the modest hopes and honest endeavours of many hundred students in the universities, who do and shall ever pray, &c. Dat. anno Dom. 1641, e domo convocationis, in celebri conventu doctorum ac magistrorum, omnibus & singulis assentientibus." "To the honourable the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the House of Commons assembled in Parliament, The humble PETITION of the university of CAM BRIDGE, "Showeth, That your petitioners having heard of divers suggestions offered to this honourable court, by way of remonstrance, tending to the subversion of Cathedral Churches, and alienation of those lands by which they are supported; being the antient inheritance of the church, founded and bestowed by the religious bounty of many famous and renowned kings and princes of this land, and other benefactors, both of the clergy and laity, and established and confirmed unto them by the laws of this kingdom; and so accordingly have been employed to the advancement of learning, the encouragement of students, and preferment of learned men, besides many other pious and charitable uses:-May it please this hon. court, out of their great wisdom and tender care for the cherishing of learning, and further ance of the studies and pains of those who have, and do devote themselves to the service of the church, graciously to protect and secure those religious foundations from ruin and alienation, and withal to take order that they may be reduced to the due observation of their statutes; and that all innovations and abuses, which have, by some men's miscarriages, crept in, may be reformed; that so the students of our university, who, by the present fears, both are and will be much discouraged, may be the better invited to pursue their studies with alacrity; and the places themselves disposed to the most serviceable and deserving men, according to their first institution. And your Petitioners shall ever pray," &c. Explanation of a Passage in the late Protestation.] This day, the commons resolved, "That whereas some doubts have been raised by several persons, out of this house, concerning the meaning of these words contained in the Protestation lately made by the members of this house, viz. The true Reformed Protestant Religion, expressed in the doctrine of the church of England, against all Popery and Popish Innovations within this realm, contrary to the same doctrine,' this house doth declare, That by those words was and is meant, only, the public doctrine professed in the said church, so far as it is opposite to Popery and Popish innovations; and that the said words are not to be extended to the maintaining of any form of worship, discipline, or government, nor of any rites or ceremonies of the said church of England." Bill for restraining Bishops, &c.] May 14. The commons, in a committee of ways and means for raising the 400,000l. tax, late agreed to, resolved, upon the question, Tha every man's land, of what degree soever, in whose possessions the said lands are, sha be rated towards the raising the aforesai sum." This day, a bill from the commons, Fo restraining of Bishops, and others in Hol Orders, from intermeddling in Secular Affairs mitted. Upon this occasion, was read a second time by the lords, and com Fo Lord viscount Newark spoke as follows: My lords; I shall take the boldness to speak a word or two upon this subject; first as it in itself, then as it is in the consequence. the former: I think he is a great stranger in antiquity, that is not well acquainted with the bishops sitting here: they have done thus, and in this manner, ever since the conquest; and by the same power and the same right, the other peers did, and your lordships now do and to be put from this their due, so much their due, by so many hundred years strengthened and confirmed; and that without any offence, nay pretence of any, seems to me to be very severe if it be jus, I dare boldly say, it is summum. That this hinders their ecclesiastical vocation, an argument I hear much of, hath, in my apprehension, more of shadow than substance in it: if this be a reason, sureI am it might have been one 600 years ago. A bishop, my lords, is not so circumscribed within the circumference of his diocese, as that his absence, sometimes, can be termed (no, not in the most strict sense) a neglect or hindrance of his duty, no more than that of a lieutenant from his county; they both have their subordinate ministers, upon which their influences fall, though the distance be remote. Besides, my lords, the lesser must yield to the greater good; to make wholesome and good laws for the happy and well-regulating of the church and commonwealth, is certainly more advantageous to both, than the want of the personal execution of their office, and that but once in 3 years; and then, peradventure, but a month or two, can be prejudicial to either. And now, by your lordships good leave, I shall speak to the consequence, as it reflects both on your lordships and my lords the bishops. Dangers and inconveniences are ever best prevented é longinquo. This precedent comes near to your lordships, and such a one, that, mutato nomine, de vobis.' Pretences are never wanting; nay, sometimes, the greatest evils appear in the most fair and specious outsides; witness the Ship-Money, the most abominable, the most illegal thing that ever was; and yet this was painted over with the colour of law. What beneh is secure, if to alledge be to convince? And which of your lordships can say then, He shall continue a member of this house, when, at one blow, 26 are cut off? It then behoves the neighbour to look about him, * From the original edition, printed for Abel Roper, 1641. 00,000l. tax, late the ceston, Tx : degree soever, aid lands are, da using the af he commons, 'I: and others B 5 in Secular Afin the lords, a spoke as fal 1V, seems to lers their eccessi r's diocese, t ore that the f ; they both jua wich is as it refects recedent s ever was; the colour of aledge be c lordships can s member are 6 are cut of o look about 'cum proximus ardet ucałegon.'—And for the should leave this Kingdom.] May 18. Mr. queen may be moved to depart this kingdom; the rather, for the quieting of the jealousies in the hearts of his majesty's well-affected subjects, occasioned by some ill instruments about the queen's person; by the crowding of Priests and Papists to her house, and by the use and practice of the idolatry of the mass and exercise of other superstitious services of the Romish church to the great scandal of true re Debate in the Lords on the Bill for restraining Bishops &c. from intermeddling in Secular Affairs.] May 24. The lords in a grand committee, took into consideration the bill,For restraining Bishops, and others in Holy Orders, from intermeddling in Secular Affairs, when The Bishop of Lincoln * made the following Speech: † My Lords, I shall desire as much time of your lordships, as you can well afford in a committee, because all that I intend to speak in this business must be to your lordship's only; as resolved, for mine own part, to mai e hereafter no remonstrance at all to his mos excellent majesty, for these several Reasons: 1st. That I have bad occasion, of late, to know, that our sovereign, a man of most upright, dainty, and scrupulous conscience, and afraid to look upon some actions, which other princes abroad do usually swallow up and devour. I know, for I have the monuments in my own custody ||, what oath, or rather oaths, his maj. hath taken at his coronation, to preserve all the rights and liberties of the church May 17. The commons entered into debate about the Propositions concerning Religion, delivered in by the Scots commissioners; and it was resolved, "That this house doth approve of the affection of their brethren of Scotland, in their desires of a conformity in church government between the two nations, and doth give them thanks for it; and as they have already taken into consideration the reformation of Church government, so they will proceed therein in due time, as shall best conduce to the Glory of God and the peace of the Church.' Several great Officers resign.] Whitlocke tells us, "That this day, divers great officers of state surrendered their places, either accounting themselves insecure, or to satisfy others. Lord Cottington resigned the office of master of the Court of Wards to the lord Say and Seal: Dr. Juxson, bishop of London, delivered up his staff as lord High Treasurer; and that office was put into the hands of five commissioners, the lord Keeper, lord Privy Seal, lord Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas, lord Newburgh, and secretary Vane: The earl of Leicester was made lord lieutenant of Ireland, in the room of the late earl of Strafford: The earl of Essex, lord Chamberlain of the Household, on the removal of the earl of Pembroke: And the marquis of Hertford appointed governor to the prince, in the room of the earl of New castle" rights, favours, or charters of former princes; of England: and you know very well, that churchmen are never sparing in their rituals or ceremonials, to amplify and swell out the oaths of princes in that kind. Your lordships, then know right well, that he is sworn, at that time, to observe punctually the laws of king Edward. The first law thereof, as you may see in Lambard's Saxon Laws, is to preserve entirely tlie peace, the possessions, and the rights and privileges of the church; and truly I shall never put my master's conscience, that I find resenting and punctilious when it is not bound up with oaths and protestations, to swallow such gudgeons, as to fill itself with these doubts and scruples.-2ndly. That if his maj. were free from all these oaths and protestations, I durst not, without some fair invitation from himself, advise him to run shocks and oppositions against the votes of both these great houses of parliament.-3rdly and lastly, If I were secretly invited to move his maj. to advise upon the passing of the bill, yet, speak- Thebarum portæ, vel divitis ostia Nili? ing mine own heart and sense, and not bind- this bill surely had perished in the womb, and ing any of my brethren in this opinion, if I never come to the birth;) but I hope that found the major part of this house to pass this this clause will prove to this bill a Felo de se, bill without much qualification, I should never a murderer of itself; and tho' intended for a have the boldness nor desire to sit more, in any salvo for noble ministers only, prove a salvo for judicial place, in this most honourable house. all other ministers that be not so happy as to And therefore, my lords, here I have fixed my be nobly born; because the very poor minister, Areopagus, and dernier resort, being not like for ought we find in Scripture, or common to make any further appeal. I will therefore reason, is no more tied to serve God in his cast this whole bill into six several heads, vocation, than these wys, and nobly-born wherein I hope to comprehend all that I shall ministers are: and therefore I hope these noble say, in this bill. The 1st is the Risc or Mo- ministers will deal so nobly, as to pull their tive of this bill; which is the duty of men in brethren, the poor ministers, out of the Holy Orders; for the words are, persons in thorns and briers of this bill.-These are all Holy Orders ought not to intermeddle, &c. the true heads and contents of this bill: and And this duty of ministers may be taken, in amongst these 6 heads your lordships shall be this place, two several ways; either for their sure to find me, and I shall expect to find your duty, in point of divinity or in point of conveni- lordships, in the whole tract of this committee. ence, which we commonly call policy. In re- And now, with your leave and patience, I gard of either of these duties, it may be con- will run them over, almost as briefly as I have ceived that men in Holy Orders ought not to pointed and pricked them down. For the intermeddle in Secular Affairs, &c. And this 1st, the Rise and Motive of this bill; which is is the motive, rise and ground of this Bill.- the duty of men in Holy Orders not to interThe 2nd point is, the Persons concerned in meddle with Secular Affairs: It must arise either this bill; which are archbishops, bishops, par- from a point of divinity, or from point of convesons, vicars, and all others in Holy Orders.--niency, or of policy: and I hope in God, it will The 3rd contains the things inhibited, from not appear to your lordships that there is any this time forward, to such persons by this bill; ground, either of divinity or policy, to inhibit and they are of several sorts and natures: 1. men in orders so modestly to intermeddle with Freeholds and rights of such persons; as their secular affairs, as that the measure of intersuffrages, votes and legislative power in parlia-meddling in such affairs, shall not hinder and 2. Matters of princely favours: as to sit in the Star-Chamber, to be called to the Council-Board, to be Justices of the peace, &c. 3. Matters of a mixed or concrete nature, that scem to be both freeholds, and favours of former princes; as the Charters of some of the Bishops, and some of the ancient Cathedrals are conceived to be. And these are all the matters, or things, inhibited those persons in Holy Orders, by this present bill.-4thly, The Manner of this Inhibition, which is of a double nature 1. Under a high and severe penalty; and, 2. Under a Cain's mark; an eternal kind of disability or incapacity laid upon them from Enjoying, hereafter, any of these freeholds, ment. obstruct the duties of their calling. They ought not so to intermeddle in secular affairs, as to neglect their ministry: no more ought layman neither; for they have a calling and vocation, wherein they are to walk, as ministers have; they have wife and children and families to care for; and they are not to neglect these to live upon warrants and recognizances; to become a kind of sir Francis Mitchel* or an Ignotus nimis, as Solomon calls it.—That place, A trading Justice of Peace, who was prosecuted in parliament, in the 19th of James 1. for being a Monopolist. The proceedings against him be found in Vol. 1. p. 1242. 2 Tim ii. 4. No man that wars, entangles are now come to Christ's time, when, mehimself with the affairs of this life,' will be found thinks, I hear St. Paul, in the 23d of the Acts, to be applied, by all good interpreters, to lay-excuse himself for reviling of the high priest: men as well as churchmen; and under favour, I wist not brethren, that he was the high nothing at all to this purpose. Besides that priest, for it is written, Thou shalt not speak the word, iurixira, doth point at a man that evil of the ruler of thy people.' Where obis so wholly taken up with the affairs of this serve, that the word ' Ruler,' in the Greek, is life, that he utterly neglects the offices and du-derala the very same word that is used by St. ties of a Christian man; and so I leave that Paul, Rom. xiii. 3. where this word goles is place as uncapable of any other exposition, nor translated, by Beza, Magistrates.'-Next, you ever otherwise interpreted, but by Popes, Le- must be pleased to imagine the church asleep, gates and Canonists, that make a nose-of-Wax or almost dead, under persecution, for almost of every place of Scripture they touch upon. 300 years, until the happy days of the emperor But that men in holy orders ought not, in a Constantine, and not expect to find many mamoderate manner, together with the duties of gistrates among the christians: yet shall you their calling, to help and assist in the govern- find St. Paul, 1. Cor. vi. 5. offend against this ment of the common-wealth, if they be there- bill and intermeddle, knuckle deep, with Seunto lawfully called by the sovereign prince, cular Affairs, by inhibiting the Corinthians vecan never be proved by any good divinity: for, ry sharply, for their chicanery, their pettifogin the law of nature, before the deluge, aud a gery, and common battery, in going to law one long time after, it is a point that no man will with another. Besides that, as all learned men deny me, That the eldest of the family was agree, both the Apostles and Apostolical men both the priest and the magistrate.-When the that lived presently after them, had a mipeople were taken out of Egypt, by Moses and raculous power of punishing exorbitant crimes, Aaron; Moses and Aaron amongst his which supplied the power of the ordinary maPriests,' as it is in the book of Psalms: then gistrate; as appears in Ananias and Saphyra, there was a form of common-wealth, fetched the incestuous Corinthian, and many others.from heaven indeed, and planted upon the Then from Constantine's age, till the Reformaearth, and judiciary laws dictated for the reg- tion begun by Luther, churchmen were so usulement of the same. Nor do I much care ally employed in managing of Secular Affairs, though some men shall say, That persons in that I shall confess ingenuously, it was far too holy orders ought not to intermeddle in secu- much; there lying an appeal from the courts lar affairs, when the great God of heaven and of the empire to the bishop's judicatory, as you earth did appoint them to intermeddle with all shall find it every where in the code of Justinithe principal affairs of that state; witness the an. So was it under Carolus Magnus and all exorbitant power of the high priest in secular the Carolovingian Line of our neighbour counmatters, the Sanhedrim, the twenty-three the try of France. So, and somewhat more, it was Judges of the Gate, which were, the most of with us, in the Saxon Heptarchy; the bishop them, priests and levites. And the churchmen and the sheriff sitting together, cheek by jowl, of that state were not all butchers and slaugh- in their towns and courts. But these exorbi termen, for they had their tabernacle, their tant and vast employments in secular affairs I synagogues, their prayers, preaching, and other stand not up to defend, and therefore I will exercises of piety. In a word; we have divi- hasten to the Reformation. Mr. Calvin, in nius, but they had operosius ministerium, as St. the fourth book of his Institutions, and 11th Augustin speaketh: our ministry takes up more Distinction, doth confess, that the holy men of our thoughts; but theirs took up more of heretofore did refer their controversies to the their labours and industry. Nor is it any mat- bishop, to avoid troubles in law; and you shall ter that this common-wealth is no more in be- find that, from Luther to this present day, in ing; it sufficeth it hath been once, and that all the flux of time, in all nations, in all manner planted by God himself, who would never of reformations, persons in holy orders were have appointed persons in holy orders to in-thought fit to intermeddle with secular affairs. termeddle with things they ought not to inter- Brentius was a privy counsellor to his duke and meddle withall.-I will go on with my chro- prince: Functius was a privy counsellor to the nology of persons in holy orders, and only put great dake of Borussia. Calvin and Beza, you in mind of Eli and Samuel, amongst the whilst they lived, carried all the counsel of the Judges; of Zadock's employment under king state of Geneva under their own gowns; and David; of Jehoiadas under his nephew king Bancroft (in his Survey, cap. 26.) observeth, Joash; and would fain know what hurt those that they were of the council of state there, men in holy orders did, by intermeddling in se- which consisteth of threescore.' I have mycular affairs at that time?--Now we are re-self known Abraham Scultetus a privy counturned from the captivity of Babylon; I desire sellor to the prince Palatine: The rev. M. you to look upon the whole race of Maccha- Du Moulin, for many years together, a counbees, even to Antigonus the last of them all, sellor to the princess of Sedan: his brothertaken prisoner by Pompey, and crucified after-in-law, M. Rivel, a great learned personage wards by Mark Anthony: and shew me any now in England, of the privy council of the one of those princes (a woman or two excepted)prince of Orange. You have all heard (and I that was not a priest and a magistrate. We know much good by his former writings) of a learned man called Mr. Henderson; and Bishop of Salisbury. the pope of Lambeth; or at leastwise pay them soundly for their dispensations and absolutions, when they presume to do the contrary. In the mean time here is not one word or shew of reason, to inform an understanding man, that persons in holy orders ought not to terrify the bad, and comfort the good; to repress sin, and chastise sinners; which is the sunma totalis of the civil magistracy; and consequently so far forth, at the least, to intermeddle with secular affairs.The second point consists of the persons reflected upon in this bill; which are Archbishops, Parsons, Vicars, and all others in Holy Orders.' Of this point I shall say little; only finding these names huddled up in an heap, it made me conceive, at first, that it might have some relation to Mr. Bagshaw's reading in the Middle-Temple; which I ever esteemed to have been very inoffensively delivered by that learned gentleman, and, with lit tle discretion questioned by a great ecclesiastic, then in place: for all that he said amounted only to this, That when the temporal lords are more in voices than the spiritual, they may pass a bill without consent of the bishops; which is an assertion so clear in reason, and so often practised upon the records and rolls of parliament, that no man, any way versed in either of these, can make any doubt of it; nor do 1: though I humbly conceive no precedent can be found that the prelates were ever excluded, otherwise than by their own folly, fear, or headiness. As for the point of being justices of the peace, the gentleman confesseth, He never meddled with archbishops, nor bishops, nor with any clergyman, made a justice by his majesty's commission.' In the statute made 34 Edw. 3. c. 1. he finds, assignees for keeping of the peace, one lord, and, with him, three or four of the most worthy men of the county: the troublesome times did then so require it; and if God do not bless us with the riddance of these two armies, the like provision will be now as necessary. He finds these men included, but doth not find churchmen excluded; no not in the statute, 13 Rd. 2. c. 7. that requires justices of peace to be made of knights, esquires, and gentlemen of the law, of the most sufficient of each county in which words the gentleman thinks clerks were not included; and I clearly say, by his favour, they are not excluded; nor do the learned sages of the law conceive them to be excluded by that statute. If the king shall command the lord keeper to fill up the commissions of each county with the most sufficient knights, esquires, and gentlemen of the law, shall the lord keeper thereupon exclude the noblemen and the prelates? I have often, in my days, received this command, but never heard of this interpretation before this time; so that I cannot conceive from what ground this general sweepstake of archbishops, bishops, parsons, vicars, and all others in 'holy orders, should proceed. I have heard, since the te ginning of my sickness, that it hath been alledged in this house, that the clergy, in the 6th of Edw. 3, did disavow that the custody of the |