any man, he may answer it: when a man has been debauched by another, and falls into a distemper, your first business is to cure the man, and then blame him that debauched him if there be such men, that have been the occasion of this advice, let them answer it.

Sir Tho. Meres. This thing of necessity' was an ill argument at first, and would not have Waller (who proffered to speak again) speak twice to it, to inflame it more.

The Speaker. No man can find any precedent of sir Henry Vane's Question: by that question we can never come to an end of any business: the question in being may be the next day put, and so you usher in an impossibility of bringing things to a period.

Sir Rob. Howard. This Question is like the image of the inventor, a perpetual disturbance.

Mr. Garroway. If you can find out an expedient, that may carry off the heat, is for it. Col. Titus. Some gentlemen believe the bill already ingrossed; if so, it is more haste than could be wished: the desire of some is to get a competent time to get grievances redressed; others, that the necessity of the king and kingdom require a dispatch: a competent time is agreed on both sides; he thinks Friday so; and then to bring in our Grievances remaining.

Sir Tho. Osborne would know the cause why the rest of our grievances are not alledged: as for the Declaration and Religion, he appeals, whether, when there was a stop of the Money bill, those two things were not the cause then all that the king could do, he has done: does believe that by Friday we shall have an Answer from the lords: it is necessary, either in this house or out of it, for subjects to give the king time, and a right representation of things should be sorry that any of the privy counsellors endeavours should be so blasted in this house, that they do not their part, till the king give you farther cause to apprehend so there needs no jealousy on our parts now: how shall we have assurance, that the king has satisfaction in our intentions? Why should not the marks from this house be undeniable? If this be your case, then to put a question that has dangerous construction in it: Is not for putting it.

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Mr. Vaughan. The king has no fault, the law says he has none, and hopes that none say so in this house. Grievances have come before Supply, in right course of parliament, if now they come after, it is an example of great affection, and in few parliaments: if we are content to part with that right, and let it be for the present overlooked, hopes it shall not for the future be urged as as precedent.

Ordered, "That the Money Bill be ingrossed, and brought in on Friday."

Further Debate on the Bill for granting Ease to Dissenters.] March 17. On the motion that the Bill be ingrossed,

Sir John Duncombe. Is against all the Bill:

as far as it is for Union, is for it, and the bringing meu into the Church: as to assent and consent,' would have it taken away; but that will give men an impunity for not coming to Church; they will never come to Church: offers it to consideration, whether mankind will not generally live after this law: the parliament have overcome themselves, and they make this law for a year and to the end of the next session of parliament:' if you should read over and examine your reasons to the king formerly, against Toleration, they would fly upon you: you have provided against Popery, and this is a great party; ambitious men will rise with them, and will support them to your posterity: what will the young men say at the Universities? Let us turn our parts to preach sedition and new lights, and return to the Church, as to an hospital, when we are old; which, by subscription, they may get into. No preferment in dull logic.' This will be the effect; they will support one another by marriages and interests; it will be past your power to revoke it with all the interest you have you are to have an eye over them, and watch them: dreads the consequence of this part of the bill it will work upon all your concerns and interests: leaves it to God and you.

Sir John Bramstone supposes you would have every man to be of some religion, and to be master of his servants; and have the teacher and his congregation deliver their names to the parson of the parish.

Mr. Sec. Coventry. You are not making a bill to destroy the Church, he hopes: you are not only doing a new thing in the kingdom, but in all the world: here are no limitations in it to churches, no limitations to congregations; it has been no where so, wherever he has been: it is said, they are the wiser and richer part of the nation; the more is the danger. You do a thing never tried before, and you put it out of your power to remedy the inconveniences of it: they, in intermission of parliament, may put the kingdom in an uproar, and in great danger, before you can provide any remedy by parliament.

Sir Ch. Harbord. The severity of the Churchmen has driven 80 families out of town; that has done us irreparable hurt in our manufactures of wool: since the Declaration they have met Pompi Gratia, and yet reduced from two to one; restrain them and you increase them: a bishop, in the northern parts, has told him, that, since the Declaration, many have come into the Church; this Bill is for that end.-The Bill was ordered to be ingrossed.

March 19. The Bill was read a third time. Mr. Waller said, Usury, during the time of Popery, was unlawful, as supposed to be against the law of God. We know not the will of God but by his two Books, the law of God and the law of nature: a man gives away all he has, for his liberty,, to summa potestas: he may do and take what he will from his body,

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but his mind cannot be given or taken; he may command me not to speak my mind, and not to do my mind, and, in a word, to be bypocritical though this be a violence in general, it will be a violence but upon a few in the inquisition of Spain, a few shall suffer rather than many. Tacitus calls it a good government for a man to do what he will, and speak what he thinks.' Restraint is against the genius and whole complexion of the nation: let these Dissenters alone, and people will despise them; punish them, and the people will have compassion for them: the quakers suffered bravely, and were the more esteemed; the persecuted party ever gets uppermost : in queen Mary's time those of the reformed religion were persecuted, and they 8000 got uppermost. In queen Eliz.'s time, in our times, Prelacy and Popery' were coupled together, and people flocked to Mr. Gunning's Congregation: neither sons of cavaliers nor cavaliers were admitted into the Convention, and yet they brought in the king, because that was then the persecuted party: if you believe the king, this liberty has kept peace, and you have had proof of it: this Bill is according to the law of God, law of nations, and complexion of the nation, and he would pass it.

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Sir John Duncombe. Appeals, if ever any thing in England of persecution to Dissenters: Waller had liberty in his own house, and his friends, by former acts: nothing now persecuted but Popery, and therefore, by his argument, popery must thrive and be uppermost this Bill is quite different from the law of God: where are the persons that must visit these congregations, and examine and inspect what doctrine they teach? This is not according to the law of God; smiths, shoemakers, and coblers preach. If this be according to the law of God, he must read the Bible again: would have gentlemen tell him, that are so much for this Bill in what part of the world the Church has no power to enquire what men preach? By this consequence, you will leave them to say what they will: law after law, reason after reason; has been against them these 12 years, and is against the Bill now.

Sir Ch. Harbord. Josephus, notoriously known, tells us, that the two sects of the Jews, the Saducees and the Pharisees, held, the one spirits, and the other no spirits, nothing more contrary; but they never divided, they were all united as to the public government'A book, lately published, "Of the Rise and Progress of the Netherlands,"* tells you, that mighty things have been done there by what you intend in this act; the severity of Spain, and their Plantations, have ruined them, and will us, if we look not to it in our maritime towns we have not the sixth part of the people: the populous places of Brabant, by this persecution, have been dispeopled, and Holland has got sufficiently by it, and so did we he confesses that he has communicated with

• Written by sir William Temple.

them in Holland, and will do it again: he has bad as good advice, and as learned upon it, as any man can give him, which held it lawful: hopes this people that have ease by the bill will occasion you to continue it.

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Sir Philip Warwick. You have the genius of the nation, God, and the complexion of the people, spoken to: as to the genius of the nation, till Popery made us all afraid, he has endeavoured to make the foundation of the Church so full as to abide a good superstructure: look upon the Jewish story of the sects, and they were never there till the time of captivity, and never here till our Rebellion, till the Temple was shaken. Morality is not so planted in man, but that customs and constitutions destroy all that; Cain and Abel owed duty to Adam-Libera mens overthrows all Christianity. Christians at first were but a body of men, and they planted the Church, and Excommunication in the Church; and he was no Christian that was out of it: never were men, by nature, either Jews or Christians. By this liberty you will lose all Registers, Marriages, and Genealogies. Let not great words make a noise; you give them liberty, and not barely indemnity: he is perfectly against the bill.

Col. Birch doubts not but the people will be sheep, quiet and peaceable; and had it been only to mark them in the forehead, he is not against it: doubts not but in a short time we shall see that the enforcing laws upon these people, and crying out against the infallibility of the Pope, are not consistent: you would not have the Papists govern you, and that is not a persecution of them.

Dr. Burwell. They grow numerous: if you pass this act, you give away the peace of the nation: a Puritan was ever a rebel; begin with Calvin: these Dissenters made up the whole army against the king; the destruction of the Church was then aimed at pray God it be not so now!

Sir John Birkenhead. There was not a Pharisee till the fall of the Persian monarchy; the dispensations then were to the Proselytes of the Gate, viz. Strangers; that is the true case of the Jews: subscription of the Clergy is

omnibus his articulis; by this Subscription in the Bill, they will have 26 of the 39 Articles left out, subscribing only the doctrines; you have not in the Creed teu Articles of it, nor ever thought so. Had you a list of these men you ease, the king might have apprized you of some; now you will have preachers that have had their hands in his father's blood: here are 2000 of these preachers already, and there may be 10,000 more: shall the old officers of the army count numbers and know persons? They may come like Venner, the Fifth Monarchy-man, with their arms.*

Sir Rob. Howard, Will not trouble you with the rabbinical law, nor history; but offers to consider, that one time you were

* See p. 186.

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against this, and now are changed, thinking it more fitted and calculated for the nation: the parliament must do something at all times: they are not such enemies as is said; the Act of Oblivion has made a grave for that will you now crush the expectation of the nation in this thing? Thoughts are active in mens minds, when they have hope for something: should have thought of making the king's Declaration a law for a time; but that being not to be done, will you not compose people's minds at home, when all abroad is in distraction? If this bill he too much, or too little; if matters be too short in it you may lengthen them; if inconvenient, you may alter them; you will leave, by laying the Bill aside, as much disorder in the imaginations of the people, as in the thing itself; therefore would pass the bill.

it may come out, and those gentlemen will tell you, when they can, where they had it: moves for Tuesday, and hopes no ill intentions can be made out of it.

Sir John Duncombe would have you look at the end you would be at: go upon this Bill from the lords; you are master of your Orders: go and ask satisfaction of the king for your Grievances, and he is sure you will have it.

Sir Rob. Carr finds no difference among gentlemen in the thing. 'Till we read the Amendments the lords have sent down, we cannot tell whether satisfactory or not; we may possibly agree at a conference. Why will you do things that may look like dislike, when it is not? Would not have a blemish on the Supply; do the one and not the other.

Col. Birch hears much said of 'common fame:' it seems to be now the lord keeper, bishop Williams's case, in 1614, or 1616-common fame from the house of lords!' Would go with safe steps for the king and kingdom; one

Debate on the Bill of Supply.] March 21. The Bill of Supply was brought in, ingrossed, and laid on the table.

Mr. Garroway desires that the Money-Bill may not be read till Tuesday next, because you have the Bill of Popery, with Amendments, * returned from the lords, where he hears we have been strangely represented: we are all concerned to see this Bill of Popery dispatched, and to clear the reputation of this house: therefore would have the Money-Bill for the present, laid aside.

Mr. Sec. Coventry. It is very reasonable that the fears and jealousies of Popery should be removed, but would not defer the Tax-Bill so long: would go upon the Bill of Popery today, and would not have the king think we take any thing ill from him, who has promoted this Bill so much in the house of lords, by his countenancing it.

Sir John Coventry hopes in time we may make this Bill of Popery a good one: this bill has had hard passage hither again if we believe common fame, it nearly miscarried in the lords house: many more Grievances may come betwixt this and Tuesday, and would have that day for the Tax-Bill.

Sir Tho. Osborne. Common fame' came never from nobody, but by somebody; the gentleman ought to tell you by whom it came: we cannot take notice of what is done in the lords house.

Mr. Powle hopes that our zeal for this Bill is not looked upon as an offence to the king, but acceptable to him- Common fame!" No man can nominate on the sudden, who-This discourse cannot be without some fire; in time

* It was returned from the lords, with some Amendments and Provisos, a little before this

debate.

we stop his business: would have this Tax Bill for Tuesday, and hopes by that time we shall give such advice, as may secure the king and kingdom: stands up to remind you that this is a parliamentary way of common fame.'

Sir Courtney Poole thinks we are upon such a point that we have reason to think it will startle the king: Common fame' is not a right way for the lords or the king, therefore would not insist upon it.

Sir Tho. Meres tells the Speaker that he turns the question to another thing: he would have the question for the Bill of Popery, and the other question, for Tuesday, firsted and seconded: demands whether he will be pleased to own that to be the question; and demands whether he can deny that that question was firsted, seconded and thirded?

Mr. Cheney. There has been something on your hands these two or three days, which is to be ready with the Tax, the Grievances: would not put a certain day for the Tax, and doubts not of redress of Grievances in due time.

Mr. Powle gives an account of the Address about Grievances,' which cannot be finished till the committee can see the inspection into the affairs of Ireland, the secretary not having been attended, and could not be dispatchedThis is not for the service of the king, his satisfaction, and good of the nation, and therefore we cannot in conscience part with the Money-Bill, till that business of Ireland be determined; but he has reason to take hold of things of common fame,' when some great officers have told the king, that, if the Money Bill passed not, the king may be supplied otherwise.'

Lord Cavendish thinks those Bills now depending, to quiet the minds of the king's subjects, as necessary as any whatsoever: there are Grievances of an high nature, besides what are already depending; some are the root of all those grievances, the authors of these dis