You cannot have a greater desire to conform Ireland to the Church of England, than I (and this with as seeming great a desire of the King) to conform… - William Laud

So that ill praying in public contains almost all the mischiefs that ill preaching hath in it, over and above all the ill that is proper to itself: and so is the more dangerous sin: and therefore the Church cannot be too careful for a set and known form for public prayer; yea, and that enjoined too, so it be well weighed beforehand; though for preaching she leave a greater latitude. So upon consideration, I think there is more difference between a set form of prayer, and a set form of preaching, than that we are invited to the one, and not to the other.

So the Church and the Commonwealth, God's house, "the Temple," and the King's house, "the house of David," are met in my text. And they would ever meet, and in love, no question, did not some distempered spirits breathe sour upon them. For the Church cannot dwell but in the State. You never read that she "fled" out of the State "into the wilderness," but when some "dragon" persecuted her. And the Commonwealth cannot flourish without the Church: for where the Church is not to teach true religion, States are enforced, out of necessity of some, to embrace a false; and a false is not a help to make a kingdom flourish. But when they dwell together, when the Church, the house of grace, is a welcome inmate to the State, which is a wise fabric of nature, then in the Temple there is meeting; "the people go up to bless and praise the name of the Lord." And then in the State there is meeting, to settle the "thrones of judgment," to make firm "the house of David." And then, and never but then, "Jerusalem," that is, both State and Church, "is as a city that is at unity in itself."

Now though in nature the Commonwealth go first; first men, before religious and faithful men; and the Church can have no being but in the Commonwealth: yet in grace the Church goes first; religious and godly men, better than men; and the Commonwealth can have no blessed and happy being, but by the Church. For true religion ever blesses a State: provided that they which profess it do not in their lives dishonour both God and it.