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SPEECH OF EDMUND WALLER, ON THE QUESTION, WHETHER EPISCOPACY OUGHT TO BE ABOLISHED. 1640.

THERE is no doubt but the sense of what this nation hath suffered from the present bishops, hath produced these complaints; and the apprehensions men have of suffering the like, in time to come, make so many desire the taking away of episcopacy but I conceive it is possible that we may not, now, take a right measure of the minds of the people by their petitions; for, when they subscribed them, the bishops were armed with a dangerous commission of making new canons, imposing new oaths, and the like; but now we have disarmed them of that power. These petitioners, lately, did look upon episcopacy as a beast armed with horns and claws; but now that we have cut and pared them, (and may, if we see cause, yet reduce it into narrower bounds) it may, perhaps, be more agreeable. Howsoever, if they be still in passion, it becomes us soberly to consider the right use and antiquity thereof; and not to comply further with a general desire, than may stand with a general good.

We have already showed that episcopacy, and the evils thereof, are mingled like water and oil; we have also, in part, severed them; but I believe you will find that our laws and the present government of the church are mingled like wine and water; so inseparable, that the abrogation of, at least, a hundred of our laws is desired in these petitions. I have often heard a noble answer of the lords commended in this house to a proposition

of like nature, but of less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but this, Nolumus matare leges Anglia: it was the bishops who so answered them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this house to answer the people now with a Nolumus mutare.

I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops; which, I confess, rather inclines me to their defence: for I look upon episcopacy as a counterscarp, or outwork; which if it be taken by this assault of the people, and, withal, this mystery once revealed, That we must deny them nothing when they ask it thus in troops, we may, in the next place, have as hard a task to defend our property, as we have lately had to recover it from the prerogative. If, by multiplying hands and petitions, they prevail for an equality in things ecclesiastical, the next demand perhaps may be lex agraria, the like equality in things temporal.

The Roman story tells us, that when the people began to flock round the senate, and were more curious to direct and to know what was done, than to obey, that commonwealth soon came to ruin their legem rogare grew quickly to be a legem ferre; and after, when their legions had found that they could make a dictator, they never suffered the senate to have a voice any more in such election.

If these great innovations proceed, I shall expect a flat and level in learning too, as well as in church preferments: honos alit artes. And though it be true, that grave and pious men do study for learning-sake, and embrace virtue for itself, yet it

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deepest recesses, far from the view of servile shores, have preserved even our eyes unpolluted by the contact of subjection. We, at the furthest limits both of land and liberty, have been defended to this day by the obscurity of our situation and of our fame. The extremity of Britain is now disclosed; and whatever is unknown becomes an object of importance. But there is no nation beyond us; nothing but waves and rocks; and the Romans are before us. The arrogance of these invaders it will be in vain to encounter by obsequiousness and submission. These plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor: unsatiated by the east and by the west: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and when they make a desart, they call it peace.

Our children and relations are by the appointment of nature rendered the dearest of all things to us. These are torn away by levies to foreign servitude. Our wives and sisters, though they should escape the violation of hostile force, are polluted under the names of friendship and hospitality. Our estates and possessions are consumed in tributes; our grain in contributions. Even the powers of our bodies are worn down, amidst stripes and insults, in clearing woods and draining marshes. Wretches born to slavery are first bought, and afterwards fed by their masters: Britain continually buys, continually feeds her own servitude. And as among domestic slaves every

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is true, that youth, which is the season when learning is gotten, is not without ambition; nor ever will take pains to excel in any thing when there is not some hope of excelling others in reward and dignity.

There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our church-government.

First, scripture, which, as some men think, points out another form.

Second, the abuses of the present superiors.

For scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am confident that, whenever an equal division of lands and goods shall be desired, there will be as many places in scripture found out, which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against the prelacy or preferment in the church. And, as for abuses, where you are now, in the remonstrance, told, what this and that poor man hath suffered by the bishops, you may be presented with a thousand instances of poor men that have received hard measure from their landlords; and of wordly goods abused, to the injury of others and disadvantage of the owners.

And therefore, Mr. Speaker, my humble motion is, That we may settle men's minds herein; and, by a question, declare our resolution, to reform, that is not to abolish, episcopacy.

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