Page:A Letter from a Person of Quality, to His Friend in the Country (1675).pdf/33

 wants alteration, that is so imperfectly settled. The Bishop of Winchester affirmed in this debate several times, that there was no Christian Church before Calvin that had not Bishops; to which he was answered that the Albigenses a very numerous People, and the only visible known Church of true beleivers, of some Ages, had no Bishops. It is very true, what the Bishop of Winchester replyd, that they had some amongst them, who alone had power to ordain, but that was only to commit that power to the Wisest, and Gravest Men amongst Them, and to secure ill, and unfit Men from being admitted into the Ministery; but they exercis'd no jurisdiction over the others. And it was said by divers of the Lords, that they thought Episcopal Government best for the Church, and most suitable for the Monarchy, but they must say with the Lord of Southampton upon the occasion of this Oath in the Parliament of Oxford, I will not be sworn not to take away Episcopacie, there being nothing, that is not of Divine Precept, but such circumstances may come in humane affairs, as may render it not Eligible by the best of Men. And it was also said, that if Episcopacy be to be received as by Divine Precept, the King's Supremacy is overthrown, and so is also the opinion of the Parliaments both in Edw. 6. and Queen Elizabeths time; and the constitution of our Church ought to be altered, as hath been shewd. But the Church of Rome it self hath contradicted that Opinion, when She hath made such vast tracts of ground, and great numbers of Men exempt from Episcopal jurisdiction. The Lord Wharton upon the Bishops claim to a Di­vine Right, asked a very hard question, ''viz. whether they then did not claim withall, a power of Excommunicating their Prince'', which they Evading to answer, and being press'd by some other Lords, said they never had done it. Upon which the Lord Hallifax told them that that might well be; for since the Reformation they had hitherto had too great a dependance on the Crown to venture on that, or any other Offence to it: and so the debate passed on to the third Clause, which had the same exceptions against it with the two former, of being unbounded How far any Man might meddle, and how far not, and is of that extent, that it overthrew all Parliaments, and left them capable of nothing but giving Money. For what is the business of Parliaments but the alteration, either by adding, or taking away some part of the Government, either in Church or State? and every new Act of Parliament is an alteration; and what kind of Government Rh