TO THE honourable houses OF PARLIAMENT NOW ASSEMBLED, The humble Petition of many of the Inhabitants within his majesty's County of Kent.  
Most humbly showing  
THat by sad experience we do daily find the Government of the Church of England, by archbishops, Bishops, Deans and Arch-Deacons, with their Courts, Iurisd●ctions, and Administrations by them and their inferior Officers, to be very dangerous both to Church and commonwealth, to be the occasions of manifold grievances unto his majesty's Subjects, in their Consciences, Liberties, and Estates, and likely to be fatal unto us in the continuance thereof, the dangerous effects of which Lordly power in them have often appeared in these particulars following.  
1. They do (with a hard hand) overrule all other Ministers, subjecting them to their cruel Authority.  
2. They do suspend and deprive many godly, Religions and painful Ministers, upon slight, and upon no grounds; whilst in the mean time few of them preach the Word of God themselves, and that but seldom, but they do restrain the painful preaching of others, both for Lectures, and for afternoon Sermons on the Sabbath day.  
3. They do countenance, and have of late encouraged Papist Priests, and Arminian books and persons.  
4. They hinder good and godly books, yet they do licence to be published many Popish and Arminian and other dangerous books and tenants.  
5. They have deformed our Churches with Popish Pictures, and seated them with Romish Altars.  
6. They have of late extolled and commended much the Church of Rome, denying the Pope to be Antichrist, affirming the Church of Rome to be a true Church in Fundamentals.  
7. They have practised and enforced antiquated and obsolete Ceremonies, as standing at all Hymns, and at Gloriapatri, turning to the East at several parts of the Divine Service, Bowing to the Altar, which they term the place of God's Residence upon earth, the reading of a second Service at the Altar, and denying the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist to such as have not come up to the new set rail before the Altar.  
8. They have made and confirmed new illegal Canons and Constitutions, and framed a most pernicious and desperate Oath, an Oath of covenant and confederacy for their own hierarchical greatness, besides many other very dangerous and pernicious passages in the said Canons.  
9 They do dispense with pluralities of Benefices, they do both prohibit and grant Marriages, neither of them by the rule of Law or Conscience, but do prohibit that they may grant, and grant that they may have money.  
10. They have procured a licentious liberty for the Lord's Day, and have pressed the strict observation of the Saints holidays, and do punish, suspend and deprive godly Ministers, for not publishing that book for liberty of sports on the Sabbath day.  
11. They do generally abuse the great Ordinance of Excommunication, making a great ga●e of it, sometimes, to the great discomfort of many poor souls, who for want of money can get no absolution.  
12. They claim their Office and Jurisdiction to be jure divino, and do exercise the same contrary to Law in their own names, and under their own seals.  
13. They receive and take upon them temporal Honours, Dignities, places and Offices in the commonwealth, as if it were lawful for them to use both swords.  
14. They cognizance in their Courts and elsewhere of matters determinable at the Common-Law.  
15. They put Ministers upon Parishes without the Patrons and without the people's consent.  
16. They do yearly impose Oaths upon churchwardens, to the most apparent danger of filling the land with perjuries.  
17. They do exercise Oaths ex officio in the Nature of an inquisition even unto the thoughts of men.  
18. They have apprehended men by pursuivants without citation or missives first sent, they break up men's houses and studies, taking away what they please.  
19 They do awe the judges of the Land with their greatness to the inhibiting of prohibition, and hindering of Habeas Corpus when it is due.  
20. They are strongly suspected to be confederated with the Roman party in this Land, and with them to be Authors, Contrivers, or Consenters to the present Commotions in the North, and the rather because of a Contribution by the clergy and by the Papists in the last year 1639. and because of an ill-named benevolence of six Subsidies, granted or intended to be granted this year, 1640. thereby and with these moneys to engage (as much as in them lay) the two Nations into blood.  
It is therefore our humble and earnest prayer, that all this hierarchical power may be totally abrogated, if the wisdom of this Honourable House shall find that it cannot be maintained by God's word and to his glory.  
And your Petitioners shall ever pray, &c.   

Printed in the year, 1641.