bishop of Canterbury, when he said, that the measure was "mischievous in its tendency, and dangerous to the fabric of the constitution." Thus it will be seen, that all the opponents of the bill, to use the words of Lord Plunket, were "unanimous in the adoption of principles and arguments which equally applied against every kind of reform." It is true, that since the anger of the whole country blazed forth, as it were in one flame, against the decision of the lords, two or three peers, Wharncliffe, Harrowby, and Haddington, alarmed at the consequences of their own counsels, have come forward with propositions of a modified nature; but even these half measures have received no countenance from the faction opposed to the people, and therefore do we say, that a difference in principle exists between the people and a majority of the House of Lords, which can only be terminated through the medium of some strong operations. What those operations ought to be, we shall now fearlessly point out, as we are convinced that the period has arrived, for every friend of his country to make such suggestions, as to him may seem most conducive to its welfare.

What are the People to do? They should in the first place petition for, and insist upon, the exclusion for ever from the House of Peers of the whole of the lords spiritual, without exception, who now enjoy seats in that branch of the legislature. It is well known that twenty-six archbishops and bishops sit for England, and four for Ireland; making in the whole a number of votes, which, if they had been on the side of the people, would have secured the success of the bill. Twenty-one bishops voted against the bill, and with the exception of two (Norwich and Chichester) who were for the bill, the remainder voted neither personally nor by proxy; but the latter are just as much to be blamed as if they had voted against the bill, for he who is not for the people, on such an occasion as this, is against them. Nor do we propose any thing new in making this suggestion. It appears from the history of parliament, that although Edward I. summoned to parliament twenty bishops, and forty-eight abbots, he put the clergy altogether out of his protection, when they refused to grant him an aid. That was a prince not to be trifled with; for when, upon another occasion; he determined on limiting the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical judges, and the clergy were much discontented thereupon, he sent Sir John Havering to the monk's hall, at Westminster, where they were assembled, with the following pithy message:-"Reverend fathers! If any of you dare to contradict the king's demand in this business, let him stand forth into the midst of this assembly, that his person may be known and taken notice of, as a breaker of the peace of the kingdom." "At which speech," says the historian, "they all sat silent, and made no opposition to the king's demand." In the early part of the seventeenth year of the reign of Charles I. (1641), the Commons passed a bill" for restraining the bishops, and others in holy orders, from intermeddling in secular affairs;" the principal

object of which was to prevent them from voting in parliament. The following extracts, from the speech delivered in the House of Lords, in the committee upon that bill, by Lord Say and Seel, may not be deemed uninteresting at this moment.

:

They are called to preach the Gospel, and set apart to the work of the ministry and the Apostle saith, who is sufficient for these things?' showing that this requireth the whole man, and all is too little. Therefore, for them to seek or take other offices, which shall require and tie them to employ their time and studies in the affairs of this world, will draw a guilt upon them as being inconsistent with that which God doth call them and set them apart unto. In this respect our Saviour hath expressly prohibited it, telling his Apostles, that they should not lord it over their brethren, nor exercise jurisdiction over them,' as was used in civil government among the heathens. These were called gracious lords, and exercised jurisdiction as lords over others; and sure they might lawfully do so, but, to the ministers of the Gospel, our Saviour gives this rule, It shall not be so among you.' And, in another place he saith, He that putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back,' (to the things of this world) is not fit for the kingdom of God;' that is the preaching of the Gospel, as it is usually called. To be thus withdrawn by entangling themselves with the affairs of this life, by the necessity and duty of an office received from men, from the discharge of that office which God hath called them into, brings a woe upon them. Woe unto me,' saith the Apostle, ' if I preach not the Gospel. What doth he mean? If I preach not once a quarter, or once a year, in the King's chapel? No; he himself interpreteth it; preach the word; be instant, in season and out of season; rebuke, exhort, or instruct, with all long suffering and doctrine.'-He that hath an office must attend upon his office, especially this of the ministry.

*

"Their proper excellency is spiritual; the denial of the world, with the pomp and preferments and employments thereof. This they should teach and practice: but when they, contrary hereunto, seek after a worldly excellency, like the great men of the world, and to rule and domineer as they do, contrary to our Saviour's precept, ' It shall not be so amongst you;' instead of honour and esteem, they have brought upon themselves, in the hearts of the people, that contempt and odium which they now lie under; and that justly and necessarily, because the world seeth that they prefer a worldly excellency, and run after it, and contend for it, before their own; which being spiritual, is far more excellent; and which, being proper to the ministry, is that alone which will put a value and esteem upon them that are of that calling. As these things hurt themselves in their consciences and credit, so have they made, and, if they be continued, still will make them hurtful to others; the reason is, because they break out of their own orb, and move irregularly, there is a curse upon their leaving of their own place. The heavenly bodies, while they keep within their own spheres, give light and comfort to the world; but if they should break out, and fall from their regular and proper motions, they would set the world on fire; so have these done. While they keep themselves to the work of their ministry alone, and gave themselves to prayer, and the ministry of the word, according to the example of the apostles, the world.

received the greatest benefits by them; they were the light and life thereof; but when their ambition cast them down, like stars from heaven to earth, and they did grow, once, to be advanced above their brethren, I do appeal to all who have been versed in the ancient ecclesiastical stories, or modern histories, whether they have not been the common incendiaries of the Christian world."

He

In reading these passages, one would think that the noble peer cast a kind of prophetic glance at the times in which we live. then goes on to contend, and very justly to contend, that "seats in parliament are not invested in the bishops by blood, and so hereditary; but by annexation of a barony to their office, and depending upon that office; so that they may be deprived of their office, and thereby of their places, at the king's pleasure." "And therefore," he continues," as they were all excluded by Edward I., as long as he pleased, and laws made excluso clero, so may they be by any king, at his pleasure, in like manner." While the lords were debating this bill, they shewed a decided tendency to strike out of it some of its most essential enactments; and in consequence, Sir Edward Dering brought in what he called " a very short, but a very sharp bill, for the utter abolition of bishops, deans, prebendaries," &c. In the mean time, conferences were held between the two Houses upon the objections taken by the Lords to the former bill, to which objections the Commons returned the following answer :

"1. That it was a very great hindrance to the exercise of their ministerial functions.-2. Because they do vow and undertake at their ordination, when they enter into Holy Orders, that they will give themselves wholly to that vocation.-3. Because Councils and Canons, in several ages, do forbid them to meddle with secular affairs.-4. Because the twenty-four bishops have a dependency upon the two archbishops, and because of their oath of canonical obedience to them.-5. Because they are but for their lives, and therefore unfit to have a legislative power over the honours, inheritance, persons, and liberty of others.-6. Because of bishops' dependences and expectances, of translations to places of greater profit.-7. That several bishops have, of late, much incroached upon the consciences and properties of the subjects; and they and their successors will be much encouraged still to encroach, and the subjects will be much discouraged from complaining against such encroachments, when they are judges of those complaints. The same reason extends to their legislative power, in any bill to pass for the regulation of their power, upon any emergent inconveniency by it.-8. Because the whole number of them is interested to maintain the jurisdiction of bishops; which hath been found so grievous to the three kingdoms, that Scotland hath utterly abolished it, and multitudes in England and Ireland have petitioned against it.9. Because the bishops being lords of Parliament, it setteth too great distance between them and the rest of their brethren in the ministry; which occasioneth pride in them, discontent in others, and disquiet in the church. As to their having votes a long time since; the answer is, If convenient, time and usage are not to be considered with law-makers; some abbots voted in parliament as antient as bishops, yet are taken away.

Ultimately, the Lords rejected the bill by a large majority, a call of the House having been made on the occasion. But Sir Edward Dering's much more extensive bill, made rapid progress in the House of Commons; its preamble was couched in these expressive terms :--" Whereas, the government of the church of England, by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers, hath been found by long experience, to be a great impediment to the perfect reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the civil state and government of this kingdom," &c. By way of distinguishing it from the former bill, called the "restraining" bill, this was called the "root and branch bill." We shall present the reader with a single extract from the debate in the Lower House upon this decisive measure, the bare proposal of which goes to prove, that when moderate reforms are refused, they are generally followed, in this country, by demands of a much more sweeping character.

SIR HARRY VANE.- "For my own part, I am of opinion of those who conceive, that the strength of reason, already set down in the preamble to this bill by yesterday's vote, is a necessary decision of this question: for one of the main ends for which government is set up, is to advance and further the perfect reformation and growth of religion, which we have already voted this government doth contradict: so that it is destructive to the very end for which it should be, and is, most necessary and desirable; in which respect, certainly, we have cause enough to lay it aside, not only as useless, in that it attains not its end; but as dangerous, in that it destroys and contradicts it. In the second place, we have voted it prejudical to the civil state: as having so ill and so powerful an influence upon our laws, the prerogative of the king, and liberties of the subject, that it is like a spreading leprosy, which leaves nothing untainted and uninfected which it comes near. May we not therefore well say of this government, as our Saviour speaks of salt, (give me leave upon this occasion to make use of Scripture, as well as others have done in this debate) where it is said that salt is good; but if the salt hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. So church government, in the general, is good, and that which is necessary, and which we all desire; but when any particular form of it hath once lost its savour, by being destructive to its own ends for which it is set up, (as by our vote already passed, we say this hath) then surely, sir, we have no more to do but to cast it out; and endeavour, the best we can, to provide ourselves a better.

This bill also fell to the ground: the account given of its failure by Lord Clarendon (who, as Mr. Hyde, was the constant chairman of the committee on the bill) is curious and amusing. It was debated for nearly twenty days," they only who prosecuted the bill with impatience, remaining in the house; and the others who abhorred it, growing weary of so tiresome an attendance, left the house at dinner time, and afterwards followed their pleasures; so that the Lord Falkland was wont to say, 'That they who hated the bishops, hated them worse than the devil; and that they who loved

them, did not love them so well as their dinner!" The king having resolved to go to Scotland, the bill was of necessity dropped, and was not renewed until towards the close of the year 1641, when (October 23) a "bill to disable the clergy from exercising any temporal jurisdiction,' ," was passed by the House of Commons, and sent up to the Lords. As usual, the Lords demurred to the bill, and conferences between the two Houses followed. On one of these occasions, the Solicitor General (St. John) expressly stated it to be the sense of the whole House of Commons, "that the prelates have not so absolute a right of peerage for voting in parliament, as the temporal lords have out of parliament. This appears, by that instance of highest consequence, that they are not triable by their peers for their lives; but by an ordinary jury. In parliament they have no vote on judgment of blood, life, or member: but if their peerage were so inherent in them as it is in the temporal peers, no ecclesiastical canon could take it from them. Besides, in point of right, it hath been resolved by all the judges of England, 7th Hen. VIII., in Keilway's Reports, "That the king may hold his parliament by the lords temporal and commons, without calling of the bishops; and that upon several occasions concerning the Pope or themselves, the bishops have been excluded."" He then mentions the instance already referred to, of Edward I. having held a parliament at Bury, from which the clergy were excluded, and by which several acts were made, that were never afterwards questioned. He adds that the same king held another parliament at Carlisle, at which several

The following is a copy of this bill:-"Whereas Bishops and other persons in Holy Orders, ought not to be entangled with secular jurisdiction, the office of the ministry being of such great importance that it will take up the whole man: and for that it is found, by long experience, that their intermeddling with secular jurisdiction hath occasioned great mischief and scandal both to church and state; his Majesty, out of his religious care of the church, and the souls of his people, is graciously pleased, that it may be enacted, and, by the authority of these presents, be it enacted, That no Archbishops or Bishops, or any other person that now is, or hereafter shall be, in Holy Orders, shall, at any time after the 10th day of November, 1641, have any suffrage or vote, or use or execute any power or authority, in the parliament of this realm, nor shall be of the privy council of his Majesty, his heirs or successors, or justices of the peace of oyer and terminer, or gaol delivery, or execute any temporal authority by virtue of any commission; but shall be wholly disabled and be incapable to have, receive, use, or execute any of the said offices, places, powers, authorities, and things aforesaid. And be it further enacted, That from and after the said 10th of November, all acts which shall be done by any Archbishops or Bishops, or other persons whatsoever in Holy Orders, and all and every suffrage, or vote given or delivered by them, or any other thing done by them, or any of them, contrary to the purport and true meaning of this present act, shall be utterly void to all intents, constructions, and purposes.'