The King's MAJESTY'S Letter to the Lords Grace of Canterbury, touching Preaching, and Preachers.  
MOST Reverend Father in God, Right trusty and right entirely beloved Councillor, We greet ye well.  
Forasmuch as the abuse and extravagancies of Preachers in the Pulpit, have been at all times repressed in this Land, by some Act of Council or State, with the advice and resolution of Grave and Reverend Preachers, insomuch as the very licensing of ` Preachers, had beginning by order in the Star-Chamber, the eighth of july, in the nineteenth year of King Henry the Eight, Our Noble Predecessor: And whereas at this present divers young Students, by reading of late Writers and ungrounded Divines, do preach many times unprofitable, unseasonable, seditious and dangerous doctrine, to the scandal of the Church, and disquieting of the State and present Government: We, upon humble presentation unto Us of these ill inconueniencies by yourself, and sundry other Grave and Reverend Prelates of this Church; as of our Princely care and desire, for the extirpation of Schism and Dissension growing from these seeds; and for the settling of a Religious and Peaceable Government both of Church and State: Do by these Our special Letters straightly charge and command you, to use all possible care and diligence, that these limitations and cautions herewith sent you concerning Preachers, be duly and strictly from henceforth observed, and put in practice by the several Bishops in their several Dioceses within your jurisdiction. And to this end Our Pleasure is, that you send them forth several Copies of these Directions, to be by them speedily sent and communicated to every Parson, Uicar and Curate, Lecturer and Minister, in every Cathedral and Parish Church within their several Dioceses; and that ye earnestly require them, to employ their utmost endeavours for the performance of this so important a business: Letting them know, We have an especial eye to their proceedings, and expect a strict account thereof both from you and every of them, and this Our Letter shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in this behalf.  
Given under Our Signet at Our Castle of Windsor, the fourth day of August, in the twentieth year of Our Reign of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scolland the six and fiftieth.   

Directions concerning Preachers.  
1 THat no Preacher, under the degree and calling of a Bishop, or Deane of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church, and they upon the King's days, and set Festivals, do take occasion by the expounding of any text of Scripture whatsoever, to fall into any set discourse or Common-place (otherwise then by opening the coherence and division of his Text) which shall not be comprehended and warranted, in essence, substance and effect, or natural inference, within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562. or in some of the Homilies set forth by authority in the Church of England, not only for a help for the Non-preaching, but withal for a pattern and a bundarie (as it were) for the preaching Ministers, and for their further instructions: for the performance hereof, that they forthwith peruse over, and read diligently the said Articles, or the two books of Homilies.  
2 That no Parson, Vicar, Curate, or Lecturer, shall preach any Sermon or Collation upon Sunday and Holidays in the afternoon in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout the Kingdom, but upon some part of the Catechism, or some text taken out of the Creed, ten Commandments, or Lords Prayer, (funeral Sermons only excepted) and that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of, who spend these afternoon Exercises in examining the children in their Catechism, and in expounding of the several points and heads of the Catechism, which is the most ancient and laudable custom of teaching in the Church of England.  
3 That no Preacher of what title soever, under the degree of a Bishop or Deane at the least, do from henceforth presume to preach in any populous auditory, the deep points of Predestination, Election, Reprobation; of the Universality, Efficacy, Resistabilitie, or Irresistabilitie of God's grace, but leave those Themes to be handled by the learned men, and that moderately, and modestly, by way of use and application, rather than by way of positive doctrine, as being fitter for the Schools and Universities, then for simple auditories.  
4 That no Preacher of what title or denomination soever, shall presume from hence forth in any auditory in this Kingdom, to declare, limit, or bound out by positive doctrine, in any Lecture or Sermon, the Power, Prerogative, jurisdiction, Authority, or Duty of Sovereign Princes; or otherwise meddle with these matters of State, and the references between Princes and the People, then as they are instructed and presidented in the Homily of obedience, and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion, set forth as is before mentioned by public authority; but rather confine themselves for those two heads, Faith and good Life, which are the subject of ancient Sermons and Homilies.  
5 That no Preacher of what title or denomination soever, shall causelessly, and without invitation from the Text, fall into bitter invectives, and undecent railing speeches, against the persons of either Papist or Puritan, but modestly, and gravely when they are invited or occasioned thereunto by their text of Scripture, free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, from the aspersion of either Adversary, especially where the auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other infection.  
6 Lastly, the Archbishops and Bishops of this kingdom (whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for their former remissness) be more wary and choice in licensing Preachers, and revoke all grants made to any Chancellor, Official, or Commissary to licence in this kind. And that all the Lecturers throughout the kingdom (a new body severed from the ancient Clergy of England, as being neither Parson, Vicar, nor Curate) be licenced henceforth in the Court of faculties, only upon recommendation of the party from the Bishop of the Diocese, under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the L. Archbish. of Canterbury, and a confirmation of the great seal of England▪ and that such as transgress any of these directions, be suspended by the L. Bish. of the Diocese; in his default by the L. Archbish. of the province, ab Officio & Beneficio, for a year and a day, until his Majesty by advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further punishment.    

The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury his Letters to the Bishop of the Diocese of Norwich.  
MY very good L.  
I doubt not but before this time, you haue received from me the Directions of His most excellent Majesty concerning Preaching and Preachers, which are so graciously set down, that no godly or discreet man, can otherwise then acknowledge, that they do much tend to edification, if he do not take them upon report, but do punctually consider the tenor of the words as they lie; and do not give an ill construction to that, which may receive a fairer interpretation. Notwithstanding, because some few Churchmen, and many of the People have sinisterly conceived (as we do here find) that those Instructions do tend to the restraint of the Exercise of Preaching, and do in some sort abate the number of Sermons, and so consequently by degrees, do make a breach to let in Ignorance and Superstition: His Majesty in his Princely wisdom hath thought fit, that I should advertise your Lordship of the grave and weighty reasons which induce His Highness to prescribe that which is done. You are therefore to know, That His Majesty being much troubled, and grieved at the heart, to hear every day of so many defections from our Religion, both to Popery and Anabaptism, or other points of Separation in some parts of this Kingdom, and considering with much admiration, what might be the cause thereof, especially in the Reign of such a King, who doth so constantly profess himself an open Adversary to the superstition of the one, and madness of the other: His Princely wisdom could fall upon no one greater probability, than the lightness, affectedness, and unprofit ableness of that kind of Preaching, which hath been of late years too much taken up in Court, University, City, and Country. The usual scope of very many Preachers, is noted to be a soaring up in points of Divinity, too high for the capacities of the people, or a mustering of much reading, or displaying of their wit, or an ignorant meddling with Civil matters, aswell in the private of several Parishes & Corporations, as in the public of the Kingdom: or a venting of their own distastes, or a smoothing up of those idle fancies, which in this blessed time of so long a peace, do boil in the brains of unadvised people. And lastly, by an evil and undecent railing, not only against the Doctrine (which when the Text shall occasion the same, is not only approved, but much commended by his Majesty) but against the persons of Papists and Puritans. Now the people bred up with this kind of teaching, and never instructed in the Catechism and Fundamental points of Religion, are for all this airy nourishment, no better than abrasae tabulae, new Table-books, ready to be filled up either with the Manuals or Catechisms of Popish Priests, or papers and pamphlets of Anabaptists, Brownists, and Puritans. His Majesty ever calling to mind that saying of Tertullian, Id verum quod primum, and remembering with what doctrine the Church of England in her first and most happy reformation, did drive out the one, and kept out the other from poisoning and infecting the people of this Kingdom, did find that the whole scope of this Doctrine is contained in the Articles of Religion, the two Books of Homilies, the less and the greater Catechism, which his Majesty doth therefore recommend again in these Directions, as the proper subject of all sound and edifying Preaching. And so far are these Directions from abating, that his Majesty doth expect from our hands, that it should increase the number of Sermons, by renewing upon every Sunday in the afternoon in all Parish Churches throughout the Kingdom, the primitive and most profitable exposition of the Catechism, wherewith the people, yea very children may be timely seasoned & instructed in all the heads of Christian Religion. Which kind of teaching (to our amendment be it spoken) is more diligently observed in all the reformed Churches of Europe, then of late it hath been here in England. I find his Majesty much moved with this neglect; & resolved, that if we which are his Bishops do not see a reformation hereof (which I trust we shall) to recommend it to the care of the Civil Magistrate, so far is he from giving the least discouragement to solid Preaching, and Religious Preachers.  
To all these I am to add, that it is his Majesty's Princely pleasure, that both the former Directions, and these reasons of the same, be fairly written in every Registers Office. To that end, that every Preacher of what denomination soever, may if he be pleased take out Copies of either of them with his own hand gratis, paying nothing in the name of Fee, or Expedition. But if he do use the pains of the Register his Clerks, then to pay some moderate Fees, to be pronounced in open Court by the Chancellor and Commissaries of the place, taking the direction and approbation of any the Lords the Bishops.  
Lastly, that from henceforth a course may be taken, that every Parson, Vicar, or Curate, or Lecturer, do make exhibit of these his Majesty's directions and reasons of the same, in the next ensuing Visitation of the Bishops and Archdeacon's, paying to the Register by way of Fee two pence only at the time of the exhibit.  
And so wishing, and in his Majesty's Name requiring your Lordsh. to have a special and extraordinary care of the pr 〈…〉▪ I leave you to the Almighty.  
From Croidon, Sept. 4. 1622. Your loving Brother, G. Cant.