any such meeting is found doing any thing
contrary to the Liturgy of the Church of England," they would have it
added, "or practice." The Commons to the Lords said, that they knew not
what might hereafter be found out which might be called the practice of
the Church of England; for there are many things may be said to be the
practice of the Church, which were never established by any law, either
common, statute, or canon; as singing of psalms, binding up prayers at
the end of the Bible, and praying extempore before and after sermon:
and though these are things indifferent, yet things for aught they at
present know may be started, which may be said to be the practice of the
Church which would not be fit to allow. For the Lords' priviledges,
Mr. Walter told them how tender their predecessors had been of the
priviledges of the Lords; but, however, where the peace of the kingdom
stands in competition with them, they apprehend those priviledges must
give place. He told them that he thought, if they should owne all to be
the priviledges of the Lords which might be demanded, they should be led
like the man (who granted leave to his neighbour to pull off his horse's
tail, meaning that he could not do it at once) that hair by hair had his
horse's tail pulled off indeed: so the Commons, by granting one thing
after another, might be so served by the Lords. Mr. Vaughan, whom I
could not to my grief perfectly hear, did say, if that they should be
obliged in this manner to, exempt the Lords from every thing, it would
in time come to pass that whatever (be [it] never so great) should be
voted by the Commons as a thing penall for a commoner, the contrary
should be thought a priviledge to the Lords: that also in this business,
the work of a conventicle being but the work of an hour, the cause of
a search would be over before a Lord Lieutenant, who may be many miles
off, can be sent for; and that all this dispute is but about L100; for
it is said in the Act, that it shall be banishment or payment of L100.
I thereupon heard the Duke of Lenox say, that there might be Lords who
could not always be ready to lose L100, or some such thing: They broke
up without coming to any end in it. There was also in the Commons' House
a great quarrel about Mr. Prin, and it was believed that he should have
been sent to the Towre, for adding something to a Bill (after it was
ordered to be engrossed) of his own head--a Bill for measures for wine
and other thin