons and Councels against the Bishops in this particular when no Divine that ever complained of such usurpations of the Clergie hath held it incongruous to presse the very same against them I will not trouble my selfe or others with many instances that alone shall suffice which hath beene before * Exam. of the first Answe to the first Reason alledged out of Matthew Parker Archbishop of Canterburie That Prelate taxing the excessive exorbitances and scandalous courses of the Clergie in the reigne of Richard 1. was not affraid to give this as the chiefe if not the only reason of all that prodigious breaking out Quod contra Orthodoxorum Patrum decreta c. that contrary to the decrees of the Orthodoxe Fathers the Clergie did too much intermeddle in worldly businesses If then so great a Prelate did well in laying this home to the charge of the Clergie that their not regarding the Decrees and Canons of former Councels was the maine cause of all the evills committed by them it cannot unbecome the House of Commons assembled in Parliament and passing a Bill against Bishops Votes in Parliament to produce and use the Canons and Councels of Bishops themselves against such courses held on and maintained by our Bishops against the judgement and solemne determinations of their owne Predecessors in the Prelacy in all the Churches of Christ As for the Declaration of the Lords that the Bishops Vote in Parliament by the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme I meddle not with it because as I am ignorant of the Lawes and Statutes by which they vote so am I not acquainted with what the Lords have declared thereupon Only I have heard that divers Abbots voted as anciently in Parliament as Bishops yet are taken away Yea this Answerer hath informed mee Answer to Reason 7. that anciently the Bishops were assisted in Parliament with a double number of Mitred Abbots and Priors But Sir Edward Cooke could find no more in the Parliament Rolles but twenty seven Abbots and two Priors Commentary on Littleton Institutes Sec. 138. Nor doe I know the difference of the Tenures of the one or of the other or why in regard of originall right Bishops should rather vote in Parliament than Abbots and Priors so long as those Orders continued in being That great Master of Law before named tels us that both Abbots and Bishops were called to Parliament by the Kings Writ else they came not there Ibid. although they held of the King Per Baroniam Witnesse the Abbot of the Monasterie of Feversham founded by King Stephen who albeit hee held by Barony yet for that hee was not called by Writ hee never sate in Parliament And perhaps it is not simply a Barony that gives all the Bishops a right to fit there for I have read somewhere that all the Bishops of King Henry 8. his foundation have not Baronies annexed to them Yet they are called by Writ and vote as Peeres in Parliament But bee their right what it will I
forraigners The Bishops fretted but durst not complaine When the King saw their timorousnes and the whole Kingdome heightned up to such a degre of discontent that they threatned to cast off their obedience to the King if he tooke not order to case them The letters Articles are set downe at large in Math. Paris in Hen. 3. pag 927. c. edit Lond. Anno. 1571. a Parliament was called the King the Nobility Prelates Commons all complained of the unsupportablenesse of the burden drew up their greivances into seaven severall Articles foure letters were conceived and sent with these greivances to the Pope one from the Bishops a second from the Abbots a third from the Nobility and Commons and the fourth from the King himselfe but to little purpose The Pope still went on although sometimes more favourably and other times more violently as the times would suffer No marvell then if Bishops and Abbots in Parliament were so willing to be over-borne by the votes of the temporall Lords in passing the Statute of Provisors of benefices in 25. Edw. 3. and against suitors to the Popes Consistory and receiving of Citations from Rome in 38. Ed. 3 And against the farming of any Benefices enjoyed by Aliens by the Popes Collation or conveing of mony to them 3. Ric. 2 3. And against Going out of the Realme to procure a Benefice in this Realme in 12 Ric. 2.15 And for confirmation of the Statute de provisoribus among the Statutes called Other Statutes made at Westminster in 13. Ric. 2. ca. 2. The like may be said of the Statute of Provision in 2. Hen 4.4 of first fruites to Rome more than usuall 6 H. 4.1 Of moneys carryed to Rome and confirmation of all Statutes against Provisors c. 9. Hen. 4 8. To say nothing of that famous Statute in 26. Hen. 8.21 which gave the Pope a deeper wound than all the Acts that had been before Now alas poore Bishops that they were so over-voted that they could not hinder such Lawes as those made in their favour and for the rescuing of them from the Italian horse-leeches No doubt the Bishops laboured stoutly to withstand these Acts and therefore no marvaile that they be so carefully instanced in or pointed unto by the Answerer to shew how easily Bishops may bee over-voted in Parliament and how soon emergent exorbitancies of their Iurisdiction may be there curbed redressed Or rather indeed to shew how unable Bishops bee to withstand the passing of a bill which they desire with all their hearts may bee enacted or which they know the King wil have to be enacted But otherwise I cannot understand his reason in vouching of them unlesse he meant to make his Readers some mirth See now how hee winds up this long Answere ANSVVER So as this Argument doth not so much hurt the votes as it quells the courage of the Bishops who may justly feare by this and the next Argument that the taking away of their Votes is but a kind of fore-runner to the abolishing of their Iurisdiction EXAMEN Indeed if we take the scantling of the hurt done to their Votes by the instances produced in this Answer the hurt is so little that the adventure will not bee great if they meet with other Bills in Parliament of like nature wherin the Temporall Lords shall happen to over-vote them In those Statutes before mentioned I doe not finde the Clergy so much as named It is probable they durst not appeare for those Acts for feare of the Pope but rather suffered them to passe by the Temporall votes that they might the better excuse it at Rome and enjoy the benefit with more security at home when the Temporalty alone were so ready to doe it to their hands Iust so it was in Henry the thirds time when the Pope had compelled the Bishops to ratifie all the Grants of payments to Rome made by K. Iohn whereby the Bishops were so cast betweene the mil-stones as to be ready to be ground to powder yet durst not appeare against their oppressor they Good men were forced by the King and Parliament much against their wills Si placet to be rescued out of his hands without any labour of their owne when first the King professed se contra infirmos illos et timidos Episcopos pro Regni libertate staturum Antiq. Britan. in Bonif. nec censum deinceps ullum Romanae curiae praestiturum And afterward when the whole Parliament ordered the Bishops and Abbots to write to his Holinesse that which with all their hearts they would if they durst have done of themselves for obtaining ease of the burthens that lay upon them as hath been touched before So that now this Argument doth little quell their courage if they meet with no greater discouragements than by the answerer hath been set forth Rather the Answere teacheth them the way how to prevaile by being overcome and to bring about their owne ends and yet sit still or seeme to be the greatest opposers of that which in secret they most desire and underhand doe most labour for But truly it is to me no lesse than a riddle that there should be any just cause of feare unlesse unto them who are apt to feare wher no feare is that there is any thing in this Argument tending to the Abolishing of Episcopal Iurisdiction when the Reason expresly supposeth no more but a Bill to passe for the Regulation of their power upon any emergent inconvenience by it Verily there is more cause of feare on the other side that if the mention of a bill for regulating the power of Bishops shall be interpreted a plot to ruine their Iurisdiction which now is so exorbitant their Case comes very neere to that of old Rome Liv. Hist Dec. 1. which as Livy observes could noe longer stand under the vices committed in it nor endure the remedies applied to it 8. REASON of the House of Commons Because the whole number of them is interessed to maintaine the jurisdiction of Bishops which hath beene found so greivous to the three Kingdomes that Scotland hath utterly abolished it multitudes in England and Ireland have petitioned against it ANSVVER This Argument is not against the Votes of Bishops but against Episcopacy it selfe which must bee removed because Scotland hath done so and some in England and Ireland would have it so And yet peradventure ten times as great a somme as these desire the contrary Against this a 2 fold Answer is offered EXAMEN This Argument is expresly against their votes for maintaining their Iurisdiction to which by their Order they are all bound as all other societies bee to maintaine their Priviledges and it is not bent against Episcopacy it selfe And yet this suggestion is a witty invention both to winde out of the strength of this Reason and to cast a blurre upon it at the farewell The House of Commons could not but see even an impossibility of reforming by bill the