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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

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

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

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 Ovid Dat veniam Corvis vexat censura Columbas Aristoph. in Avib {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} LONDON Printed by E. G. for F. Eglesfield and Jo. Stafford 1642. To the Reader LET them who are in a fault ransom themselves with excusatory defences I have no such worke in hand A short Narration will be my just Vindication Apologies are ever read with Jealousie and they are indeed but after-games at Reputation These sheets doe not weare that livery I have no need to Apologize Nothing in my selfe hath moved me to open these Papers abroad and what need I regard the empty opinion of such as doe either weakely or wilfully traduce But they doe traduce it is said that I doe {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} yet none can justly say where when to whom or what I ever said that I doe since recede from Reader if thou either be a Scholler or a Gentleman read and censure freely I feare no blot from thy hand if thou be neither cast what dirt thou wilt none will sticke on me And indeed I had rather if thou be such beare the scourge of thy tongue then have the kisses of thy lips The latter would make me suspect my selfe the former would beget a hope of some merit in me A well-fare to my Reader if hee be either of birth or breeding A farewell to the rest Edward Dering Section I. WHy am I thus unhappily and thus publickly engaged If my head and my heart have alway gone even pace together if my conscience and my tongue have ever kept one tune how is it that I heare my selfe changed If any thing I have said or done be contrariant nay if dissonant or retardant to a most severe Reformation the utmost of my constant wish and profession nay if upon any occasion I have therein been remisse and tepid if upon all occasions I have not given my active and my hearty endeavours thereunto some good friend be a true glasse unto me and reflect that by-past errour to my sight againe I will owne the fault if it be mine and thanke him But if some passengers in I know not what Ship saile by untill their owne heads be giddy they may as well say that the Hils and Trees upon the shoare as that I am moved Whilst they are floating I stand steady wondring to what coast they are bound The question is whether ever I professed my selfe for Root and Branch that is the Shibboleth whereby some try whether you are for Ruine or for Reforming Every one is not catechized in plain tearmes as I was Art thou for us or for our adversaries So said one of the usuall blacke walkers in Westminster Hall Another of our Parliament-pressing Ministers after I had delivered my sence upon Episcopacy in the House came to me and told me plainely That my conscience was not so good as in the beginning of the Parliament Yet I may and doe challenge him or any man to instance where when and what I have said to deserve this opinion of change I presse not this as fondly glorying in a pertinacy No I professe my selfe ready and willing at any time to imbrace a corrected understanding let any of them who hath temper discretion and charity come and try me I have no end no ayme to lead me but faire truth I have no byas but a conscience warmed with zeale and therefore when I change if I change it shall be the conquest and victory of truth upon me And I then shall never be ashamed of being wonne but will glory in the change But I delivered in the Bill for abolition of Episcopacy True my friend then next me urged me with importunacy that I would receive it and plainly said it should goe in how ever and so I am assured it had but not with so faint commendations as I bestowed on it which I dare say gave no weight unto the worke The Bill was then lesse then two sheets of Paper and by subjoyning two more might have given us the old originall Episcopacy even with the same hand that abrogated the present Beside the chiefe end then was to expedite the progresse of another Bill against the secular jurisdiction of the Bishops at that very time labouring in the House of Lords So that this Bill did in my sence iniquum Petere ut aequum ferret Little did I or any man there imagine that those two sheetes should be multiplied with addition of above forty more and yet unfinished The onely colour or rather shadow whereupon some thought me as fierce for ruine as themselves was my fortune or misfortune to strike first and shortly after secondly at the tallest Cedar on the Churches Lebanon T is true I did so and am nothing sorry for the blow His crimes were many the complaints were fresh with me and my selfe entrusted by that County where his Diocese is seated as fit as any to strike that stroke This was at that time received and applauded as an act of justice but by the same men of late traduced as relishing of personall malignity Non sic didici Christum I thanke God my heart hath never yet knowne the swelling of a personall malice And for the Bishop I professe I did and doe beare a good degree of personall love unto him a love unto some parts and qualities which I thinke him master of His intent of publike uniformity was a good purpose though in the way of his pursuit there of he was extreamely faulty His booke lately set forth especially for the latter halfe thereof hath muzled the Jesuite and shall strike the Papists under the fifth ribbe when he is dead and gone And being dead wheresoever his grave shall be Paul's will be his perpetuall monument and his owne booke his lasting Epitaph It is true the roughnesse of his uncourtly nature sent most men discontented from him yet would he often of himselfe finde waies and meanes to sweeten many of them againe when they least looked for it Lastly he was alway one and the same man begin with him at Oxford and so goe on to Canterbury he is un-mov'd unchanged he never complied with the times but kept his own stand untill the times came up to him Hee is not now in a condition to be flattered nor was I ever so low to use it I did not accuse him for these I strucke another string and that of so right a tune to them that are stung with the Tarantula that I was instantly voyced more as they would have me then I was For the truth is I did not dreame at that

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