The English nonconformity as under King Charles II and King James II truly stated…

And I pray you how can Ministers in great Cities and Parishes perform this Canonical Obedience, to give in to the Bishop or Chancellor the names of all that Communicated not at Easter, when they know not the hundredth part of the Parishioners in some places? I do believe that in the two Parishes that I last lived in, there are above fourscore thousand Souls: And is it like that the Ministers know twenty thousand of these? I have been at their Communion, even at Easter and Whitsuntide, and I never saw five hundred there. And if they gave in the names of but twenty or forty thousand Non-communicants tho' it's like there are nearer two hundred thousand) in this Diocese, what work would the Bishop and Chancellor have? Cannot you easily imagine what their Discipline would be, and how they would exhort each Person one by one to Repentance, and plead with them for conviction, and resolve their doubts? Doth not this one thing tell you what the English Diocesan Episcopacy is, that giveth one man the Disciplining of many hundred Parishes?

And I pray you how can Ministers in great Cities and Parishes perform this Canonical Obedience, to give in to the Bishop or Chancellor the names of all that Communicated not at Easter, when they know not the hundredth part of the Parishioners in some places? I do believe that in the two Parishes that I last lived in, there are above fourscore thousand Souls: And is it like that the Ministers know twenty thousand of these? I have been at their Communion, even at Easter and Whitsuntide, and I never saw five hundred there. And if they gave in the names of but twenty or forty thousand Non-communicants tho' it's like there are nearer two hundred thousand) in this Diocess, what work would the Bishop and Chancellor have? Cannot you easily imagine what their Discipline would be, and how they would exhort each Person one by one to Repentance, and plead with them for conviction, and resolve their doubts? Doth not this one thing tell you what the English Diocesan Episcopacy is, that giveth one man the Disciplining of many hundred Parishes?

L. You talk as if you would have a Church of Saints, and seem to make Religion too serious a business: It is well if we could have a Church of Civil Men and Peaceable Subjects, that will use Religion for the Civil Interest, as far as will serve the will of Governors, and the Common Peace.