merchandise to sell again;
that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or
indirectly trade for gain. Pluralities were not to be permitted with
benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made
obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten
pounds for each month of such absence. The law against pluralities was
limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives,
might continue to hold as many as four benefices. But dispensations, either
for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act,
were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from
the court of Rome.

These bills struck hard and struck home. Yet even persons who most
disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at
their enactment or complain of their severity. They will be desirous rather
to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be
anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors
of it.

The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the
privileges of the ecclesiastical order. The Commons, it was exclaimed, were
heretics and schismatics;[243] the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of
faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally
conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious
tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective
opposition might be raised in the Upper House. The clergy commanded an
actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ
if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so
bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a
sufficient encouragement. The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the
spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion. "My Lords," he said, "you
see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the
destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of
Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that
kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all
this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."[244] "In result," says Hall,
"the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent,
and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion." The
spiritualt