Si minor esse voluit, major fuisset. So we may say of the bishops, Si minores esse voluerint, majores fuissent.

6. 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.

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to cite an old canon to strengthen his new articles, is as if a lawyer should plead an old statute that has been repealed God knows how long.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

1. 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 says 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 later 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. Answ. It is true, they sit not there both the same way, yet that takes not away the bishop's right: if I am a parson of a parish, I have as much right to my glebe and tythe, as you have to your land which your ancestors have had in that parish eight hundred years.

2. The bishops were not barons because they had baronies annexed to their bishoprics (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.

3. Bishops may be judged by the peers, though in 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 empanneled a Middlesex jury, and dispatched the business.

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4. Whether may bishops be present in cases of blood? Answ. 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 ten, twenty, or thirty 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 the twentyfifth of Henry the Eighth may go a great way in this business. 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 precedents, in Richard the Third and Henry the Seventh, and the beginning of Henry the Eighth, in which time there were more attainted than since, or scarce before. The canons of irregularity 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. In 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 traitor now? 5. 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 Presbyterian, where you have no bishops, you mean your Presbyterian lay elders should meddle with temporal affairs as well as spiritual. Besides, all jurisdiction is temporal, and in no church but they have some jurisdiction or other. The question then will be reduced to magis and minus; they meddle more in one church than in another.

6. Objection. Bishops give not their votes by blood in parliament, but by an office annexed to them, which being taken away, they cease to vote; therefore there is not the same reason for them as for temporal lords. Answ. We do not pretend they have that power the same way, but they have a right: he that has an office in Westminster-hall for his life, the

office is as much his, as his land is his that hath land by inheritance.

7. Whether had the inferior clergy ever any thing to do in the parliament? Answ. No, no otherwise than thus: there were certain of the clergy that used to assemble near the parliament, with whom the bishops upon occasion might consult (but there were none of the convocation, as it was afterwards settled, viz. the dean, the archdeacon, one for the chapter, and two for the diocese), but it happened by continuance of time, to save charges and trouble, their voices and the consent of the whole clergy were involved in the bishops, and at this day the bishops' writs run, to bring all these to the parliament, but the bishops themselves stand for all.

8. Bishops were formerly one of these two conditions; either men bred canonists and civilians, sent up and down ambassadors to Rome and other parts, and so by their merit came to that greatness; or else great noblemen's sons, brothers, and nephews, and so born to govern the state: now they are of a low condition, their education nothing of that way; he gets a living, and then a greater living, and then a greater than that, and so comes to govern.