hey intended that honour:
but her M[ajest]y having since fallen under their displeasure, they have
made a shift to crowd in two better friends in her place, which makes it
a complete Heptarchy.[9] This piece is now in the country, reserved till
better times, and hangs in a hall, among the pictures of Cromwell,
Bradshaw, Ireton, and some other predecessors.

I must now desire leave to say something to a gentleman, who has been
pleased to publish a discourse against a paper of mine relating to the
convocation.[10] He promises to set me right, without any undue
reflections or undecent language. I suppose he means in comparison with
others, who pretend to answer the "Examiner": So far he is right; but if
he thinks he has behaved himself as becomes a candid antagonist, I
believe he is mistaken. He says, in his title-page, my "representations
are unfair, and my reflections unjust." And his conclusion is yet more
severe,[11] where he "doubts I and my friends are enraged against the
Dutch, because they preserved us from Popery and arbitrary power at the
Revolution; and since that time, from being overrun by the exorbitant
power of France, and becoming a prey to the Pretender." Because this
author seems in general to write with an honest meaning, I would
seriously put to him the question, whether he thinks I and my friends
are for Popery, arbitrary power, France and the Pretender? I omit other
instances of smaller moment, which however do not suit in my opinion with
due reflection or decent language. The fact relating to the convocation,
came from a good hand, and I do not find this author differs from me
in any material circumstance about it. My reflections were no more than
what might be obvious to any other gentleman, who had heard of their late
proceedings. If the notion be right which this author gives us of a Lower
House of Convocation, it is a very melancholy one,[12] and to me seems
utterly inconsistent with that of a body of men whom he owns to have a
negative; and therefore, since a great majority of the clergy differs
from him in several points he advances, I shall rather choose to be of
their opinion than his. I fancy, when the whole synod met in one house,
as this writer affirms, they were upon a better foot with their bishops,
and therefore whether this treatment so extremely _de haut en bas_, since
their exclusion, be suitable to primitive custom or primitive humility
towards brethren, is not my business to enquire