as if you was a going over a bridge, be sure you hold fast by the rail, and then you may dance here and there as you please; be sure you keep to what is settled, and then you may flourish upon your various lections.

XIV. The Apocrypha is bound with the Bibles of all churches that have been hitherto. Why should we leave it out? The church of Rome has her Apocrypha, viz. Susanna and Bell and the Dragon, which she does not esteem equally with the rest of those books that we call Apocrypha.

BISHOP'S BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT.

I. A Bishop, as a bishop, had never any ec clesiastical jurisdiction; for as soon as he was ele&us confirmatus, that is, after the three proclamations in Bow church, he might exercise jurisdiction, before he was consecrated, but till then, he was no bishop, neither could he give orders. Besides, suffragans were bishops, and they never claimed any jurisdic

tion.

II. Anciently the noblemen lay within the city for safety and security. The bishops' houses were by the water side, because they were held sacred persons which nobody would hurt.

III. There was some sense for commendams at first; when there was a living void, and

never a clerk to serve it, the bishops were to keep it till they found a fit man; but now it is a trick for the bishop to keep it for himself.

IV. For a bishop to preach, it is to do other folks' office, as if the steward of the house should execute the porter's or the cook's place it is his business to fee that they and all other about the house perform their du ties.

V. That which is thought to have done the bishops hurt, is their going about to bring men to a blind obedience, imposing things upon them, (though perhaps small and well enough) without preparing them, and insinuating into their reasons and fancies, every man loves to know his commander. I wear those gloves; but perhaps if an alderman should command me, I should think much to do it: What has he to do with me? Or if he has, peradventure I do not know it. This jumping upon things at first dash will destroy all to keep up friendship, there must be little addresses and applications, whereas bluntness spoils it quickly: to keep up the hierar chy, there must be little applications made to men they must be brought on by little and. little so in the primitive times the power was gained, and so it must be continued. Scaliger said of Erasmus, Si minor esse vor luit, major fuisset. So we may say of the bishops, Si minores esse voluerint, majoresfuissent.

VI. The

VI. The bishops were too hasty, else with a discreet slowness they might have had what they aimed at the old story of the fellow, that told the gentleman he might get to such a place, if he did not ride too fast, would have fitted their turn.

VII. For a bishop to cite an old canon to strengthen his new articles, is as if a lawyer should plead an old statute that has been repealed God knows how long.

BISHOPS IN THE PARLIAMENT.

I. BISHOPS have the same right to sit in Parliament as the best earls and barons, that: is, those that were made by writ: if you ask one of them (Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland) why they sit in the House? they can only say, their fathers sat there before them, and their grandfather before him, &c. And so say the bishops; he that was a bishop of this place before me sat in the House, and he that was a bishop before him, &c. Indeed your lat ter earls and barons have it expressed in their patents, that they shall be called to the Parliament. Objection, But the lords sit there by blood, the bishops not. Anfwer, It is true, they sit not there both the same way; yet that takes not away the bishops' right: if I am a parson of a parish, I have as much right to my glebe and tithe, as you have to your land which your

B. 6

ancestors

ancestors have had in that parish eight hundred years.

II. The bishops were not barons, because they had baronies annexed to their bishopricks (for few of them had so, unless the old ones, Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, &c.; the new erected we are sure had none, as Gloucester, Peterborough, &c.; besides, few of the temporal lords had any baronies.) But they are barons, because they are called by writ to the Parliament, and bishops were in the Parliament ever since there was any mention or sign of a Parliament in England.

III. Bishops may be judged by the peers, though in the time of popery it never happened, because they pretended they were not obnoxious to a secular court; but their way was to cry, Ego sum frater domini papæ, I am brother to my lord the pope, and therefore take not myself to be judged by you; in this case they impanelled a Middlesex jury, and dispatched the business.

IV. Whether may bishops be present in cases of blood? Answer, That they had a right to give votes, appears by this; always. when they did go out, they left a proxy; and. in the time of the abbots, one man had 10, 20, or 30 voices. In Richard the Second's time,. there was a protestation against the canons, by which they were forbidden to be present in. case of blood. The statute of 25th of Henry, the Eighth, may go a great way, in this busi

ness.

ness.

The clergy were forbidden to use or cite any canon, &c.; but in the latter end of the statute, there was a clause, that such canons that were in usage in this kingdom should be in force till the thirty-two commissioners appointed should make others, provided they were not contrary to the King's supremacy. Now the question will be, whether these canons for blood were in use in this kingdom or no? the contrary whereof may appear by many presidents in Rich. III, and H. VII. and the beginning of H. VIII.; in which time there were more attainted than since, or scarce before: the canons of irregu larity of blood were never received in England, but upon pleasure. If a lay-lord was attainted, the bishops assented to his condemning, and were always present at the passing of the bill of attainder; but if a spiritual lord, they went out, as if they cared not whose head was cut off, so none of their own. those days, the bishops being of great houses, were often entangled with the lords in matters of treason. But when do you hear of a bishop a traytor now?

In

V. You would not have bishops meddle with temporal affairs, think who you are that say it. If a Papist, they do in your church; if an English Protestant, they do among you; if a Prefbyterian, where you have no bishops, you mean your Prefbyterian lay-elders should meddle with temporal affairs as well as spiri

tual: