THE SPEECH OF Master Plydell, ESQUIRE.  
Master Speaker,  
I Have heard, since I had the honour to sit here, many grievances presented, and truly Sir, my heart bleeds within me when I think of them, especially those that concern Religion. But what should I speak of grievances concerning Religion, when Religion itself is become a grievance, nay the very Nurse and Mother of all grievances, all scandals, all reproaches?  
Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum.  
SIR, 
 Not to trouble you with any long discourse; if I have any sight, That Bark both of Church and State hath a long time floated betwixt Sylla and Charybdis, Popery on the one side, and I know not what to call it on the other; in many respects both alike dangerous, unless the Italian Proverb may alter the Case; God defend me from my reputed friends, and I will defend myself from my professed enemies.  
Sir, 
 We are entrusted by God, the King, and the C●●●●●y, with the managing of this Bark, fraught w●●● the fortunes of three great Kingdoms. Now should we so decline the former Rock, that we d●sh on the other side; I humbly offer it to this Honourable Assembly, whether thee might not have just cause to say, she had changed her Pilot, rather than her Condition; and only shifted places to find her ruin: For Sir, there is as much beyond Truth, as on this side it, and would we steer a right course we must be sure to keep the Channel, lest we fall from one extreme to another, from the dotage of Superstition to the frenzy of Profaneness, from bowing to Idols, to worship the Calves of our own imaginations.  
Sir, I beseech you consider what libellous Pamphlets are now printed, what Sermons are preached, not building hay and stubble, but utterly subverting the foundations of Truth; What irreverence in Churches, what profanation of God's Service, to the scandal of Christianity, the reproach of Religion, and the intolerable grief of all good men, of which I may take up the words of Petrus de Aliaco, to the Council of Constance, Nisi celeriter fiat reformatio, audeo dicere; quod licet magna sint que videmus, tamen in brevi incomparabilia major a videmus, & post ista tam horrenda major a alia audiemus.  
Sir, I take God to record I am no man's Advocate, no man's enemy, but a faithful lover of truth and peace, and a dutiful Son of our distressed Mother the Church of England, in whose behalf, and our own, my motion shall be shortly this. That the Ministers petition, with so much of their Remonstrance as hath been read, may be committed, and the rest of it concerning matter of doctrine may be referred to some learned and approved Divines, as have spent their time in that noble study. For give me leave to tell you, there is a Vulgus among the Clergy, as among the Laity, Et in utraque nil modicum; and for these and all things which strike at the root and branch as they please to call it, I shall humbly move, that we rather consider how to satisfy the petitioners with some timely declaration from both Houses, of the lawfulness, and conveniency of Episcopal Government, derived from the Apostles, and so long established in this Kingdom, rather than to venture upon any alteration, the consequence whereof, the wisest man cannot foresee, and in truth Sir, should we once begin, for my own part, I know not how, or where we should stay.  
Nevertheless, if any one doubt the superiority of Bishops over Priests and Deacons in Ecclesiastical government, or in ordination, I shall be ready, whensoever this House shall command me to make it good, and I think by as pregnant testimonies, as we are able to prove the difference betwixt Canonical and Apocryphal Scripture, the necessity of Infant's baptism, or that the Apostles were the Authors of their own Creed: But Sir, I hope you will save yourself and me that labour, and rather devise of some set way to bind up the Church's wounds, which God knows are too wide already, that so the Clergy and Laity being made friends, and all reduced to the model of our Ancestors since the reformation, we may all together preserve the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace; and so his Majesty having graciously, and prudently expressed himself, I am the more confident, we shall not only put an end to all mis-intelligence betwixt Prince and People, but also highly advance the Protestant cause, and give a deadly blow to the See of Rome.  
Sir, 
 I humbly crave the favour of the House, for God is my witness,  
Non potui aliter liberare animam meam.  
FINIS.