9. Bishops are now unfit to govern because of their learning; they are bred up in another law, they run to the text for something done amongst the Jews that nothing concerns England; it is just as if a man would have a kettle and he would not go to our brazier to have it made as they make kettles, but he would have it made as Hiram made his brass-work, who wrought in Solomon's temple.

10. To take away bishops' votes, is but the beginning to take them away; for then they can be no longer useful to the king or state. It is but like the little wimble, to let in the greater auger. Objection. But they are but for their life, and that makes them always go for the king as he will have them. Answ. This is against a double charity, for you must always suppose a bad king and bad bishops. Then again, whether will a man be sooner content, himself should be made a slave or his son after him? (when we talk of our children we mean ourselves) besides they that have posterity are more obliged to the king, than they that are only for themselves, in all the reason in the world.

11. How shall the clergy be in the parliament if the bishops are taken away? Answ. By the laity, because the bishops in whom

the rest of the clergy are included, are sent to the taking away their own votes, by being involved in the major part of the house. This follows naturally.

12. The bishops being put out of the house, whom will they lay the fault upon now? when the dog is beat out of the room, where will they lay the stink?

BISHOPS OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT.

1. In the beginning bishops and presbyters were alike, like the gentlemen in the country, whereof one is made deputy lieutenant, another justice of peace; so one is made a bishop, another a dean; and that kind of government by archbishops and bishops no doubt came in, in imitation of the temporal government, not jure divino. In time of the Roman empire, where they had a legatus, there they placed an archbishop, where they had a rector there a bishop, that every one might be instructed in Christianity, which now they had received into the empire.

2. They that speak ingeniously of bishops and presbyters, say, that a bishop is a great presbyter, and during the time of his being bishop, above a presbyter: as your president

of the college of physicians, is above the rest, yet he himself is no more than a doctor of physic.

3. The words bishop and presbyter are promiscuously used, that is confessed by all: and though the word bishop be in Timothy and Titus, yet that will not prove the bishops ought to have a jurisdiction over the presbyter, though Timothy or Titus had by the order that was given them: somebody must take care of the rest, and that jurisdiction was but to excommunicate, and that was but to tell them they should come no more into their company. Or grant they did make canons one for another, before they came to be in the state, does it follow they must do so when the state has received them into it? What if Timothy had power in Ephesus, and Titus in Crete over the presbyters? does it follow therefore the bishop must have the same in England? must we be governed like Ephesus and Crete?

4. However some of the bishops pretend to be jure divino, yet the practice of the kingdom had ever been otherwise; for whatever bishops do otherwise than the law permits, Westminster-hall can control, or send them to absolve, &c.

5. He that goes about to prove bishops jure divino, does as a man that having a sword shall strike it against an anvil: if he strike it a while there, he may peradventure loosen it, though it be never so well riveted. Twill serve to strike another sword, or cut flesh, but not against an anvil.

6. If you should say you hold your land by Moses or God's law, and would try it by that, you may perhaps lose, but by the law. of the kingdom you are sure of it: so may the bishops by this plea of jure divino lose all. The pope had as good a title by the law of England as could be had, had he not left that, and claimed by power from God.

7. There is no government enjoined by example, but by precept; it does not follow we must have bishops still, because we have had them so long. They are equally mad who say bishops are so jure divino that they must be continued, and they who say they are so antichristian, that they must be put away: all is as the state pleases.

8. To have no ministers but presbyters, it is as in the temporal state they should have no officers but constables. Bishops do best stand with monarchy, that as amongst the laity, you have dukes, lords, lieutenants,

judges, &c. to send down the king's pleasure to his subjects; so you have bishops to govern the inferior clergy: these upon occasion may address themselves to the king, otherwise every parson of the parish must come, and run up to the court.

9. The Protestants have no bishops in France, because they live in a catholic country, and they will not have catholic bishops; therefore they must govern themselves as well as they may.

10. What is that to the purpose, to what end bishops' lands were given to them at first? you must look to the law and custom of the place. What is that to any temporal lord's estate, how lands were first divided, or how in William the Conqueror's days? And if men at first were juggled out of their estates, yet they are rightly their successors. If my father cheat a man, and he consent to it, the inheritance is rightly mine.

11. If there be no bishops, there must be something else, which has the power of bishops, though it be in many; and then had you not as good keep them? If you will have no half-crowns, but only single pence, yet thirty single pence are a half-crown; and then had you not as good keep both? But the