The complaints against the usurpations of the ecclesiastics had been very ancient in England, as well as in most other European kingdoms; and as this topic was now become popular every where, it had paved the way for the Lutheran tenets, and reconciled the people, in some measure, to the frightful idea of heresy and innovation. The commons, finding the occasion favorable, passed several bills restraining the impositions of the clergy; one for the regulating of mortuaries; another against the exactions for the probates of wills; [**] a third against non-residence and pluralities, and against church-men’s being farmers of land. But what appeared chiefly dangerous to the ecclesiastical order, were the severe invectives thrown out, almost without opposition, in the house, against the dissolute lives of the priests, their ambition, their avarice, and their endless encroachments on the laity. Lord Herbert [***] has even preserved the speech of a gentleman of Gray’s Inn, which is of a singular nature, and contains such topics as we should little expect to meet with during that period. The member insists upon the vast variety of theological opinions which prevailed in different nations and ages; the endless inextricable controversies maintained by the several sects; the impossibility that any man, much less the people, could ever know, much less examine, the tenets and principles of every sect; the necessity of ignorance and a suspense of judgment with regard to all those objects of dispute: and, upon the whole, he infers, that the only religion obligatory on mankind is the belief of one Supreme Being, the author of nature; and the necessity of good morals, in order to obtain his favor and protection. Such sentiments would be deemed latitudinarian, even in our time; and would not be advanced, without some precaution, in a public assembly. * Cavendish, p. 72. ** These exactions were quite arbitrary, and had risen to a great height. A member said in the house, that a thousand marks had been exacted from him on that account. Hall, fol. 188 Strype, vol. i. p. 73. *** Page 293. But though the first broaching of religious controversy might encourage the sceptical turn in a few persons of a studious disposition, the zeal with which men soon after attached themselves to their several parties, served effectually to banish for a long time all such obnoxious liberties.