A Pillar of Gratitude HUMBLY DEDICATED To the GLORY of GOD, The HONOUR Of His MAJESTY, The RENOWN of this Present Legal, Loyal, Full, and Free PARLIAMENT Upon Their Restoring the CHURCH of ENGLAND To the Primitive Government of EPISCOPACY; And Re-investing Bishops Into Their Pristine Honour and Authority.  
Anno 1661.  
Aaron's Rod. BLESSED and FLORID. Num. 17. 8.  
Barren Figtree. CURSED and WITHERED Mat. ●1. 19  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Luke 17. 14. Giving Thanks always for all things. Ephes. 5. 20. 
Nemo gratus malus: Nemo malus gratus.  
Perditissimum censuerunt Veteres quem ingratum dixerunt.  
London, Printed by J. M. for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in St Paul's Churchyard. 1661.   

To the Right Honourable and most Noble Princes, Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts and Lords, Barons and Peers, of the Parliament of England; Together with the other honourable Gentlemen, Knights and Burgesses, of the House of Commons.  
THere shall need no other Apology for the erecting and thus dedicating this PILLAR of GRATITUDE, than that, which all Justice and Ingenuity do make, for the Archbishops and Bishops, with all the Orderly Clergy of the Church of England; Who must cease to be Christians and Men, Religious and Rational, just and ingenuous, if we should not be highly sensible, how much we are commanded, by all the Laws of Gratitude to God and Man, to express, in some public and solemn manner, the humble sense of our thankful Hearts, for that great Mercy, signal Honour, and eminent Favour, which the good Providence of God, by the Graciousness of the King's Majesty, by the Nobleness of the House of Peers, and by the Generosity of the present House of Commons, (yea, we hope, by the desire and consent of all wise, sober, and just men, in this Church and Kingdom) hath restored, as the other dignified Clergy to their respective Dignities, so us, the Archbishops and Bishops not only to the exercise of our Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, but also to the ancient Honour (when his Majesty shall please to call us) of sitting, consulting, and voting in the House of Peers; Senatus, quo Sol augustiorem in orbe non vidit; as the most learned Bishop Andrews writes in his Tortura Torti: A Court and Council, in its full and free Constitution, not to be exceeded, hardly equalled in all the World; for number, and for grandeur; for the conspicuity of its Wisdom; for the majesty of its Presence; and for the Eminency, no less than Antiquity, of its Authority; Agreeable to that of Fortescue, cited by Sir Edward Coke in his Institutes, l. 4. c. 1. Si Antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si Dignitatem, est honoratissima; si Jurisdictionem, est capacissima.  
Nor do We the Bishops (with all our Brethren of the Clergy) more congratulate our own Reception, to our pristine station, after fifteen years' absence, than your LORDSHIP'S safe Return, after twelve years' Banishment, to the enjoyment of your native Right, and hereditary Honour, of sitting in Parliament, as Barons and Peers: And no less do we celebrate with joy the renewed privilege of the freeborn Commons of England, to sit and suffragate, in their honourable House, by their chosen Deputies, the Knights and Burgesses, after they had for many years been baffled with Tumults, broken by Factions, bastinadoed with Truncheons, and beaten with Swords; in order (forsooth) to preserve the Liberty of the Subject, the Privileges of Parliament, and the Reformed Religion.  
Above all (for in that one, all your Honours, all our civil Freedoms and temporal Happinesses are included) we of the Clergy, beyond all men, have cause anew to solemnize this Day, with (Faelix, faustúmque) a peculiar joy and jubilee to God's glory, the Church's peace, and the Kingdom's prosperity, the happy Return of his SACRED MAJESTY to his rightful Throne, as the Sun to his proper Orb or Sphere, after the dreadful Overthrow of our late Phaeton's; Who, having set this English World on fire, and quenched the other two British Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland with their blood, ashes and ruins, had this only honour for their Epitaph (Magnis excidere ausis) That they justly fell from most audacious adventures, arrogant usurpations, and impudent impieties; smitten, at length, as with the Conscience of their own enormous wickednesses, so with the Thunder and Lightning, the terror and consternation of that divine vengeance, which, when they least dreamt of, did wonderfully overtake them; after they had a long time flattered themselves in Providences; and, by the delusion of Successes, had blasphemed the most high, holy, and righteous God, as if he were such an one as themselves; a lover of perfidy, perjury, and hypocrisy; Which vengeance was also on the sudden executed upon them, as by the loyal Prayers and pious Impatiences of all his Majesty's good Subjects, so chiefly by the honest Policies and prudent Conduct of one wise and valiant General, who (as Samson) caught those subtle Foxes, and tied them tail to tail; but without any other firebrands, than themselves; taking the crafty in their own devices, and pulling down the proud from their seats of scorn and Tyranny: (May his heroic name be written in the Book of Life, as it is in that of worldly Honour, with an indelible Character; because he did not pervert to private ambition (as others had foolishly and falsely done) the rare opportunity of doing Actions of incomparable Loyalty to his Prince, and of Love to his Country.)  
Those Scandals and Reproaches to all true Honour and Religion, those pests and shame to all good Government, being once gone with Judas to their own places, after they had filled the three Kingdoms with blood, barbarity, and confusion, and the measure of their iniquity up to the brim, by a wanton superfluity of folly and madness, wickedness and hypocrisy, at last this grand Theatre of Wisdom and Honour (the Parliament of England) was left free, for the joyful Reception of its ancient Inhabitants, King, Lords, and Commons, there to sit with Freedom and Honour; never again (we hope and pray) to be divided, scattered, confounded and destroyed.  
Whose Piety and Justice not satisfied with their own Return to this Throne of Majesty, this sanctuary of Religion, this seat of Honour, this Citadel of all legal and ingenuous Liberties, are pleased still to express a sense of solitude, until they had completed (More majorum) after the ancient pattern of English Parliaments, their honourable society with the Archbishops and Bishops of England and Wales; That so in this, as in all other instances of true Honour, they might not come short of the Piety and Prudence of their noble Ancestors; who thought, that a Parliament of England, without Bishops, was as a City without a Temple, or as a Temple without an Altar, or as an Altar without a Sacrifice; or as all these without a duly consecrated Priest; or as he and they too would be without the true Worship of the true God.  
And thus have we lived to see, by merciful and miraculous Revolutions, a plenary Restauration of the Majesty, Honour, Piety, and Liberty of this so renowned Church and Kingdom; both in their grand Epitomes of Parliament and Convocation; also in their greater latitudes, or diffusions, to all Estates and degrees of Men, as to their just Concerns and Interests to which, in Law or Religion, in Prudence or Conscience, they can pretend; Which are all bound up in the King's gracious, free, and royal Consent, ratifying the joint counsels and humble desires of the Nobility, of the Clergy, and of the Commonalty, unanimously represented to him; as by the Lords Temporal and Commons, so by the Lords Spiritual or Bishops, now restored to their ancient Place and Honour in the Parliament of England. (May this signal Mercy of God never be forgotten by us; may this happy Union never be dissolved among us: may this great Blessing never be forfeited by us.)  
An high honour indeed, yet, withal, a very heavy burden, put upon us Bishops; not only, as to the great Service and public Duty, which is on all hands expected from us; And for that great account, which will be required of us, according to the Talents, Advantages, and Opportunities given us, to serve God, the King, and the Church: (to which nothing can sufficiently enable us, but the same Grace and Favor, both divine and humane, which hath thus prevented us:) But also, as to that envy, which must necessarily by this eminency be contracted, from all those evil men, who have evil eyes, and evil wills and evil hearts, not only against Bishops and Episcopacy, but also against the Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom, no less than against the pristine Renown and Flourishing of this Reformed Church of England; which was famous heretofore in all the Christian World abroad, and no less reverenced at home, by People, Peers, and sovereign Princes, while its Diocesan Bishops were dignified with this public and Parliamentary honour; Which is not like that sad OTHER HOUSE, a mushroom or gourd of Yesterday, springing out of O. P. and withering with R. C. but it began with the first Originals of Parliaments; and for many hundred of years continued, without any violent interruption, until these late Antimonarchical and Antiepiscopal Chasms and Concussions, which shook Heaven and Earth; yea, and Hell itself, to destroy both Kings and Bishops, the Kingdom and Church of ENGLAND.  
In which horrid conflicts of Innovation, Schism, Rebellion, and Confusion, with our well reformed Church, our ancient Laws, our settled Religion, and our excellent Government, the tail of the Dragon strove to cast down to the earth many Stars of the highest Spheres, the greatest magnitude, and divinest influence, in this Church and Kingdom: And among them the most reverend and learned Bishops of this Church, even one and all, at one sweeping Stroke; who (with their famous Predecessors) for many Centuries of years, had both sat in Parliaments, as Peers, and presided in the Church as Prelates: that is, chief Fathers, Stewards, and Overseers in Christ's Family, or the Household of Faith; Principal Governors or Precedents in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction: Prime Members in all Synods and Convocations: The main Cisterns and Conduits of holy Orders: The grand Conservators of Ministerial Power and Ecclesiastical Authority; very ample and able Defenders (under God and the King) of Religion, as Christian and Reformed, in Truth and Faith, in Peace and Holiness, in good Government, decent Order, and legal Uniformity.  
By which public influences of their judicious Preaching, solid writing, sober living, grave counselling, and prudent governing (set off with such eminent Honours, fair Revenues, and due Authority, as they were by the munificence of Princes legally vested in) the Bishops of ENGLAND have, by God's blessing, been in all Ages (according to the analogy and capacity of Times) as the fairest, so the strongest Pillars in this Church's Fabric: Like the goodly Cedar beams and costly stones which were laid in Solomon's Temple: like the fruitfullest Figtrees, Vines and Olives, planted in the Garden of God; flourishing and bearing fruits that were pleasing to God and good men; until that wildfire came forth out of the thistles and brambles of the Wilderness, which sought to devour them root and branch, and with them all things civil and sacred.  
Your valiant and noble Ancestors, not more honourable for their being Peers or Members in Parliament, than for their being generous Sons of the Church of ENGLAND, Patrons of Learning and true Religion, These were ever so impatient to carry on, or conclude any public Counsels or Determinations that were not sanguinary (Deo inconsulto) without first taking Counsel of God, by his Priests, Prophets, and Seers, (as David and the best Kings of Judah were wont to do, in all great concerns, Civil and Ecclesiastical, for War and Peace) that They thought nothing could be prudent, which was not pious; nor likely to be prosperous in the State, which did not correspond with the Church. They esteemed the Temple of Jerusalem, and the Priests of the Lord, to be (as the Ark was, and the Bearers of it, in the midst of the Camp) not only the centre, but the sanctuary and glory of both Court, City, and Country: That, as the Body is without the Soul, so are public Counsels and Transactions in Christian States and Kingdoms, without due regard to God, his Ministers, his Church, and true Religion.  
With whose holy will, mind, and counsels, no men can, in any reason, be supposed to be better acquainted, or more sincerely conform to them, or more readily communicative of them, than grave and learned Divines; and among them those venerable Bishops and Fathers, to whom the Oracles of God, and Power Evangelical, are specially committed, as to God's chief Ambassadors, Christ's eminent Deputies, the Clergies principal trusties, and, in some sort, the whole Churches general Representatives; whose learned Gifts and Endowments are presumed to be most matured by Age, subdued by Experience, sanctified by Grace, and entirely devoted to the Service of God, the Church, the King, and their Country; upon whose respective Favours they wholly depend: To the Glory of the one, and the Welfare of the other, they cannot, in prudence and conscience, be less faithfully and constantly engaged, than any other men: And in whose Interests (doubtless) they are much more to be believed, than any of those Democratick spirits, or Pragmatic Sticklers, among the Clergy or Laity; who being of less years, abilities, and experience, yea, and possibly less contented, are apt to be either covetously, or ambitiously, or enviously discomposed; and so more subject to toss to and fro; to move from one side to the other, as those weary men do, who lie on hard beds: Easily, as we have seen, revolting from Kings and Bishops to Presbyterian and Independent Projects, to popular and Plebeian Adherencies; yea, to Papal Arts and Ends: That by such Complacencies they may advance their own Estate or Reputation, though with the ruin of Monarchy and Episcopacy; which are the great Defensatives and Bulwarks against Sedition and Faction, against Anarchy and Confusion.  
How much the Tumultuary Mutinies of some impetuous malcontents against Kings and Bishops have been to the detriment and dishonour both of this Church and Kingdom, the recent memory of your, and our late Troubles and Miseries will sufficiently tell your Lordships, and those other Gentlemen: As a just History of their Tragical Counsels and Tyrannical effects, will for ever warn your amazed and almost incredulous Posterity, when they shall see the different, yea, destructive Fortunes of our Laws and Religion, of our Kings, Lords, and Commons; of the sober Clergy, & all degrees of honest men in these three Kingdoms, under an affected Novelty and Parity of Usurping Presbyters, with some presumptuous People, (whose dominion in Church or State, neither your Lordships, nor your Forefathers, ever knew in ENGLAND, nor can ever bear) compared with that Paternal Government of learned, godly, and venerable Bishops, counselled and assisted by their reverend Brethren of the Clergy; in a way and form of Ecclesiastical Government, now happily restored by his Majesty; as most conform to the Catholic Church; ever approved by our Parliaments, established by all our ancient Laws, and duly subordinate to our Kings, as Sovereign Lords; who are owned by us Bishops, and all the Orthodox Clergy of ENGLAND, to be, under God, the only supreme Dispenser's of all Juridical or Executive Power in Church and State: No way subject either to the Papal Triple Crown, or to the hundred Eyes of any Presbyterian Class, nor yet to the hundred Hands of any Independent Junto.  
By the Christian Care and Courage, Piety and Charity of which Bishops (next after, and ever since the Apostles and Apostolic men) Christianity itself was first planted in Brittany, as in all other Countries; when the Crown of King Lucius, above 1500. years ago (first of any King in all the World) did wear the Cross, as the noblest Gem and highest Ornament of his Royal Diadem.  
Accordingly we read of our British Bishops, present at ancient Councils; as that of Arles in France, where Restitutus Bishop of London, and Eboracus Bishop of Yorksate: So in the Council of Arminium, about the year 350. as Sulpicius Severus and others tell us.  
By a like Succession of holy Bishops, and their subordinate Clergy, was Christian Religion, and its orderly Ministry, preserved in Wales, after many barbarous Invasions and Persecutions had almost desolated those first planted Churches of our Brittany; as venerable Bede and Guildas the wise tell us. By godly Bishops were the Saxons and Angles themselves at length converted, both Kings and Subjects, to that Christian Faith, which, as Saul, they formerly persecuted, and made such havoc of.  
By grave Bishops, as good Physicians, was Christian Religion in its Fundamentals of Faith and good Manners kept alive, to some degree of saving health and holy Order, amidst the many distempers, corruptions, and deformities of those dark times, which went before, and followed after the Norman Conquest, by reason of the Roman Superstructures, Usurpations, and Apostasies.  
By excellent Bishops were the Decays of this Church, and Deformity of Religion (now above one hundred years past) duly repaired, and orderly reform, from those Romish Dregs of Superstition, which had spread upon the face of these Western Churches, and soured the Sanctity, as well as sullied the Serenity of Christian purity and simplicity, both in Faith and Manners.  
By worthy Bishops was our English Liturgy fitly composed, our Bibles well translated, our Reformation soberly completed, our Religion by Law and due Authority peaceably established; yea, and at last, all was sealed and confirmed by many of those godly Bishop's bonds and banishments, by their Bloods and Martyrdoms.  
By our English Bishops, how many rare Books have been written in all kinds of good Learning, and especially in Divinity, Dogmatical, Polemical, and Practical? How hath the Orthodox Faith of the Reformed Church of ENGLAND (yea, of the true Catholic Church) been, by our admirable Bishops, and other Episcopal Divines, valiantly maintained, against all kinds of Heretical Novelties, and Schismatical Machinations, both foreign and domestic? They have neither feared Rome, nor flattered Geneva, nor courted Amsterdam; securing this Church, at once, against all Papal Policies, Disciplinarian Devices, and Popular Impostures.  
How many great and good Works of pious Munificence, of durable Hospitality, and useful Charity to Colleges, Cathedrals, and other Churches, to Free-Schools, to Hospitals, and Almshouses, have by our English Bishops been founded at their own Charges, and many more by their grave Counsels, and good Examples? as our English Histories fully inform us.  
By some of our learned Bishops (as Anselm, Bradwardine, and others) the Glory of God's Grace was notably maintained against the Pelagian pride and presumption: So was the Liberty of this Church and Kingdom by the great head, and greater heart, of Robert Bishop of Lincoln, and others, against the Papal Arrogancy.  
By the loyal and resolute Bishop of Carlisle was the Sovereignty and Life of Richard the second, King of ENGLAND, in open Parliament vindicated by Scripture, Law, and Reason, against the potent Usurpation of Henry the fourth. By a wise Bishop of Ely was that Counsel first given, which united the two Roses, and composed our long Civil Wars. Lastly, by a worthy Bishop was that foundation of Union laid in a Marriage with a Daughter of Henry the seventh, which in time brought both Kingdoms of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND under one Sceptre and Monarch, as they are at this day.  
I do not mention these (few of many) instances of worthy and most deserving Bishops of the Church of ENGLAND (for I omit Cranmer, Hooper, Ridley, Latimer, Matthews, Whitguift, Bancroft, Jewel, Bilson, Andrews, King, both the Abbots, Davenant, White, Morton, Babington, Carlton, Hall, and others) nor yet do I reckon up the many late great Sufferers, with much Christian patience, courage, and constancy (some of whom remain to this day) I say, I do not so mention those former (as I might with a particular emphasis to each) nor yet these later Bishops, as if I here meant to plead the merits of Bishops or Episcopacy, either before God or Man; I know the best Bishops were sensible, that they did but their Duty to God, their Kings, this Church, and their Country (of whom, as of Parents, none can merit, few requite them;) Nor is it for me to blazon their wel-known worth by any pomp of words, when their greatest worth consisted in their modesty and humility; as their greatest merit in their thinking they had none, though their Works do at once praise them in the gates, and follow them to Glory.  
Only thus far I have, with equal truth and modesty (yea, and without any offence, I hope) touched upon the wel-known Deserts of some of our English Bishops; In the first place, to justify this Honour and Favor, which his gracious Majesty, by the Advice of the House of Peers, and the generous Piety of the House of Commons, hath now done to us Bishops; and in US, to all the Clergy; and in them, to this whole Church; and in this, to all Christendom; and in that, to all the World: After the famous Examples of the first Christian Emperors and Christian Senators of Rome, who assumed the chief Bishops of Churches in the Roman World, into the Order and Honour of the Senators or Nobles of the Empire, called Patricii; (whence Saint Patrick, Primate of IRELAND, had his name, even from that Honour; as the most learned Lord Primate Ussher observes in his Antiquitates Hibernicae;) That all men might see, what esteem and love they then had for the Christian Religion; as, of all Religions, the best, and most deserving of Mankind: Also, what regard they had for the prime Preachers and Professors of it; Among whom, none were thought more worthy of double honour, than those that ruled well, and laboured also in the Word and Doctrine; as all true Bishops ought to do, yea, all of them have so done, and ever will, as God enables them: There being nothing so desirable in the Office of a Bishop, as the goodness of the Work; which seeks not our own things, but the things of Jesus Christ, and the public Welfare of the Church, over which God doth set them; that they may at once save their own Souls, and the Souls of them that hear them.  
Furthermore, my design, in this brief Commemoration of excellent and deserving Bishops in the Church of ENGLAND, is, to make it appear to his Majesty, to your Honours, and to all the English World (if there needed further demonstrations than our late Miseries) How partial, how oppressive, how destructive to all good Learning, and generous Piety, in Churchmen especially (many of whom, in former times, were Sons of noble and illustrious Families;) How injurious also to God and Man, to Church and State, to Kings and Subjects, to true Religion and sober Reformation, those Popular Projects are, have been, and ever will be; which, with tumultuating Partiality, Plebeian Sordidness, and Mechanic Importunity, shall seek to deprive the public Wisdom and Counsels of this Nation, of the light and influence of those greater Stars, or the guidance and defence of those good Angels, such as our English Bishops have been, and ever aught to be, and, I hope, ever will be: Whose fatal Thrusting, by head and shoulders, out of the House of Peers, and more, out of the House of God, this Church, was followed with such Stygian Darkness, Hellish Horror, and barbarous Confusion, as cast out both Commons, Lords, and Kings, from their Places, Seats and Thrones; supplying their and the Bishop's places with such Associates in the House of Lords, as were worse than any solitude.  
For, in stead of Kingly Majesty sitting on the Throne, attended with ancient and honourable Peers, Lords Spiritual and Temporal, they brought into the Capitol, or sacred Senate of this British Empire, many, that were not the Sons of noble blood, nor yet men of noble Education, or liberal Endowments; but I●ms and Ohims, Vultures and Harpies, Satyrs and unclean Beasts; who, how ever so impudently wicked, as to be ashamed of no sin (no not of Sacrilege, Perjury, Rebellion, and Regicide) yet were infinitely discountenanced, and blushed to see themselves in that august, high, and honourable place; just as Owls and Bats got into an Eagles nest; some of them being such pieces of mean Birth, of mechanic Breeding, and of monstrous Insolency, as yourselves and your forefathers might, without any unjust brow, have disdained (as Job speaks) to have set them with the Dogs of your Flocks: So that the bringing in of Bishops again into your House of Parliament, is, as it were, a new Consecrating of it, after it had been so lewdly polluted, and horridly profaned, by those abaddon's and Apollyons.  
This Mercy of God, this Favour of his Majesty, this Nobleness of the Peers, and this Generosity of the House of Commons, to the Bishops of ENGLAND, yea, to this Church and State, is the more welcome, remarkable, and miraculous, because they come as a glorious Light after a most dismal Darkness; as the great Calm followed the Storm that Christ rebuked; as a fair Port, or firm Land, after much tossing, tempest, and shipwreck; as a gracious Rain after long Drought; as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary Land: This Honour, after Debasement, is as King Pharaohs Preferments bestowed on Joseph, or Evil-Merodack's lifting up the Head of Jehojakin, after the squalor of their Prisons: As the fair Robes, which the Angel commanded should be put upon Joshua the Highpriest, after his filthy garments were taken off; Or as King Nabuchadnezzar advancing Daniel from the Lion's Den, and the other three Confessors, from the fiery Furnace, to be Governors of Provinces.  
For, although all Estates and Degrees of worthy Men have suffered much in our late Tumults and Tragedies, yet none more than the loyal and conformable Clergy; and among them the reverend Bishops most of all; being stripped at once of their Estates and Honours, of all supports and encouragements (except those of a good Cause, and a good Conscience:) These, as the highest branches of stately Trees, when felled; or as the tops of lofty Towers, when overthrown (lapsu graviore cadunt) not only fall first themselves to the ground, but with the greater stroke and bruise to others: whose sufferings were their greatest afflictions. Your Lordships, and the other Gentlemen, know too well, that the Exclusion of the Bishops, or the State Ecclesiastical, (if I may, in respect of their peculiar Function, their relation to, and representation of the whole Clergy, as chief Fathers in the Church, so style them stilo veteri, as Sir Edward Coke and other great Lawyers do, without the offence of any Presbyterian Critics:) The Exclusion, I say, of them from all Parliamentary, yea, and all Synodical Counsels, was not only their utter undoing; but the first sad Presage or direful Omen of those after-subversions and confusions, which made havoc of all those ancient Laws and Constitutions, by which no less the Coronets of our Nobility, and the Crowns of our Kings, than the Mitres of our Bishops, were settled.  
This gap once made by Tumultuating Importunities, Popular threatenings, and Petitionary Terrors, much God knows against the Choice and Genius of his late Majesty of blessed memory, no less than against the sense of the wisest and soberest, the most and best Persons of both Houses, and in the whole Kingdom. Good God what Iliads of Miseries, what Storms of Violence, what Deluges of Mischief, what Oceans of Confusion, followed in Church and State? The Tongues and Pens of some popular Ministers, who were wantonly wicked and zealously cruel, being once let loose against their Church Governors the Bishops, how were all things soon set on fire, even with the fire of Hell? which burned to the very foundations of Church and Kingdom; being like Tophet, or those everlasting burnings, which nothing but a miraculous shower of divine Mercy could thus allay, or quench.  
As no man did, said, wrote, and suffered more in the behalf of Bishops and this Church, than the best of Kings; or with more Christian, Heroick, and Martyrly Courage: So (next that Royal Martyr) were these godly Confessors, the Bishops, and other worthy Clergymen, who a long time stood in the breach, till there was no remedy; but Sin and Judgement broke in upon them, and all Estates as a mighty Torrent; In which many of them lost more than all they had: for the contagion of their calamities reached even to their Children, Friends, and Acquaintance; the envy and fury of their Enemies seeking to exhaust all their Relations, lest there should be any to relieve them with any thing but emptyhanded pity.  
I knew some Bishops, and those of the first three (whom I cannot mention without Honour, nor remember their Enemy's Cruelty without Horror) who were in their old age reduced to live (in great part) as the Clergy did in Primitive Persecutions (ex Donis & Oblationibus) by Alms and charitable Contributions: So did the incomparable Lord Primate of Armagh, Bishop Ussher, and the most accomplished Bishop Brownrig: Nor was the excellently learned and very aged Bishop of Durham (Doctor Morton) far from being an Object of mere Charity: I am sure, equal shame and grief (mixed with just indignation) affects me, when I read, expressed in his own words, the churlish, Cainish, and contemptuous Carriage of some men to the late venerable Bishop of Nor●●ch, Doctor Hall; whose admired eloquence and meekness was capable, like Orpheus his Harp, to have charmed all wild Beasts, except (bipedes Lupos) two-legged Wolves. I need not add to this Catalogue the accurate Doctor Prideaux, late Bishop of Worcester (verus librorum helluo) who having first, by indefatigable studies, digested his excellent Library into his Mind, was after forced again to devour all his Books with his Teeth; turning them, by a miraculous Faith and Patience, into Bread for himself and his Children, to whom he left no Legacy, but pious Poverty, God's Blessing, and a Father's Prayers, as appears in his last Will and Testament.  
Blessed God Who will not learn, yea, covet to want, as well as to abound, from these great Examples? which are capable to render Indigence itself venerable, Poverty desirable, and Affliction lovely? Since God never takes the good things of this World from so good men, but as an indulgent Father he intends to give them better; Physic for a time, in stead of Food; as he did to Job: at last he repairs them with Pearls for Pebbles, and with eternal Treasures for temporary trash.  
How justly these Afflictions befell very worthy Bishops, and other excellent Ministers, then flourishing to a great number in the Church of ENGLAND, as from the Hand of God, their own Humility and Charity, their Patience and Silence commands me, neither to doubt nor dispute: It befits us all, to give glory to God, to take shame to ourselves, to say, it is of the Lords mercy that we are not utterly consumed, that there is yet a Remnant that hath escaped.  
But how unjustly, as to the Hand of Man, all these burdens of disgrace and indigence were cast upon such venerable Persons in their old age and infirmity, I leave to the sober and equanimous World to judge; when much evil was, for many years, inflicted upon them all, and no malicious evil of fact was ever proved against one of ten of them: They were all condemned, but never tried; deprived of their Ecclesiastical Rights in Law, but not according to any known Law of God or Man: Their great offence was, that they did not think themselves wiser than the Laws of the Land, and Canons of the Church; That they would not divide what God had joined together, Religion and Loyalty, to fear God, and honour the King; That they chose suffering rather than sinning; That they were not willing to have themselves, with all the Clergy and the Gentry, the Nobility and the Majesty of the Kings of ENGLAND, forced to truckle under the Iron Bedstead of Presbytery; or to tremble under the Wooden Ferula of Ruling Lay-Elders, either Dependants or Independents; whose insolency was more intolerable, than that of an handmaid which was become heir to her Mistress: The unpardonable sin of those Reverend Fathers was, that they chose rather to obey God and the King, according to known Laws, than to flatter or humour any Popular Faction, how potent or prevalent soever; still esteeming true piety and virtue, in the midst of adversity, to be more amiable, than the most prosperous Impiety, or triumphant Hypocrisy: As the three innocent persons were less hurt by the Fire, than those who cast them into the Furnace; these were consumed, the other not singed.  
As no doubt those great Sufferers, the Bishops of this Church, willingly forgave their Persecutors, and committed their Cause to Gods Pleading, having no other care but this, not to suffer as evil doers, or as busy bodies, or as perturbers of Church or State: So they now greatly rejoice in their past afflictions; not only for the good which they and others may have gained by them, and for the gracious end which the LORD hath (as we hope) now put to them; but also for those great and glorious Advantages, which their former, many, long, and sore calamities do now give, to the present conspicuity of his Majesty's goodness, to the splendour of your Lordship's noble favours, and to the generosity of the House of Commons: Thus, by a most magnificent and illustrious Opportunity, to express His Munificence and Your Kindness to the dejected Bishops, to the oppressed Clergy, and to the almost desolated Church of ENGLAND, suitable to, and in some respect far exceeding, the pristine Examples of his Majesty's Royal, your Lordships and other gentlemen's loyal and religious Ancestors; who were so far from casting the Bishops, or chief Pilots of the Church, overboard, that they never thought themselves safer from shipwreck, than when they were embarked in the same Ship with Saint Paul and his pious Companions.  
Your Lordships and the other worthy Gentlemen well know (as I touched) that Bishops in England have ever been contemporary with Parliaments time out of mind, as they have been in all Christian Empires and Kingdoms, Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, and others, present and assistant in all their Diets and National Conventions: So that our former Kings (according to their Coronation Oaths) and Parliaments (according to Law) did constantly indeed preserve Bishops in those ancient places and privileges, Immunities and Honours, where they found them: But You, the present Lords and Commons (concurrent with his Majesty's Goodness) have the singular Glory and Happiness to restore them to those ancient Dignities, which they never forfeited, and so were never before deprived of; till their legal and deserved Honour was become their Sin and Crime; till their good Manors made them guilty; and their Revenues were counted their Delinquency: lastly, till their having of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was ground enough to divest them of all Authority, and the Church of all Order and Government. It is the singular Honour of this complete Parliament, which sits, as it began, with all that fullness of Authority and Liberty (which is the life and soul, the crown and glory of such august Assemblies) to repair those breaches which were made by the free Votes (as it seems) of but a few Lords and Commons, compared to the integral numbers of either House; and that in very tumultuating, broken, and boisterous Times: whose imperious and impetuous Fury would not be satiated or stayed, till they had destroyed in new ways of Judicature (without any former precedent or future parallel, we hope) first a prime Counsellor of State, next the chief Bishop of this Church, and lastly the best of Kings in the World: So fatal and unhappy it is for men, either to neglect God's ends, or to vary from his means, to use the Devils engines for God's edifice; doing real evil, that imaginary good may come thereby.  
Indeed, the blessed God hath in the midst of his Judgements remembered Mercy: HE, HE, hath commanded the Whales, which had devoured our Jonah's (the Bishops, and other dignified Clergy of England, with all their Cathedral Churches, Honours, and Revenues) to cast them up again upon dry Land: HE, HE, hath sent his good Angels, even the King, and his faithful Forerunner (who are in this respect as Angels or Messengers of God) to stop those Lion's mouths, who thought they had us all alive between their Teeth; breaking our bones, that they might more securely eat our flesh.  
He, he, hath stirred up the Heart of our gracious Sovereign, with this loyal Parliament (as he did the Hearts of Cyrus and Darius, Kings of the East) to turn the Captivity of the Church, of the Clergy, and of the Bishops of England; to make our latter end better than our beginning, no less for inward Graces (which we hope and pray) than for outward Mercies; as he did to holy and patient Job.  
Indeed the Mercy of God is so miraculous, and the Favour of King and Parliament is so remarkable to us, That many of those ambiguous friends to the Church of England, to Bishops, and to Episcopacy, who formerly stood, as Jobs miserable Comforters, afar off, amazed to see, that (amidst Christians, and Protestants, and zealous Pretenders to Reformation) such eminent Learning, such powerful Eloquence, such venerable Years, such admirable Piety, such oracular Prudence, such splendid Virtues, such useful Abilities, and such deserved Honours, as were to be seen in the late Learned and Reform Bishops and Clergy of ENGLAND, should be forced to embrace the Dunghill, to be trampled upon, terrified, scorned, and cast out, as the offscouring of all things, by men some of them viler than the earth; who certainly would not have used Christ and his Apostles much better, had they appeared among them, such as indeed they were, Bishops or chief Pastors and Shepherds of the Churches: Even those dubious Spectators of the late Trials and cruel Mockings, put upon the Bishops and Clergy of ENGLAND, do now, many of them, turn their Amazement of Horror to an Ecstasy and Jubilee of Joy; while they see what a Wonderful Change God hath made, commanding dry bones to live, giving beauty for ashes, and the oil of gladness for the garment of Heaviness; rebuking at once the Raging of the Sea, and the madness of the People; which nothing but Omnipotent Goodness can tame, or set bounds unto, as he hath now done among us.  
Many of those wary Christians, and superpolitick Professors, who heretosore were afraid, lest, by their compassionate and kind Aspect, they should adopt the unjust Calamities of godly Bishops, and other Worthy Churchmen; These (now) begin to look serenely, and without sqinting, on the Episcopal Dignity; they speak reverently of, and kindly to, the venerable Bishops, and the other industrious Episcopal Clergy; They behave themselves with filial Respects to their Mother the Church of ENGLAND, speaking comfortably to her, and telling her, That her Warfare is accomplished; assuring us Bishops, and all other Worthy Ministers of the Church, That our Troubles are finished, if our Hearts be refined, our Lusts mortified, our Passions conquered, and our Lives amended; That the former Terrors, Afllictions, and sad Desolations, shall be requited with double Honour, if we all unanimously return with double Diligence to do our Duties to God and Man; That those vast Ruins, which Schism, Sacrilege, Rebellion, and other crying sins have made, shall be abundantly repaired, by the Justice, Piety, and Munificence of the King, the Parliament, and People of ENGLAND; who have lived to see all the Vizars and Masks of Angels of Light, now quite taken off from the Faces of those Satan's; who, under the clamours of violent Nonconformity, and under the colours of illegal, unreasonable, and deforming Reformations, are found the greatest Adversaries to Law and Justice, to true Reason and sober Religion, to necessary Order and good Government, which are the solid Foundations and only Pillars of public Peace, of sober and lasting Reformation.  
God himself (I say) hath at last pleaded, by the seasonable Intervention of the King and Parliament, the Cause of this Church, against all its cruel Calumniators and causeless Adversaries, whose late sacrilegious Depredations, dreadful Oppressions, and endless Vastations, sprang first from the root of scrupulous, or sullen, or scandalous Nonconformity to the Laws: At length they all nestled themselves under the popular Shadow, or in the spreading Branches of an Anti-episcopal, novel, illegal and Headless Presbytery: At last they brought forth those bitter fruits and sour Grapes, which set all our teeth on edge, by the Anarchy and Confusion, the Waste and Ruin, of this Church and Kingdom.  
This Royal Munificence and Favour of his present Majesty is, by the former Insolences and Calamities that befell this Church and Clergy, as by so many black foils and dark shadows, the more set off, to be (as indeed it is) so great, so unwonted, so wonderful, so kingly, so christian, so divine, so proportionable (in this point) for gratitude and munificence, to Gods extraordinary Providences, oft preserving, and at last restoring his Majesty to his Kingdoms; That no instance in any Age or History can parallel it, nor can any thing be said worthy of it, but this: It is an act of magnificent Piety, worthy of such a King and the Son of such a Father; The Father chose to lose all his Crowns, Estate, and Life, rather than rob God and the Church: The Son, when God had restored all to him, as to our lawful Cesar, takes care to restore all to God that is his and his Churches.  
Give me leave to take a more leisurely and exact view of his Majesty's Bounty and Justice to the Church and Clergy of ENGLAND; For its Dimensions, like those of the Pyramids and Colossuses (which were among the Wonders of the World) merit more than a transient Aspect.  
When his Majesties own Royal Estate, by long Usurpation and Banishment, had been wholly detained from him, and much exhausted; when he was now under the necessity of many and great Expenses, public and private, for the Payment of his Royal Navy, and for the Disbanding of his Armies (now His, by a most happy Revolt, and loyal Apostasy;) When He had Power, as He pleased, to recruit his Estate, and to restore the Majesty of his Kingdoms; When not more his own, than his Friends Exigencies pressed him (as sharp hunger doth mighty Eagles, or Lions, to fall upon any prey that comes next to hand;) When there wanted not some back Friends to the Church of ENGLAND, who wrapping up Sacrilege (like Goliah's Sword in the linen cloth) in the soft covering and show of Loyalty, were ready enough to make a Royal Present to his Majesty of John Baptists Head in a Silver Charger, persuading him to fill his Exchequer by robbing the Church.  
When his Martyred Father and Family, his own Person and the Crown of ENGLAND, had suffered so much, upon no account more, than that of their Christian Piety and Justice, Courage and Constancy, to defend, as nursing Fathers, the Church and Clergy of ENGLAND, in their just Rights, Endowments and Enjoyments: When there was indeed such a grateful Compensation due to his Majesty and the Crown of ENGLAND, as was almost capable to christian even Sacrilege itself, and to wash, to some degree of Whiteness, that Borborites, or Blackmore, about which some have spent so much labour in vain.  
Yet then, even then, after so many merits of the Royal Family, both active and passive, toward the Church and Clergy of ENGLAND, amidst such straits and exigents of his Person, Family, Relations, Crowns and Kingdoms; How hath his Majesty, by a most Princely Piety, abhorred to make necessity any plea or excuse for Sacrilege? He had rather still hunger (with David and his Men) than take the Shewbread of God's House, without the Priest's consent and free gift: He chose rather still to want, than to be supplied out of God's Exchequer, or the Church's Treasury, by any sacrilegious Rapine, or other sine Projects of the Devil; which more than once did offer to his Majesty a Sacrifice out of their Rapine, and a burnt-offering out of their Church-Robbery, even a Present of five hundred thousand Pounds, to confirm the late illegal Sales of Church Lands for ninety nine Years; and yet (that you may see what good Bargains they had) the Purchasers mean while to pay the old Rents to the Bishops and Clergy: But his Majesty abhorred to taste of any fruit which came from so evil, bitter, and accursed a root as Sacrilege.  
Thus, thus, hath his Majesty, of his own pious and Princely Disposition (conform to his Father's Christian Resolution, and encouraged by your Lordships and other noble Persons high Comprobation of his so just and holy Restitutions to God and the Church) kept his Person and Conscience, his Name and Family, his Crown and Kingdom, unspotted from this great offence, from this giantly and impudent sin of Sacrilege, which at once fights against God and Man; against the Charity of the dead, and the Equity of the living; robbing God and Man, while it pretends to reform Religion; just as those Cheats, who pick men's Pockets, or cut men's Purses, while they smile in their Faces.  
To the Wonder of the Christian World, and to his Majesty's eternal Honour (as a Son worthy, in this glory, of such a glorious Father) do we owe the plenary Restitution, full Collation, and free Fruition of the Church's Dignities, Honours, and Revenues, which are seldom retrograde, when once alienated by any way from the Church, (Vestigia nulla retrorsum:) It is a rare sight to see Restitution made, but as welcome certainly to God, good Angels, and good Men, as the Return of a true Penitent, such as Zacheus, whose Repentance was evidenced by his Restitution of what he had unjustly gotten.  
To his Royal Bounty (next under God) we Bishops are obliged for our Spiritualties and Temporalties; That we are, at the Honourable Motion and Desire of the Houses of Parliament, admitted again to put on the Robes of Bishops ancient Honours; and enabled to sit (when his Majesty pleaseth to summon us) in that place, which is the Palace of Wisdom, the Source and Centre of all our Laws and Civil Justice: That we may there appear among your Lordships, not peeled and stripped of our Churches remaining Patrimonies; not confined to arbitrary Pensions and uncertain Stipends; which Eleemosynary Dependences are weak and narrow foundations of Episcopal Honour, yea, and of any Ministerial Dignity or Authority; (nothing being more uncomely and inconsistent, than teaching and begging, than craving and reproving; as the Cynic Philosophers were wont to make themselves ridiculously severe, and supercilious Beggars.) But we are restored (in solidum & ex ass) to the full and free Possession of the Churches ancient Patrimony, and Inheritance, which is God's Portion: And this in a way so far from any Simonaical Compact, that the very thought of so sordid a way of Merchandizing, I am confident, never presumed to knock at the Door of his Majesty's Royal Breast or Heart.  
Thus, thus, hath our great and gracious King (as those famous Eastern Emperors) not only commanded to rebuild the Temple of the Lord, but to restore the Vessels, and what else belonged to the Sanctuary; Thus hath our David redeemed out of the jaw of the Lion and paw of the Bear that Kid and Lamb which they had ravished from Christ's Fold, from this Church, yea, from Christ himself, the great Bishop and Shepherd of our Souls; to whom we owe ourselves and all that we have; to whose Service and Honour no grateful Consecrations and pious Retributions can be too much, or can seem so to any men, but to Judasses', covetous traitors, and ingrateful wretches. Doubtless so great a justice and so generous a charity cannot go unrewarded of God, as it will be eternally admired by all good men and true Christians: The showing so great mercy to the poor Church and Clergy of ENGLAND, which is indeed done to Christ, will be a means to cover many infirmities, and to lengthen (we hope and pray) the Tranquillity of the King and his Kingdoms: Nor can any loyal Subjects let that King want what is necessary for the public Peace, and comely for his Majesty, who hath so large an heart and so liberal hand toward God and his Church.  
We have (Right Honourable and Worthy Senators) nothing so much to say in this Essay of Gratitude to God, to the King's Majesty, and to Yourselves, as to be abruptly silent, and to stand still a while filled with admiration and astonishment: What King or Emperor since Constantine the Great, and Charles' the Great (I mean the last, who laid down his Life for the Liberties of his Church and Kingdoms) ever did the like act of Honour, Piety, Charity, Justice, and Munisicence to the Bishops, to the Clergy, to the whole Church, and (if I may so say) to God himself! to whom nothing can be given but of his own Munificence; as David modestly and truly expresseth his and the Prince's liberality to the Temple. Thus to redeem the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, and whole Nation, from that ugly sin and shame of sacrilege, wherewith some cruel and covetous men, by their violent illegal and unreasonable courses, had sought to engage, yea, and for ever to damn (as much as in them lay) you and your posterity: Other Kings and Princes of this Renowned Kingdom, as also many pious Lords and Gentlemen, have consecrated many things to God and his Church; but his present Majesty hath at once restored all; thereby showing himself to be both Charles le bon, & le grand; A great and good Christian King.  
If I; or We (for I still presume to set forth the grateful and similary sense of my Reverend Fathers and Brethren the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Worthy Clergymen) if, I say, We may with your patience speak any more, or indeed were able to say any thing suitable to this so rare, so religious, and so transcendent a subject, his Majesty's free and speedy restoring to the Bishops and other Churchmen their ancient Honours, Dignities, and Revenues, by your Lordship's advice and assent, with the Honourable House of Commons, It must be in the words of the Psalmist, Quid retribuemus Domino? Yea, Dominis? What shall We, the Bishops and Clergy of ENGLAND, return to the LORD our God; and to our Lord the King; and to your Lordships, and to the Gentry of England, or the House of the Commons now assembled in Parliament?  
Give me leave to tell your Lordships, and those other Gentlemen, not what we would say, but what we would do; I am sure we should do, yea, and we resolve to do, if we may be assisted with God's graces, and favoured with your Christian Prayers.  
1. First, As to God, We do wholly devote ourselves, and all the advantages we have by his renewed mercies, to advance his Glory, and the Honour of our Blessed Saviour, in the faithful discharge of our duties to the Service of this Church, by preaching, praying, writing, living, and governing (our selves we mean, no less than others) so as becomes Primitive and Apostolic Bishops; so as is on all hands highly deserved of us, and justly expected from us, according to our places and abilities.  
As it will be easier for us at the great day of account to have wanted these honourable Privileges than to have abused them; so we had much rather not enjoy them at all, than not have hearts to use them aright, as prime Professors and Patterns of Christianity; that is, Followers of Jesus Christ and his blessed Apostles, in all Piety, Prudence, Sanctity, Charity, Sincerity. It argued some greatness of mind in some of our Bishops, for these many years to have lived contentedly without these temporal and secular advantages, not to have sunk and desponded under so long and importune adversities; but it will be more of Christian Magnanimity to enjoy them wisely and worthily, to overcome the temptation of prosperity, to use them not to pride and luxury, but to humble and holy industry; to discreet hospitality, to cheerful charity; to the good of the Church, and to God's glory; who hath promised to honour those that honour him, and to add all these things to those that first seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof: Doubtless nothing will be wanting to us, if we be not wanting to God, his Church, ourselves and our Brethren of the Clergy, who are sober men, void of depraved opinions, and debauched practices.  
Secondly, In reference to his gracious Majesty our resolutions are, That none of his Subjects shall more imitate, and (if your Lordships give us leave) cheerfully emulate your and their Loyalty, Love and Fidelity to his Majesty's safety, peace, and happiness temporal and eternal, than we his Bishops, who of all men may least be traitors to his Honour, Conscience, or Soul; who having dealt so bountifully with us, cannot but expect from us those honest and faithful things which are most worthy of his Munificence and our Integrity; So as may most conduce to his Majesty's welfare and the public peace. The first we should basely betray, together with our own Souls, if we should cease daily to pray for his Majesty's happiness; if we should fail to set forth the whole truth of God to him and his Subjects; Lastly, if we should serve, sooth, or silently flatter any known sin in ourselves, or any others whatsoever; and least of all in those, whose sins must needs be as most conspicuous and exemplary, so most contagious and dangerous.  
The second (of public peace) we shall best serve and secure by well and wisely ordering (as Spiritual Captains and Colonels of the Ecclesiastical Militia) that Army of Ministers, or great company of Preachers in England and Wales, which cannot be less than ten thousand men effectiuè; whose number is great, and their influence with their activity much greater, being mustered and in spiritual arms at least once every week; where getting upon the higher ground, and being as in Christ's stead, they cannot but have a very great stroke on men's (and more on women's) ears, hearts, and purses: These had need be well disciplined and governed under Christ, and his Majesty, according to God's Word, the Laws of this Kingdom, and the Constitutions of this Church; which must be their and all our rules, by which they and we must serve God and the King; as with truth and holiness, so with decency, order, and uniformity: Neither eccentric nor erratic from our proper Spheres, nor yet defective or deformed in them: The managing of which great Concern being by his Majesty and the Laws chiefly committed to us Bishops, it will be most our sin and shame to be wanting in our duty; If any man blame us for doing what is lawful and just, yea necessary for the public peace, they must withal blame the Laws, and by a most egregious folly think themselves wiser than the public wisdom, the Laws and Laws-makers; in which their own consent is included, and from which no man may lightly be a Renegado.  
Thirdly, As to your Nobleness, no men shall more study your Lordship's true honour and eternal happiness, the only sufficient requital of your meritorious love and favour to us▪ who have accepted, yea restored us Bishops to be Partakers of your honour, Auditors of your wisdom, and Spectators of your noblest Conversation, in that place where every one studies to put on the best appearance; We and our Successors must for ever be faithful Counsellors, Friends and Servants to your Lordships and your Noble Posterity; who possibly will bear from our age, place and quality, with greater patience, civility, and acceptance, than from other Ministers, those discreet monitions, seasonable intimations, and wholesome counsels, which may be sometimes most necessary for you and them: It will always best become us rather to offend you by telling you the truth in a decent manner, than to betray you to those sinful infirmities or passions which are your greatest enemies, next to your flatterers.  
No men shall be more ashamed than we, to see ourselves sit in Parliament (that is, in the Congregation of Princes, or mortal Gods) if we should not behave ourselves in all respects answerable to your Illustrious Society, and to your great merits towards us: As we are below the Objects of your Lordship's Envy, so we will study to be above (that is, not to deserve, and so not to fear) your anger; Nor shall you either love virtue, or your own souls, or your God and Saviour, if you either hate or despise us, who intent (by God's help) to perfect that in ourselves and all others (as far as our good counsel, example, and lawful authority will extend) which some men have so long, so loudly, and so in vain pretended to in point of true Reformation both private and public; Not in fine fancies, superficial formalities, and popular vaporing, but in solidly great, and really good actions, in which the power of godliness doth consist; being offended at no men's sinful deformities and defects, either personal or political, more than our own: What is wanting in any of us as to high blood and extraction, as to Civil Grandeur and Estate, shall (by God's help) be made up in that modest wisdom, sober learning, hearty loyalty, and unfeigned Religion, which may most counterpoise your other accomplishments, by which we confess your Lordships much overweigh us: Indeed nothing can buoy up Episcopacy, or recover the true honour of the Church of ENGLAND to a fixation, so much as the primitive great and good examples of Bishops and the Episcopal Clergy; as the excellently Learned and Pious Doctor Hammond now dying declared his judgement; when leaving the world and all his justly deserved preferments on earth, he left us a most rare and imitable example of very great abilities set forth with greater industry, and most set off with greatest humility.  
If we can but live above those diminutions, which set us below ourselves, our holy calling, his Majesty's favour, and your honourable Society, we shall be nothing concerned in those other petty and plebeian objections, which the pride or envy of some mechanic spirits are prone to make against our persons or profession, since our Originals (blessed be God) were as honest and unspotted as any men's, though not so noble and illustrious; Our education hath been studious and ingenious, though not so ample and conspicuous; Our conversation though more obscure and in the shade, yet not vain, not vicious, nor (it may be) so sunburnt and tanned as others: We have from our youth been devoted and trained up to God's glory, to His Majesties and the Church's service, by such pious, frugal, and learned retirements, as most redeemed us from those luxuries and superfluities to which others are exposed: We humbly and willingly own, contrary to the vapour of that great Orator, (Omnia nostra incrementa (non nobis, sed) Deo, Regi, Senatui debemus;) All our advancements, not to ourselves (as he said) but to God's mercy, the King's bounty, your Lordships and our Country's favour.  
Indeed our single persons, families, relations, reputations, estates or merits, are too small and narrow a Basis or bottom upon which to erect and settle this great Pyramid, Pillar, or Obelisk of public or Parliamentary Honour; which in all true proportions is to be founded upon his Majesties and your just zeal, for God's glory, for the honour of our Saviour, for this Church's welfare, and for the ancient dignity of Episcopacy: As our private comfort can only be fixed, so this public honour must chiefly be ascribed to and placed upon the latitude of his Majesty's wisdom, and the sanctity of your virtues; upon the account of the love you have to true Religion, and the esteem you bear to good Learning; also upon your care of this Churches flourishing, together with this Kingdom's peace: To these great and good ends we are willingly made public Servants; to these some of us have sacrificed all our former happy tranquillity and sweet retiredness, rather than be wanting to that duty which was not calmly required, but importunely exacted from us; when more than once seriously deprecating the burden of this employment, we were absolutely commanded to obedience, rather than seem to withdraw our shoulders from the burden; which no man will envy, but he whose ignorant ambition lest understands it, and is least capable, as of the sacred duty, so of the necessary policy and reason of Episcopacy in England.  
It is most certain that we cannot be without a King (as the Cappadocians pleaded to the Romans when they offered them their popular liberty) in England, and not be very miserable; which we have lately felt: Nor can our Kings want wise Counselors of State, any more than Pilots can their Card or Compass; Nor can these well want the counsel and assistance of learned and religious Churchmen, grave and reverend Bishops, any more than the Mariner's Compass can be without the Magnetic Needle or Director; and this upon a double reason: First, worthy Bishops are the fittest persons, not only to repress the falsity, scandal, and immorality of Ministers evil doctrines and lives, (which are as stinking carrion or dead horses in the high way, the poison and abhorrence of all passengers; publicae pestes Ecclesiae & Reipublicae, the most infecting and killing plagues to Church and Country:) But also they serve to restrain and bridle the vulgar petulancy and popular rudeness of some factions Preachers tongues; which are sometimes, as the hearts and censors of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, full of strange fire; or as Sheba's trumpet founding faction and sedition; then most of all when they would seem most zealous in their Sermons and Prayers; infusing poison into wine, the better to diffuse the venom of I know not what novel and fanciful Inventions of their own; festering those scratches which they first make, and then would seem to lick them whole; sometimes venoming even sound parts by their very fasting spittle: So over- clamouring for truth and holiness, (which all good Bishops and Presbyters desire more soberly than themselves,) that they are deaf to peace and order, to obedience and subjection, to law and government, which none but fools or knaves will oppose: Certainly no men are so sit to encounter the fraud and folly of these deceitful workers, and to confute the popular Sophistry of these crafty and crazy Ministers, as grave, learned, wise, and godly Bishops, who, past the froth of juvenile fancies and popular flashes, know what best besits solid preaching, sober praying, holy living, and discreet governing.  
Besides this, pious and prudent Bishops are of all men living the fittest persons gently to attemper with Christian wisdom, meekness and moderation, those vehemencies, rigours, animosities and severities, to which the height of men's overboiling passions and rougher spirits are prone to raise the secular policies, counsels and resolutions of those who are most exalted with worldly honours, and leavened with opulent Estates: Many times great Princes, and Persons of Eminent Honours do not more want than welcome those calm counsels and gentle mitigations which Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons seasonably and wisely suggest to them; as David did the prudent and humble intercession of Abigail, when she gently disarmed him, and all his angry Soldiers, diverting them from that exorbitant and cruel revenge to which a military fierceness and just disdain of Nabal's Ingratitude and Indignity had transported him and them: Or as Theodosius the Emperor did kindly and thankfully entertain the religious and resolute, but respective reproofs of St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, whom he reverenced as a Father, and highly commended for that his freedom and fidelity to him; which he said best became the Bishops or Prelates of the Church of Christ, who are so to fear God, as not to flatter any man.  
The great work of your Lordship's Honour and Wisdom (with the Honourable House of Commons) properly is, to see, Nè Leges Angliae temerè mutentur: Nè Coronae Majestas minuatur: Nè virtuti desit honoris praemium: That the good old Laws, Customs, and Constitutions of England be not lightly changed: That the Majesty of the King and Kingdom be not diminished; (for in uno Caesare res est publica, we can have no Common weal, but common woe, if we have not a King clothed with that sacred and inviolable Majesty which is necessary for the public welfare and safety:) Last, It is among your Lordships and the Parliaments noblest cares and designs, That no deserving virtue or ingenuous faculty, which serves the public welfare, should despair of public rewards; and least of all, learned Piety, or the most noble and sacred Study of Divinity, which is as the Sun or the greater light, the author of that day, which shines on our Souls, to show us the way to heaven and eternity; whereas all other arts and sciences are but as the Moon and Stars to guide us in the momentary affairs of this world, which is but the twilight state of a Christian: Lest while the judicious Lawyers honest skill and commendable practice in our Common or Civil Laws; or while the discreet valour of good Soldiers; or the wholesome study of Physic; or mere riches by any honest trade accumulated; while, I say, any, or all these are admitted, not only to knock at the door, but also to enter into the porch, yea and to repose themselves in the Temple of Honour, only the Learning and Religion of the Clergy, the desert and industry of Divines, who are the great Studiers and Interpreters of God's Law, the faithful dispensers of heavenly things; these, I say, should, to the shame and reproach of this Church and Kingdom, be excluded from all temporal rewards and Honorary Encouragements: After the method of the Apostate julian's envy and mockery, who said, the rewards of the world to come might serve their turns, when he took from the Christian Orthodox Bishops and Clergy those large donations, immunities and dignities which Constantine the great and other godly Emperors had endowed them and the Church of Christ withal.  
The Justice and Nobleness of this Parliament hath sufficiently showed to all the world how far your Honours are from the Schism and Sacrilege of either depriving this Church and Kingdom of Bishops, (which it enjoyed in all ages since it was Christian;) or of denying Bishops those Honours which the piety of your Progenitors was more ambitious to confer on them, than they were to receive them: The modest humility of ancient Bishops (when most worthy) thought themselves (as we have cause to do) less worthy of such high honour, walking (as Ammianus Marcellian tells us) with grave steps, modest looks, and mortified behaviour: But the generous piety of this, as other Christian Nations, thought, that they then honoured God and their Saviour Jesus Christ, when (as Cornelius to St Peter) they expressed their high respect and honour to the Bishops of the Church as to spiritual Fathers; whose paternal benediction and peace in Christ's Name as they oft desired with great devotion and respect, so they ever judged Episcopal Presidency and Authority to be most suitable to the plethoric and sturdy temper of the people of England, whose high spirits abhor all levelling, and are as impatient to be governed by their equals or inferiors, as water is to be kept within its own bounds.  
And even now the wisdom of your Lordships and the Honourable House of Commons, concurrent with his Majesty's goodness in the restitution of Episcopacy and Bishops to their pristine honour and Jurisdiction, must not in any reason be looked upon by us, or any wise men, as any partiality of favour to so few, and to so inconsiderable persons as we are; No, doubtless your great and public designs are in order to promote God's glory; to advance his Majesty's service, and to secure most effectually the peace of Church and State, by adorning them with such Bishops, and these with such authority as is most consonant to our ancient Laws and Constitutions, to Catholic and Primitive Patterns, to the Apostolic, that is Christ's, Institution; and to the Word of God who is the God of Order; Besides, most agreeable to the true Principles and those necessary proportions which must be observed in all political order, and public government, for superiority and subordination; all which are only to be perfectly seen, used and enjoyed in this Episcopal Eminency or Autoritative Presidency.  
That so the Church of ENGLAND may still enjoy (as it hath, by God's blessing, equal with any Church in any age since the Apostles days) Its Ignatiusses, Its Polycarps, Its Polycratesses, Its Irenaeusses, Its Cyprians, Its Ambroses, It's Augustine's, Its Chrysostom's, Its Epiphaniusses, Its Basils, It's Gregory's; That is, an holy succession of Evangelical Bishops of the same spirits and proportions with those elder and our later ones, for learning, piety, prudence, eloquence, industry, courage and constancy in the true faith of Jesus Christ: That neither the Romanists on one side may quarrel with, nor the Schismatics on the other side invade and prostrate the honour of the Church of ENGLAND, upon the oft (but in vain) objected account of Schismatical interrupting or intercluding the Apostolic succession of Bishops; and therein varying, in point of Episcopacy, from itself as much as from all ancient and Catholic Churches: to the infinite scandal of all good Christians and learned men, both at home and abroad; Many of whom do doubt, (and upon greater grounds than most of those vulgar scruples with which many please themselves to sight against, and scratch at least, the Church of England) of the real validity of all Ministerial power and Ecclesiastical Authority; and so of all mysterious dispensations, and sacramental Consecrations where Bishops are wanting, not by unavoidable necessity, which is its own Apology, but by a Presbyterian petulancy, Schismatical Envy, and Democratical Insolency; which is so ambitious to ordain and rule in common, that it giddily runs upon the rocks of Anarchy and Confusion.  
Although we and all the soberly learned world must highly commend his Majesty's Piety and Wisdom, together with this Parliaments, for their restoring Catholic Episcopacy, and in that the great support of this Churches and Kingdoms peace: And although we do justly esteem the honour and favour by God and man herein conferred on us; yet we so much prefer the public good before any personal enjoyments or private interests, as freely to declare to your Lordships and all the English world, That we are so little devoted to the mere Honour or Profit of our places, and see so little cause to be greatly delighted in this burden full of business, envy and importunity, That if any men of other Principles, or any other Forms of Church-Government, according to their several new models and inventions, (which as children's Babies are almost as soon broken and defaced as they are made and adorned,) be able to do this Church and Kingdom better service than the Episcopal Order, Presidency, and Authority with which we are now invested; Or if the wisdom of his Majesty and his two Houses of Parliament by any good experience have ever found them (and accordingly should judge them) more proper to attain His Majesties and Your great designs for God's glory, and the common good, in God's Name let these new Masters and their new Models take our places, and share our Bishoprics once again among them: Let them by some new and better experiments of their art and office expiate the former prodigies of their rude actions and desperate essays, which had almost destroyed all that was sacred and civil among us: Let not our personal and private Concerns be put into the Balance against the public interest; We willingly recede, we disrobe, we degrade ourselves, we will (as far as we can by the ancient Canons of the Church) submit to those new Presbyterian and Independent Projects and Projectors, if his Majesty upon due advice with his Parliament shall discern them to have a better Call from God and man, better skill or will to do Gods work, and the King's service in reference to the public welfare; if there be any thing in them more conform to God's Word, to principles of right reason, to perfect rules of Polity, to the necessary grounds of Government, to the harmony of good order, to the universal practice of the Church of Christ, to the ancient Laws of this Kingdom, or to the temper and constitution of the English people: All which are highly and justly prejudiced against any novelty, and wholly conformed to Episcopal Antiquity; Unanimously confirming his Majesties and this Parliaments Wisdom, in re-establishing of that to which no new form is to be compared, much less preferred.  
Your Lordships and all the English world have already tried for some years (full sore against the wills of the most and best men) what the rigid Presbyterian or Aërian designs are; what the plebeian practices of some Ministers and people are; You have found and felt of what metal those new Masters and their Lay-Elders are; who, as Acephalists or Polycephalists, headless or many-headed creatures affect to rule all, first without Bishops, next without Kings, at length without Parliaments, at last without people, by a mere stratocracy of Military Myrmydons or Mamelukes; when indeed they are in all their forms and figures found not more unfit for government, than most unwelcome (under that notion) to the Commons, Gentry, and Nobility of England; besides, most unsafe for this or any Monarchy, and wholly inconsistent with this Churches National Unity; which (as St Jerome observes) will soon run into as many Schisms as there are Parishes and Preachers; Out of the spawn of Schism fedition will soon rise; and out of those eggs such Crocodiles will grow, as will swallow up Kings and Kingdoms.  
Not that any men more highly esteem sober Presbyters or good Ministers, yea and other Church-Officers, such as the Law hath appointed, in a due subordination to and orderly conjunction with Bishops, than we do; We shall ever advise with them as with friends, tender them as sons, and love them as brethren: But we cannot allow, nor can either the King or people of England bear that malipertness of Antiepiscopal Presbytery which hath of late, like Reuben, by a most inordinate lust, ascended to its Father's bed, and against all Law, usurped all Episcopal Authority in Ordination, Censures, and Jurisdictions; Whose strength, we see, was soon poured out like water, not to be gathered up; exposing, as itself to contempt, so the whole Church to confusion.  
Antiepiscopal or Headless Presbytery had indeed at first such a great belly or tympany in some men's high pretensions and rare expectations, as if it would bring forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Magnum Jovis incrementum, some prodigy of piety; (Jam nova progenies coelo demittitur alto) some rare and heavenly offspring was coming; No less than Christ's Kingdom, Throne, Sceptre and Discipline was voted, resolved and expected: It was further attended, when it drew near the time of its travel and all our pains, with a strange and new Nursekeeper, the Solemn League and Covenant, sent for so many hundred miles out of Scotland; which brought with it such swaddling clothes as were thought fitter for that lusty babe than all the sacred bands of Baptism and Confirmation; (which Leaguer bands certainly could bind no man that is in his wits beyond or against his duty to God, the King, this Church, and his Country, any more than the green withes could bind Samson to his hurt.)  
For fear of miscarrying in the birth (for its Dam had hard labour) it had the help of a Man-midwife, who looked like a Mahometan, a military and armed hand; a means never used (God knows) in the true Church of Christ, or in the Concerns of his Kingdom, which is not of this world, nor after its gladiatory methods; the Gospel being first planted by Fishermen, and watered by the blood of its prime Preachers and Professors: Yet after all this Parado Presbytery proved a kind of untimely birth, a most unblessed abortive; and although it was not stillborn, but cried aloud for a while with a strong and terrible voice, yet it was by a merciful providence (as Monsters commonly are) short-lived, sucking blood instead of milk for its infant nourishment: Neither the English soil, nor air, nor geny was for this upstart, pert and presumptuous Presbytery, which instead of the venerable grey head of primitive and paternal Episcopacy, had got a new long tail of popular ruling Lay-Elders; but it soon gave up the Ghost, and being never Christened, for it naturally abhorred Creed, Ten Commandments, and Lords Prayer, it was over-laid (as was thought) and almost smothered to death by its Puny Independency; that is, the nurse was oppressed by its nursling, by a sat as new and unheard of as itself was in England.  
This stripling also (even Independency) was another byblow of Church-Government, a new but illegitimate brood, begotten between fancy and faction, schism and rebellion, seeking to reduce Church-Government from its (toga virilis) manly, magistratick, and politic Constitution, besitting well-grown, great and National Churches, to its hanging sleeves or swaddling clouts again.  
But these two spurious Progenies, having neither lawful father nor honest mother, neither the advice of a National Synod, nor any Royal Assent, and so neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical Authority to naturalise or enfranchise them, while they were both eagerly conspiring and fiercely struggling against Legal and Catholic Episcopacy, they made a shift to strangle each other; both pretending to be the eldest son, the very Esau, the only and primitive Church-Government, of Christ's Institution, his entire Sceptre and Discipline, neither of them was by wise men believed to be so, since both could not be so: And to be sure, neither the one nor the other was ever known or used in this or any true Church of Christ for fifteen hundred years after Christ, unless all the Histories and Examples of the Church have conspired to deceive us and themselves, which none but Jews and Turks can imagine.  
The first of these (Presbytery) had a redder face, rougher hands, longer nails, and a fiercer voice, like Esau: The second of Independency, (that is Church-Democracy, or common people's Ecclesiastical Polity, first pretending to crown Christ as a King, and then really to mock and crucify him, parting his garments among them, breaking his bones, and nailing him to the cross of popular Dependence, as the root of all Ministerial Authority and Maintenance, which is indeed but a dry tree and dead trunk:) This, I say, was at first smother skinned and softer voiced, like Jacob; but it soon supplanted by notable disguises and vulgar insinuations its elder brother and its angry rival Presbytery.  
At last (Post varios casus, post tot discrimina rerum) after several risks and hazards run by Church and State, the Divine Justice and Mercy to this Church and Kingdom decided the controversy between these dividers and destroyers, opening a door for the happy return of ancient Monarchy to its just Supremacy in Church and State; also of venerable Episcopacy to its pristine Office and Ecclesiastical Authority, loyally subordinate to the Crown of the King, according to Law, and religiously servient to the Church of Christ, according to his holy Gospel.  
In which ancient and excellent Government if any thing be found, in the decurrence of time, or degeneracy of men and manners, inconvenient to the public welfare, either as to its constitution or execution, we humbly crave of his Majesty's goodness and this Parliaments wisdom, that both we and it may be so reform and regulated in all points, not by Tumults and Armies, but Parliamentary Counsels, as may be most conform to Scriptural rules, primitive ends and uses, so far as the present times and manners of men will best bear; which concession is sufficient to appease the gripes and wamblings of any, who either could take, or would keep their Covanant with any show of good conscience, that is, guided by Reason, Law, and Scriptures, the speediest and easiest way of reforming Government lying in good Governors: For we are not so straight-laced in point of Episcopacy, as to think it may not admit prudent regulations and variations; yet so as the main spiritual power and Ecclesiastical Order be preserved and improved, according to the primitive pattern and Catholic custom of the Church, which is sacred, and aught to be inviolable, unless insuperable impediments give a temporary dispensation; rather submitting to providence than changing the principle, or subverting the order, so divinely constituted, so universally established, and so highly blessed.  
But if a right Evangelical Episcopacy, such as for the main ever hath been in the Church of Christ, and now is according to Law reestablished in ENGLAND, such as we are most ambitious to adorn and exercise; if this be found (as no doubt it will) most consonant to right reason, to all rules and grounds of true polity; to the just proportions of good Order and measures of Government; yea, to the ancient models and methods of Church-Government, which are set forth by God himself in the Old Testament among the Jewish Priesthood, and by our Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament among his 12 Apostles, with the 70 Disciples; and these followed as divine patterns or originals by the Catholic Church ever since the Apostles days, as all Fathers, Councils, and Histories of the Church do evidently assure us: O let not (we beseech you) this ancient, fruitful, goodly and venerable Cedar of Episcopacy be blasted or baffled, or blown down by the profane breath of some popular Preachers, or by the fury of giddy, heady and ignorant people; Let not its ample boughs be broken, its useful bark be peeled, or it's far extended roots be extirpated by the petulancy and rudeness of any unruly and insolent spirits, since in its leaves, shadow, and fruits, there hath been and still is so great a blessing for this Church and Kingdom; as is evident in these necessary Offices.  
First, for holy Ordination, or conferring of due and undoubtedly complete Ministerial power, such as is derived from Christ sent by his Father; and from the Apostles sent by Christ. Secondly, for Confirmation or solemn benediction of the Cathecumen, who in their Infancy were baptised; that when come to years of discretion, and well instructed in Christian Principles, they may seriously reflect upon, personally own, and solemnly assume upon their consciences the keeping of their Baptismal Vow, that only sacred Covenant, which is sufficient for any honest Christian. Thirdly, for the due examination, detection, reprehension, and suppression of Errors, Hereses, and Schisms in the Church of Christ. Fourthly, for the autoritative reproof and reformation of Immorality, Idleness, Faction, and Disorder among the Clergy and other Christians. Fifthly, for the encouraging and preserving of truth, peace, holiness, and order among all under their care and inspection: All which good works are to be done by such Ecclesiastical Monitions and Censures, as are by Christ, by the Church, and by the King's Authority committed to them, as Bishops or Church-Magistrates, furnished with spiritual, Ecclesiastical and Legal Power. Lastly, for the giving more eminent, remarkable, and autoritative examples in all Christian graces and virtues, proportionable to their places, estates, and dignities; for the encouragement of piety, and discountenancing of profaneness: The weight and emphasis of examples consisting most in the eminency of the person, and dignity of his place, which make them as Dominical Letters, or Capital Figures, of greater note, name and influence.  
These so peculiar duties, proper offices and uses of Bishops (as Churchmen) may very well seem, I dare not say below your Lordship's eminent dignity, (since God's glory and Christ's honour are stamped upon the Ministers of the Church, but) less suitable to your many secular Employments; And I am sure they are (for the most part) much above most laymen's abilities; as they were ever judged by the Church of Christ above the ordinary capacities of mere Presbyters, or inferior Ministers, who have indeed the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ministerial or Liturgical power and authority as to doctrine, consecration, devotion, parochial inspection and direction, derived to them by and from the respective Bishops: But not the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, political, ordinative and presidential power in point of the Churches National Polity, or more public Government; which St Jerome requires, and owns as (exhorts & necessaria potestas Episcoporum) as a principal and eminent power necessary for the Church of Christ, and specially residing in Bishops.  
Indeed in the beginning or infancy of Churches (as many learned men have observed) the powers or offices of Deacon, Presbyter, Bishop, and Apostle might (possibly) be resident in, and exercised by one man, where there was but an handful or little flock of two or three gathered together in Christ's name; But when Beleivers and Congregations, and so their Pastors multiplied, then there was a necessity of polity, order and wisdom to distinguish and rank these offices and Officers into several politic distributions, or helps of Government; some to be the flocks, others to be the Pastors; some to be only as Presbyters, praying, preaching, baptising, consecrating and blessing the people; others as Precedents or Bishops ruling over the many Presbyters and people too within their inspection; others as Deacons servient to Bishops, Presbyters and people: And all this to keep such an orderly unity, as may best avoid Schismatical Confusions in the Church of Christ; which ought to be as an Army with Banners, where are the Ensigns of Office and Authority, the directives of orderly motion, the centres of union, and the securers of the common safety, by wise commands and ready obedience.  
Nor may the sameness of the Names, or of Naturals, Morals, or Religion, as to faith, gifts and graces; nor the community of some Christian Privileges, duties, or offices of charity, these may not be pleaded against the primitive distinction of Eminent Honour and Authority among the Clergy, any more than all priority and superiority may be denied among men in respect of Civil Magistracy, who are of the same Nature, Parentage, City, Trade and Country; or among Soldiers of the same Army; or Scholars of the same College and University.  
To be sure that over-seeing, presidential and gubernative power, which shall authoritatively look to the Eutaxie, good order and unity of the Church, such as was in the prime and secondary Apostles; the first as Oeconomical, the second as Metropolitical, or Diocesan Bishops; such as was committed to Timothy and Titus, and exercised by them, not only as Evangelists or Preachers, but as Precedents and Prelates; this power cannot be either regularly, or prudently, or safely in England committed to any hands, but to those venerable Clergymen whom his Majesty and the Laws shall think fit to constitute as Governors over others, and from whom they may have an account of all: Nor can it be in better or safer hands than those of learned, wise, grave and godly Bishops, assisted by such sober Presbyters, or Ministers, as his Majesty and the Laws shall either appoint, or permit them to call to their counsel and assistance in their Ordinations, or in their exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures and Jurisdiction; Not by way of a Consistorian negative, which is to alter and unhinge the whole Government, turning wine into water, and making way for all factions to breed even in the Nest of Church-Government; but by such public presence and venerable conspicuity of many learned and wise Counsellors, as may best avoid any mistakes or errors, and most contribute, by their being witnesses of all transactions, to that authority which is necessary to convince men of sin, and to convert them from the error of their ways, when they see themselves condemned by the censure, not of one only, but of many worthy and impartial men.  
An Help, Ornament, and Honour in Church-Government which really for our own part, we earnestly desire, and ambitiously embrace, as that (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Ignatius, Cyprian, and others so magnify, that Fraternal Confess, and Ecclesiastical Council, which may not only be witnesses of our public actions, but assistants in all such public dispatches, as are not safely committed to any one man, nor can discreetly be managed by him without contracting too much envy, anger and odium upon him; which sense, we believe, is common with all our Worthy Brethren.  
Indeed no wise Bishop can affect an arbitrary power, or an absolute and sole Dominion; Nor are we willing to be thus either exposed to others calumnies, or betrayed to ourselves; because we know ourselves to be but men, and subject to the same infirmities with other sinful Mortals: Nor can we be so happy as when we are both compassed, encouraged, and supported with our aged, learned, and reverend Brethren of the Clergy, who may be every way as able and deserving as ourselves.  
Thus sortified and assisted, we may, by God's help, be capable (without too great burden) to discharge the proper duties and offices of Bishops, both in and out of Parliaments; which is to see, (Nè quid detrimenti patiatur Religio, Ecclesia, vera Reformatio, etc.) That our Religion, as Christian, as well Reform, and as by Law duly established, suffer no detriment, diminution, or debauchery; no Apostasy, Schism, or Division in Doctrine, Discipline, or Devotion, in Sanctity, Solemnity, or Uniformity, either by profaneness, petulancy, or faction: What his Majesty, your Lordships, and other Gentlemen of other civil Employments cannot so well observe to be amiss in Church or Churchmen, we the Bishops, as public Watchmen, and Overseers, may best inform you of; what we cannot am●nd by reason of the luxuriancy or obstinacy of some refractory spirits, your eminent authority may command and curb according to Law, in which the public wisdom and power, safety and honour do concentre.  
In the last place, as to the great merits of the Honourable House of Commons, and in them of all the ingenuous Gentry, with all the Religious and Loyal People of England towards us the Bishops of this Church; We shall choose rather to die, or to be again degraded by the folly and fury of Schismatical envy and malice, than not to make good by our actions their good esteem of us, or to forfeit by any fault of ours their ready suffrages for us; We shall never think any thing added to us by this great favour and honour showed us, if we do not find in them mighty spurs and goads to provoke us more to our duties of sound preaching, sober praying, discreet governing, and holy living; which are the solid honours of all good Bishops, and true Ministers; As they are the debts also which we indispensibly owe to God, to this Church, and to the least Member of it: What may possibly be wanting in the frequency, number and tale of our Sermons, by reason of our age and infirmity, shall be made up in their weight; and when we shall not be able to preach at all, we will study to live over the best of our Sermons, and to preach by our examples, when we cannot by our words.  
God forbid we should suddenly forget those late horrid and long conflagrations, out of which the good hand of God, by the King's favour, and this Parliaments assistance, hath snatched us, and this whole Church; yea, God forbid, that we the Bishops and all the Clergy of ENGLAND should not come out of this fiery furnace more purged and prepared for our Master's Service; yea, God forbid, that after such a deluge, and deliverance as this, we should so forget God, or ourselves, as to be drunk with that wine of Consolation and cup of Salvation, which our Merciful God, our Gracious King, your Noble Lordships, and our Loving Countrymen, the Commons of ENGLAND, have now put into our hands.  
We are very sensible how great stimulations are put upon us as Christians, Ministers and Bishops, to all Piety, Industry, Prudence, Virtue and true honour; which we know do not consist in being either so eager for small circumstances, and outward Ceremonies of Religion, as to be remiss in its necessary Morals and Substantials; (as if one should put on fine clothes, while he starves his body;) Nor yet in being so zealous for the Essentials only of faith and duties, as rudely to neglect those reverential solemnities and decent circumstantials, which preserve (as the bark or rind doth the Tree) the Churches good order, peace, and unity.  
We profess to all the world, that we own God alone in his holy Word (which we call the Scriptures) to be the sole Institutor of his own necessary Worship and indispensable Service; who alone knows what will best please him, and profit us: We think (as we are taught by the Church of England) that nothing is necessary and essential, moral or mysterious, as any means to obtain, confer, or increase grace, or to please God, which himself hath not in his Word prescribed, either by special mandate or general direction, and necessary consequence.  
Yet we believe also (as all Learned men at home and abroad do agree) That the indulgence of God hath left free to the prudence and authority of every National Church, Christian Polity, and Community, the particular appointing, ordering and regulating of all those general and common circumstances, which are in nature or civility necessary, as time, place, method, manner, measure, vesture and gesture, (all which are as unseparable from all public actions under the Sun, as our skins are from our bodies) according as shall seem to the supreme wisdom and authority of that Church, most for its public decency and solemnity, for good order and edification; Of all which in their particular instances and usages, every private Christian is Judge and Arbitrator in his closet-worship; Also every chief Governor in his family, where, when, how, for matter, method and manner, also for measure of reading, praying, praising, etc. when sitting, standing or kneeling; whether in sordid or decent habits, becoming his presence and the sanctity of the duty; And no less, without all peradventure, are they left to every chief Magistrate or Ruler in Church and State, within his respective Dominions, for the public peace, order, decency, uniformity, and solemnity of Religion, of which those are the proper Choosers, Determiners, and Judges, to whom the power is given by God, either private or public; That Religion may not enterfeere with the Civil Government, but conform to it in these things, as it is protected by it in the main.  
Provided always, that no such particular rite, limited circumstance, or Ecclesiastical ceremony thus chosen, be otherwise imposed upon men's judgements and consciences, either in opinion or use, then as indeed it is in its nature, and God's indulgence; that is, mutable, when good occasion, or the chief end of things requires a change of them by lawful authority, so as to be still free, as to the judgement of such as use them, and as to the practice of all other Churches who have not assumed the use of them: Not that any such external rite or ceremony of humane appointment can in itself be any necessary, solid, substantial, and integral part of divine Worship; or as any means instituted for grace, to which a precept and promise divine is necessary: This efficacy no humane or Ecclesiastical Authority can create or give; Nor doth the Church of England pretend to any such power or use in them; although it may lawfully regulate all circumstances, and discreetly use decent ceremonies as such, yea, and enjoin them both as exercises of Sovereign Authority, and as experiments of Subjects due obedience; not upon any false and superstitious grounds, but such as are true and religious, consonant to the nature of things, and the indulgence of God in them.  
Nor hath the Church of England ever otherwise esteemed, or imposed those things of particular circumstances, rites and ceremonies, which have been so long as chips and shave, the easy fuel of so much flame and contention; but hath oft declared its judgement of them, to be according to God's truth; its choice and injunction of them to be according to that liberty and authority which God hath given to it, as to every National Church within its polity and precinct, so to use and impose them on its own members, without prejudging other Churches their like liberty; Not at all as things pleasing of themselves or displeasing to God: He must needs be an infant in understanding, who fancies God is scared with white, or pleased with black garments in his public worship; that the historic sign of the Cross adds to or diminisheth aught from Baptism; or that the Divine Majesty is offended at our kneeling, or better pleased with our sitting or standing before him in an act of so holy a celebration, and humble veneration, as that is of the Lords Supper: But all these and the like are allowed as lawful experiments, either of Christian prudence and discretion in the choice, or of obedience and subjection in the use of them; agreeably to the lawful commands of our superiors in Church and State, wisely directing and limiting us in them, to avoid those factions which easily arise from the least open variety or difference in Religion, when once it comes to be affected, and is made a badge of parties or sides among the people.  
The duty of Magistrates or Christian Princes, as well as Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governors, on all hands, is, in public solemnities of Religion to take care, that all things be so done in uniformity, order, and decency, as is necessary for public peace, and as they think best becomes the sanctity of true Religion, the Majesty also of that God whom we ought to worship and serve with all reverence, and with the beauty of holiness, both outward and inward, without any imposing upon the judgement, beyond the nature and indifferency of such things; or upon the practice farther than the God of order, decency, and peace, hath permitted.  
As we and all this Church have seen and felt upon the account of these things the outrageous zeal and precipitancy of some men, who first pretending much to boggle at and to be grievously scandalised with a few such things of outward rite, individuared circumstance, and prescribed ceremony (to which conformity was by Law, that is, by the public wisdom and authority required in the Church of England) have in the pursuit and sequel of their actions, or passions rather, evidently declared themselves to be enemies even to all order and polity, as well as to Liturgy and Episcopacy; and to be friends to nothing but their own private fortunes, novel fancies, and partial factions, guided by no known Law of God or man; and offended with nothing so much, as not to see themselves in that place and power, which may force all men to conform to their own posts, lusts and designs; which themselves followed not by the true footsteps and sent of Law and Justice, Reason and Religion, but by the sensible view and successes of providences, as they variously sprang up, and appeared either for good or evil: Which sort of deformed and deforming Non-conformists we leave to be punished, not only by their own evil manners, but also by the just abhorrencies of God and all good men, to whom their folly and fury is now sufficiently manifest.  
So we are neither ignorant nor insensible of other men's continued dis-satisfactions in these things, who, under the old title of Nonconformity (formerly much modester indeed, than of later times, being not only civil to settled Episcopacy, and devout in the use of the Liturgy, but abhorring all Separation from the Church of England,) have heretofore, and still do earnestly plead their own and other men's weak minds, and scrupulous or tender consciences, as very jealous (forsooth) of sinning there (in the use of some Rites and Ceremonies) where the public wisdom and piety of this Church and State, grounded on many learned Judgements, and the majority of united suffrages according to their consciences, sees no sin, owns no sin; yea, and openly declares against any sin, both in the Church's Injunctions and Intentions.  
Mean time while these milder Non-conformists tell us they dare not obey lawful authority in things thus dubious to their private dimness; yet both they and others dare (even doubtingly) disobey an undoubted lawful authority, merely upon such private doubts and scruples, in so small and clear matters; rather suspecting a whole Reformed Church, and all the spirits of the Prophets in their majority and representation, of error and mistakes, even to sin and superstition, than their own private, and possibly prejudiced, yea and sactiously interessed opinions.  
All which specious cover and plead of Conscience, as weak and tender in point of conformity to things so oft and fully declared to be indifferent in their nature, and only limited in their honest and decent use: however they may deserve Christian charity, compassion, and tenderness from us, as to some men's good meanings and harmless conversations; yet they are (now at last) found too narrow to palliate or hide those dreadful disorders, and cruel designs, which some men's counsels and actions have of late years been guilty of, if either Gods or Man's Laws may be judges, which do command only passive obedience, and in that, such a conformity to Christ's example, as where they cannot actively obey, there patiently and silently to suffer.  
Indeed Nonconformity in some calmer times, and in some men's softer tempers, seemed to have something in it, that was an object of Christian pity, and discreet charity, while it modestly (and we hope sincerely) pleaded tenderness of Conscience, that is a fear of sinning, because of doubting; and this many times more in respect of lothness to offend others, than out of any great scrupulosity in themselves, as to the nature and use of those things, or their own liberty, or the public authority; while Nonconformity dissented without Separation, Schism and Sedition, yea without tumult and rebellion, with some show also of Learning and Loyalty, Meekness and Moderation; while it professed patience, & with humility to bear that cross which its own weakness or tenderness, more than any unjust rigour of the law, had laid upon it, using no other Arms offensive or defensive, than those of Primitive Christians, Prayers and tears: To these sober Non-conformists, both our Princes, since the Reformation, and our best Bishops have showed as much moderation and tenderness as was consistent with the public peace and safety: Nor have we thoughts of less candour and Christian Gentleness to them.  
But since rude, nay rebellious Nonconformity hath in this last Twenty years appeared as completely armed (capapè) as Goliath of Gath, in buff coats, clad back and breast with iron and steel, openly defying the whole Church of ENGLAND, for its excellent Liturgy, and ancient Episcopacy, as well as for its few innocent Rites and Ceremonies, which were stated, enjoined, and used by so many holy and learned men in this Church, without any sin, superstition, or scruple; since it hath (now at last) factiously breathed out fire and brimstone in the face of this whole Reformed Church, against all Godly Bishops, and gracious Princes, yea against all Monarchy at last, as well as Episcopacy established by Law; since it hath (like Jehu) furiously and openly marched with an high hand into ENGLAND, under the banner of a novel Exotic and Illegal Covenant, yea and still menaceth the English and all the Christian world, if it could get power, and keep it answerable to its vast and insatiable ambition; since it hath been laden with the Sacrilegious spoils and ruins of so many goodly Churches & worthy Churchmen; since it is besmeared with the blood and gore of its Brethren and Fathers (that I say not, of its Kings:) In earnest this pitiless and pitiful Nonconformity, which pretends to be so tender conscienced as to the gnats of a few circumstances, (regulated only for order and decency by the public wisdom, and lawful authority) and as to one or two ancient ceremonies used in the pure primitive and persecuted times, without any notion or thought of superstition, merely as apt emblems, memorative figures, or historical tokens of what is most true and necessary to be believed; or as particularly acts and humble expressions of some general duty, and devotional reverence to God, which is in its nature, and in the worship of God most lawful, as uncovering the head, bowing the knee and body, undoubtedly are; and yet (on the other side) since this so soft-souled, tender-sensed, and narrow-guled Nonconformity, was so wide throated, as to swallow down great Camels without chewing, sins of prodigious magnitudes; since it hath showed itself so heavy and harsh handed, so violent and fierce spirited, so severe and impatient, not to be precisely obeyed by others, when it had once usurped a power; Truly it is justly become a very effroiable phantosme, as dreadful and dangerous a Spectre to all wise Kings, to all Loyal Subjects, and to all sober Christians, as that which appeared to Brutus before the Pharsalian field.  
If Nonconformity ever had heretofore any tolerably good Cause, as to it's well meaning, and might have gone to Heaven, meekly riding on an Ass, as Christ did to Jerusalem; yet 'tis now quite marred and deformed by the ill managing of it, in those violent and intolerable methods of tumultuary and armed proceedings, contrary to the Laws of God and Man; which would make even Christianity itself not only unwelcome, but most unlawful, namely to bring it in by fraud and force, or to present it to Sovereign Kings and Kingdoms on the Sword's point, as the Spaniards do Baptism to the poor West-Indians with their poyniards in one hand, and water on the other.  
For although Nonconformity (which is still made the Ball of difference and badge of dissension, even among those who agree in Doctrine and Morals, yea in Devotionals and Politicals, in Liturgy and Episcopacy, for the main) sometime affected the voice of a Lamb, when it durst not roar as a Lion, yet we see it hath the teeth, tail, and sting of a Dragon; it seemed indeed at first to appear in sheep's clothing, but it hath too much of the ravening wolf in it; So ill it becomes warlike or Martial Nonconformity, which hath showed such horns and hoofs wherewith it hath sorely pushed, gored, and wounded this Church and Kingdom, now to boast of its dove like innocency, or to pretend to great tenderness or nicety of conscience, and to demand any unsafe and illegal Liberty; when the English and Christian world sees, that all the beasts in daniel's visions, were not more fell, haughty, cruel, insolent and outrageous, than that rustical Nonconformity hath been to all sorts of sober Christians dissenting from it, from the King that sat on the Throne, to the meanest Subject that ground at the Mill; who is there that did not flatter its folly, but hath felt its imperious rigour! Nor did it ever excercise that tenderness to others consciences, which it so clamourously importuned for itself.  
How much better than were it for the popular patrons of, and pleaders for such factious, seditious, and unsafe Nonconformity, (who still resolve to be great but weak sticklers against any sober and legal conformity in the Church of ENGLAND) How much more (I say) becoming of them were it, now at last to humble themselves before God, the King, and the Laws; to deprecate the just jealousy and heavy displeasure of God and man which some of that Sect have deserved and suffered; to expiate their former menaces and later extravagances by some public recantation and ingenuous repentance, which may undeceive the poor people, who have been so long scared and deluded with I know not what bugg-bears of their own and other men's fancies.  
How much better were it for men of Learning and Conscience to make a narrower search into their own stale scruples and vulgar misapprehensions; to compare the Churches honest declarations and injunctions with their sinister suspicions, and probable delusions; to dread (as much as they pretend to do any other men's positive) their own negative superstition, which tends to Disobedience, and ends in Rebellion, against lawful authority; making by a great fatuity or arrogancy, those things sin which God hath not made so, who is a God of Order, a friend to decency, and no enemy either to ceremony, uniformity or conformity, consistent with truth and holiness; but hath left all free to the wisdom, choice, and authority of every Church, agreeable to the general tenor of his word. Lastly, how much more becoming them were it, to give God the Glory of his justice, which hath thus at last discovered, defeated, and confuted, even by their own practices, their wild and wicked principles, yea, and punished the violent and inordinate practices of some railing and ranting Non-conformists; from whose inordinate fury, if God had not at last by a wonderful providence redeemed this Church and Kingdom, we had been as Sodom and Gomorah, a continued Akeldama, or field of Blood, Tyranny, Anarchy, and Oppression, under either Presbyterian Dictator's, who would set up a petty Bishop in every Parish, and bind them up in the bundles or faggots of their Classes, that so united, they might be better redeemed from their own infirmities, and other men's contempt; or under Independant-Tryers, who set the people above the Priest; or under self and all confounding fanatics, who do all things both irrationally, and ex tempore, or rashly.  
But God hath pleaded the Cause of the Church of ENGLAND, as to the soundness of its Faith and Doctrine; as to the Sanctity of its Morals; as to the Solemnity of its Devotionals, and as to the unblamable decency of its rituals, and innocency of its Ceremonials so stated, enjoined, and used as they were in the Church of England; not according to every man's fancy and humour, but according to the judgement of the Law, which best sets forth the public mind and meaning of this Reformed Church, which hath ever so declared publicly against, and so effectually cleared itself of, and absolved all its Members from all Error, Profaneness and Superstition (justly challenging, and modestly using the Liberty, Prudence, and Authority, which God hath given it, for order, peace, and edification, not for oppression, destruction and confusion, and this only over its own polity or communion) that in earnest it is now a great shame for men of Piety and Learning, still to vex, as Peninnah did Hannah, and agitate the Church of ENGLAND, with the repetition of their needless Cavils, and endless Objections, which have been an hundred times fully answered, and wherein themselves being satisfied, they might with more ease and peace satisfy those whom they keep still raw and scrupulous by their own irresolutions.  
After all is said, designed, and done by us, that can become good men, sober Christians, and worthy Bishops, in point of Reason and Religion, Conscience and Subjection, Charity and Discretion, as to things of this nature, which have of themselves so little to say for or against them, being but relatively good or evil, as the end is to which, and the authority by which they are enjoined; yet we know ourselves to be still severely warned and sharply alarmed by our own and the Church's enemies (on all sides) to be as most sincerely pious, and constantly prudent in the main matters of Religion; so to do all things, as with good Conscience, Courage and Authority, so with all Christian candour and paternal charity to all men; especially toward such (for Christ's sake) as are truly conscientious in all Moralities, and in some lesser matters peaceably scrupulous and honestly unsatisfied; yet are willing to be informed, and for the main are conformed to the example of Christ, whose Kingdom consists not in meat and drink, not in petty opinions and mutable shadows; but in righteousness, peace and holiness: Other things of Form and Ceremony we do not weigh by any private fancies for or against them; but by public authority commanding, God's Word permitting, and the Church's peace requiring them.  
As to the point of tender Consciences so much pleaded, we shall esteem none truly tender conscienced, who live in any open sin or immorality; or who approve and defend any prosaneness or impiety in ordinary speech, much more in preaching and praying; or who deny the authority of the Word of God; or who despise the practice and custom of the Universal Church; Or who refuse the obedience due to Civil Magistracy; or who oppose the liberty and authority of this particular Church to regulate and govern its own polity agreeable to God's Word, and the practice of all other Churches.  
Our care shall be, as not to spend much precious time in things that do not edify, nor to add the weight of substance to feathers, which are but ornaments; so nor to expose Religion rude and bare, naked and ridiculous to the world, much less to sacrifice the public peace, honour and wisdom to private petulancy and pertinacy: Yet still we shall make a great difference between the weak and the wilful, the superstitious and supercilious, the scrupulous and scornful doubters and dissenters; between the humble Professors and constant Practisers of true Religion in the main of Morals and Fiducials, and the turbulent Praters or pragmatic agitators, who love to swim against the stream of Authority, against right Reason, and true Religion, established Laws, and good Order, settled Government and due Subjection: We shall first endeavour with meekness of wisdom to satisfy all sober and good men, next we shall do as the Law commands against the malapert and obstinate wranglers, who make no conscience to deny common Principles, to swallow absurdities, and reconcile contradictions between their own liberties challenged to themselves, and their rigid severities imposed by them upon others: There is no reason for them to complain, if the same measure be measured to them, which they have meted to others, every way their equals, and in many their betters: Nor shall they ever have so much cause to cry out of what they suffer, as of what they have done.  
We are not averse from any discrect indulgence which his Majesty and the Law shall see sit to grant to some persons for some time till better instructed, and brought off from their prejudices; we shall not envy, or grudge, or deny any honest man those dispensations and forbearances, so far as our Charity to private Christians may not be prejudicial to the Church's peace and public good; to which we and all men owe the greatest charity; and which may not under any flourishes of zealous praying and preaching, or under any pretensions of private conscience, be either undermined or overthrown, what ever colours of Nonconformity or through Reformation men carry before them.  
We know there are many envious eyes upon us, and bitter tongues sharpened against us; some quarrel that we are no better (though themselves be not very good); others are grieved that we are not worse: This impotent malice of unreasonable or uncharitable men is best silenced and confuted by our just and gentle demeanour toward all: And although we are not to be encouraged or overawed with the weak words of men, yet our care shall be, that nothing be spoken of us bad, but it shall be false: The rough tongues of our enemies shall be but as siles and whetstones to our Virtues, as their rude hands have been the touchstone of our patience: This is the worst and only revenge we intent to take of all our causeless Adversaries, either to persuade and win them to sobriety, or to overcome and disarm them, by our being or doing better than they deserve or desire.  
The injuries and indignities cast upon some of us heretofore, and all of us now by the pride, improbity, or petulancy of any, shall but give greater fervour to our industry, prayers, and charity. The former rigours used by some Tyrants, Tryers, and Inquisitors, against Bishops, and the Episcopal Clergy, shall not carry us beyond the sober bounds of Gods and man's Law, nor beyond that Law of Christian charity which is the bond of perfection, and which commands us to let our Christian moderation be known to all men, and our love even to our enemies. We will not less encourage true piety, sanctity, and sincerity, because of the scandal and cruelty of some men's hypocrisy; We have not so learned Christ, in whose holy footsteps we shall endeavour to tread, as the surest evidence that we succeed in his Ministry, and exercise his Authority.  
Those Ministers or people whose hearts most misgive them, as fearing the return of hard measure from Bishops, because of the great evil they have, as Pseudo-Presbyters and Apostates, done or designed against all Bishops, and the whole Church of England; We cannot better Answer for their security, than as Joseph did to his Brethren, when he was now advanced, and it was in the power of his hand to hurt them, (as their own jealous souls justly told them,) when he replied, (to their astonishment) I am Joseph, whom ye sold into Egypt; Be not afraid, I fear God, etc. Thereby implying, That he could not meditate or act any revenge, (but that of Love) against his brethren, who professed to own and serve the same God, and whose mercy had now turned their intended mischief into good: Let our greatest enemies heretofore, now repent of the evil they have done and designed against this Church and Kingdom, no less than against Bishops; let them show their repentance by living so as becomes good Christians, and good Subjects. As the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of their head fall to the ground by our means.  
We meditate the good of all men, and most of those that have been our deluded, yea, their own, enemies, and who will now be our friends and their own on any reasonable terms: As good Physicians we shall have special care of those who most need our help and cure: As Fathers we shall readily embrace those penitent prodigal Sons which return to us.  
We know that nothing will sooner end all unkind, unjust, and uncomfortable quarrels, than the holy and unblamable lives of Us Bishops, which, as the presence of Christ and the shadows of the Apostles, will either cast out the evil spirits that yet remain in some men, after all the miracles of God's providences, or else more torment them: Our Virtues and Graces shall be the only Revengers, as they will be the sharpest Satyrs and severest reproaches, yea, and the most assured Victors of men's evil speeches and insolent carriages.  
In this holy integrity, while we justify his Majesty's Wisdom, with Your Honour's Counsels and comprobation, we shall have none to fear or flatter; whose evil designs under any popular and threadbare quarrels against all Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies, are to overthrow both Law and Gospel, Church and State, bringing all into Anarchy and confusion: We shall indeed highly urge conformity, especially in ourselves and all true Ministers; Conformity, I say, first to the Word of God, to the Examples of Jesus Christ, and his holy Apostles, with all true Saints; Next, to those Canons and Laws of the Church and State which bind Us and them most to loyalty and duty. Lastly, We shall so far urge an external conformity in circumstantials and Ceremonies as shall be required of them and Us by Law, in order to preserve decency, reverence, uniformity, and solemnity in holy Duties; also peace and unity in Church and State; as free, God knows, from Superstition, or Will-worship, or unlawful humane Inventions, as some other men's affected words and modes, ceremonies and forms are in their eyes, hands, speeches and gesticulations.  
When His Majesty, Your Lordships, and the Worthy Gentlemen of the House of Commons, together with all the sober English World, shall see Us Bishops demeaning ourselves as they would have Us, and as you have deserved of Us, in the way of great and good examples, proportionable to our pious and venerable Predecessors before and since the Reformation; no doubt Your Lordships and all Worthy Persons will be as far from repenting of Your restoring Bishops to their government and jurisdiction, also to their ancient honour and capacity of Sitting in the House of Peers, and therein of restoring this Church and Christian Kingdom to their pristine honour, peace, and safety, (by God's blessing,) as some others are from rejoicing or not repining at God's mercy, the King's benignity, this Parliaments generosity and piety, as well as policy and discretion, in preferring the grey head of primitive and venerable Episcopacy before the beardless striplings of Presbytery and Independency; with which new wines if any weak heads in England be still so in love, as to choose them before the old wine, which is better, certainly they will have this happiness in their unlucky error, as to have no learned and honest man to be their rival.  
If any things have seemingly or really been amiss in any of our Predecessors, or ourselves, through humane frailty or passion, (which easily besets the best of men in this life,) as our desire is not to deny or dissemble them, so truly they cannot now with any modesty be remembered or objected by these Adversaries against Us, or any Bishops heretofore, since the covetousness, ambition, pride, tyranny, cruelty, and implacableness of some Anti-Episcopal and Anarchical spirits have been so excessively insolent and outrageous; even to a wantonness of wickedness, and to all manner of injastice, far beyond the worst actions of the worst of Bishops, in the worst of times since the Reformation.  
But whatever hath really been amiss, our caution shall be to avoid or amend all faults, as much as Your charity and Nobleness hath this day covered and forgot both their infirmities and any of our failings: What was eminent (as much was in many of them, and commendable in most of them) our endeavour shall be to imitate, where we despair to exceed; That while Your Lordships or others behold us either in the Parliament, or the Pulpit, or the Press, or the Consistory, you may not have much cause to deplore the absence of our famous Predecessors, whom you cannot but love and admire (as we do) for their piety, learning, industry, and charity. In sum, we shall strive that neither Bishops nor Episcopacy shall be any burden, but a great blessing (as it hath been) to this Church and Kingdom, to King and Subjects, to the good and bad, to encourage the former, and to restrain and amend the latter.  
Which happy effects will easily be attained,  
First, If we may be guided and circumscribed by good Laws and Canons; beyond or short of which no Presbyter or Bishop may go, no not in any exemplary ceremony, or affected novelty, to a super-conformity.  
Secondly, If we may be defended in doing our duties by his Majesty's just power, without cramping or benumbing the sinews of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by needless prohibitions.  
Thirdly, If we may be still assisted and adorned with your Lordships and the other gentlemen's love and favour.  
Fourthly, If we may be duly fortified by the desired counsel and meet assistance of our aged, learned, and reverend brethren of the Clergy.  
Lastly, If we may be daily commended (as the Church-Liturgy hath appointed, and for which passages it is so unwelcome to many, who love Church Lands better than they do the best Church men or Bishops, more devoted to prey upon them than for them) to the marvellous workings of God's grace, by the prayers of all good Christians, which we do not more want than passionately and humbly desire; That since we (the Bishops of this Church) are again brought to this high mountain, and thus transfigured, our faces may so shine in good words and works, that your Lordships and all this Church of England may glorify our Father which is in heaven; That we may abhor that Soloecism of (Honor sublimis & vita deformis) Lordly Titles and Peasantly actions.  
And since there is no greater sign of a thankful heart for mercies, which ourselves have received, than a charitable sense of our brethren's miseries; that in the day of our Exaltation as Bishops, to Estates and Honours, we may not forget the depressions and afflictions of others; Give leave to as many of us as are thus compassionate to present our supplication to your Honours (the two Houses of Parliament) and by your mediation to his Majesty; A great one indeed it is, and therefore worthy of so great an address to persons of large hearts and hands who are ready to answer great desires, and to effect great designs.  
It is in the behalf of many of our poor Brethren, the Clergy of England and Wales, That there may be some effectual means used worthy of the Wisdom, Piety, and Charity of His Majesty, and His Two Houses of Parliament to relieve the meanness, tenuity, and incompetency of their scandalous livings, which makes many of them as more needing, so less capable of Discipline: Objects also of vulgar contempt, depressing their spirits, starving their studies, discouraging them in their duties, betraying them to sordidness of living, exposing them to many temptations; and lastly subjecting them to all popular servilities, complacencies, and dependencies, which are the nests and breasts, the seminaries and nurseries of all faction.  
There is no way to redeem them, their Ministry, and this Reformed Church, from these burdens and chains, that enter into the very souls of many, at first ingenious Scholars, and hopeful Ministers, but by making small livings somewhat competent; His Majesty hath set a great example in this kind, commanding augmentations to be allowed out of his own and the Church's impropriations. But this bounty cometh short of at least 3000 livings, which still remain in ENGLAND and WALES, as Flats or shallows in the Sea; upon which, when the necessities of many young men and hopeful Scholars once drive them, they seldom ever get off, without shipwreck of Morals or Intellectuals; However, it is such a stop and hindrance to the proficiency of their studies, also to the authority and efficacy of their Ministry, that they seldom or never make a Prosperous voyage, ever conflicting with difficulties, and many times conquered by them, not only to a meanness, but an immorality of living.  
It is a work worthy of His Majesty's greatness and your goodness, to apply (in God's good time) some meet help to this crying Malady, which first began by the Pope's unhappy alienating of Tithes from the Incumbents or Rectors, and annexing them as Impropriations to Religious Houses: The Remedies commended by wise men, are; First, by uniting some small Livings that are near adjacent: Secondly, by abolishing some injurious Customs, where wont and overawed compositions deprive the Incumbents of the true value of what is their due: Thirdly, by laying some Moderate Tax on dwelling Houses in Market Towns and Cities, or in populous and trading Parishes, as 6 d. or 9 d. or 12 d. in the pound, according to the just value of their rents, so as no house should be charged, which is rent under Forty shillings a year, nor any that pays tithes for lands in Farm or in the owner's hand.  
These helps may relieve some, but because the Malady reacheth far beyond these proportions, nothing can be so effectual as (when the Nation shall have peace and plenty) the raising of some public stock of money, in order to complete this great and good work, by a public and Parliamentary bounty, or a National charity; by which bank or stock rightly managed and improved, a good foundation may be laid for the buying in (not of all Impropriations, which is too great a work to be compassed, but) such a portion of them, as may in most places make the Living or Vicarage competent, that is 60 l. or 80 l. or 100 l. per annum, according as the dearness or cheapness of places doth advise; Nor may it seem heavy to raise some Tax or Pay for Christ's Soldiers (his Ministers) when so many Millions have been spent upon other Soldiers.  
If some such easy Tax or Subsidy, as shall seem most proportionable in the wisdom of His Majesty, and the two Houses of Parliament, were given to God and the Church for this excellent end, to be raised in four years, and the matter publicly recommended by King, Lords and Commons, besides the profit of the public Contribution or Levy (in which ourselves as Bishops would be exemplary according to our abilities) if it were well improved and employed, no doubt many private persons living and dying, would liberally give to so noble and pious a work: Some Noblemen and Gentlemen would, after His Majesty's example, for ever endow small Livings with some such portion out of their Impropriations; especially if they could do it without charge, by reason of the Statute of Mortmain, which might, as to this intent and use, be for a time repealed.  
But your piety and wisdom will best understand what ways are most proper to attain so great and good ends, as would follow this excellent design of augmenting small Livings, and small Ministers too; so much tending not only to the relief of many honest and able Ministers, to make and keep them such, but also to God's glory, and to the good of people's Souls, to the advancement of Learning, and of the dignity of the Ministry to His Majesty's honour, to your Lordship's great renown, and to the lasting peace both of this Church and Kingdom.  
For we have found by our late experiences (wherein half a dozen pragmatic, and for the most part but poorer Preachers in a County, became the greatest Bontefeus' or Incendiaries) That settled plenty, at least honest competency binds Ministers most to the peace and good behaviour; That the more the Clergy owe their maintenance to the Law, the more observant they are to pay their obedience to the Laws, less pragmatic and less popular, as not so much depending on the people; and so less studious in any sinister way to please them rather than their superiors.  
That the sharp necessities and poverty of some Ministers daily provokes them (if they be men of any quick parts and unmortified passions) to great inquietudes, hoping by public commotions to mend their private condition; Then they quarrel most sharply with the Churches evil Constitutions (as they call it,) when their own, as to their livelihood is not very good; then they inveigh bitterly against innocent Ceremonies, and all settled Orders of the Church, when their substance or subsistence is most unsettled, or too small for their minds and necessities; every thing than is a burden to them, when they feel the galling burden of poverty; and they easily run to Arms and Rebellion, who already find that armed man upon them, having much to get and little to lose in any Troubles: The want of oiling or greasing makes their wheels drive heavily, or with a very querulous and ungrateful noise, and at last to take fire, yea, and by popular arts to diffuse their sparks with their Prayers, and their discontents with their Doctrines, and their abuses with their uses among the common people; who like tinder or gunpowder are very prone to kindle against their Governors; believing no men so fit to govern Church and State as themselves and their Minister; though but a poor Vicar, Curate, or Lecturer; having such narrow minds, as they are not able to comprehend or extend their thoughts to the Latitudes of public Order and Government; which are as necessary as those which they so much dote upon in their persons, families, and Parishes, nor will they learn, but by their own and others woes how much peace with a little, and a good conscience to boot, is to be preferred before much goods ill gotten by sequestration and plunder, though sanctified by preaching and praying.  
It is certain no men are more careless of conforming to the Laws, or more prodigal of the public peace, than those Ministers and people who find themselves in short pasture; and therefore venture to break the sacred hedge, and civil bounds which Gods and Man's Laws have set; especially where they think the Fence is lowest and weakest; (as it seems to be in Ecclesiastical Cannons and Constitutions; not seconded with Executive power;) Against these an over scrupulous and restive spirit, or a sturdy and bayardly conscience, setting its breast or hinder part, hopes to carry all before it; that it may by popular extravagancy or partial adherence, advance either its uneasy estate, or its small reputation to a faction, side, and party.  
Let there be fitting provender for the oxen which tread out the Corn, and then we may justly exact labour from them, and exercise the goad of just discipline on their neglect. If once the Livings of the Clergy were truly Livings, or convenient livelyhoods, we could with more prudent severity look that their labonr and lives should be exactly good; not that poverty is a dispensation to impiety; but good men are not easily found to accept of those small and scandalous Livings out of which those sorry or scandalous Ministers are ejected, who are not so good and able as we could wish, and yet better perhaps than none at all; And although the small Living may be too good for them, yet not good enough for a better man; since the most learned piety is sensible of all humane necessities, Virtue itself will be cold, and Grace itself hungry and thirsty; nor can any man of reason expect to have Religion live like a Chameleon in this world.  
Having thus presented with all due respects this one Christian request to your Honours, in the behalf of many poor Ministers, yea, and of the souls of many poor people, nay, in the Name of your and our Saviour, (whose work the poorest Minister of the Gospel (if able and honest) doth perform, and so for Christ's sake is worthy of his wages,) and leaving it as a matter of great and public importance to your pious and wise consideration in due time, I cannot conclude better than as I began, (that so I may complete the circle of our grateful and just acknowledgements) with that eternal veneration, praise, honour and thank, which from myself, and all my Reverend Brethren the Bishops, and all the sober Clergy, are duly and humbly returned, first, to the most blessed God, whose judgements are unsearchable, and whose mercies are everlasting: Next, To His most Gracoius Majesty, for His munisicent and matchless goodness to the Bishops, Clergy, and Church of ENGLAND: Lastly, To Your most Noble Selves the Lords and Commons of this present Parliament, who have thus taken away the sin, reproach, and scandal of Sacrilege, Schism, and Confusion, which were by some unhappy men brought upon this sometime so famous Kingdom, and flourishing Church of ENGLAND.  
For whose vindication and comfort, as the Author was not wanting in her greatest agonies and blackest afflictions publicly to compassionate her sighs and tears, so he thought it his duty (upon a public more than private sense) seriously to rejoice, and heartily to congratulate with her in this happy restauration, which he hath oft prayed for, and now lived to see; because he is persuaded in his conscience (if rightly managed with piety and charity) that it highly tends to God's glory, to the honour of our blessed Saviour, to the asserting of our true Religion as Christian and Reformed, to the establishment of the public peace in Church and State; and lastly, to that just and ingenious compensation of good for long endured evil, which is highly deserved and justly expected by this Church of England, from all its genuine Children; not only because it was once well reform and most flourishing, but also because it hath been so grievously, and as to man, most unjustly afflicted and deformed.  
For (without doubt) the pious Intentions, and prudent Constitutions of the Church of England were such, That nothing was, or now is wanting in it, to make a good Christian perfect to salvation, if he be not wanting in himself, and to the grace of God offered to him in the Ministry of this Church; Every saving truth being maintained by Her; Nothing added to or diminished from the word of God as saving or necessary; Every holy, Duty, every divine Institution, every sacred Mystery, every necessary part of God's Worship, every moral Virtue, every Christian Grace, every usefully-good Work, is either celebrated, or enjoined, or taught or recommended to every Christian, both in private and public, according to their station; Nor may any Christian justly blame the Church for any defect; but rather their own hearts for want of humility, devotion and gratitude to God and men: There is holy sap and sweetness in all its Liturgical appointments, if men were not surfeited with their own fancies, prejudices and pride; All things being set forth by the Church without the least tincture of any known Error in Doctrine, or Superstition in the substance of Religious Duties and Devotion; The outward Form also, or public Reverence and Solemnity of Duties, is no other than what (without question) is left by God to the Liberty, Prudence and Authority of every Church and Christian Polity as most consonant. First, To the Civility and Custom of the Nation: Secondly, To that outward Veneration which is accordingly due to the Divine Majesty: Thirdly, To the public Solemnity and Decency of holy Duties in the Church: Fourthly, To the ancient Use and Custom of the primitive and best Churches: Fiftly, No where forbidden by God's word, or by any rule of right Reason: Sixthly, But chosen, used and imposed by this Church, within its own Precincts and Polity only, under no other Notion, than that which is lawful and true. 1. In the nature of things circumstantial, as still necessary in their general adherency to all outward Actions of need: 2dly. Yet as free and indifferent still in their nature, although cast by authority in to meet Regulations, as instances of our outward obedience in them to man for the Lords sake, while they continue so appointed: 3dly. Lawful in the divine Permission, Commission, and clear Approbation of the Church's Liberty and Authority in such things for public order and decency. 4thly. In the necessity of such visible Order, Decency and Uniformity, fixed by Supreme Wisdom and Authority, as most conducing to the Churches outward peace; to avoid Faction, Schisms, Sedition, Fury, Confusion, fires that easily kindle from small sparks, if left to vulgar spirits. 5thly. And lastly, all this pious and prudent Polity of the Church of England, managed by such apt Overseers, and proper Governors, as this and all ancient Churches ever used from the Apostles days▪ under the Titles of Bishops, Precedents and Fathers; who are (according to our Law) chosen by the Clergy, approved by the Church, confirmed by the King, as Supreme Governor; enabled by Learning, Matured by Experience, Sanctified by Grace, Consecrated by Prayer, Devoted by Diligence, Assisted by their Brethren of the Clergy, Regulated by settled Laws and Canons, to do their duty; so as God, their Consciences, and all good men require of them in order to those great and eternal ends of saving their own and others souls; besides the temporary blessings of the Church's unity and harmony, as in Faith and Love, so in Orderliness and Decency, without which all Religion runs to Irreverence, Faction and Confusion.  
The angry, eager, and obstinate Quarrels (then) which some waspish men have long maintained, and still do, against some mutable words and Phrases in the Liturgy, or against some little Rites, and innocent, yet few, Ceremonies, used by the Church of England, are, I fear, much more deserved by, and due to, their own distempered hearts; and should in all justice now be turned against the factions, proud and pertinacious humours and opinions of those men, who had rather quite ruin such an Ancient, Famous, Reformed, and sometime Flourishing Church, than rightly understand Her words and meaning, or give Her leave to interpret them; or than deny themselves in those petty Points of Reputation, Opinion and Prejudice, to which they may be popularly advanced, as beyond a convenient retreat, so beyond that humility, diseretion, meekness, peaceableness, modesty and charity, which best becomes those Presbyters and people, who are afraid to contest with their Princes, their Bishops, and their Country's united Wisdom and Authority, lest they be found fighters against the God of order and peace; who ought not to take courage from the King's patience, or turn his Indulgence into wantonness: Nor have they any cause to be angry that they are not thought wiser than this whole Church and State; or because they are not made Dictator's to all Convocations, Parliaments and Kings: Nor should they be so ashamed to come at last from fight and domineering, to petitioning and deprecating; or from sinning against God and man, to return to their duty, to repent and recant the evils, the errors and excesses of their ways; which God hath wonderfully convinced and confuted by his former blessings on this Church, and his present blasting of their new Projects; which have froth in their head, and blood in their bottom; as the water of those men, who labour with the stone and Strangury, and have their wounds from within.  
What now remains, but the Author's particular craving, and Your Lordships, with the other gentlemen's, vouchsafing pardon for the great presumption of such an Orator? who, conscious to his many defects, hath adventured by this grateful Excess, to put Your Lordships and them, upon the Exercise of Your and Their Noble Patience; thereby to give the world a further great experiment of that Gentleness and Candour, which adds Lustre to all Your other Honourable and Heroic Virtues; of which no men are more witnesses, than the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England; not only as wondering Spectators, but as thankful Enjoyers.  
FINIS.