They will be likewise of great use in other respects, and contribute much to the ends of religion. They may restore the just discipline of the Church, and correct abundance of grievances, as well as in regard of the scandalous corruption of the spiritual Courts, as of the shameful oppression of the Clergy by some Bps. in many cases. Bishops in France and other countries abroad, tho’ obliged by the Canons to hold diocesan Synods every year, are yet not very fond of holding them, because they are a curb upon their authority. For tho’ they can put a negative upon the resolutions of the majority, yet being often ashamed of dissenting from truth and reason, the Presbyters or incumbents of livings are still found to have the greatest weight in such Synods. And possibly for the same reason they may be as little agreeable to our English Bishops, who having in a manner quite lost the power of exercising any part of their authority over the Laity, endeavour continually to make themselves amends by lording it over other Clergy; insisting (as their Archdeacons also, after their example and in virtue of their delegated authority, have done) upon the oath of canonical obedience, which they pretend obliges the Clergy to obey them in everything whatever that they enjoin which is not absolutely unlawfull; an interpretation of that oath contrary to the sense of all Canonists abroad, who agree that it only obliges to obedience in such things as are prescribed by the Canons. But the fonder they are of power, the more necessary is it that their power should be restrained to the ancient bounds, and that institutions of such great use as Diocesan and Provincial Synods should be restored.