III. FOUL MOUTH STOPT.

AMBITIOUS Absalom endeavoured to bring a scandal on his father’s government, complaining, the petitioners who repaired to his court for justice were slighted and neglected. 2 Sam. xv. 3: See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee.

But we know the English proverb, Ill-will never speaketh well. Let us do that justice to David, yea, to our own judgments, not to believe a graceless son and subject, against a gracious father and sovereign.

Some malecontents (Ishmaels, whose swords are against every one) seek to bring a false report on the Parliament, as if the clergy must expect no favour, not to say justice, from them, because there are none in the house elected and deputed either to speak for them or hear them speak for themselves.

Time was, say they, when the clergy was represented in the House of Lords by two archbishops and four-and-twenty bishops. Time was, when the clergy had their own convocation, granting subsidies for them, so that their purses were only opened by the hands of their own proxies; but now, though our matters be good and right, there is no man deputed to hear us.

I am, and ever will be, deaf to such false and scandalous suggestions; if there be four hundred and odd (because variously reckoned up) in the House of Parliament, I am confident we clergymen have four hundred and odd advocates for us therein. What civil Christian would not plead for a dumb man? Seeing the clergy hath lately lost their voice they so long had in Parliaments; honour and honesty will engage those pious persons therein to plead for our just concernments.